Why competitive parents are driving down fertility rates

It's not simply the high cost of educating one's child but also the pressure not to lose out to others.

- Daniel Moss

The pressure on parents to keep their children ahead of the pack in the education race is a factor in falling fertility rates.

(ST FILE PHOTO)

In the debate about tumbling fertility levels, the high cost of raising children, delays in marriage, access to birth control, and the career aspirations of women are usually subjected to scrutiny. Even bulky and expensive car seats have been likened to a form of contraception.

But what about envy? The issue may not be so much the expense of rearing kids and giving them the best start in life, but perceptions of how you perform in that role relative to others.

The competition can be particularly intense. The price of keeping up with the Joneses - especially when it comes to educating children - can be added to the causes of a likely decline in the earth's headcount this century.

If falling fertility is to be corrected through policy, education costs need to be considered and hard choices made. That's the upshot of a paper presented in September at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

The challenge is a global one, but particularly acute in Asia, where the most successful economies are confronted by rock-bottom birthrates and rapidly ageing societies.

Singapore recently reported that for the first time, people 65 years and older account for more than 20 per cent of residents. That roughly matches the figure for South Korea; the numbers are higher in Japan and

Hong Kong. (Rates of fertility in all four are well below 2.1 children per woman, the generally recognised number required for society to reproduce itself.)