Norway Generous parental leave and childcare - so why is the birthrate down?

Norway's generous parental leave, heavily subsidised childcare and high living standards have earned it a reputation as one of the best places in the world to have children. And yet, fewer children than ever are being born in the Nordic country.

- Miranda Bryant

Although falling birthrates is a global trend, such is the concern in Oslo that the government has commissioned a birthrate committee to investigate the causes, potential consequences and what could be done to reverse the population's trajectory.

Over the past two decades, Norway's fertility rate has declined from 1.98 children for each woman in 2009 to 1.40 in 2023, a historic low. This is despite a parental leave policy that entitles parents to 12 months of paid leave between them around the time of the birth, plus an additional year each afterwards.

If current fertility trends continue, the sparsely populated country of nearly 5.6 million people could face big problems, with consequences for everything from elderly care to the labour force and even defence.

Factors contributing to the decline include housing costs, people postponing having children into their 30s, fewer people having more than two children, and an increase in those who choose not to have children at all.

The birthrate committee's chair, Rannveig Kaldager Hart, said there had been a "tempo shift" among Norwegians in their 20s and 30s, leading to a fall in overall births.

"The most obvious thing is that there is a really marked fall among young adults in their 20s, both in their early and their late 20s," she said at her University of Oslo office. "And then there was a long-term increase [in births] among adults in their 30s, but now that has stalled or even reversed."