Michael Cook | Saturday, 4 August 2007
Clutching at straws to reverse the birth dearth
Subsidies don't work. Speed dating doesn't work. What about IVF?
With
nations around the world failing to reproduce themselves, policy
wonks now realise that too few children could be far worse than too
many. The
challenge now is to boost the number of births. Conventional
strategies include baby bonuses, family benefits, extended maternity
and paternity leave and more flexible working schedules for mothers.
Some
countries have come up with creative solutions. On the sensible side
there is Portugal, with a birth rate of 1.5 children per woman. Faced
with the bankruptcy of its pension scheme within 10 years, it has debated making
people who have fewer children pay more into their retirement fund.
On the loopy side there is Japan, where local governments are
subsidising speed dating to help time-poor office workers find
spouses.
But
the latest fad is promoting in vitro fertilisation (IVF). Last month
a conference on assisted reproductive technology in Lyon heard that
the low fertility of young Danish women has been almost entirely
offset by generous government subsidies for IVF. With a
birth rate 0f 1.9, almost replacement level, Denmark
is one of the few countries in Europe which has bucked the trend
towards falling birth rates. Nearly 1 Danish baby in 20 is an
test-tube baby, IVF is socially acceptable, the government pays for
up to six cycles of treatment and waiting times are short.
With
news like this, it's hardly surprising that other governments are
turning to IVF, since nothing else seem to work. These are desperate
times for small countries with extinction on the horizon.
Demographers say that no country’s birth rate has ever
recovered after dropping below 1.5, so governments need to do
everything they can to avoid falling into a headlong decline.
Korea
has one of the lowest birth rates in the world – 1.16. President
Roh Moo-hyun recently vowed spend his last years in office tackling
the problems of a rapidly ageing society. About 16,000 childless
Korean couples will be able to obtain a government subsidy for half
the cost of their IVF treatment. Estonia is also subsidising IVF and
hopes to increase the number of IVF babies to about 1 in 30.
But
with so much at stake – the very survival of small countries with
distinctive cultures like Korea and Estonia – does this make sense?
Or is IVF just a band-aid?
Despite
lavish IVF subsidies, there is precious little research to support
the contention that it will boost birth rates. One study which has
been cited by journals like New Scientist and The Economist was
published last year by the Rand Europe thinktank. It argued that if
Britain supported IVF at Danish levels, there would be about 10,000
more children each year.
The
cost of six free cycles of IVF would be an extra US$500 to $860
million a year. While this is not cheap, it is less costly than
bribing women to have children by handing them government benefits.
“If the countries of Europe do wish to keep their populations up,
making IVF more widely available might be a good way of doing so,”
The Economist chirpily concluded.
However,
The Economist did not seem to have read the Rand report very
closely. The authors were careful to note that this optimistic
scenario assumes that women will not delay childbearing because of
the greater availability of IVF. Because fertility declines steeply
after 35, women who decide to postpone having a family until they
have established themselves in a career may not be able to have a
child, even with IVF. In fact, a recent poll by the Guardian
newspaper suggests that about 35 per cent of British women might
postpone childbearing because of the availability of IVF.
If
this is true, says the report, “then it may actually have a
negative effect on the [total fertility rate] and consequently lead
to further ageing of the population”. This seems to be the case.
When IVF is heavily subsidised, the Rand analysis shows that it
boosts the birth rate slightly. When it is not, the availability of IVF actually depresses the birth rate. What happens is this. Many women in their fertile years balance the cost of having a child against the extra income they could earn in employment and defer having children. In the back of their minds they think that they will have IVF as a safety net.
The years tick on, and in their mid-30s, the alarm on their biological clock goes off. They begin trying for a child. Many of these older women will fail. If IVF is heavily subsidised, then many of these failures will clutch for their safety net. Some lucky ones will have children, giving a small fillip to the birth rate.
But if IVF is not subsidised, women discover to their dismay that it is horrendously expensive. They cannot afford it and they have to give up their dream of having children. So the availability of IVF acts as a will 'o the wisp, a flickering beacon of hope, allowing women to invest so heavily in their careers that they are unprepared for the inexorable fading of their precious fertility.
The
report casts even more cold water on IVF as a way of rejuvenating
dying countries. The health of babies born to older women and from
IVF is poorer than children born
to younger mothers and through natural conception. Older women have
more Down syndrome children. There are far more multiple births for
women with IVF treatment, which is associated with poor child health.
IVF is also associated with low birth weight and prematurity and a
higher risk of birth defects. “These health effects and other
unintended consequences should be taken into account when assessing
the impact of [assisted reproductive technology] as part of a
population policy mix,” it says.
Talk
of IVF as a solution for declining birth rates is a sign that
clueless governments are clutching at straws. Low fertility is a
complex issue with social, economic, medical and environmental
factors. But addressing these alone is just tinkering around the
edges.
Ultimately
low birth rates are a cultural and ethical problem, a sign of a
world-wide spiritual crisis. Having children is simply not viewed as
a fulfilling life project any more by many couples. Only when young
men and women turn away from consumerism and individualism will birth
rates begin to climb beyond replacement levels.
Michael
Cook is editor of MercatorNet.
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Comments (11)
Luis Alves said...Michael:
Many thanks for this excellent article.
Nevertheless I have some comments to make regarding considering Portugal, and its current government, on the “sensible side”. Unfortunately, the idea of having workers with fewer children paying more for retirement is an old claim of the Portuguese Large Families Association, which never came into effect. Portuguese retirement changes focused mainly on incresing retirement age and reducing the pension thereafter. The only bonuses were given to those who continue to work after retirement age. This question of indexing the retirement to the number of childern was indeed raised by the PM (as can be seen in the link of your article), but was rejected (!) by the social partners (namely the labour unions), so everything remained the same. As to the meagre measures to increase fertility rate, they were recently announced, and basically consist of keeping nurseries and child care centres open for longer hours, increasing monthly child subsidies during the first 3 years (and only for those with lower incomes) and giving tax exemptions to companies who promote family care and family compatible policies.
As you very well pointed, having more children is a cultural and ethical problem. Unfortunately my country is, as I write, introducing a new law promoting state sponsored and paid abortion and, for financial reasons, closing birth delivering hospitals throughout the country. And those which have more children have to pay bigger taxes than those who don’t, a problem already publicly recognized by the Treasury Minister, but not yet solved. This way it is difficult to revert the trend and have a new culture of life.
Again, many thanks and keep up the good work.
Portugal | Saturday, 4 August 2007 at 8:01 pm
Michael Cook said...Thanks, Luis, for the correction. I have amended the text to take that into account.
Michael Cook
Australia | Saturday, 4 August 2007 at 9:08 pm
John Waldren said...Why is anyone surprised by this? Pope Paul VI warned of this way back in the 1980’s. When you try to play God you only make a mess of things.
United States | Sunday, 5 August 2007 at 6:30 pm
John Waldren said...Why is anyone surprised by this? Pope Paul VI warned of this way back in the 1980’s. When you try to play God you only make a mess of things.
Correction. That should have been 1960’s not 1980’s, My mistake
United States | Sunday, 5 August 2007 at 7:27 pm
Gill Duval said...The articles “Clutching at straws to reverse the birth dearth” combined with Everything Conceivable” and “Preparing for the grey-haired legions” make me feel helpless against a tide of manipulation of my fellow human beings. Are we incapable of thinking through the results of our individual decisions and how they change the world? What are the answers? I’m afraid one of them will be the killing of the old and ill. First of all, I know, is to pray, in fact I feel THE answer is to go forward to the practice of faith and following God’s plan for us. What needs to happen is the education of the ignorant which includes members of parliament and the mass communication media but it seems to have so little effect, our rulers and opinion formers take no notice; money, fame and political correctness rule. There is, of course, the option for married couples of making another baby or two! I sometimes feel that the only people left in the world having loving, natural sexual intercourse will be those with faith in God while the puritan IVFers will be cutting it altogether.
United Kingdom | Sunday, 5 August 2007 at 10:45 pm
Kathy Greaney said...Sad isn’t it. And all the population experts were predicting world-wide disaster because of over population for the last 30 to 40 years. Now we are starting to wake up to the foolishness of the contraceptive mentality but for some it may already be too late. We are finding that our fertility rates are being comprised at an alarming rate and IVF is being touted as the answer. Proponents of a healthy, viable and natural alternative, the various methods of Natural Family Planning are still working diligently in the background but often feel like voices calling out in the wilderness. There is no money to be made from it, no drug companies can benefit from it, and doctors are using it (i.e. The Creighton Method) but sexing it up by calling it fertility awareness and charging big bucks for it. The original idea for each one (woman)to teach one (another woman) is all that is needed to spread this wonderful method which requires no pill, devices or interventions of any kind. Most sadly our young people are still buying into the false promises of the contraceptive mentality because it has become so ubiquitous and widespread that by the time they want to have children they find that they have comprised their wonderful gift of their fertility by misuse. I try to do my bit to promote the method by speaking about our experience with one of the more popular methods, Billings Ovulation Method to young couples in marriage prep courses in our parish but they generally just scoff and deride us as naive, reactionary, “Jesus freaks” as one said to me. However, knowing the very good news of this natural method of family planning keeps me working to promote it.
The truth will prevail overall.
Canada | Monday, 6 August 2007 at 7:00 am
mary ann said...Thanks for the column.
Kathy, I hear what you are saying. I think SOME women are receptive to NFP, and for them, we have to keep fighting the good fight. I learned about it in my marriage prep classes 10 yrs. ago, but most importantly, I had two sisters-in-law to be who were not afraid to bring it up at family gatherings to WHOEVER would listen and even those who wouldn’t!
At our family gatherings, Catholicism is always discussed by the women. 95% us are Catholics, and we love our Church.
I saw the rationality of NFP, and my husband and I had our first child after 11 months of marriage. Three more followed, and we want more, but I’m a bit long in the tooth (44), yet anything is possible with God!
My children will learn that contraception is a mortal sin. I think a new generation of faithful Catholics (we may be small) is coming along who love the truth and see how God blesses those who follow in his ways.
-- | Monday, 6 August 2007 at 8:20 am
Kathy Greaney said...Dear Mary Ann;
Yes, there are some women and couples who will be receptive to the message of NFP and everyone I know who is passionate about it works tirelessly without any remuneration to spread the good news in the face of some pretty hostile opposition. I know that is not easy to speak up about it as it is contrary to so much of popular culture today and I struggle with that aspect of it too.
I myself had my seventh child at 45 years of age and my last two pregnancies were achieved despite the fact that I’d had a ectopic pregnancy previously and was left with only one fallopian tube. So, yes, I do believe that God works in mysterious and wonderful ways. You may be pleasantly surprised yet! I still get comments to this day and am asked if I am my youngest child’s grandmother but I am always happy to tell them that she’s my youngest child and her older sisters have often been mistaken as her mother too.
I cannot say enough good things about the change in attitude in both myself and my husband that came along with embracing NFP and that is the same openess to life that I see present in all those who are willing to embrace the truth of the Church’s teaching.
-- | Monday, 6 August 2007 at 12:29 pm
angela shananahan said...Good column mike.
You forgot one little ray of hope. Australia’s birthrate has over the past two years gone up slightly and at the last census our TFR is now hovering at just over 1.8, which admittedly is not yet replacment, but we might get there. Another interesting fact is that although the number of nuclear family households, ie, couples with children, is now below 50% of households. More than half of families in Australia have 3 or more children. Australians always tended to have around three children per family, so perhaps the small is best culture here has sort of bottomed out?
angela
-- | Monday, 6 August 2007 at 1:08 pm
Gabriel James said...Yes, it is heartening to think we don’t have to resort to such measures in Australia.
How is it that other countries are putting such faith in this method?
I am too young to remember the IVF debate, but my meagre genetics knowledge tells me that there are even greater long-term health and social consequences than those mentioned in the article.
Once reliant on IVF for their population, how long will it take to turn things back?
Where will the necessary political and scientific pressure needed to change these policies come from?
Australia | Monday, 6 August 2007 at 7:04 pm
Joshua Fernandes said...Yeah, sadly Portugal is not moving in the right direction. They’ve elected a socialist government that has legalized abortion and will use taxpayer’s money to pay for abortions, not real health care.
Amazing that a country with one of the world’s most elderly societies that will not be able to pay for its social programs in another decade is promoting killing off children. A huge abortion centre is being built in Lisbon rigtht now that will make millions for the abortionists and kill thousands of Lisbon babies every year.
The Muslim majority in Western Europe is only 35 years away. Young women better start learning how to cook and clean.
Canada | Thursday, 9 August 2007 at 7:56 am
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