Beyond the Economic Gaze: Childbearing during and after recessions in the Nordic countries

Abstract: During the 2010s, fertility rates fell across the Nordic region. The onset of thesedeclines seems linked to the Great Recession of 2008–2009 but their continuation cannot easilybe linked to subsequent economic change. The 1990s, too, brought episodes of economic crisesto the Nordic region that were followed by different degrees of fertility decline. In this study,we provide an empirical overview of parity-, age- and education-specific fertility developmentsin the five Nordic countries in the wake of the economic recessions in 2008 and the early 1990s,respectively. We demonstrate a high degree of heterogeneity in fertility developments acrosscountries after 1990, whereas after 2008, the trends are much more similar across the fivecountries. Likewise, the educational differences in birth hazards that characterized thedevelopments after 1990 were much smaller in the initial years after 2008–2009. This reversalfrom heterogeneity to homogeneity in the fertility response to recessions calls for an expansionof theories on the cyclicality of fertility in relation to uncertainty and economic and socialchange. In our discussion, we consider the role of a set of factors that also incorporates the state,crisis management, and perceptions of economic and welfare uncertainty.