With the cost of everything spiralling, is parenting hesitancy the new normal?

Declining birth rates around the world may be seen as a good thing since it slows population growth and its associated environmental costs. However, it will leave a relatively small working-age population having to shoulder the pension, health, and care costs of an increasingly ageing population, writes Dr Colm O’Doherty

Parents actively engage in projects of value for themselves, communities and wider society but their hard work is not recognised and appreciated in a society based on private property and capitalist enterprise. File photo

What is important in all our lives? What is of value? Most people can agree that parenting is important for all of us. The value of parenting - its contribution to our health and wellbeing - is priceless. 

However, declining birth rates tell us that around the world being a parent is less and less attractive as a life choice. 

The total fertility rate - the number of children per woman - in Ireland declined from 1.8 in 2018 to 1.7 in 2019 and stood at 1.6 in 2020, well below the 2.1 required to replace the population. 

In England and Wales, it was 1.58 for 2020 and in Scotland 1.29. Research published in The Lancet in 2020 demonstrates that this is a global trend - projected fertility rates in 183 of 195 countries will not be sufficient to maintain current population levels without liberal immigration policies. 

According to this study, populations are predicted to halve in 23 countries including Japan, Thailand, Spain, Italy, Portugal and South Korea. What is driving this retreat from parenthood?

The costs of parenting

Increasing costs in both wealthy and poor countries are having a detrimental impact on the willingness and capability of adults to commit themselves to parenthood. Research evidence shows a clear link between economic conditions and fertility. 

Here in Ireland, the spiralling costs of housing and childcare are deterring all young adults from having children - even those on a good income. 

Less well-off adults navigate their way through the rising costs of parenthood often while balancing insecure employment and low pay against a rising cost of living. 

Covering the basic costs of food, shelter and clothing is hard enough and parents in poor financial straits often find themselves having to put their children’s needs before their own. 

Research into the experiences of parents dealing with income inadequacy in Ireland has revealed that going without a meal and foregoing clothing for themselves are strategies used by parents on low incomes to ensure that their children’s basic needs are met.

In addition to the day-to-day basic costs of rearing a child, parents are under pressure to find the wherewithal to invest in their children’s futures. 

In Ireland, the role of education in determining life destinies has increased as social mobility has declined and inequality has grown. Parents must invest in their children’s education in order to secure their futures.

Human capital accumulated through education has become the key identifier of well-parented children reared by responsible parents keen to inoculate and prepare them to thrive in the face of increasing inequality and uncertain futures.  Providing children with an educational pathway to a secure future does not come cheap in Ireland. 

At both the primary and secondary free school levels parents make ‘voluntary’ contributions and pay for schoolbooks, uniforms and extracurricular activities.  Funding third-level education can be punitive particularly if it involves accommodation costs on top of registration fees.

The affects of Covid and climate change

While there was some speculation that a rise in birth rates was likely, as a consequence of the increased time available to couples forced into their homes to comply with Covid lockdown measures, early data is pointing toward a different outcome. 

The early data is suggesting that the pandemic and its associated hardships for parents - school closures, childcare shortages, isolation from social networks, increased unemployment - has added to a drop in fertility. 

The existential threat of Covid and the uncertainty it has generated about when people can get their lives back on track again and start planning their futures has undoubtedly been a factor in adults deciding to postpone having a child.

There is also evidence that suggests the climate crisis and the risks associated with rising temperatures across the globe is contributing to a lack of confidence in the future which is making young people hesitant about having children.

The core economy

While mainstream orthodox economic theory espouses a monetary value system for the market or private business economy, the non-market or core economy values caring and kindness. The core economy is where families and communities foster wellbeing for each other through caring activities that promote social value. 

The core economy is an integral part of people's lives and is located in homes, communities and wider society. Value is produced through interpersonal transactions. 

When people interact they produce goods through emotional and social transactions which may be personal and private to them but contribute to the wider common good.  Parenting has a central role in the non-market or core economy. 

The sustainability of parenting as a source of wellbeing and social value in the core economy is compromised when the unpaid labour that is crucial to rearing children is systematically devalued as the market economy makes greater inroads on the time available for family life. 

Parents actively engage in projects of value for themselves, communities and wider society but their hard work is not recognised and appreciated in a society based on private property and capitalist enterprise.

While parenting hesitancy manifested through declining fertility rates might be viewed as a positive development curtailing population growth and its associated environmental costs, a shrinking population will leave a relatively small working-age population having to shoulder the pension, health, and care costs of an increasingly ageing population. 

From a social relations perspective parenting hesitancy will significantly reduce the reservoir of caring available in the core economy to meet the kind of human needs that the price mechanism of the market or private economy does not value. 

Arresting the drift towards parenting hesitancy will require a whole-of-government consideration of how policies affect parental wellbeing and a thorough appraisal of the contribution of parenting to the functioning of a caring society.

• Dr Colm O'Doherty is Visiting Research Fellow - Technological University of the Shannon (TUS), co-editor of Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies and co-author of Learning on the Job: Parenting in Modern Ireland, Oak Tree Press.