An average of 1.71 children per woman in New Zealand is well below population replacement level and threatens economic growth and the country's social balance and structure.

Population replacement and growth is only coming by way of immigration.

The claims come in "Families: Ever Fewer or No Children, How Worried Should We Be?" - a discussion paper from Family First NZ.

The report's author is Lindsay Mitchell, and in the report she looks at the reasons behind falling fertility, and discusses what might influence future trends.

In the report she attributes the reduction in fertility to

• Government policy
• Better educated females
• Increased female participation in the work force
• Economic pressure
• Pressure from environmentalists to have fewer children
• Ineffective policy interventions to incourage fertility.

As well as looking at the historical context of family size in New Zealand, the report also examines also reviews other countries' efforts to incentivise fertility.

"To date, New Zealand has been complacent about its total fertility rate.

"Firstly because it fluctuated around replacement rate for a long period, and secondly, it was higher than most other OECD countries.'

The report shows that New Zealand's fertility trend is beginning to resemble many other European and Asian nations struggling to boost their fertility rates.

"As New Zealand's fertility rate falls progressively further below population replacement level, the need to address the issue becomes more urgent," Mitchell points out.

"Without population replacement or growth, economies decline," she writes.

Mitchell point sout that a nation's strength lies in its young: their energy, innovation, risk-taking and entrepreneurship and that new blood drives the exchange of ideas and experimentation.

"If these attributes aren't home-grown, they have to be imported," she says.

Looking at the big picture Mitchell sounds a warning, saying that single person households are the fastest growing household type in New Zealand.

"I increasingly people are facing old-age with few or no family support," she writes.

Mitchell says the matter of fertility is critical to New Zealand's future and she encourages people to feature the topic in public and private conversations.

"Ultimately, whether or not people choose to have a child or children is a highly personal matter, but they shouldn't be denied balanced information to help them decide."

• Source: Family First

Not only was it a matter of social justice, Ford wrote, but paying high wages was also smart business. When wages are low, uncertainty dogs the marketplace and growth is weak. But when pay is high and steady, Ford asserted, business is more secure because workers earn enough to become good customers. They can afford to buy Model Ts. Read more

Sources

• Hedrick Smith in The New York Times
• Image: Wikia

Hedrick Smith is the author of "Who Stole the American Dream?"

Recent reports of local officials coercing women into late-term abortions have prompted an outcry among policy advisers and scholars who are trying to push central government officials to change or repeal the law that penalises families for having more than one child.

Pressure is building on other fronts as well, as economists say that China's aging population and dwindling pool of young, cheap labour will slow the nation's economic growth rate.

"An aging working population is resulting in a labour shortage, a less innovative and less energetic economy, and a more difficult path to industrial upgrading," said He Yafu, a demographics analyst.

Beyond debate about the law itself, critics say that enforcement of the one-child policy leads to widespread abuses, because many local governments reward or penalise officials based on how well they keep down the population.

The New York Times says the talk on Chinese microblogs and articles in state-run newspapers on forced-abortion cases suggest that the one-child policy is being questioned more widely than in recent years.

Last month it was sharply criticised by scholars and policy advisers at a forum at Peking University co-organised by the National Bureau of Statistics to discuss the results of the 2010 census.

Scholars at the meeting were outraged by the plight of Feng Jianmei, who was forced to have a late-term abortion in early June. Her case became widely known after photographs of her dead seven-month-old unborn child were posted on the Internet.

"I think the right to have children is the right of a citizen," said Zhan Zhongle, a law professor at Peking University who has sent a petition signed by scholars and business executives to the National People's Congress urging its members to repeal the one-child law.

China's population of 1.3 billion is the world's largest.

Source:

New York Times

Image: Made in China