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To encourage motherhood, look to social networks

This year, the celebration of Mother’s Day took place against the backdrop of a growing recognition that as a society, Singapore is moving to a situation where fewer women will become mothers and when they do, they will have fewer children.

Press to send — or should you, really? Photo: Getty Images

Press to send — or should you, really? Photo: Getty Images

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This year, the celebration of Mother’s Day took place against the backdrop of a growing recognition that as a society, Singapore is moving to a situation where fewer women will become mothers and when they do, they will have fewer children.

So used to topping world rankings in matters of education, competitiveness or labour-market efficiency, Singapore also finds itself among the world leaders in low fertility and advanced maternal age at first birth. The fertility rate is hovering around a population-busting 1.2 children per woman and the average age at which a Singaporean woman has her first child is just shy of 30.

There is widespread public awareness of this trajectory and no shortage of discussion about the remedies for it: Make work-life balance easier to achieve by offering more paid leave to new parents, giving more subsidies and places for high-quality childcare, de-stigmatise part-time work, or prioritise and offer more attractive housing options, for starters.

It’s interesting to note that these potential policy options are being considered, or at least debated, in the context of a society where the value placed on being married and having children is high. This, though, is not unusual: In most developed countries where fertility has taken a nosedive as it has in Singapore, young people continue to see marriage and having children as an ideal.

In light of those stated preferences, it seems that getting the right mix of public policy to support those aspirations ought to be relatively simple. And yet, it is not.

Looking at the reasons why achieving this ideal is so hard is an important addition to the policy debate — because they suggest the real headwinds that policymakers face.

WHAT IS ‘NORMAL’ IS SHIFTING

First, consider the average age at first birth. At 29.7, it places Singapore in the company of other low birth countries like Spain or Italy where women also tend to be older first-time mothers. When demographers speak about advanced maternal age, they mean it relative to women’s reproductive years, but it is a jarring term to modern ears.

In contemporary society, having a child in one’s late 20s or early 30s hardly seems late. Indeed, it seems sensible as before that, women devote their time to getting an education, establishing a professional identity and saving the resources necessary to start a family.

Also, as advances in reproductive technology have extended women’s childbearing years, not only is the media filled with examples of women having their first child in their late 30s and early 40s, but we also start to know people in our own social circles who have done that.

Thus, our expectations about what is possible and “normal” change.

Still, technology can only take us so far, and postponing childbearing likely means forgoing it for some women.

Overall, later births are likely to reduce a population’s birthrate further as women begin to push up against their biological clocks, in spite of advances in fertility treatment.

‘MARRIAGE FIRST’ CONUNDRUM

Cultural norms about sequencing marriage and childbearing also play a role.

Unlike in the United States, where recent trends show that for large swathes of the population, childbearing has been decoupled from marriage — often reversing the traditional order of those events — Asian norms still strongly support childbearing only after marriage.

Yet, this too means that motherhood will be an option fewer women choose. While the ideal scenario of many young women (and men) is to marry, the fact that women can be economically self-supporting means that they can essentially buy their way out of marriage if what is on offer is not sufficiently attractive. Women no longer need to rely on a husband or a father to support themselves as they did in the past — so that as marriage rates drop, so does the fertility rate.

IS CHILDLESSNESS CONTAGIOUS?

Perhaps the most fascinating work on the decision making behind fertility is that of social network theorists.

This approach examines the influence of what those in our networks are doing in terms of what we ourselves decide to do. Viewing the individual at the centre of concentric circles of family, peers and acquaintances, that individual is variously influenced by those circles.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany have shown that theinfluence of those with strong, close ties (parents, siblings, friends) is large, but may work in different directions. For example, while parents may lobby for a grandchild, friends, especially those without children, may point out the costs and lost possibilities associated with childbearing.

This research approach is similar to the one taken by the recent widely reported study arguing that many social behaviours, like obesity (and conversely weight loss), spread within our social networks. This is not to say that childlessness is “contagious”, but it does point to the influence of others in our own social groups.

As more people make the decision, consciously or by default, to not have children, childlessness becomes more normative and the power of social networks can amplify that.

What this suggests is that while it is important for policymakers to continue to create incentives for people to choose to have children, it may be that some part of the epidemic of lower birth rates is beyond the reach of their toolkit.

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