‘Rethink what we expect from parents’: Norway’s grapple with falling birthrate | Norway
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/17/rethink-what-we-expect-from-parents-norway-grapple-with-falling-birthrate
‘Rethink what we expect from parents’: Norway’s grapple with falling birthrate | Norway
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/17/rethink-what-we-expect-from-parents-norway-grapple-with-falling-birthrate
15 Comments
From the article
Although falling birthrates are a global trend, such is the concern in Oslo the government has commissioned a birthrate committee to investigate the causes and possible consequences and devise strategies to reverse the population’s current trajectory.
Over the last two decades, Norway’s [fertility rate](https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/65e2b59e934640dfb7015fe295bc72e5/declining-birth-rates-in-norway-development-and-possible-policy-measures-for-young-adults-english-summary.pdf) plummeted from 1.98 children for each woman in 2009 to 1.40 in 2023, a historic low. This is despite a parental leave policy that entitles parents to 12 months of shared paid leave for the birth, plus an additional year each afterwards.
If current fertility trends continue, the sparsely populated country of nearly 5.5 million people could face wide-ranging consequences ranging from problems caring for the elderly to a reduced labour force.
Norway has insane taxes. If they just lower taxes by 50% for 10 years for every person having a kid, they’d be set.
in a modern, urban society children are a liability not an asset. there’s a baby industrial complex that puts a lot of pressure on parents to buy unnecessary and expensive stuff and careers and leisure need to be delayed– perhaps indefinitely– to prioritize parenting. plus there’s an unprecedented amount of pressure put on parents today to be perfect in every way or else face dire consequences when their kid gets older and turns into some kind of maladjusted weirdo. I can understand why so many people simply don’t want that headache.
I don’t think it’s something that can be fixed by tax incentives. having children has become a lifestyle choice, and for a lot of people it’s just an unattractive one compared to the alternatives.
theyre going to figure out what everyone already knows.
the second children become an informed choice, and not an inevitable outcome from sex…. a significant chunk of the population will not have them.
no amount of socialism, or in less socialized countries no amount of wealth will meaningfully reverse birthrate trends.
If Norway can’t get it right, we are definitely fucked in the States.
I’d guess food, house, and education costs are a huge issue. It’s not affordable to be a single income family when both people are trying to pay rent, save for a home, buy food, and pay off their student loans. The system has been designed to constantly demand more and more people enter the workforce and then stay in the work force longer. Now, it’s all falling apart now that people are so trapped they don’t feel like they can have kids and have a meaningful fulfilling life.
This is an interesting problem because, as the article mentions, it’s a global trend.
Birth rates are plummeting in nations with both generous and non-existent social programs.
In nations where women have few and many rights.
In nations that are prosperous or poor.
In nations with high cultural unity and in nations with diverse or divided cultures.
In nations with very religious people and in nations with few religious people.
In nations with high education and access to online information, and nations with poor education and virtually no access to online information.
.
All the arguments for why you personally aren’t having children don’t apply everywhere, and yet the birthrate problem is happening *everywhere*.
Every pet theory is wrong, because there are examples of nations that don’t conform to the theory and are still experiencing population decline.
For some reason, even in nations with no access to global information, we’ve lost the *assumption* that people have children as part of the normal, expected development of their lives. And this seems to be happening for *different reasons* everywhere.
Just to add one rather important detail: Being a mother has to be culturally high status. All the financial assistance means nothing if women don’t see a reason to aspire to motherhood in the first place.
what is the cost of raising a child and what are people’s incomes in norway?
Unpopular truth:
– societal pressures for having kids have reduced over time.
– people are more focused on their own individual fulfillment
– women are pressured to have a career
– cost of living, particularly housing, is more expensive , means that both parents need to work
– both parents working means there’s reduced room for a family
I think at this point is obviously a culture thing. Benefits and government aid are helping, but they’re not solving it like many think it should. Evidence of intervention not solving is basically Norway itself among other countries seeing decline while offering meaningful aid.
To be clear, I don’t think they should stop offering aid. If you want to change the culture, you need to incentivize the change.
I think the best thing governments can do is figure out how to regear their economies to handle shrinking populations. They can entice immigration at the same time to try softening the decline, but adjusting strategy is more important.
Honestly, I’m not upset birth rates are declining, I’m disappointed that we’re adjusting so poorly and even fighting it (in some cases with horrible policy). I just see this decline as a natural step toward the future. I’m also not convinced that infinite population growth is good, some ups and downs are necessary.
Ultimately, I hope this is the dawn of a new economic theory.
I feel like all of these countries are completely missing one of the biggest reasons people aren’t having kids and that’s climate change. It doesn’t make sense to many people to have kids when our planet is rapidly becoming uninhabitable in many areas and everything that will come with that future. Why would you want to doom your offspring to living in that reality when developed country populations tend to contribute to the problem even more than other areas? It’s not surprising the more we learn the less people want to contribute to the problem or damn their children to facing that eventuality
They should import people to fill the gap, start a migration of sorts
There are many factors… but the hyperindividualistic “your identity and personal fullfilment is your profession and your consumption choices” certainly doesn’t help.
In capitalism all externalities suffer, the climate, having children…
At the end of the day, young people’s FOMO see baby as an obstacle to living their best life.