William P. Butz

English

Research Papers in Economics

Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 2008, pp. 35-38 
First, do no harm 
William P. Butz
∗ 
At a conference on the theme “Can policies enhance fertility in Europe?”, 
presentations and discussion would naturally assume that very low fertility rates 
will not increase on their own accord, but will instead require the nudge or 
bludgeon of policy. Indeed, by my reckoning, some four-fifths of conference 
discussion was explicitly or implicitly based on this assumption. Outside these 
halls, it is the same. One sees little optimism in the academic or popular press that 
fertility rates might spontaneously rebound. Instead, there as here, the discussion 
turns now to policies that might induce couples to bear and raise more children or, 
failing that, policies that might mitigate the undesirable effects of fertility rates 
persisting well below the replacement level for a long time. 
I argue here a contrary view: Fertility in Europe is as likely to rise over the 
next ten years as it is to stay low or fall further.
1 I argue that we do not know what 
will happen, that we do not know enough, in fact, to project one future over 
another.  
This agnostic forecast implies no corollary that governments leave fertility 
rates alone or that researchers turn their attention elsewhere. To the contrary, the 
likely consequences of continuing very low fertility are serious enough that the 
phenomenon deserves much more research and policy attention than at present, 
this even if, as I argue, the prospect of continuing low fertility is no higher than 
the prospect of fertility increases. 
What my forecast does imply, however, is that among the possibly pronatalist 
policies available, governments should consider only those that do no harm to 
couples or society. Such policies would be deemed desirable, even if it turns out 
that they are unnecessary or ineffective in raising fertility. Fortunately, some 
policies under researchers’ and policymakers’ microscopes meet this criterion, for 
example, policies that provide child day care or otherwise reduce the conflicts 
between parent’s employment and child care. By common reckoning, such 
policies would be desirable on grounds other than fertility enhancement. To the 
contrary, some other policies may impose costs to couples or society that would 
be unacceptable if the additional fertility they induce turns out not to be needed, 
                                                 
∗ William P. Butz, Population Reference Bureau, 1875 Connecticut Ave., NW Suite 520, 
Washington, D.C. 20009-5728, USA. Opinions expressed are those of the author and not 
necessarily those of the Population Reference Bureau. Email: butz@prb.org 
1    This scenario of rising fertility could be consistently measured in number of births, total 
fertility rate, or tempo-adjusted total fertility rate, all increasing.  
DOI: 10.1553/populationyearbook2008s35 Demographic Debate  36 
for example, appeals to national interest that persuade some couples to have more 
children than they want or can afford. 
My agnostic fertility forecast rests on three legs—recent European fertility 
trends; a historical parallel; and the state of population science.  
 
Recent European fertility trends   
Of the 39 European countries that have published total fertility rates (TFR) for 
2007, 17 record higher TFRs in 2007 than in 2000 (Population Reference Bureau 
2007). In northern Europe it is 8 out of 10, in western Europe 1 out of 8, in 
eastern Europe 4 out of 10 and in southern Europe it is 4 out of 11. In some of the 
countries, the increase is slight, not enough that we would pay attention if trends 
had not been in the opposite direction. And in several, much of the increase is due 
to the higher fertility of immigrants.  
There is argument and evidence that these levellings and increases are tempo 
effects—attributable to couples making up for earlier delayed fertility—that will 
leave completed fertility unchanged (Bongaarts 2008). Although it may turn out 
so, no scholar to my knowledge projected the European fertility experience of 
recent years from the vantage point of 2000, based on a tempo model or any other 
(Lutz et al. 2006). Following two or three decades of declining fertility to historic 
lows, these recent levellings and increases would seem worthy of serious notice. 
 
A historical parallel 
By the late 1930s, some prominent population researchers in Europe and the 
United States were projecting a future of secularly declining population growth 
followed by declining absolute numbers. And why not? After more than a century 
of decreasing fertility rates in most industrialised countries, there was no reason to 
expect a sea change. Most prominent in the US was Joseph Spengler, president-
to-be of the Population Association of America, writing in 1938: 
“Within the next quarter century true depopulation—a persistent long-run 
excess of deaths over births—will manifest itself in nearly all the countries of 
Europe and in those non-European countries to which Western civilisation has 
spread. The present stream of concern over eventual depopulation—concern 
evident in the many European works dealing with depopulation, in the 
depopulationist inquiries being made in countries such as England and Sweden, 
and in the anti-depopulation measures already put into effect in certain 
countries—will assume the proportions of a deluge. The growth of alarm at 
depopulation in various countries will proceed along the lines of a rather definite 
and somewhat ‘naturally evolving’ pattern and will be accompanied by the 
enactment of a sequence of ineffectual measures designed to stem the decline in 
fertility.” (Spengler 1938). 
Meanwhile, the economist Alvin Hansen argued in his 1939 presidential 
address to the American Economic Association that the growth ingredients in the 
American economy, mainly population growth and technological innovation, had William P. Butz  37 
played out (Hansen 1939). The economy could not ever again grow rapidly. 
Hansen’s “secular stagnation” hypothesis fit well with John Maynard Keynes’ 
model of modern capitalist economies, published several years earlier, in which 
population growth was one factor fuelling the aggregate demand for goods and 
services (Keynes 1936). Hansen concluded that only continued and increasing 
deficit spending on the part of governments could save modern capitalist 
economies from ruinous stagnation. 
Not a decade after Spengler, Hansen and others were raising this alarm came 
the “baby boom” in these same countries. Secular stagnation and the broader 
worries about population declines disappeared. 
 
The state of population science 
One objective of population science is to provide useful theories, that is, 
conceptual constructs yielding predictions that are refutable by evidence. Most of 
the theories that have yielded such predictions, in the case of fertility in developed 
countries, are the work of economists (see, for example, these foundational 
studies: Leibenstein 1954, Becker 1960, Freedman 1963, Easterlin 1968, Willis 
1973, Butz and Ward 1979, van de Kaa 1987.) In the domain of time series 
fertility, their predictions have not fared well. Subsequent revisions to fit 
emerging data have generally weakened confidence in the theories’ predictions 
more than they have strengthened the predictions’ accuracy. Rarely, to my 
knowledge, has a population researcher produced a theory-based prediction of 
secularly increasing European fertility rates in the 21st century (but see James 
Feyrer et al. 2008). If the current boomlet outlasts the possibility of a tempo 
correction, then the poverty of our theorising will be evident. If, on the other 
hand, the boomlet peters out, then attention must be paid to the low fertility trap 
model of Lutz and colleagues (Lutz et al. 2006). 
European countries have over the last quarter century displayed a rich variety 
of fertility-related behaviour as well as policies hypothesised to influence it. Such 
a laboratory for the social sciences is rare. From it, population scientists have so 
far gleaned little in the way of regularities. Nearly every hypothesis relating 
policy to fertility outcomes quickly finds a clear exception, sometimes in analyses 
of family level data but usually in the glare of a country-level comparison. 
 
Do no harm 
In the face of some kind of fertility levelling or increase across Europe, with 
history’s cautionary example, and without well-tested theory to guide our 
expectations, I believe population researchers cannot know with any confidence at 
all the near-term course of European fertility. Teitelbaum and Winter (1985), 
writing half a century after the unrealised secular stagnation predictions of the 
1930s, chronicled the history of concerns about population declines and the 
fertility upturns that almost invariably put an end to these concerns. They 
suggested implicitly that countries thinking that they face population decline Demographic Debate  38 
today—Europe in particular—not adopt policies that their descendents might 
regret. Good advice.  
 
 
References 
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A new approach to the economic theory of fertility behavior.”

A Theory of Economic-Demographic Development.

An economic analysis of fertility.” In:

Economic progress and declining population growth.”

Europe’s population at a turning point.”

Europe’s Second Demographic Transition.” Population Bulletin 42(1), Population Reference Bureau.

Fertility Rates for Low Birth-Rate Countries,

France Faces Depopulation.

Population, Labor Force, and Long Swings in Economic Growth: the American Experience.

The emergence of countercyclical U.S.

The Fear of Population Decline.

The low fertility trap hypothesis: Forces that may lead to further postponement and fewer births in Europe.” Vienna Yearbook of Population Research

The relation of economic status and fertility.”

The Theory of Employment Interest and Money.

What can fertility indicators tell us about pronatalist policy options?” Vienna Yearbook of Population Research

First, do no harm

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First, do no harm

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