Fewer and fewer Austrians want to have children. This is the result of a scientific survey among more than 8,000 respondents, conducted by researchers from the Universities of Vienna and Salzburg and the Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). The figure now stands at 1.68 children per woman surveyed.
This is a clear decrease compared to a 2009 study, when women wanted an average of 2.1 children. The reasons lie mainly in inflation and multiple crises. When it came to wanting to have children, the focus was on people between the ages of 18 and 45.
The young generation has no plans to have children
“Between 2009 and 2023, the reported desire to have children fell from 2.1 to 1.7 children per woman,” family researcher Norbert Neuwirth said in a broadcast on Tuesday. When the scientists asked whether people ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ want to have a child within the next three years, the trend was impressive: in the group of 18 to 29-year-old women in 2009, 36 percent of respondents said this. In 2023 that was ten percentage points less.
Among men in this age group, approval even fell from 30 percent (2009) to 14 percent (2023). Acceptance fell less sharply among the group of 30 to 39 year olds: among men it fell from 40 to 32 percent between 2009 and 2023, and among women from 32 to 30 years.
Most women have two children
The largest group of women in Austria, with about 40 percent, are women with two children. About a quarter have a child. Based on the large amount of data from the surveys, scientists have estimated what the share of childless people might be in age cohorts born after 1990. The analysis suggests a value of 23 to 24 percent.
If you compare this with previous decades, in which the share of childless people was sometimes high, but relatively many women in Austria also had three or more children, this is even more striking today. Ultimately, such a trend will mean “fewer potential mothers in the future,” says demographer Isabella Buber-Ennser.
In France, the ‘downward trend’ is still being slowed down by many large families. It was similar in Scandinavia, although birth rates have also fallen here recently. It is not yet clear why this is the case, says Buber-Ennser.
Crises weigh on the mind
When looking for possible reasons in this country, the latest research also found ‘classic’ factors such as longer training periods, difficulties in finding a partner or entering working life and a lack of work-life balance: asked about the current crises – inflation, the war in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic – according to Buber-Ennser it was “very clear” that many people have changed their desire to have children in light of this.
Almost a third of respondents indicate that they are negatively affected by it. Price developments place the greatest pressure on people.
The higher the education level, the fewer children?
In such times of crisis, the plan to have children is often postponed. “Of course there are people who do not realize this later,” Buber-Ennser emphasized. In Austria, this applies surprisingly strongly to women with higher education. The researchers want to know how this will develop in a follow-up study in four years’ time.
“When you look at the challenges parents face, you can understand why they apparently think twice about bringing children into the world,” says family researcher Wolfgang Mazal of the new results.
Source: Krone
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