Crises also influence Austrians’ desire to have children: in addition to factors such as relationships and careers, the pandemic, the war and the poor general economic situation have also recently had an impact on plans to have children. In general, the number of offspring decreased.
The desire to have children of their own has decreased among Austrians in recent years. While a woman had an average of 2.1 children in 2009, she would only have 1.68 offspring in the period up to 2023. And this despite the fact that the total number of women between the ages of 18 and 45 has fallen by about eight percent.
However, the number of women who do not want a child at all has more than tripled. This is evident from the research ‘Generations and Gender’ by the universities of Vienna and Salzburg and the ÖAW.
On the other hand, the number of women with an even greater desire to have children has fallen even more sharply.
“According to preliminary estimates for the 1980s cohorts, childlessness will continue to increase and reach 23 to 24 percent for those born in the 1990s,” says ÖAW researcher Tomáš Sobotka.
Among the previous motives, crises such as pandemics, war and inflation are now increasingly coming to the fore: almost a third of respondents have changed their desire to have children as a result (eleven percent) or are now unsure about this (19 percent). ). Only five percent of respondents would like to have more children than before all the crises.
Women and people under 30 in particular have doubts
In general, more women than men think about or doubt their desire to have children because of the difficult times. People under 30 generally also reconsider their desire to have children more often, just like people with a low or average education.
In particular, parents of two or more children have changed their family planning due to the global crises. In concrete terms, this figure is 18 percent compared to twelve percent for parents with one child. “Above all, the burden of price developments is remarkably high and is clearly related to changes in the desire to have children,” says researcher Isabella Buber-Ennser of the ÖAW.
Compatibility complicates the situation
Moreover, factors such as the lack of balance between family and work continue to influence family planning: for three-quarters of respondents, their job often or sometimes has a negative impact on family matters.
Single parents face greater problems than couples with children. This is probably “also due to the uneven division of labor within the family, with largely opposing levels of employment among couples with children,” according to scientists Lorenz Wurm and Norbert Neuwirth from the University of Vienna.
The home office relieves mothers and stresses fathers
Labor and social law expert Wolfgang Mazal from the University of Vienna emphasizes two more changes: mothers mainly say that working from home reduces stress, but for fathers it increases stress, according to the research.
And: women and mothers no longer make the decision about their level of employment dependent on their partner. According to Mazal, the research results should be used “as an impetus for reflection on social circumstances”.
Source: Krone
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