Low fertility: unifying the theory and the demography

Abstract

The market is very short-term and favors flexible, childless people averse to risk, while the private world of the family requires them to be self-sacrificing and prepared to accept risks. These two areas - which some still consider to be separate - attest to the old division of labor between men and women. The reinforcement of the male breadwinner model of the family is not the solution to the dilemma that we now face in maintaining social reproduction in combination with a free-market approach to production. What is required is no less than a new social contract asserting that children are a social good and not merely a private, optional pleasure. The new social contract also must be one based on gender equity.