Why do we get so few kids? Ask the young people themselves

prime Minister Erna Solberg urged in its nyttårstale more need to have children to increase the birth figures in Norway. For that population to be sustained, each woman received a little over two children on average.

It is soon as 50 years ago the number of births in this country was so high that the population would not decrease without more people live longer and immigration.

Trude Lappegård. Show more

We must take upon us that the birth figures will not be as high as previously. Today's young women and men live in a completely different reality than a few decades ago and the solution is not to use the previous generations as the ideal. As a society, should not the goal be that there are born several children, but that young people get the children they want.

Solberg is concerned that young people wait too long before they become parents. The age when women and men become parents has increased over the last few years, but it provides in itself little cause for concern. Still get the vast majority of which have children here in the country, at least two children. The ranks as they either they get their first child when they are 23 years of age or when they are 33 years old.

However, there is little realistic that one can reverse the trend and that more will get big barneflokker. When many people have exposed to have children the last few years, we can expect that a good part will fulfill their wishes about the children for the next few years. Then will the birth figures also go up, in some degree, no matter what the government now decides.

How to remain a lykkeland? Debate

Prime minister wants to facilitate better to get children in his studies, and early in his career. It can be a costly and uncertain project. There is no shortage of s that makes that birth figures go down. Although it is possible that the policy can be adjusted and made better for some groups, I have very little faith in that it will affect the birth figures significantly. I understand the politicians ' need to show vigor, but one should be careful to come up with contingent measures for the fort.

High birth rates is not necessarily consistent with the different expectations that today's youth face. Arbeidslinja are strong in Norway and the labour of the young is both desired and expected, at the same time there is an increased focus on the young people to carry out studies faster, so the former can help in the workplace.

Why do young longer than before to become parents? We know a part, but we also need more knowledge and new data about very central questions. We have not the knowledge of young people today have other preferences for children and family life than they had some years ago. Neither do we have knowledge of today's youth are experiencing obstacles that are in your way to get the children they want, at a time they think is best.

Politics, it is the children of Columnist

Waiting today's young people longer before they are parents, because more of them take higher education? No. Higher education is not the cause. What we do know is that higher education was an important explanation for why more were waiting to be parents in the 1990s, but it is not longer a valid explanation today. The proportion of women with higher education have been relatively stable the last few years and today it is actually most childless women among those with the lowest education.

Is the current deferrals of childbirth in response to changes in the workplace? Yes. The way into the working world puts many terms for further professional career, but also for the last two years.

More experience uncertainty about the general economic situation in Norway and own work. We know that this has got more to say for the decision to have children now than in the past. Birth figures have gone down more in areas with high unemployment the last few years than in the past. At the same time, the importance of being in work and having work experience increased.

We also know that young people who today work in the sectors that have long had a large share of temporary contracts and insecure working conditions, which in the media industry, are waiting longer to become parents than others.

the World has come closer and we must take in the us that we in a greater degree affected by what happens in other places than here at home. Together with international colleagues, we discuss now in what extent also more uncertainty in the world related to the economy, climate and politics have meaning for young people making decisions about children. It is not only in the Uk birth figures go down. The development is more or less the same in the other nordic countries.

Waiting young longer with to be parents because samlivsetablering has changed? Yes. Today, there are more who are waiting longer to establish themselves with a partner, and the first samlivene is often short. The prime minister wants more to children early. When there are more people waiting longer to establish themselves with a partner, come consequently the children somewhat later than they did a few years back.

I think it is important to emphasize that the responsibility for the born child in the Uk not only lies with women. It is women who give birth to children, but the decision to have children is taken in the community. But whether the decision-making process has changed and what values that come into play in the day, we know too little about.

Reality changed. Today's youth are the first generation that is born into the generous familiepolitikken that have been recognized in Norway since the early 1990s.

Want the politicians that the young men and women to combine work and family also in the future, we need to know where the shoe press. Then we get the best answers by asking the young people themselves. In 2020 conducted a major international study that may provide answers to these questions.

If politicians want answers on what needs to support today's youth when they establish themselves with family, there will be a reasonable investment to finance the Norwegian participation in this study. My advice is that the government is going on the pitch now.

Women stand in a proper skvis in the most fertile years Comment