Selected socio-economic factors co-occurring with high fertility rate in the OECD countries

Abstract

This article presents the results of examining selected factors co-occurring with high fertility rate in developed countries. Selected OECD countries at a similar stage of demographic development have been subjected to analysis. By means of cluster analysis, the selected developed countries have also been identified according to the type of adopted family policy. It has been found that the developed countries which spend more on family policy in relation to GDP are generally characterised by higher fertility rates than those which spend less. In the light of those findings, the family-policy expenditures which allow women to reconcile professional work with raising children turned out to be particularly important. The fertility rate has also been found to clearly correlate with labour market rates, with the level of women’s professional activity in particular. Moreover, in the developed countries the relatively high fertility rate is accompanied by low rates of young people who do not work or attend school and are not in vocational training, as well as a high rate of extramarital births.