Things look different, said Doepke, if you take a closer look at the decline in fertility over the last 20 years or so.
“What has become much more central is this conflict of demands where, on the one hand, people still want to have a family,” said Doepke. “But there is a conflict with another demand, which is that people want to have a career and a fulfilling working life.”
Particularly where men and women have the same ambitions, birth rates will be lower. “Just a generation ago, most men wanted both a career and a fulfilling family life,” said Doepke. “Recently we’ve seen this big shift in gender roles. We observe that these efforts have converged. And this conflict manifests itself in many other ways in low birth rates.”
Of course, immigration alone cannot help create a fairer society in which women can have both a fulfilling career and as many children as they want.
The politics of immigration
A small Mediterranean outpost, the island of Lampedusa, has become one of the most popular landing spots for thousands of immigrants from North Africa. They risk their lives by crossing the sea in poorly maintained and overcrowded ships piloted by questionable sailors to avoid wars and famine. They hope for a better life in Europe.
So far this year, over 127,000 people have landed in Italy, more than double the number in the same period of 2022. According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 2,000 people died in the same period.
The public usually doesn’t want them; She sees potential for thieves and criminals and views immigrants as competitors for jobs rather than a needed resource. Politicians are often guided by these feelings.
In September, after the number of illegal immigrants in Italy soared, prompting France to tighten controls at its border, Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni screamed that she would not allow the country to become “Europe’s refugee camp.”
Meloni took power in 2022 promising to stop illegal immigration. The average number of births per woman in the European Union was 1.53 in 2021, according to the latest available data from Eurostat.
Immigrants continue to attempt dangerous crossings.
In Central and South America, meanwhile, authorities have tried to prevent immigrants from crossing the Darien Gap – 60 miles of mountains and swamps that represent the only route between Central and South America – to reach the United States or Canada .
As in Lampedusa, Panamanian authorities frequently report deaths while crossing the rainforests of the Darien Gap.
Despite the political resistance and costs of these moves across continents, migration is increasing. In October the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said that permanent migration to the 38 developed countries that make up the organization reached 6.1 million in 2022, an increase of 26% from 2021 and an increase of 14% from 2019.
These levels represent a high since at least 2015. The OECD also said preliminary data predicts a further increase in 2023 due to humanitarian crises and general demand for labor.
There are also some countries that are trying to play the immigration card more positively – by attracting population and reaping immediate economic benefits from the influx of migrants. On November 2, the Reuters news service reported that the US government would offer special financing to countries in the Western Hemisphere that agreed to accept migrants in order to deter them from entering the US
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