The End of Doom by Ronald Bailey Read Free Book Online

countries and finds that those that are most open to international trade are the ones experiencing the fastest decline in their fertility rates. Doces argues that the primary cost of having children is the time and money it takes to raise them, which leaves parents less time to consume other goods. International trade expands the types of goods people can enjoy and lowers their costs. The cost of rearing children does not decline substantially, so they become more expensive relative to the new opportunities and goods afforded by increased international trade.
    In addition, Doces cites a 2006 study analyzing the effects on globalization on women in 180 countries that shows “increasing international exchange and communication create new opportunities for income-generating work and expose countries to norms that, in recent decades, have promoted equality for women.” 46 As a result, trade-induced demand for human capital expands to include women, further cutting fertility rates in poor countries. This conclusion is further bolstered by a 2005 study by University of Helsinki economists Ulla Lehmijoki and Tapio Palokangas; according to this study, in the short run trade liberalization boosts birth rates, but in the long run it cuts fertility. Again, this is true largely because trade liberalization encourages the development of women’s human capital (education), which makes childbearing relatively more costly.

    The Invisible Hand of Population Control
    In 2002, Seth Norton, an economics professor at Wheaton College in Illinois, published a remarkably interesting study, “Population Growth, Economic Freedom, and the Rule of Law,” on the inverse relationship between prosperity and fertility. Norton compared the fertility rates of over a hundred countries with their index rankings for economic freedom and another index for the rule of law. “Fertility rate is highest for those countries that have little economic freedom and little respect for the rule of law,” wrote Norton. “The relationship is a powerful one. Fertility rates are more than twice as high in countries with low levels of economic freedom and the rule of law compared to countries with high levels of those measures.”
    Norton found that the fertility rate in countries that ranked low on economic freedom averaged 4.27 children per woman, while countries with high economic freedom rankings had an average fertility rate of 1.82 children per woman. His results for the rule of law were similar: fertility rates in countries with low respect for the rule of law averaged 4.16, whereas countries with high respect for the rule of law had fertility rates averaging 1.55.
    Economic freedom and the rule of law occur in politically and economically stable countries and produce prosperity, which dramatically increases average life expectancy and lowers child mortality; this in turn reduces the incentive to bear more children. As data from the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom shows, average life expectancy for free countries is over eighty years, whereas it’s just about sixty-three years in repressed countries.
    Let’s take a look at two intriguing lists. The first is a list of countries ranked on the 2013 Index of Economic Freedom issued by The Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation. Then compare the economic freedom index rankings with a list of countries in the 2013 CIA World Factbook ranked by their total fertility rates. Of the thirty-five countries that are ranked as being economically free or mostly free, only two have fertility rates above 2.1—the United Arab Emirates at 2.36 and Jordan at 3.61. If one adds the next fifty countries that are ranked as moderately free, one finds that only five out of eighty-five countries have fertility rates above 3, all of them in sub-Saharan Africa except Jordan. It should be noted that low fertility rates can also be found in more repressive countries as