16/6/26

Nordic fertility support measures are not working

The region’s famously generous family-friendly policies are making no impact

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This article is republished from The Financial Times

Nordic countries’ generous family-friendly policies, including long parental leave and publicly subsidised childcare, mean they consistently rank among the best places to raise children.

But the policies have not made them immune from the steep fall in women giving birth, which appears to be happening globally.

In 2024, Nordic fertility rates ranged from 1.25 children per woman in Finland to 1.91 in the Faroe Islands, according to Nordic Statistics Database.

It is generally accepted that women need to have an average of 2.1 children to achieve stable replacement of the population.

Think-tanks such as Population Europe recommend family-friendly policies to arrest such declines.

The advice looks and sounds a lot like the Nordic model.

But the latest Nordic data show there have been sharp declines in fertility rates since 2010 ranging from 19 per cent in Greenland to 33 per cent in Finland, compared with a 12 per cent drop in the EU over the same period.

So why have these countries’ egalitarian values and generous welfare states not stopped birth rates from falling?

“Many of these initiatives have had limited effect because they are not aimed at the right audience,” says Rune Lindahl-Jacobsen, professor in epidemiology and demography at the University of Southern Denmark, who is running a nationwide study on the fertility rate decline.

“They mainly support people who have already become parents or who have already decided to have children. But if you are a potential first-time parent, you may be thinking about something quite different.”

Demographically, he says, the decline in fertility rates in the Nordics is due mostly to falls in the number of people having children from two cohorts: those under the age of 30 and those with lower educational qualifications.

Family-friendly policies have had limited success at increasing the number of children born to women across the region, Lindahl-Jacobsen says.

Sweden allows working parents to take 120 paid days off a year to care for a sick child, for example, but its fertility rate in 2025 was just 1.4 children per woman, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

“It’s not about what the state is giving you, but what benefits do you get from becoming parents,” Lindahl-Jacobsen says.

This point resonates for Lykke Kruse Jensen, 27, an undergraduate student, who says she finds it “hard to envisage” having children.

She and her boyfriend have been together for four years and own their apartment but neither feels ready for children. She is due to start a two-year master’s degree this year, with the aim of gaining stable employment after that.

“My current plan is about securing some kind of stability,” she says.

“The reason I don’t have kids is I think it would be irresponsible.”

The reason I don't have kids is I think it would be irresponsible"

Data does suggest young adults in Sweden struggle financially, says Åsa Hansson, an associate professor of economics at Lund University who is leading an inquiry for the Swedish government called Committee for a Future with Children.

“If those who are young adults — 29 and under — have kids, they are not in a good economic position so it’s not very strange that they don’t want to have kids or [want to] postpone having kids,” she says.

Altogether it takes longer for young people to establish themselves, and then it “becomes much harder [for couples to conceive]”, she adds.

There's a lot that can be done, but it's not going to be easy to get there

Says Åsa Hansson

Indeed, it is not that people have become less willing to have children.

The proportion of individuals who said they wanted two to three children remained unchanged between 1970 and 2021, according to research by Lone Schmidt, professor emerita at the University of Copenhagen.

The falling birth rates suggest a gap between how many children people want and how many they actually have — and delaying starting a family is increasingly seen as a key factor.

The Nordics have typically emphasised the benefits of being in education for longer and achieving higher qualifications, Schmidt says.

She also points to the higher percentage of men with high school-level education or lower who now remain childless — around 30 per cent — than previous generations.

The statistics point to a complete reversal of the situation in the past when lower educational achievement was usually correlated with higher numbers of children, Schmidt says.

There are likely to be sociological factors driving this trend.

For example, Hansson says in Sweden, 70 per cent of women go to university and consequently tend to want to form long-term relationships with partners of a similar educational background.

In Sweden, 70 percent of women go to university

Lindahl-Jacobsen also wonders if the impact of environmental toxins on fertility might be affecting some socio-economic groups more than others.

More research is needed. But in the meantime, he and Schmidt are advocating for increased public education about fertility.

Nordic governments should also concentrate on making it easier for young people to get established at an earlier age, Hansson suggests, and provide more help for those who want to conceive but struggle to do so.

A report published by her inquiry earlier this year prompted the Swedish government to double the amount of state-funded IVF treatments from three to six.

“There’s a lot that can be done, but it’s not going to be easy to get there,” says Hansson.

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