生育率悖论：教育是关键

The fertility rateparadox: Content Page 3-4Executive SummaryPage 5-10Money can’t buy more children Page 11-21Low fertility rates are here to stay Page 22-27 The world population might peak earlierand age even faster than expected Page 28-30Capital-funded pension provision andflexible retirement solutions gain inimportance Page 31-33Education is key for increasing productivity Page 34-38Appendix SummaryExecutive Money can’t buy more children.Among OECD countries, tax breaks, cashbenefits and services granted for families and children corresponded to 1.8%of GDP. In the EU-27, the average share of government expenditures spend onfamily and children has increased from 1.6% in 2001 to 1.9% of GDP in 2023,ranging from 0.8% in Malta to 4.0% in Denmark. However, in many industrializedcountries today family and children policy is not only considered an importantelement in preventing childhood poverty and smoothing consumption, but alsoas more or less subtle incentive to increase the fertility rate. The unprecedenteddecline in fertility rates in many countries, calls the targets of today’s family Michaela GrimmSenior Economist,Demography & Social Protection Arne HolzhausenHead of Insurance, Wealth & ESG Researcharne.holzhausen@allianz.com Fertility rates keep declining, and it is hard to tell why.The unprecedenteddecline in fertility rates is a global phenomenon. In Germany, for exampleit has fallen to an average 1.35 children per woman, in Japan it dropped to1.15 children and the US reported a record low 1.6 children per woman in2024. However, no one can pinpoint the one single reason, that could explainthis development, since fertility behavior depends on a multitude of factors,including women’s education attainment levels, the availability and affordability Without a reversal of current fertility trends, the global population is set topeak earlier than expected and age much more than expected, which makescapital-funded pension provision all the more urgent.In the UN’s low-fertilityscenario, the old-age dependency ratio in high-income countries would increaseto almost 80% in the long run. This would mean a huge strain on tax- or pay-as-you-go financed pension systems, which will not be sustainable or provide an Labor markets and companies also need to be adapted to the needs of anaging workforce population.The decline of the population in working agecould be cushioned by an increase of the labor force participation in higherages. If EU-27 member countries succeeded in gradually increasing the laborforce participation rates in higher ages to levels already seen in Japan today, thenumber of people available on the labor market would increase from 221.7mn Education is also key.While higher educational attainment does contributeto a lower fertility rate, it is also an important means to cushion the impactof demographic change on labor markets and economic growth, since theeducational attainment level of the workforce population is positively correlated Money can’t buy more children Today, most high-income and many middle-incomecountries have implemented family and childrenpolicies, including instruments such as cash benefitsand tax credits. Furthermore, many of them not onlygrant pre- and post-birth maternity leave to protect thehealth of mothers – ranging in OECD countries from in while Romania tops the list in terms of benefits, grantingpayments corresponding to 89 weeks of a full-rateequivalent (i.e. the number of weeks it would have takenthe mother to earn the same amount if she had earned100% of her previous earnings¹). The least generouscountry in these respects is the US, where 12 weeks of Financial support for families, like cash transfers, childtax credits or reduced social security contributions, isin most OECD countries granted at least until the childturns 18. In some countries, it lasts even beyond thatage, lasting as long as the child is in education. Hence,there are marked differences in the tax treatment ofsingles with no children and families with children. InBelgium, for example, income tax and employees’ social the differences in the tax treatment of singles withno children and families vary markedly. The highestdifference with respect to the tax and social contributionburden between singles without children and marriedcouples with one-earner and two children was reportedin Slovakia, where the income of families with these Furthermore, in most OECD countries, benefits forfamilies increase with the number of children. Accordingto OECD statistics, benefits for a two-parent family, inwhich one parent worked full-time and one part-time,with both on wages at the median of the full-time 4.5% of an average wage³ in South Korea to 47% of anaverage wage in Estonia in 2023. For a respective couplewith only one child, they ranged between 0.9% in Iceland to8.1% of an average wage in Italy. Exceptions were Türkiye ³ The average full-time wage refers to the average gross wage earnings paid