Implications of Married Couples Increasing Choosing Not to Have Children
Elizabeth Stone once said, “Making the decision to have a child-it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart walking around outside your body.” Indeed, the decision whether to have children or not is a significant decision that all parents have to make. Once decided to have children, most parents will put in their heart and soul in nurturing them. However, nowadays, married couples in developed countries and newly industrializing economies are increasingly choosing not to have children. This may be due to the high cost of living in the countries which causes the cost of raising a child higher too. Therefore, children are often seemed as a financial burden. Having in mind that every action comes along with consequences, the increasing trend not to have children will have implications in the economic, political and social aspects of the country.
With more and more married couples chose not to have children; the country will experience a declining birth rate. This will result in the change of demographic structure where there is a larger proportion of elderly than working adult. Having an ageing population will mean that the workforce are getting older too. Most old workers are harder to be retrained for new essential skills and take a longer time to cope with technology changes. This will leave many professional jobs such as engineers or technicians unfilled, hence there will be a shortage of labour and talent. This will make the country less attractive to foreign investors which contribute to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), sustaining a high economic growth. For example, countries in Europe are facing this problem due to the declining birth rate, the population is ageing so rapidly that by 2015, the natural increase will be negative. Then Europe will face the shortage of labour and they will lose competitiveness against active countries such as China.
As the trend continues to rise, the replacement level of the country will definitely fall below the
With more and more married couples chose not to have children; the country will experience a declining birth rate. This will result in the change of demographic structure where there is a larger proportion of elderly than working adult. Having an ageing population will mean that the workforce are getting older too. Most old workers are harder to be retrained for new essential skills and take a longer time to cope with technology changes. This will leave many professional jobs such as engineers or technicians unfilled, hence there will be a shortage of labour and talent. This will make the country less attractive to foreign investors which contribute to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), sustaining a high economic growth. For example, countries in Europe are facing this problem due to the declining birth rate, the population is ageing so rapidly that by 2015, the natural increase will be negative. Then Europe will face the shortage of labour and they will lose competitiveness against active countries such as China.
As the trend continues to rise, the replacement level of the country will definitely fall below the