The crisis and the babies

A well established and centuries old (West-)European cultural pattern is the ‘independent household’. People only establish a family household when they can support an independent nuclear family and household (including an own house, be it owned or rented). The crisis of course disabled many people to do this. What did this mean to the number of births in austerity countries (the Baltics, Ireland, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece)?  See the graph. And remember: most of these countries (exception: Ireland) already had very low total fertility rates of around 1,5 or even lower (exception: Ireland) as well as considerable out-migration. Italy is excluded as Eurostat does not have Italian data for 2012 and as the pattern shown here is, though visible, much weaker in italy (but remember: austerity came late in Italy). This fertility decline does not seem to have happened in Iceland, where real wages took a massive hit but where unemployment stayed limited.