The relationship recession is going global

Unlock Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT, picks her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

There is a reason why birth rates are an increasingly prominent feature in discourse and policy making today. Population aging and decline is one of the most powerful forces in the world that shapes everything economics to policy and the environment.

But the weakness of the debate—perhaps even of the term “birth rate” itself—is that it implies that the goal is the same today as it was in the past: finding ways to encourage couples to have more children. A closer look at the data suggests an entirely new challenge.

Let’s take the US as an example. Between 1960 and 1980, the average no children born to a woman cut in half with almost four to two, even as the proportion of married women pairs fell only modestly lower. There were still plenty of couples in happy, stable relationships. They just chose smaller families.

But in recent years, the biggest part of the decline is not due to decisions made by couples, but due to a marked decline in the number of couples. had Marriage and cohabitation rates in the US Remaining constant over the past decade, America’s total fertility rate would be higher today than it was then.

The central demographic story of the modern age is not just falling birthrates, but rising singleness rates: a much more fundamental change in the nature of modern societies.

Relationships are not only rarer, but also more fragile. In egalitarian Finland, there is more now common for couples who move in together only to split up but to have a child, a sharp reversal of the historical norm.

When painted as the rise of happily childless Dinkas (dual-income, childless couples) with plenty of disposable income, the social trends accompanying the decline in birth rates seem benign.

But the increase in singleness and breakups is less of a rosy story, especially considering that the decline in relationships is the steepest among the poorest. Of course, many people are happily single. The freedom to choose how to spend one’s life with (or without) someone should be celebrated. But broader data about loneliness and frustrations in the relationship suggests that all is not well.

The trend is global. From the USA, Finland and South Korea to Turkey, Tunisia and Thailand, birth rate decline are increasingly downstream of the relationship recession among young adults. Bonuses for babies putting the cart before the horse when an increasing proportion of people are single. Even in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, similar trends may be underway.

Why the almost worldwide decline and why now? The fact that this is happening almost everywhere at once is more indicative of broad changes operating across borders than country-specific factors.

The proliferation of smartphones and social media was one such exogenous shock. Geographical differences in the rise of the single person as a whole are visible mobile internet use, especially among women, whose calculation is in measuring potential partners it changes. This is in accordance with research the display of social media facilitates the spread of liberal values ​​(especially among women only) and promotes women’s empowerment.

The decline in connectivity is deepest in highly online Europe, East Asia and Latin America, followed by the Middle East and then Africa. Single remains rare in South Asia, where female access to the Internet is more limited.

This does not exaggerate the role of social media. Other cultural differences between countries and regions mediate both the spread of liberal ideals and people’s ability to act on them. Caste and honor systems encourage high marriage rates, regardless of access to mediaand women’s education, income and employment differ significantly across regions.

But while the specific mechanisms are a matter of debate, the spread of singlehood and its role in reducing the birth rate shows that although financial incentives and other policy changes can increase the birth ratethey work against much stronger sociocultural forces.

Policies aimed at facilitating the formation of relationships may be more effective than those aimed at helping couples have children.

The world of singleness on the rise not necessarily better or worse than the one filled with couples and families, but it is fundamentally different from what came before, with the main socialeconomic and political implications. We are faced with a conundrum: is this what people really want? If not, what needs to be changed?

john.burn-murdoch@ft.com, @jburnmurdoch