Society at a Glance: Asia/Pacific 2025

Fertility rates, including teenage fertility rates, have fallen in most countries of the Asia/Pacific region over the past 50 years. Better access to contraceptives and family planning services and increasing educational attainment have contributed to people having greater control over their life choices and has contributed to the fall of Total Fertility Rates (TFRs) towards the replacement level of approximate 2.1 children per woman across the Asia/Pacific region on average. TFRs remain over 3 children per woman in some countries in Central and South Asia, and across less affluent Australasian Island nations. In India and Indonesia TFRs are around replacement level, while in Australia and New Zealand they hover around 1.6‑1.7 children per woman, with immigration inflows slowing down overall population ageing in these two countries.

Over the past decades, women have increased their educational attainment and strengthened their labour market participation, which has increased their opportunity cost to having (more) children. If women have to choose between work and family, then some will choose (more) children and thus limit their labour force participation while others will choose paid work and fewer or no children. However, when women are able to combine work and family life this leads to better economic outcomes and higher fertility rates. Results from OECD-wide regressions found positive associations between TFRs, employment of men and women, public spending on parental leave and Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), and to a lesser extent financial support to households, which underlines the importance promoting gender equality and supporting both parents with their challenges to combine work and family commitments.

Indeed, across the OECD, but also in many countries in the Asia/Pacific region – e.g. through the introduction of paternity leave arrangements policy has become more focused on supporting families. In 2022, public social protection expenditure on children amounted to 0.9% of GDP across the Asia/Pacific region on average, compared to 2.1% of GDP across the OECD. Public spending on family benefits was highest in Mongolia at 4.6% of GDP with 2.6% of GDP spent on the universal cash benefit – “Child Money Program” and an estimated 1.4% of GDP on ECEC in 2022.

Without accompanying measures, financial supports frequently only have a transitory and/or small effect on fertility rates, and the effect is likely to be largest for those with low incomes. The introduction in 2005 and reintroduction in 2012 in Mongolia of the comprehensive Child Money Program reduced child poverty rates and contributed to an upswing in the fertility rate until in 2015 to 3 children per women, though the TFR had fallen to 2.7 by 2022. The universal Australian Baby Bonus that existed between 2004 and 2014 had a small but statistically significant impact on the fertility rate, with the biggest effects among immigrant women of low educational attainment.

East Asian countries such as Japan, Korea and Singapore, but also China and Thailand are facing persistently low fertility rates, that contribute to rapidly ageing societies. It is not surprising therefore, that in China, Japan, Korea and Singapore the overall family policy stance has changed from “population control” between the 1960sand the 1980s to “overcoming low fertility” nowadays. In these countries, it would also be prudent to consider how general policy can be adapted to a “low-fertility future”. Such a policy, which goes beyond family policy and the scope of this chapter – could involve immigration, bringing more under-represented groups (e.g. women, youth and older workers) into the labour force and taking measures to enhance their productivity to allay the economic and fiscal implications of a potentially shrinking workforce.

Personal choices towards having children depend on a range of factors. Consequently, a multifaceted policy approach is required to enable people to have the number of children they desire at the time of their choice. Solving one issue (e.g. support with care for children) may not address other barriers to parenthood (e.g. the cost of housing or long working-hours). The massive expansion of ECEC services in Korea is a case in point, it helps parents reconcile work and family commitments, but clearly there are other barriers to having children, for example low pay in non-regular employment, long working hours and/or the cost of private education that curtail the upward effect of public work/life balance supports on fertility rates. Indeed, public policy cannot do it alone. The workplace culture needs to change to help both parents combine work and family life in a financially rewarding way. Examples of relevant measures would include increasing career opportunities for mothers returning to the labour market and extending social protection coverage to more workers.

Finally, attitudes towards parenthood appear to be changing, albeit more slowly than across the OECD. Endorsement of conventional family patterns and gender roles has declined, but they remain more prevalent than in most OECD countries. There is an increasing number of young people in East Asia who support gender-egalitarian values, especially among those with high levels of educational attainment. However, as the reconciliation of work and family life is so hard to achieve, many young people in East Asia have fewer, if any, children today than in the past.