Taming the declining birth trend in OECD countries: persistence in the number of births and birth rates

This paper examines the number of births and birth rates in a group of 38 OECD countries using fractional integration. Using annual data from 1950 to 2021, the results indicate for the number of births significant positive trends in the cases of four Latin American countries (Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile and Mexico) along with Israel, while negative trends are detected only for Japan and Portugal. In case of the birth rates, there are no positive trends, and negative trends are found in 10 countries, with the highest values corresponding to Italy, Finland and Japan. This latter country is the only one where mean reversion is observed in the two series. For the rest of the countries, the orders of integration are equal to or higher than one. Thus, Japan is the only country displaying transitory shocks. Policy implications of the results obtained are reported at the end of the paper.