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In brief: Why are less people having children in France?

09/17/2026

4 min

The decline in births has become one of the major economic and social challenges in a number of developed countries like France. It is often summed up by using a single statistic, the fertility rate (average number of children per woman) yet, according to a new analysis by researchers from UCLouvain, IÉSEG and the Université Libre de Bruxelles, published in the journal *Regards Economiques (in French), this way of approaching the problem misses a crucial point.

“This trend is not just a question of fewer children per family,” explains Thomas BAUDIN, professor at IÉSEG and Director of the Lille Economics and Management laboratory (UMR‑CNRS 9221). “More and more people are simply not becoming parents. Childlessness — in the sense of having no children over our lifetime — is therefore no longer a marginal phenomenon. It is becoming a central component of contemporary low fertility.”

For France, the most recent available estimates suggest a strong increase in this trend. According to INED (National Institute for Demographic Studies) figures for 2025, under fertility conditions seen in 2023, 73% of women would have at least one child along their reproductive life, which implies a period childlessness rate of 27%. This compares with 14% in 2012.

“This does not mean that 27% of today’s young women will necessarily remain childless, since this indicator is sensitive to shifts in the age women have their first child; but it nonetheless shows a marked fall in the number of women planning to become mothers,” adds the expert.

According to the researchers, this trend deserves to be analyzed further, because it points to mechanisms that are sometimes different from those that explain the reduction in family size.

“Deciding to have a second child is not the same as becoming a parent for the first time,” the researchers note in their article. “The first child often involves a sequence of conditions: meeting a partner, forming a sufficiently stable couple, having suitable housing, feeling economically ready, being able to reconcile work and family, and not postponing the project of having a child for too long. When these conditions are delayed or weakened, postponement can become permanent.”

Why is this trend increasing in several countries?

France is far from the only country affected by this trend, which Thomas Baudin says is also seen in Belgium, South Korea, Denmark, Finland, Japan and the United States, for example.

According to the researchers, there is no single universal cause and “several mechanisms combine, with different weights depending on the country.” For example, it has become more common and acceptable to live alone, while rising housing costs have also impacted the plans of families.

We also see a gap between the increase in women’s opportunities and the persistence of a traditional division of household tasks. “More women are graduating, more are present in the labor market, and they are more attached to their economic autonomy. But in many countries, the daily burden of childcare is still predominantly female.”

Finally, the researchers note that it has also become “more socially acceptable” to live without children.

What can policymakers do?

Faced with this trend, researchers note that it would be tempting for public authorities “to look for a single solution” (for example through family allowance schemes, parental leave or housing policies…). “All of these measures can be useful, but they do not always address the same problem.”

The fact that people do not have children can result from several factors but beyond these, “the goal should not be to push individuals to have children, nor to set a desirable level of fertility.”

“In a liberal and democratic society, some people may not want children, and that choice must be respected,” they add. “The public (policy) problem lies elsewhere: in the gap between the number of children people would like to have and the number they can actually have, and in the very unequal conditions under which that choice can be made.”

According to the experts, a legitimate family policy should therefore aim at three forms of equality: equality of treatment between future children, equality of parenting conditions between social groups and between women, and finally equality of professional opportunities between parents and non-parents.

“This approach allows us to move beyond the opposition between pro-natalist policies and respect for individual choices,” they conclude. “The aim is not to convince everyone to have children, but to ensure that those who wish to can do so without being penalized by their income, gender, job, or social background, and without compromising their children’s living conditions.”

This is a translation of an article originally published in French.

*Baudin T., de la Croix D., Gobbi P. E. (2026). Sans enfant : un nouveau visage de la basse fécondité, Regards économiques, Focus 38.