It’s typically the case that as wealth goes up, the fertility rate goes down. This is in large part because of greater female participation in the labor market and therefore higher costs associated with raising a child. Research from Stockholm University shows that Sweden bucks this trend.

The researchers examined people’s income throughout their life and found there was a clear link between higher accumulated income and the number of children couples have.

“The very richest men have the most children and this pattern has grown stronger over time. The higher the income, the more children. Increasingly, men who have a very low income more often have no children at all,” the researcher explains. “It’s not that the richest have a lot of children, but more often they have two, three or four children compared to those with lower income.”

A changing pattern

The data also reveals that the pattern had changed significantly for women over time. For instance, those born in the 1940s and 1950s were more likely to have children if they had lower incomes. This trend then reverses among women born in the 1960s and 1970s, where higher incomes were linked with a higher number of children.

The findings are a stark contrast to the situation in many high-income countries, where it’s more common for those with lower incomes to have a higher number of children. The researcher believes that this is probably due to societal changes in terms of both working life but also crucially Swedish family policy, as this means that women don’t have to choose between having a career or children.

“What you see is a transformation from a society where women to some extent had to choose between having a career or having children to a society where they no longer have to make these choices,” they explain. “Previously, women with lower incomes had more children, while women who made a career got fewer children. Women with very low income were often housewives then, but they may still have had a high household income if they were married to a husband with a high income.”

Lack of children

The researcher explains that the data is also skewed somewhat by the tendency of those with very low incomes to have no children at all in Sweden. What’s more, this pattern has grown stronger over time, which the researchers believe shows that economic factors play a key role in whether to have children or not.

“It is expensive to have many children—you need a bigger home, a bigger car and so on,” they explain. “The state can help cover part of the costs, but with higher housing prices and other changes in society, a high income helps to afford many children. Today, an increasing number of women and men with lower incomes in Sweden choose not to have children.”

The author argues that modern family policy in Sweden increasingly fails to ensure that everyone, regardless of their personal income, can start a family.

“One goal of Swedish family policy has been to provide financial support for people to have children. When you see increased socio-economic differences in childbearing, it seems that the family policy of today is not able to do so to the same extent as before. Childbearing appears to have become more polarized. This is a societal change that should not be neglected,” they conclude.