Sweden passed the 9-million registered inhabitant mark last week. This fact is only of interest to those who are simultaneously enthralled by the decimal counting system and by numbers that have a large and nearly equal proportion of fives and twos as their prime factors — also known as base 10 numbers with lots of trailing zeroesThe nearest number to 9 million that is remotely of any interest is the 602,489th prime, 8,999,993..
But there is news buried in this “news”. That horde of babies currently rampaging through Stockholm’s streets? They are not (merely) the figment of your hormonally-laden imagination as you careen inexorably towards the end of your child-bearing years — there are real statistics to back up your suspicion that there is an inordinate number of children being made of late.
Statistics Sweden, the closest there is to a God keeping score, has all the raw historical population data, and also provides us with a running monthly population update. I used both to construct this souped-up spreadsheet, from which I made the pretty charts you see below.
I used monthly data from 2003 and the first half of 2004 to make a seasonally adjusted, annualized projection for Sweden’s total 2004 births, deaths, immigration and emigration figures. With this projection, the data suggests the following interesting (to me) conclusions:
1. There is a clear baby boom underway. There will be 16% (!) more live children born in Sweden this year than just 5 years ago (a projected 102,225 live births in 2004, compared to 88,173 children born in 1999, which was the trough year of the most recent Swedish baby “bust”). When placed in conjunction with the below-trend death rate of these past two years, Swedes will manage to raise their numbers by 0.14% this year purely through their procreative prowess.
2. Net immigration has long been the main driving force behind Sweden’s population growth. It was the only source of growth from 1997 to 2001, when Sweden experienced more deaths than live births. For 2004, net immigration is projected to outpace net procreation (live births minus deaths) by a factor of almost two to one (23,630 to 12,721, or 0.26% year-on-year to 0.14%).
3. This most recent baby boom has nothing to do with echoes from previous baby booms. Just look at the spacings of the peaks and troughs: Sixteen years between the 1944 peak and the 1960 troughSweden did not participate in WWII, so Swedes did not have to wait for the men to return home before getting busy; also, note the lack of a spike in the death rate — not necessarily something to be proud of.; 19 years between the 1964 peak and the 1983 trough, as women started having children later; but only 9 years between the 1990 peak and the 1999 trough.
This latest upswing is due to entirely different factors — one theory I’ve heard is that this downswing came artificially early as couples refrained from having children amid the recession of the early 90s. Then, apparently, these couples were suddenly too busy having careers in the IT-stoked boom years of the late 90s, and postponed children again. Whatever the reason, there is now a backlog of “barnnödig” qv the truly excellent word kissnödig. couples, and they’ve all simultaneously decided to have their children now, before it’s too late.
One other possibility: The parents of these couples, born during the WWII baby boom, are all at retirement age, which means there are far more grandparent-hours available for child minding that the couples can tap into as they try to keep their careers on track. This might be a crucial incentive.
“barnnödig”!!!
tihi!
Estonia has also reported a healthy uptick in babies – put down to renewed optimism as a European country, not a Russian vassal.
There is no sign, however, that Germany, France or Italy are following suit (or Japan, Hong Kong or Singapore). It should be noted that among all these countries, Sweden has the most pro-mother social policies, and indeed its replacement ratios had never plumbed the depths of Italy or Germany. France has been in between.
This suggests, although not conclusively, that such pro-mom policies do matter, at least on the margin. Stefan’s suggestions about why Swedes are now procreating more may hold more sway, but Sweden’s government has also laid the groundwork to encourage parents to pull the trigger.
If so, it also suggests that poor demographics are really about women choosing not to have babies, not about increasing populations of the aged, and so efforts such as Singapore’s to encourage match-making (the government will pick up the tab on romantic nights out) are wide the mark. It’s not about romance, lah.
Hello, I’m a student in the U.S.(In Model United Nations, representing Sweden) looking for valuable information on Sweden’s (A) Foreign Policy (B) Immigration Policy and (C) Population Policy. Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.