<p><strong>Variations in fertility have caused a problematic situation in Sweden among other European countries. According to </strong>the Council of Europe we are facing an economic and demographic challenge, when the baby boomers of the 1940’s are retiring. <strong>Economists have for a long time studied the connection between economic factors and fertility, and several studies have found a correlation between business cycles and birth rates. This connection is again of current interest 2008, when a financial bubble bursts at the same time as a baby boom occurs. A similar event happened in 1992 when the latest baby boom occurred at the same time as a financial bubble.</strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>This study investigates the correlation between real disposable income, employment among women, the price development of small houses, family policies and fertility during the period 1960-2008. The conclusions are reached by studies of earlier research and literature on economic theory of fertility. In the analysis theories and the results of earlier research are compared to empiric macro data taken from the Swedish Statistical Agency.</p><p> </p><p>The conclusions are that a causal relation between economic factors and fertility exists, but it is not obvious; is fertility affected by variations in economic factors or the opposite? Employment affects both women’s income and their entitlement to parental benefit, which means that fertility and female employment are closely connected. Both financial bubbles and baby booms arise from the same psychological factors, which are rarely explained in economic models. When the Swedish parental benefit was introduced it had two effects; first it made the average age of women having their first baby increase, and secondly fertility became more closely connected to business cycles.<em>  </em></p>

Variations in fertility have caused a problematic situation in Sweden among other European countries. According to the Council of Europe we are facing an economic and demographic challenge, when the baby boomers of the 1940’s are retiring. Economists have for a long time studied the connection between economic factors and fertility, and several studies have found a correlation between business cycles and birth rates. This connection is again of current interest 2008, when a financial bubble bursts at the same time as a baby boom occurs. A similar event happened in 1992 when the latest baby boom occurred at the same time as a financial bubble.   This study investigates the correlation between real disposable income, employment among women, the price development of small houses, family policies and fertility during the period 1960-2008. The conclusions are reached by studies of earlier research and literature on economic theory of fertility. In the analysis theories and the results of earlier research are compared to empiric macro data taken from the Swedish Statistical Agency.   The conclusions are that a causal relation between economic factors and fertility exists, but it is not obvious; is fertility affected by variations in economic factors or the opposite? Employment affects both women’s income and their entitlement to parental benefit, which means that fertility and female employment are closely connected. Both financial bubbles and baby booms arise from the same psychological factors, which are rarely explained in economic models. When the Swedish parental benefit was introduced it had two effects; first it made the average age of women having their first baby increase, and secondly fertility became more closely connected to business cycles.