"With fertility rates now well below replacement levels throughout the developed world, several OECD governments are directing their attention to policies that may lessen the obstacles to childbearing that confront families. This paper provides an overview of recent trends in fertility rates and what is known about their determinants, including various public policies. Dynamic panel models of total fertility rates are then estimated using two different specifications: the GMM-system estimator and the pooled mean group estimator. The regression results confirm that a number of policies (e.g. transfers to families with children and leave provisions) and institutional factors (e.g. characteristics of the labour market) significantly affect childbearing decisions, suggesting that a better policy mix could contribute to raising fertility rates from the very low levels they have reached in several OECD countries."

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