EUI researcher Marion Breton, from the Department of Economics, has always been interested in climate change, gender, and health related issues. Her desire to study the link between climate change and fertility decisions grew as she increasingly heard some people around her, in the childbearing age, commenting that, due to climate change, they did not consider the world as a welcoming place to give birth and raise children. Following this remark, Breton started to wonder whether concerns for the state of the environment could partly explain why some couples do not want children and, therefore, why there has been a decline in fertility rates in Europe in recent decades.
“There are also other reasons to explain Europe’s declining fertility – the lack of economic opportunities for example. However, I realised that the connection between climate anxiety and decline in fertility had not been explored enough by previous research. As this topic links several of my research interests, I decided to investigate it,” comments Breton.
Her study focuses on 168 regions covering all EU countries. Her methodology uses both statistical data on birth rates and survey data measuring the level of concern for climate change. Breton quantifies ‘climate change concern’ by the share of inhabitants in a region who consider climate change as one of the top two priorities for government policy.
The EUI researcher underlines that environmental awareness has become more widespread in Europe over the past 15 years. She recalls that in 2003, public worries about climate change were still low, with 3.5% of the European population worried about the climate. However, the percentage went up to 18.5% in 2019, reaching 41.6% in Northern Europe.
Going more deeply into her methodology, the researcher explains that she uses heatwaves as an ‘instrumental variable’ serving as unexpected weather shocks to measure the increase in people’s ‘climate anxiety’. Breton explains that “heatwaves might influence birth rates not only by primarily raising climate anxiety, but also by increasing risks in child delivery or by reducing couples’ sexual activity.’’
To distinguish the psychological effects of climate anxiety from the biological and physiological impacts of heat on fertility, she analyses two separate periods: 2003–2011, when environmental concerns were relatively low in Europe, and 2012–2019, a period characterised by heightened climate anxiety. By applying this method, Breton’s first findings show that heatwaves significantly increase the share of climate anxious inhabitants. Her initial findings indicate that a 10% increase in the share of climate-anxious inhabitants is associated with a 7.3% decline in birth rates in the 2012-2019 period.
“My first analysis reveals that the level of anxiety or concern for the environment seems to play a significant role in the decline of fertility rates in Europe,” she explains. “People generally need a sense of stability and positive prospects to be willing to have a child. Together with economic recessions or periods of political instability, climate change introduces uncertainty about the future. The prospect of an increasingly inhospitable climate appears to deter couples from having children.”
The researcher specifies that her approach of using heatwaves as an ‘instrumental variable’ to predict climate anxiety and to compare regions with low and high levels of climate anxiety leads, however, to a challenge. In fact, this method assumes that the impact of increased climate anxiety on birth rates is uniform across all European regions and remains constant over time. However, in reality, these effects may vary depending on regional contexts and temporal dynamics. Therefore, at this stage, the researcher underlines that she only has ‘suggestive evidence’ that climate anxiety negatively impacts fertility in Europe.
Breton has now started to work on a more advanced technique – the ‘synthetic control method’ (SCM) – that would allow her to reveal what birth rates would have been in the regions of her study without the climate anxiety effects on their inhabitants. This new method will give her a ‘region-specific effect’ and therefore more robust evidence to determine whether climate anxiety truly influences fertility decisions in Europe.
If the SCM confirms her hypothesis that worrying about climate negatively impacts fertility, from a policymaking perspective, “the right approach would not be to incentivise people to have children while downplaying their environmental concerns, but rather to acknowledge that climate change has become a major factor influencing fertility decisions and prioritise adapting the retirement system while ensuring the stability of the healthcare services.”
Breton adds that “the fact that individuals reconsider parenthood due to environmental uncertainty underscores the urgency of addressing climate change with the financial commitments and concrete actions it demands.”
We asked the EUI researcher if she believes that the low fertility rates of many EU countries could somehow be compensated by children of migrants and refugees, if Europe would introduce more welcoming policies towards them. Moreover, refugees reaching Europe are sometimes forced to leave their countries due to extreme climate events.
According to Breton, large waves of permanent climate-induced migration may not materialise, as many displacements tend to be short-term, with people hoping to return home if conditions in their countries improve.
Nevertheless, she specifies that “climate change is likely to exacerbate existing migration patterns,” adding that “from a social and economic perspective, migration presents an opportunity for Europe, particularly in countries facing persistent low fertility rates, such as Italy, Greece, and Spain.”
She concludes that the greater challenge lies in political and social acceptance. The increasing influence of far-right parties, she notes, raises doubts about whether European societies will embrace migration as a viable solution to demographic decline.
The EUI researcher is currently based in the United States for an exchange period at the University of Arizona, an opportunity she had thanks to her co-supervisor, former EUI Professor Laurent Mathevet. At the University of Arizona, Breton is working with environmental economists Ashley Langer and Derek Lemoine. While her stay in the US is not directly linked to this research, this experience has given Breton the opportunity to expand her research project. In fact, she has recently launched a survey on her research topic at the University of Arizona Social Science Lab targeting US undergraduate students, who will become the future generation of parents.
"Previous research suggests that Americans are less worried about climate change, compared to Europeans,” comments the EUI researcher, adding that this might be due to the existence of wide income inequalities in the US, leading part of the American population to focus first on financial security and only later on environmental concerns.
“In the hierarchy of needs, economic security comes first, and only once that is ensured, people start considering other issues, such as climate change,” adds Breton. She specifies that a similar pattern exists in Europe. In fact, climate anxiety is felt more strongly in northern Europe, compared to southern and eastern Europe, as in northern countries financial issues are less of a problem for most of the population.
As Breton is currently living in the US, she is also eager to comment on how Donald Trump’s return to the White House might affect climate policies. She first points out that the US government recently removed access to several publicly available federal datasets - particularly those related to climate change, gender, diversity, and inclusion. “This is deeply worrying, as our department at the University of Arizona has been directly affected, and we can no longer access important data on climate change,” she adds.
Commenting on President Trump’s stance on climate policy - especially on his decision to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement - Breton believes that this announcement, as one of Trump’s first actions in office, set the tone for Trump’s approach to environmental issues. On the one hand, Breton is concerned about the irreversible consequences that Trump’s policies may have. On the other hand, she believes that “the more provocative Trump is, the more energy he might give to those who disagree with him to mobilise.
In other words, Trump’s policies may push Democrats, environmental organisations, and other institutions towards more ambitious climate actions than they might have had if the President in power were less provocative and extreme.”
“The overall global impact will depend on how other political leaders will react, in Europe but not only, and whether they will decide to fight climate change even more or to align with the US, slowing down the general effort,” she adds.
While her time in the United States has provided valuable opportunities to expand her research and reflect on broader climate policy challenges, Breton remains focused on understanding how climate anxiety shapes fertility decisions in Europe. By strengthening the empirical foundation of her research with the ‘synthetic control method’, she hopes to contribute to a deeper understanding of how climate change influences personal and demographic decisions.
Marion Breton is a researcher at the EUI Department of Economics. Her thesis title is ‘Essays on the Impact of Climate Change on Individual Behaviour’. Marion works on her doctoral research under the supervision of EUI Professor Andrea Ichino.