The decline in fertility across advanced nations is a well‐known fact. Becker famously argued that declining rates of childbirth were the by‐product of higher levels of economic development and human capital. Recently, it has been suggested that two additional factors might lead to declining rates of childbirth—the higher housing costs of expensive cities and the change in the nature of work and employment from more regular and secure full‐time work to less secure arrangements, like self‐employment. Our research examines the effect of these two classes of factors—housing costs and self‐employment—on fertility, in regard to both the rate of childbirth and the delay in the age at which people have children. We use detailed panel data covering all Swedish individuals in their prime childbearing years (20–45) for the 10‐year period 2007–2016. Our findings indicate that the likelihood of having a child is affected negatively by increased housing costs and positively by self‐employment. Both result in a delay in the parental age at which children are born. Of the two, self‐employment has a relatively large effect.

中文翻译：

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住房成本，自营职业和生育率

发达国家的生育率下降是一个众所周知的事实。贝克尔著名地指出，分娩率下降是经济发展和人力资本水平提高的副产品。最近，有人提出了另外两个因素可能导致分娩率下降：昂贵城市的住房成本较高，以及工作和就业性质的改变，从更常规，更安全的全职工作变为不太安全的安排，例如自主就业。我们的研究从生育率和生育年龄的延迟两个方面考察了住房费用和自雇这两类因素对生育率的影响。我们使用详细的面板数据，涵盖了2007-2016年这10年内瑞典所有主要育龄期（20-45岁）的个体。我们的研究结果表明，生育费用的增加对生育孩子的可能性产生了负面影响，而自谋职业则对生育可能性产生了积极的影响。两者都会导致孩子出生的父母年龄的延迟。在这两者中，个体经营具有相对较大的影响。