Lots of factors discussed.
Misuse of the word fertility. IMO decided not to have children has nothing to do with oneās fertility. Bad reporting IMO.
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Agree. Iād use the term birth rate as opposed to fertility rate. Maybe fertility in general has declined as well, or numbers are skewed by the number of people waiting until later in life to try for children.
I guess one could argue that the norms of the past - where we were supposed to marry young and pop out lots of kids and birth control didnāt exist - at least had the benefit (?) of maintaining the number of future workers and contributors to pension plans. 
Perfectly correct usage actually.
āFertility in colloquial terms refers the ability to have offspring. In demographic contexts, fertility refers to the actual production of offspring, rather than the physical capability to reproduce, which is termed fecundity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born during an individualās lifetime.ā
Fertility - Wikipedia.
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Funny how they removed the word āwomanā from the definition and explanation.
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Hey if they want more babies, just do away with monogamy.
Well I guess they could have talked about sperm and eggs, both have to perform for conception. The women get to do the work.
Quite interesting choice of image by lenews.ch. I would have expected the pic of a future mom with baby tummy or a newborn baby, not a pregnancy test.
Back to the topic, Iād just point to the marriage tax penalty.
More seriously, men can control the fertility rate byā¦doing housework. Society collapses not because foreign invaders but because not willing to clean around the house, cook or keep track of utilities invoices 
Medically speaking, fecundity has also dropped in developed countries to a record low. Last month I saw a scholar article referring specifically to the decline of viable spermatic content in seminal European samples (historically compared). There are some other scholar publications presenting evidence that women are also paying a toll on their fecundity due to endocrine disruptors, oxidative stress and obesity ratesā¦
Not forgetting the exorbitant cost of everything.
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In Switzerland there are not so many women with obesity. In USA obesity is incomparably higher but fertility rate is better.
hi TinyK, I would like to see those numbersā¦ 
i reckon fertility rates might be segmented by ethnicity and age, which will be a telltaleā¦
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Plus men are not men anymore. THey are lost somewhere in the lgbtqrs syndrome
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I always thought that a lack of fat in women lead to infertility (below certain values even the periods stop) but the high amount of fat is ok.
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I think the same thing is true at both ends of the scale.
This thread really got off-trackā¦
The Swiss need to decide whether or not low birthrate is an issue they want to fix. If they do, there are probably extreme cultural and educational changes that will need to happen before anything changes.
Unfortunately it was proven that ābenefitsā (maternity leave, tax exemptions, etc.) arenāt increasing birthrate in a population meaningfully.
Thereās only one country in the western world where birthrate is still strong, and itās mainly due to culture.
This is the crux. Why is the low birth-rate a problem? Because of the ageing population? Increase the birth-rate and you are only going to increase the problem. Those babies are going to grow old. So you increase the birth rate againā¦
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I guess the question is what level of population do you want to maintain. If fertility rates decline, then you quickly have a collapsing population. As a country without nuclear weapons, ultimately this makes you vulnerable to more populous neighbours.
I knowā¦ Why not bring in forriners by the thousands? That is how a lot of countries in Europe solved the problemā¦
Oh wait!
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Where is this āprovenā?
Women are penalised for having kids in most countries. At best, there are half-hearted tweaks to maternity leave and maybe some tax breaks in some countries but childcare is often scarce and exorbitantly expensive, and womenās career prospects are held back.
If you are looking for evidence for low birthrates, I would say your starting point is shit maternity support. I was asked at every job interview about childcare whereas my husband has never been asked that question.
If you want better birthrates, you need to beef up support for parents.
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