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In the year of our Lord 2023 there are a few things we know about fertility. One, it’s down across the board. Two, pro-natal policies are expensive and don’t work (shoutout
). And three, it’s not feminism’s fault. In fact, feminism is likely our best solution.Allow me to explain.
For a long time, where female education and labor force participation increased, fertility decreased. Thus, many blamed feminism for fertility declines.
But this never really made sense.
First, because fertility had already dropped off a cliff by the 1970s, a decade in which feminism gained significant ground but fertility didn’t significantly drop.
The reality is that macroeconomic changes caused birth rates to decline and women to work outside the home, though at separate times for separate reasons.
Birth rates dropped over the 19th century because it got more expensive to have kids. Turns out a kid who works in a factory or farm is less expensive than one who’s in school.
And demand for female paid labor increased in the 1970s as male wages stagnated and inflation squeezed family pocketbooks, making women more profitable outside the home than within it.
Now it’s true that until the 1980s, average fertility decreased as three things increased:
1. Women getting educated
2. Women working outside the home
3. Average incomes rising
But a recent paper from Matthias Doepke shows that a funny thing happened in the 1980s. In many countries household income and female education began to rise more quickly than fertility fell. In fact, the relationship between women’s education and fertility is no longer consistently negative in a number of high-income countries. And countries with higher female labor force participation actually began experiencing higher fertility rates than countries where fewer women work outside the home.
This means it would be very stupid to attempt to raise fertility by trying to depress women’s education and/or labor market participation. First, it would deprive the US of billions, if not trilians, of dollars in economic growth.
And second because it won’t even work. Oh, and because women are people, not incubators, who deserve the right to choose our profession and whether or not to reproduce.
The paper also suggests some ways to raise average fertility that aren’t economically ruinous and might even work.
The paper shows that higher fertility correlates with high employment, labor markets where labor has a lot of power, and higher male incomes.
Again, it’s time to decriminalize work.
And lastly, fertility is higher in countries where men tackle a higher percentage of the childcare burden. That who does the bulk of the childcare should be determined by individual characteristics rather than genitalia is a central tenant of feminism. Thus a widespread adoption of this feminist idea can actually boost fertility.
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Yet another reason to decriminalize work: More babies