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A lot of ink (or is it pixels?) has been spilled about falling fertility rates in the U.S. We hit a low of 1.62 births per woman in 2023. This is quite a bit behind the needed replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman needed to maintain a stable population. For the better part of the past 80 years, our birth rates have declined, but it has become particularly acute between 2007 and 2020, falling 20 percent in that time.
Depending on what corner of the internet you spend time in, the proposed solutions to this problem are more government subsidies, cultural solutions, or time machines. The odd thing is that the
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desire for children has not waned .
The puzzle is that women do want to have more children. Women between the ages of 20-24 and born between 1995 and 1999 report wanting to have 2.1 children on average. This is essentially the same as women at the same age born in 1965-1969 who reported wanting 2.2 children.
The decline in fertility rates seems to be tied to the opportunity cost of spending time and resources on education and career.
However, the market has already developed a solution that can help. Susannah Barnes
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gives us the lowdown on Labor Market Matters . Flexible work arrangements provide more opportunities for women wanting to have children and participate in the labor market. The gig economy, remote work, and other flexible work arrangements tend to lead to more pregnancies.
During COVID, when many entered flexible work arrangements, we saw a slight increase in pregnancies. In California, the fertility rate was 5.1 percent higher during the pandemic than it was prior. Policymakers should be hesitant to crack down on these flexible work arrangements that are a result of the market.
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Ben Brophy
Director of Marketing
Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Topics & Issues
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Chevron deference has fallen , but that does not mean things will get better immediately, says Patrick Mclaughlin.
Why do certain democracies endure? Ben Klutsey and Josiah Ober tackle this question in the latest episode of
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Pluralist Points .
India is fast becoming a digital powerhouse. But the Draft Digital Competition Bill threatens to hamper firms that aspire to become global technology leaders, as Shruti Rajagopalan and Shreyas Narla explain in their
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latest commentary .
Steven Kelly on the financial stability implications of the discount window
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in the latest episode of Macro Musings .
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