BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM
According to certain political movements, the solution to falling fertility rates sounds simple: women should leave the workforce and start producing more babies. But Nobel Prize-winning economist Claudia Goldin suggests the opposite may be true. Her latest research argues that the real fix lies not in rolling back women’s progress but in men stepping up at home in heterosexual relationships.
“Why have a child if it means giving up one’s future income and security and the child’s security?” Goldin asked while presenting her findings. Her analysis shows that countries where men shoulder more of the housework and child care tend to have higher birth rates.
Two groups, two outcomes
Goldin’s paper divides nations into two camps. In Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, the UK, and the United States, fertility rates are relatively low but not bottoming out. In Greece, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Portugal, and Spain, birth rates are among the lowest in the world.
The difference? Time. In Sweden and Denmark, the gap between men’s and women’s unpaid domestic work is under an hour a day. In Japan and Italy, women spend about three more hours than men on unpaid care and housework. Unsurprisingly, many women in those countries delay parenthood or avoid it altogether. In South Korea, the global low point for fertility, rigid gender norms have fueled a movement known as 4B, where women are rejecting both marriage and motherhood.
What women want before having kids
Globally, women’s educational and professional opportunities have risen steadily. In the United States, women have been half the workforce since 2000. Yet even with more women in the labor force, fertility has not automatically recovered. Goldin argues that the deciding factor isn’t women’s independence but the reliability of their partners. “The real downside or obstacle is the need for husbands and fathers to reliably demonstrate their commitment,” she wrote.
In other words, before starting families, women want assurance that they won’t carry the entire load.
The policy backdrop
Supportive policies such as subsidized child care and paid leave certainly matter, but they don’t offer a holistic solution. Japan, for example, offers extensive fertility treatments and generous paternity leave, yet its birth rates remain among the lowest. By contrast, cultural expectations in places like Scandinavia, where men regularly share domestic duties, correlate with healthier fertility rates.
In the U.S., numbers show the gap is narrowing: in 2023, 74 percent of men reported spending time on household activities compared with 65 percent a decade earlier. But women still spent more time on housework and an extra hour on child care when children under six were in the home.
Why putting pressure on women won’t work
Calls from political figures for women to stay home and produce a “baby boom” miss the point entirely. Goldin warns that “reversing progressive change” could backfire, pushing rates even lower. After all, women who have invested in education and careers are unlikely to abandon both without real support from their partners.
A path forward
If nations want to raise fertility, the data suggests it’s not about medals of motherhood or nostalgic appeals to tradition. It’s about equity in everyday life. That means more men doing dishes, rocking babies at 3 a.m., and treating child care as a shared responsibility.
As Goldin’s research makes clear: fertility is not just a woman’s issue; it’s about partnership.
