Birth rate policies should focus on fertility preferences, not numbers, expert says
While the Trump administration has floated policies such as financial incentives to raise national birth rates, experts quoted in a Sept. 20 Newsweek article argued that the focus should instead be on ensuring that everyone is able to fulfill their fertility preferences.
“Any time we see people being able to make fertility choices that suit their family, I think that’s a success,” Margaret McConnell, associate professor in the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in the article.
“There are a lot of people for whom reductions in fertility represent their true preferences. They were able to go to college and get a higher degree or take a longer time to choose a partner,” McConnell said. “And therefore, of course, if you start having children at a later age on average you may end up having fewer children.” The article also noted that the birth rate decline is largely driven by fewer births to mothers in their teens and early twenties, which are often unintended.
Still, there are many people who would like to have bigger families but face fertility, financial, or other challenges, McConnell said. “There are different ways you could address that—making it more available and equitable for people to receive help if they’re not achieving their ideal fertility. And potentially making it easier to have children across many dimensions—economic, social, cultural.”
She added that these solutions will not necessarily solve the “fertility crisis,” but they would help individual families for whom fertility issues are a problem.
Read the Newsweek article: The Good News Hidden in the Birth Rate Decline
Learn more
America’s declining birth rate: A public health perspective (Harvard Chan School Studio video)
