IMAGE: SRIJANA SHRESTHA
EVERY FEW decades an economist changes how you understand a topic. In the 1960s Gary Becker did this for families, treating children like objects and marriage like a deal between rational people. Claudia Goldin, who won a Nobel three years ago for explaining why women still earn less than men, has spent her life refining and sometimes overturning that idea. Her latest paper, first shared in September and revised in October, looks at birth rates themselves.
The question she studies is clear in every rich country and most middle-income ones. Birth rates have fallen sharply. In 23 of the 38 OECD countries, the average number of children per woman is now below 1.5—well under the 2.1 needed to keep populations stable. Japan, Korea, Italy and Spain are at the very bottom. Even France and Sweden, once exceptions, have dropped. Politicians talk about a fertility crisis. They offer cash for babies, housing help, paid leave and more. None of it changes much.
Goldin’s explanation is simpler and more uncomfortable. The main reason women have fewer children, she says, is their growing freedom. When women can choose whether to marry, when to have children and what work to do, they usually choose fewer children than their mothers did. This is not a failure of government programmes. It is women using their freedom. But it clashes with something harder to change: men’s behaviour.
The problem comes down to what she calls “matching problems”. A young woman deciding whether to get a law degree or an MBA knows a child will pause her career. How much it sets her back depends on her partner. If he shares childcare and housework, she can return to work and keep her career on track. If he does not she faces a big loss in income. Because she cannot know beforehand if a man will help, and cannot make a contract to force him to do so, having a child is a gamble.
In her model, women who study more will have a child only if the expected benefit is bigger than the certain benefit of staying childless. This depends on how many men are “modern” versus “traditional”, willing to share housework. When that number is low, educated women wait or skip having children. The first generation of American college graduates after the Pill, in 1955, saw 28% of women not having any children. That has fallen a little since but mostly because later generations learned—sometimes using reproductive technology—to have children later in life. They did not learn to trust men more.
Her model also explains differences between countries. Why do Sweden and France, with about 1.7 children per woman, have more children than Greece and Japan, around 1.3? All are rich, all have low child deaths and all have access to birth control and abortion. Goldin says the answer is economic growth.
She splits 12 countries into two groups. Group 1—Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, Britain and America—grew steadily through the 20th century. Group 2—Greece, Italy, Japan, Korea, Portugal and Spain—stayed behind for a long time, then caught up fast after 1950. In Group 1 birth rates fell slowly and now sit at moderate lows. In Group 2 birth rates first matched Group 1, then collapsed.
The story is about conflict between generations and genders. Men inherit old habits from their fathers; women adapt to today’s work world. When growth is slow, the difference stays small. When growth is fast, a 20-year-old woman in 1970 faces very different life conditions than her mother while her future husband keeps old ideas about housework. Data show that countries where men do less housework—Japan, Italy, Korea—have the lowest birth rates. Countries where men do more—Sweden, Denmark—have higher birth rates. It is not perfect but the pattern is clear.
This view does not fit current political debates. In America some talk about increasing birth rates instead of relying on immigration. Some states limit abortion and some call for men to act more “manly” at work. Goldin notes wryly that reversing women’s gains would likely reduce not increase births. If men stay traditional while women keep their careers, fewer women find partners who help. They will just have fewer children. The only way women have the children they want is if men take on more housework not less.
Her evidence for developing countries is less strong. India, Mexico and Brazil went from six or seven children per woman in the 1960s to two or fewer today. Access to birth control, lower child death,and media showing small families matter. But Goldin suspects the same problem exists: girls gain education, but boys do not gain house skills. This delays marriage and increases childlessness. In poorer countries the mismatch shows more among rural men without wives than among career women without children.
Why the sudden panic about birth rates even though most rich countries have been below replacement since the mid-1970s? Goldin suggests several reasons. Immigration limits create pressure: fewer arrivals means more births are needed. Some conservatives miss traditional family roles. But she also sees a subtle worry. When women lack supportive partners, families are smaller, later and more fragile. Women who wait too long regret it. Men who could be good fathers stay single. Children grow up with tired parents.
The solution is not to push women to have more children or fewer. It is about trust. Women need to know that if they have children, they will not lose the career identity they built. Governments can help with childcare and leave. But most of the change must come from men. Trust cannot be made into law—it must be shown in daily life, over years.
Goldin’s paper comes when the question about birth rates has changed. Becker asked why rich families had fewer children. Goldin asks why women with the most freedom—education, money, control over reproduction—tend to stop at one child or none. The answer is that freedom revealed a gap. Women spent the 20th century learning to run their lives. Men assumed those lives included a free housekeeper. Until men’s habits change, birth rates will stay lower than demographers or politicians expect.
Her final graph shows fertility against the gap in daily housework between men and women. The dots slope downward steadily. Japan and Italy are at the bottom right. Sweden and Denmark are at the top left. Goldin, who has spent 50 years studying women’s slow progress toward equality, does not call it tragedy or incentive. She notes simply that when women work two full-time jobs—one paid, one unpaid—they eventually stop taking the second job’s heaviest burden. ■
