Work from home increases fertility

 Here's a recent paper showing that work from home (WFH) increases fertility, expecially if both couples work from home.  The proposed mechanism is that WFH offers increased flexiblilty for child care...

 Work from Home and Fertility  by Cevat Giray Aksoy, Jose Maria Barrero, Nicholas Bloom, Katelyn Cranney, Steven J. Davis, Mathias Dolls, and Pablo Zarate,  January 29, 2026
 

Abstract: We investigate how fertility relates to work from home (WFH) in the post-pandemic era, drawing on original data from our Global Survey of Working Arrangements and U.S. Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes. Realized fertility from 2023 to early 2025 and future planned fertility are higher among adults who WFH at least one day a week and, for couples, higher yet when both partners do so. Estimated lifetime fertility is greater by 0.32 children per woman when both partners WFH one or more days per week as compared to the case where neither does. The implications for national fertility rates differ across countries due mainly to large differences in WFH rates. In a complementary analysis using other U.S. data, one-year fertility rates in the 2023-2025 period rise with WFH opportunities in one’s own occupation and, for couples, in the partner’s occupation. 

 "Flexibility in when, where, and how to work – or the absence of such flexibility – is a potentially important factor in fertility decisions (Goldin, 2014, 2021). Jobs that allow work from home (WFH) typically offer more flexibility in these respects, making it easier for parents to combine child rearing with employment, and perhaps raising fertility. In this light, we investigate how realized and planned fertility relate to the WFH status of individuals and couples."

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 The FT has this on that: 

Could working from home solve the global fertility crisis?
New research shows allowing more flexibility to fit jobs around family could enable people to have more children   by Ashley Armstrong

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One can imagine that having both members of a couple work from home might raise fertility even more directly than through the prospect of increased flexibility for child care.   In that respect, WFH reminds me of Philip Larkin’s 1974 poem Annus Mirabilis:

“Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.”