Because the data show that fertility rises in societies where domestic labor, caregiving, and economic risk are shared rather than placed primarily on women.
Claudia Goldin writes:
Women see greater gains from more equal gender relationships… Men often have stronger attachment to traditions that entitled them to expect more household labor from their wives. Women, on the other hand, become more unburdened as economic development proceeds. … Women spend more time with their children by sacrificing their careers or lowering their incomes and becoming economically vulnerable. If they are divorced or separated, they and their children may suffer. Knowing this in advance, they often resist having more children — or any at all.
Modern women have real choices for the first time in human history. When the economic risks and domestic labor of parenting fall disproportionately on them, many logically choose fewer children.
In the past, they simply did not have this choice. The quiet conclusion of the paper is that people plan ahead, and when the costs of parenthood fall unevenly, fertility falls too.
Quote Citation: Claudia Goldin, “Babies and the macroeconomy | NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH”, May 2025, https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w33311/w33311.pdf