Study: Flexible work arrangements could boost birth rates

New research spearheaded by Stanford’s Nicholas Bloom reveals that increased work flexibility may significantly affect family decisions regarding parenthood and child-rearing.

The Details:

The study purports that remote work arrangements during COVID-19 spurred greater fertility rates among dual-earner couples, undoing a long-haul decrease in births seen in the U.S. The study ultimately concludes that if the Trump administration and cultural conservatives want more babies to be born, facilitating more remote work opportunities could be a step in the right direction. 

An abstract of the Bloom study claimed:

“Respondents who [worked from home] at least 1 day per week had more biological children from 2021 to early 2025, and plan to have more children in the future, compared to observationally similar persons who do not WFH.

Respondents whose spouse or domestic partner works from home also report higher recent and planned fertility. When both partners WFH at least one day per week, our results suggest that total lifetime fertility is greater by 0.2 children in our global sample (0.18 in our US sample), as compared to couples where neither partner engages in any WFH.”

Likewise, a report from The Hill stated, “Women with remote options were more likely to report plans to try for a child. New research on dual-earner couples shows how schedule control translates into realized family plans.”

Highlighting the importance of time in influencing couples’ decision to have children, The Hill continued:

Hybrid work changes a binding constraint every week without a massive fiscal outlay. When one or both partners gain even one remote day, time reappears. That time lets a parent keep a job through a rough pregnancy, attend a 2:30 school concert, or start dinner at 5:30 instead of 6:45. The evidence on flexible work and fertility intentions reinforces that flexibility moves the needle because it attacks the real constraint, which is not so much money as it is time.

When flexibility arrived suddenly during the pandemic, births among U.S.-born women ticked up, reversing a long decline. Newer work explains why: when couples can allocate time more sanely, they follow through on family plans. Pair that with the global stabilization of hybrid work and you get a practical lever, not a fad.

In comments quoted by Newsweek, Bloom stated that the study unravels that working from home “encourages couples to have children,” with the potential to boost fertility rates.

Bloom added:

“This is hardly surprising, as being able to work from home 1 or 2 days a week makes childcare easier. You can more easily drop and pick up kids from school, take them to occasional appointments and supervises nannies. By saving about 1.5 hours on commuting, people that work from home have a lot more time, making it easier to have kids.”

Elaborating, Bloom asserted (emphasis added) “Allowing the roughly 50 percent of Americans that can work from home at least one day a week to do so could increase fertility in the U.S. by perhaps 100,000 babies a year.”

Warning about how full-time office roles could dampen people’s desires to have more children, Bloom said that "push[ing] employees into a full, five-day return to the office... could reduce fertility rates by perhaps 100,000 a year compared to a regime of strong support for hybrid and remote work."

The Bottom Line:

From pro-life viewpoint, the Bloom study reinforces the stance that policies boosting childbirth and parenthood, such as flexible work arrangements, can boost population growth. This highlights that whole decisions surrounding family size can be positively affected by pro-natalist policies and work environments.