Looking for a way to boost fertility rates, which are sagging across most of the globe?
Let people work from home.
Remote work has led to a 5% increase in fertility in the U.S. and Northern Europe, estimates Nicholas Bloom, a professor of economics at Stanford University and expert on remote work. The correlation is strongest among women 30 and older who have college degrees and already have one kid.
One reason is because working from home makes childcare more feasible, Bloom told Fast Company.
“There is a whole range of things—taking your kids to the dentist, the orthodontist, the doctor, going into school when there’s an issue, picking them up early—that [you can’t do] when you have to leave the house at eight and you’re not back till six,” he said.
Of course, couples who work remotely also have more opportunities to get pregnant.
“Particularly once you’re 30-plus, 35-plus for sure, conceiving starts to get a little harder—it’s about timing, etc.” Bloom said. “Working from home makes it easier.”
The fertility benefits of working from home are especially strong when both parents are remote.
In couples where both partners work from home at least once a week, women can expect to have an average of 0.32 more children than women in couples where neither partner works from home at all, Bloom and his co-authors found in a study published earlier this year.
Unlike other policies intended to boost fertility, such as offering couples financial incentives, remote work policies “actually work,” Bloom said.
“It’s the Babe Ruth of fertility policies,” Bloom said. “There’s nothing that even comes close to it.”
It also happens to be free.
“It’s free for the government, it’s free for companies, and employees like it,” he said.
Working remotely can also improve parenting outcomes by giving parents more time with their kids without reducing their paid working hours.
Another study in the Netherlands even found that kids whose parents work from home scored higher on a high-stakes standardized test.
“If you’re not at home, they could be at home with three friends smoking weed,” Bloom said. “It’s much easier to monitor.”
“It’s a lot harder for them to get up to no good if you’re in the house than if you’re not.”
