A new report from the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute says the collapse in birth rates has less to do with housing costs or who does the chores and more to do with culture, peer pressure and attitude toward risk. The survey covered nearly 10,000 respondents across more than a dozen countries.
Lyman Stone, senior fellow and director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies, pointed to Brooklyn as an example of how culture, not economics, drives the outcome. “Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn have six kids each. Their hipster neighbors have 1.6 kids each,” Stone told Fox News Digital. “They live in the same economy. They have very different outcomes. Why? Different culture.”
The researchers also tested a popular theory: that men doing more housework would push birth rates up. They found no statistically significant link between family size and how chores are divided or how fair couples think that division is.
“There’s been a lot of research on, you know, ‘If men did more laundry, would birth rates go up? If men helped out more at home, would birth rates go up?’ And the answer is basically no,” Stone said. “The last 30 years have seen a revolution in involved fatherhood. Dads are doing more at home than ever before and fertility rates keep plummeting.”
Friends Matter More Than Policy
The strongest factor the study identified was whether people believed their friends would support them having a baby. That belief was tied to a 10% increase in desired family size and a 20% higher likelihood of intending to have another child. People who admired a celebrity with more kids than they had were 14% more likely to want another child themselves.
“All around the world, we just found that friends are really important,” Stone said. “Where peer culture ratifies and encourages family life, family life is more successful.”
The study also found a link between treating pets as substitute children and shrinking families. Respondents who said they’d rather be a “pet parent” than have kids reported a 30% lower desired family size and a 50% drop in intention to have more children.
“The animal is not the problem. The problem is the attitude,” Stone said. “That says that, you know, changing a litter box is truly as meaningful as changing a diaper. And I just have to tell you, it isn’t.”
Pessimism and Risk Aversion
Researchers also found that people who were more risk-averse, anxious about the future, or generally pessimistic wanted smaller families, while those comfortable with risk and optimistic about the future wanted and had more children.
“Some decline in fertility may just be because there’s bad vibes,” Stone said. “There’s just the internet constantly telling you that everything is bad, everything’s getting worse and there’s a million things to be worried about and you shouldn’t take any risks. I hate to tell you, but yeah, having children has a possibility of hurting you, both physically, financially and emotionally, in the long run… But there is also great reward.”
Parental encouragement showed up as a meaningful factor too. The study found it was associated with an 11% increase in desired number of children and a 30% increase in the likelihood of wanting another one. Encouraging childless, cohabiting adult children to marry was tied to a 14% higher likelihood of intending to have a child. Stone warned, though, that guilt trips don’t work.
“If you’re a parent and you want grandbabies from your adult children, you probably won’t get very far telling them that they owe you grandbabies,” Stone said. “But you may get somewhere telling them stories of how much you enjoyed raising them and how much fun you think you’re going to have helping them raise their children.”
Religion’s Role Is About Community, Not Sermons
Highly religious respondents had 9% more children and were 12% more likely to intend to have another one. But the study found no statistically significant link between hearing clergy preach about family and actual family size — the effect instead ran through friendship networks and practical support, like meals and celebrating a new baby.
“Where religion really does matter is it shapes the friendships people have. Religious people were overwhelmingly more likely to have friends who would be supportive of them having kids,” Stone said. “Religious communities are religious communities. They are places where people form friendships that create bonds of mutual support that exist almost secondary to the doctrines and theology of the organization.”
Stone’s takeaway is that reversing the birth decline doesn’t require Washington. It requires ordinary people choosing to encourage families around them.
“You matter to the people around you and you have influence on them,” Stone said. “You don’t have to wait for the government to pass a law to make a difference for family formation. Regular people can influence this just by being good friends, good neighbors, good parents, good leaders and good members of the community, and telling young families: ‘We’re here for you, we support you, we think this is a good and admirable thing to do.'”
