A few weeks ago, John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times returned to the theme of demographic transition and recalled a point that almost always passes: A is not uniform. It is deeper among secular and progressive groups, while communities with maintains rates closer to replacement. The question is how to create an environment in which those who want to have children can do so without making the decision into a burden to different groups.
A recent Working Paper helps organize the discussion. Sebastian Galiani and Raul Sosa simulate population trajectories and show that the composition weighs more than the average. In dividing the population by religion, subgroups appear with fertility above the replacement and strong transmission of values to children.
These groups gain participation throughout the generations, raising the replacement factor even with national average below 2.1. In the United States, heterogeneity arises in religious cut, not racial or ethnic. In global exercise, there is no collapse of the aggregate, there is change of composition. Are preliminary results of 2025.
The point is institutional and cultural: norms that value children, combined with belonging, reduce the subjective cost of having the desired number of children. This environment may exist in religious communities, but it can also be cultivated by progressive neighborhoods, collectives and organizations.
Microeconomic literature spells out the bottlenecks. Mikucka and Rizzi, with Swiss data in panel, show statistically significant drop in mothers’ life satisfaction in the two years after their second child, especially where they lack and child care.
Among men, the effect is positive, which indicates that overload results more from the division of tasks than from an inevitable destination. Myrskylä and Margolis document the peak pattern and adaptation in the first child in the UK and Germany, with more benign well-being impacts when parenting is postponed for ages with more time and income. Money helps, but time and network weigh more.
The community component sews the table. Research by Pew Research Center and OECD data show that places with high associative participation and religious practice have higher fertility even after basic controls. Local networks reduce coordination costs, organize care exchanges, create reliable information, and set standards that validate parenting. It is this logic that the simulations of Galiani and Sosa capture: when values and networks support the family, fertility resists and composition changes over time.
Public policies matter, but they work better as support than as a substitute for community life. There are low friction measures that release local action: Flexible journeys to reduce the cost of time, give legal certainty to varied care formats, use neutral instruments for families to choose neighborhood solutions, accreditation and home arrangements, support parents and grandparents in light regime.
The role of mothers remains central and the load remains disproportionate, conditioned by time, predictability and social norms. Governments can remove barriers and protect and expand arrangements that already work. The rest depends on how we organize our own standards: groups of friends, neighborhoods, schools and workplaces can share care, adjust schedules and make children welcome in everyday life.
If the goal is to have more children without penalizing those who have them, it is worth prioritizing freedom of choice, time available and active networks. Progressive communities can also cultivate pro-joint norms; Demography will follow what we practice.
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