Many countries have decided to take matters into their own hands and, to support families, implement fertility initiatives intended to increase fertility and social spending. With the United States’ fertility now below replacement level and new CDC numbers showing births falling again in 2022, some U.S. policy-makers seem interested in following suit.
U.S. policy-makers have proposed a variety of subsidies for children and families. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D., Ill.) recently introduced legislation to cover federal employees’ in vitro fertilization and reproductive assistance, and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) proposed heavily federally subsidized child care earlier this year. Senators Mitt Romney (R., Utah) and Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) have each proposed monthly payments to families with children, with Romney’s proposal citing falling birth rates specifically.
Unfortunately, outcomes of fertility initiatives abroad suggest that U.S. policy-makers are unlikely to meaningfully boost fertility through government programs or increased social spending. By 2015, more than 50 countries stated that their goal was to raise fertility. Yet there are no modern examples of a developed country raising fertility to replacement levels and sustaining it there.
Moreover, countries with explicit fertility objectives, from Estonia to Singapore, have been unsuccessful in meeting and maintaining far more modest targets than the “replacement rate” of 2.1 children per woman. For example, Japan implemented a range of new fertility initiatives and set its target total fertility rate at 1.8 in 2016, yet total fertility fell from 1.44 to 1.3 in the years following. South Korea implemented ambitious fertility reforms and set a target total fertility rate of 1.5, yet Korea’s total fertility fell from 1.21 to 0.81 in subsequent years.
Hungary has received significant recent attention for its ambitious approach to fertility, but despite the country’s spending an enormous 5 percent of GDP on fertility initiatives, it is not on track to achieve Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s goal to achieve replacement-level fertility by 2030. Notably, although Hungary’s total fertility has grown in recent years, fertility in neighboring countries has grown similarly over the same time, without major interventions.