LONDON — Across much of the world, fertility rates are sliding to historic lows. In many high-income economies, women now have 1.5–1.8 children on average, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. At the same time, millions of white-collar workers have traded daily commutes for home offices. These two shifts — the “baby bust” and the remote-work revolution — are usually discussed separately. But in a new working paper, my co-authors and I suggest that the ability to work from home is quietly pushing up birth rates.
Of course, remote work on its own will not reverse decades of demographic decline. But in a world where conventional pronatalist policies are as costly as they are inefficient, giving people greater flexibility over where they work is emerging as one of the most promising and affordable ways to help them have the families they claim to want.
Over the past half-century, global fertility has more than halved, from around five children per woman to about 2.25 today. In many rich countries, fertility has fallen below the replacement level and, in some cases, is approaching 1.3 — the level at which a population halves within two generations. At the same time, survey evidence shows that women in richer countries still say their ideal family size is a little above two children.
The gap between desired and actual family size can be attributed to several factors. Young adults stay in education for longer and, once they join the working world, face a precarious job market and high housing costs. Many people now delay partnership and childbearing until their 30s and 40s, running up against biological limits.
Moreover, marriage rates have fallen sharply since the 1970s, and in societies where births out of wedlock remain rare, fewer marriages mean fewer babies. Women must also contend with the well-documented “motherhood penalty”: after the first child, women’s earnings and employment drop relative to men’s, especially where child care is scarce and work is inflexible.
In a bid to close this gap, governments have offered incentives like cash payments, tax breaks and childcare subsidies. But while generous baby bonuses can bring births forward by a year or two, they rarely lead to increases in family size. Addressing the work-family tradeoff, however, shows more promise.
One way to do that is through remote work. After the Covid-19 pandemic forced many people to work from home, the practice became more common in white-collar industries. In many high-income countries, roughly one-quarter of paid workdays are now completed at home, up from around 3 to 5 percent before 2020.
My co-authors and I used new survey data from 38 countries and the United States to study how this shift affects fertility. We found that among adults aged 20 to 45 who work from home at least one day a week, actual births since 2023 and planned family size are higher. That is especially true when both partners in a couple have this flexibility.
In the 38-country sample, estimated lifetime fertility when both partners work from home at least one day a week is about 0.32 children higher (roughly 14 percent) than for couples where neither does. In the US, the corresponding gap is 0.45 children, or about 18 percent.
Our estimates imply that current work-from-home arrangements account for just over 8 percent of US births (around 291,000 babies a year). They also suggest that fertility rates in countries such as Japan, South Korea, France, Germany, and Italy could rise by 2 to 5 percent if their remote-work levels were on par with those in the US, the United Kingdom, and Canada. While not a magic bullet for demographic challenges, such a shift would be much more effective than expensive pronatalist packages.
The reason is hardly a mystery. Working from home reduces commuting time, makes it easier to manage school runs and doctors’ appointments, and gives parents more control over the rhythms of their day. For women, in particular, it can lower the career costs of motherhood: they log the same number of hours, but can more easily tailor their schedule to child care arrangements.
These benefits align with the broader findings on effective demographic interventions: policies that reduce the time and opportunity costs of child-rearing — including childcare, parental leave that does not permanently derail careers, and flexible work — work best. Remote jobs are, in effect, a decentralized, market-led version of such a strategy.
If policymakers are serious about addressing demographic decline, they should view remote work as a useful tool, rather than a temporary curiosity. That does not mean mandating it or forcing firms into a single model. But it should mean removing obstacles to remote work and supporting infrastructure that enables it.
In many middle-income countries, expanding high-speed internet access outside of major cities could broaden job opportunities and make it easier for parents in smaller towns to take up remote roles. Labor regulations, tax rules and social-insurance systems should also be updated to ensure that workers who spend much of their week at home are properly covered and protected.
For employers, the message is that well-designed hybrid schedules that allow at least one or two days a week at home can support both productivity and family formation. Firms that offer such arrangements are not just being nice; they are investing in a more stable, satisfied workforce.
Supporting remote work is not a substitute for the more challenging tasks of ensuring adequate parental leave and making childcare accessible and affordable. But to boost fertility, policymakers should focus less on baby bonuses and more on worker satisfaction. Giving employees — particularly the highly educated ones at the forefront of fertility decline — more control over their time would yield demographic dividends without breaking the bank.
Cevat Giray Aksoy is the lead research economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and an associate professor of economics at King’s College London.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2026
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