The surprising connection between housework and fertility rates

The headlines are hard to miss: women around the world are having fewer children. There are many factors at play, including rising living costs and greater access to contraception. But why have fertility rates fallen faster in some countries than in others?

According to Claudia Goldin — a renowned economist and 2023 Nobel laureate — the answer has a lot to do with the division of housework. In countries where men contribute more at home, women tend to have more children. In places where men do less, the opposite is true.

One reason for this, Goldin argues, is that women often consider how much their partner will help with housework and caregiving before having kids. If they expect that their partner won’t contribute much, they may be less likely to have more children. And these expectations may loom especially large in a country like the United States, which offers virtually no caregiving supports like paid parental leave or subsidized childcare.

Goldin noticed this pattern while studying countries with “low” fertility rates — around 1.6 births per woman — such as France and Sweden. She compared them to the “lowest-low” countries, like Spain and Italy, where fertility rates are closer to 1.3 births per woman.

In the latter, women spend significantly more time on housework and caregiving than men. South Korea offers a striking example: it has the world’s lowest fertility rate at 0.72 births per woman, and women devote almost three more hours each day than men to domestic labor. By contrast, in Sweden and Denmark — where fertility rates are much higher — that chore gap is less than an hour.

Yet even in countries with moderate fertility rates, the division of domestic labor is still far from equal. Women in the United States continue to spend almost two more hours daily on household work than men. And our 2024 Women in the Workplace report shows that women in corporate America still do far more at home than men.

While the situation might seem grim, the good news is that closing this gender gap is possible. We already know what makes a difference, like providing affordable childcare and paid parental leave. These kinds of supportive measures can pave the way for greater equality at home and ensure that having kids doesn’t come at the expense of women’s careers.