In the early days of his second term, President Donald Trump has worked to crack the code on America’s fertility drop and reverse falling birth rates. Describing himself as the “fertilization president,” the pronatalist Trump has reportedly floated everything from doling out $5,000 checks to mothers after delivery, to awarding a “National Medal of Motherhood” to mothers with at least six children, to lowering the cost of in vitro fertilization (IVF) drugs.
“We want more babies, to put it nicely,” Trump said at a Michigan event in October.
Future-of-work experts have a different idea. They’ve found evidence that one way to boost lagging fertilization is to cut commutes and have people work remotely. A new study led by Stanford University economists, including remote work expert Nick Bloom, found that from 2023 to early 2025, realized fertility (the number of children one has in a given period) was 14% higher when both partners worked from home one or more days per week compared with when neither did. The study used data from the Global Survey of Working Arrangements and U.S. Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, analyzing more than 11,000 respondents between the ages of 20 and 45 living in 38 countries.
“Both datasets reveal clear evidence that realized fertility, plans for future fertility, and total fertility are greater for respondents who WFH at least one day a week,” the researchers wrote in the study.