Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“Until recently, economists — or at least development economists — assumed that birthrates were too high. While they rarely argued for this anti-natal premise, economists’ cost-benefit analyses routinely put ‘fewer births’ on the benefit side of the ledger. Since education, especially female education, seems to strongly reduce fertility, economists standardly named lower fertility as a major social benefit of education, especially female education. … Over the last decade, happily, economists have at long last largely abandoned their casual anti-natalism. Some top economists are now curiously talking about how to raise birthrates. Their tone, however, remains pessimistic …” (08/21/25)