School choice, remote work, and overtime flexibility are three policy initiatives a new report says could help boost the birthrate among married couples.
The report, "Education Freedom and Work Opportunities as Catalysts for Increasing the Birth Rate Among Married Couples," was released Monday by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and presents the case that school choice programs, as well as flexible overtime policies and remote work opportunities, would reduce the "opportunity costs" associated with raising children. The report was written by Heritage experts Lindsey Burke and Rachel Greszler and University of Virginia sociology professor and American Enterprise Institute fellow Brad Wilcox.
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"Creating the conditions for family flourishing, including conditions that support increasing the married birth rate, require new approaches to early childhood education and care, advanced education, and workforce policies. Couples will be more likely to have the number of children they desire if they can be confident that they will have good and affordable educational options for those children," the document reads.
The report notes that the national birthrate and the national marriage rate have declined nationwide amid an increase in "women's educational attainment" and that income for women has increased steadily over the past decade, suggesting the source of the decline is not necessarily linked to financial stability, but rather opportunity costs — that is, the possibilities forgone to raise children. The report concludes that school choice, remote work, paid family leave, and flexible overtime work policies will also incentivize families concerned about the cost of raising a child to have children.
School choice assists in overcoming these costs, the authors note, by providing families with a means to provide their children with a private school education through their own taxpayer funds, which they already provide to the public school system, which may be teaching concepts that do not align with a family's values.
"Research indicates that children attending private schools, especially religious schools, are more likely to get married as adults, and more likely to stay married," the report reads. "The benefits of education choice accrue to some of the most important aspects of families’ lives and could increase the marital birth rate."
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In addition to adopting school choice, the report calls for eliminating regulations on child care and preschool providers, amending the Fair Labor Standards Act to encourage more employers to provide on-site child care services, and enacting several reforms to the federal student loan system aimed at reducing debt that could discourage people from starting families.
"Pursuing new, commonsense approaches to education reform and work-family policies, from early education and care through higher education and workforce flexibility, will encourage the conditions for family flourishing and increase the married birth rate," the report's conclusion reads. "Public policy should support families as they form and grow and can do so through reducing government regulatory overreach, by directly funding students instead of institutions, and by removing barriers to a flexible workforce. Ultimately, these reforms support families as they nurture their children to become productive members of a free society."