Does Remote Work Increase Fertility?

Andrew Johnston

No 35881, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Does working from home increase fertility? I study the 2020 expansion of remote work by comparing changes in births across U.S. college graduates whose majors differed in pre-pandemic teleworkability. Measuring exposure by college major avoids relying on occupations workers may have chosen in response to the expansion. Among married women, a one-standard-deviation increase in teleworkability reduced annual birth rates by 2 percent and increased full-time employment by 1.3 percent. I find no statistically significant effects on fertility among men or unmarried women, or on marriage or divorce. Accounting exercises suggest that increased employment can explain about half of the decline in births. The results suggest that returning to pre-pandemic telework levels would raise the total fertility rate by 0.09 births per woman.

JEL-codes: J12 J13 J16 J22 J81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-10
Note: CH LS PE
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