Missing children: can America duck the worldwide baby bust?

Washington Monthly, Dec, 2004 by Phillip Longman

After World War II, the GI bill dramatically lowered the cost of home ownership for millions of young Americans. Its educational benefits also allowed millions of men still in their twenties to start earning nearly as much as their fathers. The bill's purpose was not to create a baby boom in the United States. But that is what it did. There was no commensurate increase in birth rates after World War I or any other American war because there were no commensurate policies creating upward mobility among the young. The GI bill is a good example of how government policies, even when not explicitly pro-natal, can make the economics of parenthood less punishing and thereby enable more people to afford to raise the children they want.

Today, in both Europe and the United States, women coming to the end of their reproductive years report that they did not have as many children as they would have liked. Such statements suggest an implicit demand for children that is not being met. The reasons for this trend are complex, but many are clearly within the power of government to ameliorate.

Phillip Longman, a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, is the author of The Empty Cradle: Basic Books, 2004.