Why is fertility in decline around the world? What is the long term social impact of this decline? And why is marriage so central to fertility rates? We’ll discuss these questions and much more with our guest, University of Mississippi economist Dr. Clara Piano.

Dr. Clara Piano is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Mississippi. Her primary research areas are family economics, law and economics, and the economics of religion. She has won several grants and awards for her work, including the Women and Economic Freedom Grant from the Bridwell Institute and the Novak Award from the Acton Institute.



Episode Transcript

Scott Rae: [upbeat music] Why is fertility in decline around the world? What is the long-term social impact of this decline, and why is marriage so central to fertility rates? We'll discuss these questions and a whole lot more with our guest, University of Mississippi economist, Dr. Clara Piano. I'm your host, Scott Rae, and this is Think Biblically from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. Clara, welcome. So glad to have you with us. I know you're part of the Action University this week. But great to have you take some time out to talk with us about this really important subject.

Clara Piano: Thank you so much for having me, Scott.

Scott Rae: Yeah. So you, well, you are in the age range of folks that are being criticized for low birth rates, and full disclosure, you are married and have two kids of your own. So why is... What has sparked your interest in this subject, particularly as an economist?

Clara Piano: Mm-hmm. No, that's right. So I am married with two kids, as you said, and I, finished my economics PhD, right before, doing either of those things, but I was always interested in the role that the family played in society. It was very clear to me as I, left my own house and went to college, that, family life determined, a lot and explained a lot about the world that I saw around me, and so I wanted to study that, empirically and theoretically as an economist. I started that research in graduate school, and then, of course, I was lucky to have those experiences, right after graduate school, and so I have both a personal and a professional interest, and, it's really having that personal piece then has helped me, appreciate the fact that, we really can't raise children alone. We need tons of support, tons of help. I'm so blessed to have help from my husband and our families and our church and our, even our work environment, and, it's just been really fun to study this, really twenty-four seven in my life.

Scott Rae: Yeah, it sounds like you have a lab experiment going on-

Clara Piano: [chuckles]

Scott Rae: ... As we speak. So what does an economist bring to this conversation that we might not have heard? There's been a lot, a lot of the commentary on this, but what do you, what do you bring as an economist to this that we might not have heard from other folks?

Clara Piano: Right. So economists think about human decisions as rational, and that doesn't mean ethically or morally rational. What we mean when we say rational is just that as you perceive it, so that you perceive the benefits to outweigh the costs. And so I think that helps us understand fertility decisions in a different way, because we can say, "We're not gonna be, you know, judging this group or that group for these types of behaviors, but we wanna understand why. How did they perceive... Why did they think those benefits to that decision are outweighing the costs? What costs are they responding to?" And so I think it's important to first think about that, since, really the decision of whether or not to get married or whether or not to have a child or an additional child is such a personal decision, that's a really helpful lens to look at the problem through. And then we also are very empirically rigorous, and so we wanna know, we wanna control for things. We wanna know exactly why to drill down on those specific, right? What are the barriers to fertility in this context, or what are the things that are supporting you in that context? And that's been a really fruitful avenue of research.

Scott Rae: So would you, would you say that the primary obstacle to folks in, you know, sort of late millennial, Gen Z, cohorts, is economics for the, for this fertility gap?

Clara Piano: No. So I think about it in the sense of, well, there's a c- there's a couple of ways to think about the fertility declines in that, in that group, and one of the biggest ones is that we just have, a lot more opportunity costs, to children. So you have a lot more oppor-

Scott Rae: Which, which means-

Clara Piano: Right. Yeah.

Scott Rae: For the non-economist-

Clara Piano: Exactly

Scott Rae: ... Means what?

Clara Piano: Yeah, so this would mean you just have a lot of other opportunities at that age stage, where you would start to be having children. So historically, it was basically start having children, enter a convent or, you know, maybe work as a housemaid. And now it's not, you know, just those three options. I can start having children, try to get married, or I can, you know, really enjoy my work. I can travel. I can enjoy other leisure activities, go to concerts, right? And, and live on my own. I have-

Scott Rae: Save, save your money.

Clara Piano: I'm wealthy. Yeah, [chuckles] exactly. And so there are a lot of other options for people at that stage in life, which I think is a good thing. It's a wonderful thing to have a lot of education and a lot of prosperity. And I think the disconnect is actually happening in the marriage market. And so it's a question of, how are we finding that person that, will support us, and we support them in this, in this adventure, in this really hard work of, raising children? And I think that there's been a lot of the disconnect for young people there.

Scott Rae: All right. Now, we'll get back to that-

Clara Piano: Mm-hmm

Scott Rae: ... In just a minute, because that's a really important concept. But there, you know, we've had critics for a long time who have said we just have too many people on the planet, and I think this might be particularly true of some in the developing world. But, I mean, there's just a lot of, lot of conversation that we just have more people than the planet can support. So how can there be a fertility problem when it looks like the planet is on the verge of being overpopulated?

Clara Piano: ... That's right. That's a really old argument. So Thomas Malthus famously, pointed this out, hundreds of years ago at this point, more recently we had-

Scott Rae: Oh, I'm not suggesting his solution. [chuckles]

Clara Piano: No, not his solution. I mean, while the other solutions aren't, aren't good either, we have Paul Ehrlich writing about this and supporting things like forced sterilizations in developing countries. It can lead to actually some pretty ugly areas, this rhetoric about overpopulation. And so a couple of thoughts on this. So from the economic perspective, we tend not to say that there's an optimal level of population, because that's almost impossible to know. If you think about it, saying there's overpopulation means that some people decided to welcome a child into their family, and they shouldn't have, and that you know better than them. And as economists, we're pretty intellectually humble. We tend to think people closest to the problem know the problem the best, know the situation the best. So they had, you know, had, things in mind. They had a way to provide, for their family. And so, what we tend to think about when we think about overpopulation or underpopulation is either the economic consequences, and actually the economic consequences of underpopulation are really bad, and there's, And then also relative to desires, so whether or not people are having the number of children that they themselves say that they desire. And just to, kind of add some context to this is also the way that we measure unemployment. So we ask people not, "Do you have a job or not?" "Are you looking for a job," right? So here, when we're thinking about fertility, are these couples looking for a child? Are they looking to have a child? And a lot of people are looking to have children who are not necessarily able to start early enough or complete the desired number of children that they can have, and so we want to know what those constraints are. And so, just one more note on the economics of population as well. Julian Simon is a really, fantastic, economist who studied this, his book, The Ultimate Resource, and he also has, pointed out, and really convinced the whole economics profession that people are the ultimate resource. So even when there were concerns about overpopulation, we didn't actually understand the problem very well because it's only people who have ideas for doing more with less and for creating those opportunities for economic growth and human flourishing. So people are not gonna be the enemy when it comes to the economy, and it's actually pretty backwards to think about it that way.

Scott Rae: So a lot of anti-natal groups, some of, some of these, you know, population-restrictive groups, actually, I think, fundamentally see people as consumers.

Clara Piano: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Scott Rae: But you see them quite differently.

Clara Piano: Mm-hmm.

Scott Rae: What, what's the difference?

Clara Piano: Absolutely. So, we like to say that, you can see people as stomachs, you can see people as hands, right? So they're consuming things, or they're working. But economists go even further. We say the difference between a good and a bad economist, this is a quote from Frédéric, Bastiat, who is an economist, is that you see the unseen. And so we see people are minds that can create things and build things and do more with less, which is the foundation of economic growth is having an idea where I can actually save resources, or I can save money, and I can do the same amount, I can harvest the same field, but have a better, right, return, from that grain using that fertilizer, for instance, or the better technique. And so that knowledge is gonna be the difference. And so that's why humans, so to speak, are the ultimate resources because we have human minds and our bodies and our tacit knowledge that help us learn so much, and then, really, hopefully, we live in an economic system where we can use that knowledge to better the world around us.

Scott Rae: So in, so the economic system that somebody is born into, you were saying, makes a really big difference in whether they are seen as net producers or net consumers. Would that be a fair statement?

Clara Piano: Mm-hmm. That's right. So one of the important things to understand when we're thinking about the capacity for humans to, contribute to economic growth or whether or not there's a specific, maybe limit to a population in a setting, is the institutions and the rules of the game, we would say. So if you live in a system like the United States, for instance, we have a lot of protection relative to other countries, of private property and also of education. So, and you can basically, find a job that, you know, you feel called to, that fits your vocation, and pursue it and support your family and also invest in your house, right? In other countries, that's not the case, and so that tends to make it so that people tend to consume more because their property rights or their educational investments aren't as well protected. Why would you invest in your house and making it a beautiful property if it might get confiscated or if you can't pass it-

Scott Rae: Mm-hmm

Clara Piano: ... On to your children or sell it? It's, it's a rational decision in the sense then to just consume a lot of your property, but then that has the effect of, making it such that not as many people then are gonna be able to be sustained in that system.

Scott Rae: Yeah, I think that's, I think, a fundamental misconception, that is a, is a worldview consideration on how we view a human person and with the economic system that they are in, seems to me, makes a really big difference as to whether someone is... Can be seen as a net producer as opposed to a net consumer. And I can s- I mean, I think the anti-natalists, I think, would have a point if everybody was indeed a net consumer. But I think your point, I think, is really well taken, that's a, that's a wrong view of a human person.... And that we are f- we are fundamentally, creatures made in the image of God, that have things like creativity and innovation, and what I would call entrepreneurial traits-

Clara Piano: Mm-hmm.

Scott Rae: -that are part of what it means to be made in the image of God.

Clara Piano: Yeah, that's right. And I'll even say, if you think about, just the life cycle of a human person, right? We're very dependent, very much consumers for the first part of our life, and probably the end of our life, but it's really in that middle, in that working age, you know, sort of range, where you have a ton of productivity, and economists have measured that productivity out... It compensates for above and beyond, right? There's this abundance where you're providing more than you even consumed when you were a young infant and needed to be supported by others. So there's always gonna be dependence in society. There's always gonna be people who are consuming more than they're producing, maybe, but that's why, you know, those who can work hard-

Scott Rae: Mm-hmm.

Clara Piano: -and, we think that all people, of course, have that, dignity.

Scott Rae: So the... There is concern, I think rightly so, about declining rates of fertility. Is that primarily a Western phenomena, or is that more of a global thing?

Clara Piano: Good question. So a lot of people, have heard about the Western declining birth rates. It's a global phenomena, though. So, for example, India is now below replacement fertility, and, um-

Scott Rae: That's the, that's the last place in the world that I thought-

Clara Piano: It's the last place in the world that a lot of-

Scott Rae: Would, would be, that would happen.

Clara Piano: Yep. Even 20 years ago, people were very concerned that India's population would explode. And again, people, you know, in their own situations, tend to know how to make the decisions themselves. And so what you just see is that there are, have been some population restriction policies, but a lot of countries who are not wealthy or highly developed, so to speak, will have declining birth rates as well, and potentially aging populations. Asia is another example of this, with, like, Japan and, a lot of other countries. Even Turkey has a below United States fertility rate, and so this is definitely a global problem. The only part of the world that has, above replacement or really relatively high, fertility rates is Africa, and particularly Sub-Saharan Africa.

Scott Rae: I see.

Clara Piano: Mm-hmm.

Scott Rae: So what... Tell our listeners a bit, what's the problem that's created by a fertility rate that is below the replacement rate?

Clara Piano: Yep. So there are two main problems, and the first one I like to say is a problem of kind of there's a human cost, which is that, fewer people we know, based off of survey data, are gonna be having the family size that they would like to have. So that's on average in the United States, that's one missing child. People say they'd like to have 2.6, and they tend to have 1.6 on average. And so there's a human cost there in terms of fewer siblings, fewer cousins, fewer aunts and uncles to go around. Then there's also objective costs or economic costs. So governments are gonna be having a hard time raising enough tax revenue when they have a smaller working-age population relative to, a retired population, and so that's difficult. And then there's also gonna be costs in terms of, national security costs. You don't have as many able-bodied people, to fund, to kind of be in the military, for instance-

Scott Rae: Mm-hmm

Clara Piano: ... Or to, protect from, against aggression. And then there's also gonna be, costs in terms of living standards. And so when I teach this in class, I'll kind of give the example of, you know, what does it look like to live in a pop- in a world with fewer people? Well, we're gonna still have a lot of the things that we have, but a lot of institutions might close because they don't have enough consumers, or they don't have enough people who can provide the services. We're gonna see probably a lot more closures of small colleges, of different churches, of different organizations that just can't sustain themselves now that there are fewer people. Even small rural towns have started to empty in the United States, and then you're also just gonna see, where special services that we got used to are no longer going to be provided. So I'll give an example of, like, in groceries, there's a lot of gluten-free food available now, a lot of interesting companies that have tried to innovate on that front. Don't expect to see that in the future when you don't have as much labor. Um-

Scott Rae: Yeah, won't be as mu-

Clara Piano: There just won't be-

Scott Rae: Okay

Clara Piano: ... Enough of a market to sustain those types of niche products and services for people. And so the last thing, too, is that there are just gonna be fewer ideas. We know that how young a population, just holding constant, then the economic system, the youth of the h- population actually drives a lot of the innovation. So if you have a younger population, you're gonna have more patents- ... More new startups, whereas if you have a family to support, you're not gonna be starting that company.

Scott Rae: Or especially if you get to be a little bit older-

Clara Piano: Right

Scott Rae: ... And are looking retirement in the face. You know, you're sort of, you're rounding third base, you know, coming home.

Clara Piano: You want the stability- ... For understandable reasons, right? When you have people depending on you and yourself in the future. Mm-hmm.

Scott Rae: So what are you... What are some of the ways that countries in the West, and maybe in parts of Asia, too, are trying to incentivize fertility? And you know, you've commented that some of these things you think are actually quite counterproductive, or at least, or at least they don't work. So what are some of the ways peop- countries are trying to incentivize this, and why don't you like some of these ways?

Clara Piano: Mm-hmm. So there are a lot of overtly pronatal policies, but, I do wanna make the point that almost all policy is gonna have an effect on the decisions that families make, and specifically whether or not to get married or whether or not to have a child or to have another child. And so almost all policy does have some pronatal or antinatal effect. But there are some explicit ones that are, like, aimed at particularly, like, this, statistic trying to raise the birth rates. So Hungary is gonna be a big example here. They're gonna give big tax breaks to women with four or three or more children. And there's gonna be a lot of policies supporting childcare, for instance, in the Scandinavian countries, or giving long maternal leave. France had a policy for a while that if you were raising children, they would still pay into some of your, like, Social Security or, like, your retirement. And so lots of different things have been tried. Some of these are more successful than others, so I'll just say for the listeners, the childcare piece doesn't really add up. There's really not good evidence that, like, universal childcare from the state has any, positive effect on fertility. The other examples I mentioned might have minor positive effects, but certainly very large costs, which is a huge problem for governments right now. It's a very dangerous game to borrow money to try to increase your birth rate, when you're already borrowing a lot of money. And so the policies that I tend to favor are focused on helping families attain their goals. So helping families find work that works with their own family goal, which is maybe I want to have a lot of children and take off a few years or stay at home or whatever, you know, those different families will have different visions of what the good life looks for, looks like for them. And, just allowing that flexibility in the workplace, I think, is a really big component, because a lot of the constraint, I think, on fertility is, like I said, there's a lot of other great things to do with your time, and, showing people that you can still have a full and fulfilling life while you have children is really important. And now we thankfully have technology and jobs that can make that possible.

Scott Rae: Yeah, you know, a generation ago, that was self-evident, and that's no longer the case today. It's, it's a little bit disappointing to think that we have to make an apologetic for that, because, you know, I've told, I've told my own kids repeatedly, say there's nothing in my life is even remotely close to as satisfying as having been your dad. And I, and that's, that's, I think, a harder sell-

Clara Piano: Mm-hmm

Scott Rae: ... In some cases.

Clara Piano: It's hard to describe, I think, before you have kids, what it means to have a child. I've encountered nothing like it either. It is by far, it reorders your priorities. I've heard this from a lot of women, a lot of men, that it just puts everything into perspective, I think, in a healthy way, because then you're not, maybe idolizing your work or other pursuits like you did before. But I will say, I, so I'm lucky to have three younger siblings. I have one sibling who's much younger, and that's maybe the closest, is to, like, having a really young sibling who's just awesome and, you know, looks like you a little bit and it's, it's such an incredible pursuit and I think such a worthwhile use of time. And, I really do hope, again, that's why I emphasize that human point, that people who want to welcome children are able to do so.

Scott Rae: Now, you m- you make a great big point in your work about how central marriage is to fertility rates. Can you spell out that connection a little bit further? Because we have a lot... I mean, there's, the, you know, the number of single moms by choice has skyrocketed in the last 20 years or so. So it do- it doesn't seem like the single mother by choice is actually contributing to lower fertility rates. So what is so central about marriage? I mean, there's, think there's, we intuitively, from a Christian worldview, would like to think that there's, that that connection is really important.

Clara Piano: Mm-hmm.

Scott Rae: But empirically, what is that, what is, what does the data tell you about how important that connection is?

Clara Piano: Mm-hmm. There's a great new book with a ton of data on this, called The Two-Parent Privilege by Melissa Kearney. Highly recommended that or I would highly recommend that. But just to give you a quick synopi- synopsis, there's a lot of evidence that marriage is central to the decision, when it comes to having children, and because it takes two, right, to... It's a joint production, we would say, problem in economics, and, you need really that agreement. There's even been a paper showing that it's only once you have agreement between a hu- a husband and a wife, that you have another child, that they both say, "I would like to have another child," that you have the other child. And so, that cooperation is essential, and in the United States, so this isn't true in other countries, but in the United States, a large part of the majority of the reduction in fertility rates is because fewer people are married. So the married fer- of people who are married, fertility is actually pretty normal, but just fewer people are getting married, and it looks like it's almost a luxury. Like, really only highly educated people are getting married, and like you said, there's a big growth in single motherhood for people who have less than a college degree, and that's really difficult because maybe you can raise one child, you know, without a, his or her dad there, but it can be hard to welcome more children in those circumstances and have that support. Like we talked about in the beginning, you need a lot of support from, even, you know, the workplace, your religious organization, or whatever community you have. It's not fun to do alone. It's difficult. Or I shouldn't say it's not fun to do alone. It's great to do, to do regardless, but it's so much easier, on the mother special-

Scott Rae: Much more challenging.

Clara Piano: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so, there is a lot of, data that, kids tend to do better with having two f- parents at home as well.

Scott Rae: Now, well, I guess one final question on this, especially related to the marriage part: Given that marriage is also in decline, what, if anything, is out there that gives you hope for reversing this fertility decline?

Clara Piano: So I have a lot of hope because the desire is still there. I think people do inherently know that this is such a human, such a timeless and a wonderful thing to do, is to g-... To, you know, give yourself to the next generation, right? So I like to say, you know, having children will cost you everything, and that's a very good thing, right? It's, it's such a worthwhile project. And the fact that people do still say, "I would like to have more children than I have," I think gives me a lot of hope, right? We're not, I guess, working against the tide in that respect. Another thing that really gives me hope is actually the data I've seen in the United States when it comes to, the fertility of religious groups, but also just in terms of the fertility, when it comes to having economic freedom, to again, be able to find work and invest in private property, invest in things that help you have the stability that you need to have a family. Those conditions are not present in other parts of the world, and so I think have a lot to play in telling their story of very low fertility rates. The United States actually has the highest fertility rate, or one of the highest, of developed countries, and I think that's because we just have a cultural problem and not so many economic barriers to fertility. So [lips smack] I'm really hopeful that we can find a way to help families have, meet their family goals and experience this wonderful thing in life, and really, to focus on that marriage piece, right, to find people who, they wanna have children with and to build a life with them.

Scott Rae: Now, it sounds like that that, for a lot of women, finding that person that you wanna have a family with is trickier than it has been in the past.

Clara Piano: Yeah.

Scott Rae: Is that fair?

Clara Piano: I think that's right. And so there is a big literature on dating and what's going on in the dating market, so to speak, and it looks like, people do still wanna get married, but women tend to want to get married more than men. And this gets us into a conversation about what's kind of been, plaguing young men in the United States. They've been dealing with economic hardships, different difficulties with addictions, and, demoralization, really not being able to... Or participating, I should say, in social life in the workplace in as high rates as you saw in the past. And I think part of that is because they're not married, but part [chuckles] of that is because, of other forces. And so I do think that there, that's the heart of the problem, is how do you find, the person to have children with, the person who you look at them, you say, "Yeah, like, we can do this," you know? And so I'm, I'm hopeful that, different things, but especially religious organizations, I think, and educational institutions as well, can be more family-friendly and have a role to play here in revitalizing marriage and revitalizing the hope, for young people, to build a meaningful life.

Scott Rae: Yeah, I think this seems to me one of the, one of the great things that the Gospel has to offer, and the Church, the Church has to offer. And I think you're, you're right to see that that inclination to want to have children is just part of our God-given procreative constitution-

Clara Piano: Mm-hmm

Scott Rae: ... But I think is amplified if you have the religious beliefs, particularly, I think particularly from a Christian worldview, that undergird that and provide, I think, provide additional incentive to see this as just something that's part of the package of your maturity as a person, and also your maturity in your faith, to be responsible, to get married, to have children, to pass on a legacy to succeeding generations.

Clara Piano: Or even better, with a Christian faith, we believe that our children are eternal souls, and that's an incredible thing to be a part of, to participate in that. And so I... You can see how it's rational then, if you have that belief in the value of children, that religious people, Christian people, who are very active in their faith, tend to have higher fertility, right? Who wouldn't want more eternal souls, right?

Scott Rae: Yeah.

Clara Piano: Participation in that incredible work.

Scott Rae: Well, and I guess the chance as parents to shape those souls, and to, I think, provide the kind of stewardship for our children that God calls us to, is an extremely high calling. And I think in our churches, we definitely want to, we wanna see that emphasized and put forth in the future.

Clara Piano: Mm-hmm.

Scott Rae: So, Clara, this has been so helpful. This- I so appreciate your perspective on this as an economist, but you think in terms outside of just your field as well. So I hope, I'm sure our listeners find this helpful. This has been a great time just to be with you. Thanks for taking the time to, be with us.

Clara Piano: Thank you so much.

Scott Rae: This has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, offering programs in Southern California and online. Visit biola.edu/talbot in order to learn more. If you'd like to submit comments, ask questions, or make suggestions on issues you'd like us to cover, or guests you'd like us to consider, email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. If you enjoyed today's conversation with our friend, Dr. Clara Piano, give us a rating on your podcast app and share it with a friend. Join us Friday for our weekly cultural update. In the meantime, thanks for listening, and remember, think biblically about everything. [upbeat music]