Family, Fertility and Human Development is a joint initiative between CEHD and the Family, Household and Economy Research Center (FRAMECON) at the Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies (CIAS) at the Corvinus University in Budapest. This initiative will consist of a speaker series, workshops, and conferences held in Chicago and Budapest. Many different voices will be heard throughout this initiative, including those of economists, sociologists, and demographers.

Fertility decline is a global phenomenon, affecting nearly every country. While widely discussed in media and academic circles, analytically rigorous discussions often remain siloed within specific disciplines, applying field-specific approaches. There is, so far, no comprehensive synthesis and sifting of competing explanations. This workshop aims to convene leading scholars and analysts from around the world to discuss the causes and consequences of fertility decline and use rigorous data analyses to identify differences in fertility by socioeconomic status, religion, and culture. We seek their participation in these seminars in order to assess the causes of these trends, to evaluate the literature’s explanations, and assess the effectiveness of pro-fertility policies and other cultural factors.

We will carefully examine the data on marriage and cohabitation trends, and the sources of the trends, such as reduced marriage rates, reduced marital fertility, delay due to educational, and other career choices, and trends regarding environmental insults.

We will explore the lifecycle determinants of fertility, including:

• Educational attainment and sorting
• Opportunity costs of childbearing and rearing, such as foregone earnings and childcare costs and housing markets
• Macroeconomic considerations
• Tax and transfer policy

Because standard economic explanations often fall short in predicting trends and differences, we will thoroughly document their predictive power. Additionally, we will consider how evolving preferences for family and childbearing are influenced by changing perceptions of gender roles and alternative lifestyles. The impact of traditional values, future-orientedness, altruism, and religion will also be considered.

This is an evolving list. Discussions will be inclusive of multiple analytical perspectives as manifest through our initial workshops. The goal is to have a rigorous list of explanations and evaluations of policies and not a forced consensus as typical of many committee reports.

Our goal is a catalogue of different perspectives and an analytical synthesis. We seek a data-based genuine dialogue and not a forced consensus. Transcripts of discussions and positions will be a vital part of our project.