The Family, Fertility, and Human Development Initiative addresses global fertility decline through a multidisciplinary lens. While this phenomenon receives widespread attention, current analyses often remain confined within individual fields.  The initiative features speaker series, workshops, and conferences in Chicago and Budapest, bringing together economists, sociologists, and demographers. Family, Fertility and Human Development is a joint initiative between CEHD and the Family, Household and Economy Research Center (FAMECON) at the Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies (CIAS) at Corvinus University in Budapest.

Our workshops convene leading scholars to analyze fertility decline’s causes and consequences, examining variations across socioeconomic status, religion, and culture. We investigate the sources of marriage and cohabitation patterns, including reduced marriage rates, marital decision paradigms, and delay due to educational, career, and social choices.

Key lifecycle determinants under study include educational attainment and sorting, opportunity costs of childrearing, macroeconomic factors, and tax policies. Given the limitations of traditional economic models, we document their predictive accuracy while exploring how changing gender roles and lifestyle preferences influence family choices. We consider the role of traditional values, future orientation, altruism, and religion.

This evolving initiative welcomes diverse analytical perspectives. Rather than seeking forced consensus, we aim to catalog different viewpoints and create an analytical synthesis based on rigorous data analysis.