As the birthrate continues to drop, policymakers are exploring ideas of how to address it, including one-time payments per birth. While providing a one-time financial incentive to have a child may seem like an effective way to increase births, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the true costs of parenthood.
A better way to help people who want to have children is ensuring they have the resources they need to be able to afford parenthood. Families need to be able to take time away from work to care for a new child and people need time to care for themselves. And, families need a transformational solution to the rising costs of child care.
Paid family and medical leave ensures that parents can take time to be with a new child. It also means that parents can be present if a medical emergency happens for their own child, and in the case of women who give birth, provide time to heal and recover while still being able to afford to pay the bills. Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have paid family and medical leave, but unlike the rest of the world, the United States does not have national paid leave.
While some other nations do offer one-time baby bonuses, they also have paid leave. First proposed over a century ago, paid leave became central to European countries’ population rebuilding after the world wars. Over the years, these policies have been coupled with other supports critical to raising a healthy family, including healthcare, child care, and worker pensions.
Without national paid leave, millions of people in the United States find themselves at the mercy of their employers. About a quarter of women in the United States return to work just two weeks after giving birth. It is no surprise that people, regardless of political affiliation, support paid leave. Recent polling shows that support for paid leave may even sway voters in the next presidential elections.
Given the overwhelming cost of child care, families are also searching for solutions to reduce the cost of it. While some progress has been made toward making child care affordable and accessible to all at the state level, it has been in fits and starts. Until this policy goal is met, women will continue to exit the workforce, stifling or ending their careers and limiting household earnings, out of financial necessity.
THE ANTI-BABY DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Child care and paid leave also have the added benefit of helping women stay in the labor force, which is both good for the economy and is what most women want. Women make up nearly half of the labor force. Without women working, our nation’s GDP will suffer by the trillions.
If increasing the birth rate is critical to economic growth, the country will be much better served by policies that improve everyone’s quality of life while removing barriers to women staying in the labor force. Women need policies that reflect diverse family structures, and recognize the importance of a woman’s autonomy in decision-making about health, well-being, education, and career. And they need solid policies that ensure they can afford their lives, have time to enjoy being parents, feel safe, secure, and supported at work, and have hope for their future.
Gayle Goldin is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, previously having served as deputy director of the Women’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, during the Biden–Harris administration, where she provided executive leadership to the only federal agency mandated by Congress to focus on the needs of working women.