Couples who work from their garden office or from home in general at least one day a week are having more children and planning larger families, says a new study of around 40 countries.
The research, co-authored by King’s College London academic Dr Cevat Giray Aksoy, indicates a strong link between remote work and birth rates. Researchers estimate lifetime fertility increases by an average of 0.32 children per woman when both partners work remotely for at least a day per week compared to the case where neither does.
The data also suggests that in the US, current remote work levels account for a meaningful share of births, about 8.1 per cent of US births in 2024 which equat4s to 291,000 babies. In England, findings imply that current work-from-home arrangements explain about 6.2 per cent of births in 2024, roughly 35,400.
Roughly 54 per cent of university-educated adult workers work from home at least one day a week.
The researchers attribute the findings to the flexibility that remote jobs offer, easing the time and co-ordination costs of combining paid employment with child-rearing. They also say that expanding remote work opportunities could offer an important oppportunity for nations struggling with shrinking/ageing populations.
"The ability to work from home is quietly nudging birth rates up," said Dr Cevat Giray Aksoy. "Remote work will not reverse decades of demographic decline on its own. But in a world where conventional pro-natalist policies are expensive and often disappoint, flexibility over where we work is emerging as one of the most promising and cheapest ways to help people have the families they say they want."
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