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Claudia Golden is talking a lot about children during the last one year.
79 -year -old Harvard University Professor, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics for Research on Women’s History in Labor Markets in 2023, is recently investigating the birth rate. The subject has been a region of focus for Trump administration and billionaire Elon Musk, which indicates a decline in the form of threat to the US birth rate for economic growth, while they push against the immigration that can offset it. “The decline in almost all developed countries has been going on for nearly 40 to 50 years in almost all developed countries,” Goldin told her office at Cambridge, Massachusetts in early July. ” “So why are we talking about it right now?”
In a paper published later last year, “Babies and the Macroeconomy”, Golden dug down fertility rates in developed countries, which causes less than others. To start, she notes, economists have completely struggled to explain why the birth rate has fallen into the board with increasing income and improving the standard of living. Golden currently investigates by focusing on two groups of rich nations. The first -Gras, Italy, Japan, Portugal, South Korea and Spain – The total fertility rate in recent years is very low. For example, in Japan, until 2019, the approximate number of average woman’s children was only 1.36 in the years of her child’s birth. The second group -Dadmark, France, Germany, Sweden, UK and America -are highly moderate rates. In Sweden, on the contrary, the total fertility rate was 1.7.
What is behind these different results? Golden identifies a thread connecting very low birth rate countries. Since the 1950s, their economies suddenly moved forward, and did not get a chance to capture gender norms around the child? A abduct is that women with careers in those countries still tolerate comparatively large burden when they have children, making children less attractive.
The difference turns into data on gender inequalities in domestic work. In Japan in 2019, women spent about three hours more per day than men taking care of home and children. In contrast, in Sweden, this figure was only about 49 and minutes.
In a comprehensive interview with Bloomberg Markets, Golden speaks of birth rate, the remaining obstacles for women in the workforce and many economists now about the integrity of American government economic data. The interview is edited for length and clarity.
Siobhan Wagner: Have you now done a study on children and macroeconomy?
Claudia Goldin: I was asked to give a meeting in Germany to European Central Bank last September. I usually do not accept many invitations. This was to entertain a group of people that I thought had spent a full day talking about interest rates and inflation and complex macro models.
But in addition, if you look back at my Nobel address, there is a line that says something about the fact that in a period of rapid change, women often benefit and men begin to decrease relatively. But they lost because the person who was keeping the house is going now [to work outside the home],
Also, there was a wonderful paper of 2008 [“Will the Stork Return to Europe and Japan?”] In the journal of economic perspective, by Feyrer, Sacerdote and Stern. This determines the perception of a u shape [a graph showing fertility versus] Participation of women labor force. The least developed countries are still here [on the left-hand side]—He birth rate, per capita low income – and then you get more developed countries [at the bottom of the graph]And then you also grow a bit [on the right-hand side]So Sweden and America are over here [with higher birth rates] And Spain and Italy are here [at the bottom],
So the question was why? And my little model started solving it.
SW: Paper generated a lot of things.
CG: I wrote another [for the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium in late August]I am giving a spinoff there, called “The Downside of Fertility”.
SW: What is going to happen about it?
CG: This is about the decline in breeding. It begins with a very simple statement: the decline in breeding is everywhere. And the second point is that today the decline in almost all developed countries has been going on for about 40 to 50 years. So why are we talking about it right now?
The negative side of reproduction almost always worries about the change in women. It is that women autonomy, women freedom, women everything is expanded. This often begins with the ability to control fertility to control someone’s breeding fate. But it is also a case with more education, with the ability to work with greater capacity, there are other sets of rights that come in that bolt women.
SW: Your “infants and macroeconomy” paper saw the impact of the economy on fertility rather than a flip side: how the birth rate affects the economy. Is there anything that you have learned to say, say, there can be a growing birth rate on the economy?
CG: I have learned one thing: it is impossible to find a real answer. [Brown University economist] David Vel, who is my known person on it, has written a wonderful piece [called “Replacement Fertility Is Neither Natural Nor Optimal Nor Likely”]So the rate at which we reproduce ourselves, 2.1 [total fertility rate] Figure – It is not telling us anything that this is the right thing.
In addition, there are other problems. There is another go-to person on it [Stanford University researcher] Charles Jones, who writes papers on these subjects, whether we are moving towards wiping ourselves as a world.
And its background is the fact [that] Many are very, very smart people who write models and study whether to be more young is more inventable. If you bring down the reproductive rate, you are changing the percentage of people in each age group. If there is a slowdown in technology due to having more older people, then you are actually changing the growth economy, only macroeconomy.
SW: When I talk to women in their 30 and 40s, who say that they do not want children, is one of the common things that they say that they are concerned about overpopulation, or climate change, or wars and other instability. Is there any way for you to track that it can be a reason that there is a decline in birth rate?
Sw: I think it’s a good thing.
CG: I do not think that today anyone truly believes that there is “overpopulation”. They can assume that there is climate change. There are many things about which we should think about the citizens of this world. But in 1972, when I graduated from Graduate School, everyone was talking about it: it is a terrible time to bring a child into this world because there is overpopulation. We are not peaceful people. We killed all these beloved people in Cambodia and Laos and Vietnam. We do not have a government that we trust. Think about Watergate. It was a moment when people were saying so [there’s overpopulation]They actually produced children.
SW: I think there is a problem with some surveys on this subject. It is occupied by a moment in time, and then you can change your brain completely or see a completely different view from a week from a week.
CG: When I talk to women-and this is a small survey-what they want is not: Should I ever bring this child into a warm world? This is really: do I have resources? Can I trust the father of this child and can do 50-50 with me? Are there convenient day care options or baby care options? It is actually bread-end-butter goods.
Sw: I want to ask you about the rise of greedy work-high-to-pay jobs that usually require more hours. I was wondering if you think this model is more entangled in companies?
CG: I really don’t think it as a model. As an economist, I think we have these production relations. And for such individuals such tasks that can dedicate their whole day and holidays and evenings and dinertime to the weekend and corporation. But hopefully more men step back and say: “This is a moment in my life that is very important. My children are valuables, and my weekends, my evenings and my holidays are mine. Go go.” We have really seen it for many youth. My students who go to Goldman or McKinsey have said, “We want our time.”
SW: Talking about time, with post-pandemic shifts for hybrid work and distance work, some have said that as a possible solution for maternity fine by offering more flexibility. Now in some cities and people are being asked to come back to work four or five days a week.
CG: They are, but we can see in the data that it is still about 20-percent full working days remote.
SW: Do you think we are not going back five days a week?
CG: We are not going back.
SW: Nevertheless, there are banks and hedge funds that are pushing it forward.
CG: They are insisting for some workers to come in a few days. I think one of the problems is that if people are allowed to spend whatever day they want, then you have real problems of community coordination, to ensure that the newbies are well trained, that all are treated equally. So you should have rules. When you say “back in the office,” practically no one is saying back to the office every moment. I think your workers are giving them a tremendous amount. This means that you are benefited, but you do not want to suffer in your community, in your firm, in your office, in your department. I think this is a balance. We have received a tremendous amount. There was a true silver lining in the epidemic.
SW: On another subject, I read earlier this year that you were worried about misuse and removal of some government data. I was just wondering what kind of challenges you are creating for you and other economists?
CG: It is going to create terrible challenges. In the future, I can’t even imagine. There are many datasets that have been stopped again because they are longitudinal.
SW: So the real integrity of data moving data?
CG: Right. Yes. This is the integrity of data. And we have always seen the data coming from BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics]For example, as non -political data. The data has just been collected. But of course we have been there first. I mean, this is not the first time that the data has become political.[On Aug. 1, President Donald Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after a disappointing July jobs report. In response to the firing, Goldin said in an email on Aug. 5 that this has only “confirmed” her concerns about data integrity, saying she also now has “further fears” about the Consumer Price Index and the future of the Federal Reserve chair.]
SW: In the context of politics, is the ongoing quarrel between Harvard and Trump making things difficult for you and your colleagues?
CG: Big problems are our students and visas. I don’t think people realize what a big problem is and the fact that our students still do not know if they can get a visa. Overall, including graduate students and postdox, around 6,000.
SW: Does it make your day to day work more difficult?
CG: Okay, right now there is a student outside my office.
Sw: I will let you reach it.
Wagner is an editor for Green and Environment, Social and Governance in Bloomberg News in London.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without amending the text.
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