远程办公会提高生育率吗？

中文摘要

居家办公会提高生育率吗？我通过比较美国大学毕业生中主修专业在疫情前远程办公可行性不同的群体之间生育数的变化，研究了2020年远程办公的扩张。以大学主修专业衡量暴露程度，可避免依赖于劳动者可能为响应这一扩张而选择的职业。在已婚女性中，远程办公可行性增加一个标准差使年生育率下降2%，并使全职就业增加1.3%。我没有发现对男性或未婚女性的生育率，或对结婚或离婚有统计显著的影响。核算分析表明，就业增加可以解释生育下降的约一半。结果表明，恢复到疫情前的远程办公水平将使总和生育率提高0.09个孩子/每名女性。

Abstract

Does working from home increase fertility? I study the 2020 expansion of remote work by comparing changes in births across U.S. college graduates whose majors differed in pre-pandemic teleworkability. Measuring exposure by college major avoids relying on occupations workers may have chosen in response to the expansion. Among married women, a one-standard-deviation increase in teleworkability reduced annual birth rates by 2 percent and increased full-time employment by 1.3 percent. I find no statistically significant effects on fertility among men or unmarried women, or on marriage or divorce. Accounting exercises suggest that increased employment can explain about half of the decline in births. The results suggest that returning to pre-pandemic telework levels would raise the total fertility rate by 0.09 births per woman.