Raul Sanchez Flores

Why Strict Traditionalism Doesn't Mean High Fertility Two charts by @WorksInProgMag show that norms against mothers working don't lead to high fertility in the context of an advanced economy. South Korea has such a strong cultural expectation against mothers working that 62% of Korean women quit their jobs when they become mothers. To an old school traditionalist that might sound great, except that we know South Korea's fertility is one of the lowest in the world. South Korea is no outlier. The five countries with the lowest rates of maternal employment in the OECD are Chile, Italy, South Korea, Mexico and Turkey. Their fertility rates in 2025 were 1.0, 1.14, 0.8, 1.25 and 1.42 respectively - all far below the US level of 1.6. How does Israel, with a TFR in 2025 of 2.88 score on employment of mothers? Some 75% of mothers of pre-school-age children work in Israel, well-above the OECD average! This seems really strange! Why would the countries where mothers drop everything else to focus on raising children have the lowest fertility? The answer is this: if women are forced to choose between a career and motherhood, a large share of women will choose only a career, especially if they have committed many years to education and advancement. So - are the trads wrong? Is the traditional arrangement where the father is the breadwinner and the mother raises kids bad for fertility? No! Those types of households tend to have very high fertility! Then how do you square this circle? The answer is to build a society that embraces both family arrangements at the same time, the traditional stay-at-home full-time mother and the working mother. The more viable different paths to motherhood there are, the higher national fertility will be!