When One Child Is Enough: Employment Security and Fertility Decisions Across Countries

The Great Baby Count: Why Jobs Matter More Than We Thought

Imagine the world's population as a giant, bustling garden. For decades, gardeners (demographers and economists) have been trying to figure out why the flowers—our children—are suddenly growing much slower than before. In many places, families are stopping at just one child, or sometimes none at all, a trend scientists call "one-and-done." This isn't just a cute family choice; it's a massive shift that changes how many workers we'll have in the future, how we care for our grandparents, and whether economies can keep growing.

To understand this, we need to look at two main ideas. First, there's fertility, which is simply the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. Second, there's employment security. Think of this not just as having a job, but as having a "safe harbor." It's the feeling that your job won't vanish tomorrow, that you won't be stuck in a temporary, shaky contract, and that you have a real shot at a stable future. For a long time, people thought money was the only thing that mattered: if you had cash, you could have kids. But this new research suggests that the feeling of safety and stability in your work life might be the real secret sauce behind the decision to start a family.

The Big Question: Is a Safe Job the Key to More Babies?

A team of researchers from universities in Indonesia decided to investigate a big mystery: Does having a secure job actually make people want to have more children? They didn't just look at one country or one type of job; they went on a global treasure hunt, gathering data from 176 countries over 24 years (from 2000 to 2024). That's a massive amount of information, covering almost every corner of the globe.

Instead of just checking the unemployment rate (which is like only looking at how many people are out of work), the team built a new tool called the Employment Security Index. Imagine this index as a "Job Safety Scorecard." They combined four different ingredients to make it:

1. How many people are unemployed.
2. How many young people can't find work.
3. How many people are stuck in "vulnerable" jobs (like day labor with no benefits).
4. How many women are actually working (because having women in the workforce usually means the economy is more inclusive).

They crunched the numbers using a super-smart computer model that accounts for the fact that every country is different and that the world changes over time. They wanted to see if a higher "Job Safety Score" led to a higher number of babies.

What They Found: The "Safe Harbor" Effect

The results were clear and consistent: When employment security goes up, fertility goes up.

In plain English, the study found that in countries where people feel more secure in their jobs—where they aren't constantly worried about being fired, stuck in temporary gigs, or left out of the workforce—families are more likely to have more children. Specifically, the researchers found that for every one-unit increase in their Employment Security Index, the Total Fertility Rate (the average number of kids per woman) went up by 0.175.

This might sound like a small number, but in the world of population math, it's a big deal. It suggests that when the economy feels stable and safe, people feel confident enough to say, "Okay, we can handle a baby."

The researchers were very careful to check if this was just a fluke. They tried different ways of looking at the data:

• They waited a year to see if the effect happened later (it did).
• They removed the years of the pandemic (2020–2022) to make sure the weirdness of that time didn't mess up the results (the pattern stayed the same).
• They looked at countries with long, steady records (the pattern held).

Even after checking all these things, the link between job safety and having babies remained strong.

It's Not the Same Everywhere: A Tale of Two Worlds

Here is where the story gets really interesting. The "Job Safety = More Babies" rule doesn't work the same way everywhere. The researchers found that the strength of this connection depends heavily on how rich a country is.

• In Wealthy Nations: In upper-middle-income and high-income countries, the link is statistically significant, though the magnitude varies. In high-income countries, the effect is positive but modest (a coefficient of 0.130), while in upper-middle-income countries, it is slightly stronger (0.199). This suggests that in these places, when people feel their jobs are safe, they are more likely to have children, but the relationship isn't a simple "more safety equals huge baby boom" formula; it's a steady, positive nudge.
• In Developing Nations: In lower-income countries, the story is different. The study found that in some of these places, job security didn't seem to have the same positive effect, or in some cases, the relationship was even negative. This suggests that in poorer countries, other huge factors—like lack of healthcare, cultural traditions, or extreme poverty—might be so loud that the "safety of the job" gets drowned out.

They also looked at different regions. The connection varies widely: in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the coefficient was notably high (0.593), while in Europe and Central Asia it was smaller (0.059). In Sub-Saharan Africa, the relationship was actually negative. This tells us that while job security is a powerful engine for family growth, its impact is highly uneven and depends on the specific road (institutional support, economic development, and regional context) it drives on.

What This Means for the "One-and-Done" Trend

The paper argues that the rise of the "one-and-done" family (where parents stop at one child) isn't just about people changing their minds or wanting more freedom. It's deeply tied to the economy. When jobs feel shaky, uncertain, or temporary, young people feel like they can't afford the risk of raising a family. They might delay having kids, or decide that one is enough because they aren't sure they can handle two.

The researchers suggest that if governments want to help families grow, they can't just hand out baby bonuses. They need to fix the "Job Safety Scorecard." By making jobs more stable, reducing the number of people in vulnerable work, and ensuring young people and women can find secure careers, countries might naturally see families feeling more confident in having more children.

In short, this study paints a picture where the stability of a paycheck is just as important as the size of the paycheck itself. When the future looks secure, the nursery gets a little bigger. When the future looks shaky, families tend to stay small. It's a reminder that the economy and the family are deeply intertwined, and you can't have one without the other.