This is the first issue of ‘Links in Progress’, semi-regular roundups of interesting stuff that's happening in topics that we care about. In this

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2024-10-14 09:30:02

This is the first issue of ‘Links in Progress’, semi-regular roundups of interesting stuff that's happening in topics that we care about. In this one, Boom’s Phoebe Arslanagić-Little reviews the most important things happening in the world of pronatalism and family policy. You can opt out of Links in Progress here.

Rising incomes do not always mean fewer births. There is very strong evidence that, over the last sixty years, people have fewer children as they become richer. But a July 2024 paper finds the opposite. Looking at randomized controlled trials of interventions such as business training programmes or land rights formalization in sub-Saharan Africa, the authors found that women who became wealthier had more children, not fewer. The effects were significant. Ethiopian women who received a business training intervention were 22 percent more likely to have a child, women in Togo were 14 percentage points more likely to do so.

Reproductive futurism. On Substack, Eva Shang explains how becoming a mother changed her relationship with the future: ‘. ..now that I have the baby, I can no longer accept that the world is dying. I now have to believe — and fervently do believe — that there is a Future we must work towards, because now this Future wears the face of my baby.’