Work-From-Home Arrangements Could Boost Fertility Rates. Did We Really Need Research to Prove This?

Seven years ago, I walked away from a job that required me to be in the office four days a week when my twins were born. Everyone thought I was crazy…until a year-ish later, when the pandemic came and people saw how much their work/life balance improved when working from home. 

Suddenly, I wasn’t the only mom I knew who was swearing off onsite work. Now, we’re being fed conflicted messages. We’re told we should “have more babies”, yet the things that made motherhood more doable — like remote work arrangements — are being taken away. 

But now, what we’ve all been feeling is laid out clearly in the data: You want more babies? Let us work remotely. 

Recent research indicates that fertility between 2023 and 2025, as well as future planned fertility, was higher among people who work from home at least one day a week, and even higher when both people in a couple work from home.

The phrasing of this may lead you to believe that it's your odds of getting pregnant each try that increase when you work from home (and perhaps it does — stress does play a role in fertility, after all). But I think we need to think deeper about this. Having work flexibility doesn’t just make the prospect of actually parenting easier, it also makes things like attending the never-ending appointments required for fertility testing and care more doable. That could certainly affect a person's ability to get pregnant faster, even if their fertility isn't necessarily "better". 

Beyond that, it's about getting people to actually want to be try, though. Up until now, most research has pointed to things like contraception access, societal shifts, and the rising costs of childcare as the reason for the declining birth rate. And yes, all those things play a role.

But remote work opportunities also play a role here, as evidenced by the data. This isn’t one-size-fits-all, obviously, and the research doesn’t necessarily confirm that fertility and birth rates will skyrocket if people are given more workplace flexibility. It's not just about reproductive rates; it's also about reproductive choice.

Here’s the thing. As important as research is, sometimes it comes down to cultural factors, and sometimes that can’t be measured in the data. The fact of the matter is, we saw how essential workplace flexibility is for working parents through the pandemic, and now with return-to-office mandates being rolled out, that’s being taken away. It’s just another way our system fails to support parents, especially moms. So should we really be surprised when people see this happening and think “you know what? Maybe parenthood isn’t for me right now”.

Because it’s not just about boosting fertility rates. It’s also about boosting support for parents, and in turn making parenthood a more attractive prospect.