lifenews.com
2026-10-26
With America's and the globe's fertility rate currently sagging to a historic low, a new survey data analysis has found that supportive friends and family, the influence of pro-natal celebrities, and an active religious life are all major contributors to boosting birth rates and helping couples achieve their desired family size.
In an extensive new report released Tuesday by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS), authors Lyman Stone, Peter Foreshaw Brookes, and Jason S. Carroll analyzed survey data taken from 10,000 respondents across over a dozen countries, asking about "a wide range of family attitudes" including peer and family influence, desirable family size, celebrity influences, religious practices, and other factors.
The results revealed that the influence of family and friends is enormously important to how many children couples have. When people feel supported and encouraged by family members, they "desire, intend to have, and actually have more children," IFS found, noting that parental encouragement "is associated with an 11% increase in desired number of children and a 30% increase in the likelihood of intending to have another one." Similar outcomes were also found when they felt supported by peers, which was "associated with a 10% increase in desired number of children and a 20% increase in the likelihood of intending to have another child."