Something is broken in how people pair up in the West, and that shortage of couples and marriages, not money, is why there are too few children.

Their wordsThe empirical evidence strongly refutes the idea that rising opportunity costs of childbearing are driving low fertility. Declining marriage due to exogenous technology and economics shocks is tanking fertility irrespective of child direct or opportunity costs.

Their wordsthere's something broken at the moment about how people pair up in the western world. And it's at the source of why we're not having enough children because there's not enough couples, there's not enough marriage.

Their wordsFrom the 1960s, US fertility fell primarily due to fewer births among couples. In that context, baby bonuses might raise fertility. But today, the major contributing factor is the decline of coupling.