Argentina looks to home‑office to raise falling birth rates

Argentina is confronting a sharp decline in its fertility rate, now well below the 2.1 children per woman needed for population replacement. The United Nations reports that many developed economies across Europe, North America and Asia face similar demographic challenges, and Latin America has already slipped below replacement levels, with Argentina joining that trend.

Traditional policy tools such as cash transfers, parental leave, subsidised childcare and tax benefits have produced limited results. A new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, titled “Work from Home and Fertility” and released in March 2026, examines whether remote‑work arrangements can influence family‑planning decisions. The study, authored by Steven J. Davis, Cevat Giray Aksoy, José María Barrero, Nicholas Bloom, Katelyn Cranney, Mathias Dolls and Pablo Zarate, finds a positive correlation between the ability to work from home and higher birth rates, suggesting that flexible work could become a policy lever to counter the demographic decline.