In Argentina, fertility dropped to 1.2 children per woman: what can companies do?

The initial reaction to these numbers is usually to conclude that new generations simply no longer want to have children. However, when we stop looking solely at how many babies are born and start asking people what they want for their lives, a much more complex reality emerges. And it is also much more interesting for considering what responses we need to build.

A study conducted by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Argentina on the motivations and barriers people face when deciding to have children found that 57% of people between 18 and 45 want or would have liked to have more children than they currently have. For 34%, the ideal number is two children. Among those aged 18 to 24, seven out of ten have not yet reached the number of children they say they want to have. Significantly, this gap between desired and actual outcomes does not completely disappear in subsequent age groups, continuing at significant levels up to age 45.

This changes the conversation quite a bit. The question is no longer just why people do not want to have children, but rather why many people are unable to have the number of children they would like to have.

The answers help us better understand that gap. According to the survey, 62% of the reasons why people have fewer children than desired are associated with economic barriers. Job stability, economic security, and access to housing emerge as major conditions when making a decision that has consequences for decades. In a context of uncertainty, starting or expanding a family can become a difficult decision to carry out, even when the desire is there.

However, it would be a mistake to reduce the phenomenon exclusively to money. Other weighty factors include the difficulty of balancing parenting with work, the lack of time and energy, the daily organization of care, and difficulties accessing services that support this new stage of life. Having children does not happen outside the rest of our lives: it happens while we work, build a career, pay for a home, care for others, and try to maintain our own well-being.

The distribution of care adds another dimension. More than 60% of women identify as the primary person responsible for tasks related to parenting, cleaning, or caring for someone when they are ill, whereas men more frequently claim a primary role in recreational activities. Therefore, talking about birth rates also forces us to talk about how we distribute time, responsibilities, and opportunities inside and outside the home.

There is another piece of data that helps put the discussion into perspective: 64% of people consider having children to be one of the best experiences a person can go through, and for eight out of ten, family remains one of the most important aspects of their life. In other words, behind the drop in fertility, we do not necessarily find a society that has stopped valuing family. Instead, in many cases, we find a gap between the life people imagine and the one they feel they are able to build.

And it is precisely in that gap where I believe a conversation arises that we have done little to consider from within organizations so far.

What do companies have to do with this?

Companies do not need to convince anyone to have children. The decision to start a family, when to do so, and how to do it belongs exclusively to each individual. Nor should we turn the decline in birth rates into a discussion about how to modify individual decisions to hit a specific demographic target.

However, between making decisions on behalf of people and asking ourselves what conditions we can create so they have greater freedom to build the lives they desire, there is a huge difference. And that is where the private sector indeed has a role to play.

Job stability and predictability, leave policies, flexibility, work schedule organization, care policies, benefits, financial support, access to healthcare tools, and a culture that does not turn maternity or paternity into a professional penalty are all part of the conditions that surround family decisions.

Even certain policies that we typically think of exclusively as talent or well-being initiatives take on a different dimension when viewed through a demographic lens. What happens to a woman when she returns from leave? What impact does motherhood have on her career advancement opportunities? Do men have the actual conditions—and cultural backing—to take on a greater share of caregiving? What happens to those who, in addition to raising children, begin caring for parents who are living longer lives? Are we designing careers that are compatible with lives that feature increasingly diverse stages and responsibilities?

The discussion on birth rates, therefore, can become a gateway to a much broader conversation about how we are designing work in the face of a new demographic reality.

An agenda that needs the private sector

A few days ago in Montevideo, I attended a meeting that I consider particularly significant for this very reason: the first regional forum promoted by UNFPA to work on the demographic agenda alongside the private sector. The fact that this conversation is beginning to systematically incorporate companies is no minor detail.

For a long time, we viewed demographics primarily as a matter for governments, population statistics, pension systems, or public policies. But demographic change is also altering the future availability of talent, the composition of the workforce, care needs, markets, consumption patterns, health, and the way we will need to finance longer lives.

Therefore, within the framework of the Montevideo meeting, THE SHIFT and UNFPA advanced a regional collaboration agreement with a shared goal: to bring this agenda closer to the private sector and generate knowledge, tools, and workspaces that allow demographic data to be transformed into decisions.

The decline in birth rates is one of the most visible signs, but it does not happen in isolation. At the same time, we are living longer lives, family structures are changing, multiple generations are living together, career paths are shifting, and technology is transforming the skills organizations need. These are phenomena we usually analyze separately, even though they are actually part of the same transformation.

And therein lies perhaps one of the greatest opportunities of this alliance: to build a bridge between demographic evidence and the decisions organizations make every day.

Argentina's data offers a good example. Knowing that fertility has reached 1.2 is important. Understanding that 57% would have liked or want to have more children allows us to ask a different question. Knowing that a significant part of the gap is related to economic, labor, and care barriers allows us to start thinking about where we can take action.

Not to promise that a corporate policy will reverse a demographic trend that is complex and multicausal. Nor to shift a responsibility that belongs to multiple stakeholders onto companies. Rather, it is to recognize that the place where we work is also part of the conditions from which we build our lives.

The new demographic agenda requires public policies, but it also needs companies, academia, international organizations, and civil society. It needs data, experimentation, and new responses. Above all, it needs to abandon the simplified debate over whether people want to have children or not and start looking at what is happening between their desires and their possibilities.

Because perhaps one of the most interesting questions in the face of declining birth rates is not how we can make more children be born, but something quite different: what can we do so that people have greater opportunities to build the life and family they desire?

That shift in questioning is also part of the SHIFT.

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