Freakonomics Radio · 2025-06-13 · 50 min · 8,111 words

636. Why Aren’t We Having More Babies?

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So you got your PhD in economics from Harvard. I know that you and your husband have eight children, and you are stepmom to six more children from your husband's first marriage. I'm guessing there are not many other Harvard educated economists who have 14 children. I don't know of any. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but I don't know of any.

Katherine Pakollock. is an economics professor at the Catholic University of America. I asked about her main areas of research. Education, schools, fertility, family formation. And what would you say you bring to those topics that the median economists might not bring?

I think I bring to the table a large number of things That are outside of the field. And, you know, of course, I'd be disingenuous if I didn't add that we'll have a lot of kids, and so that makes you think about things a little bit differently. You might say that a lot of people have started to think differently about fertility and family formation. For decades, the great fear among demographers and

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