The answer is no. Early in the pandemic, I heard people suggesting that having healthy young couples home more with time on their hands would result in a baby boom. The data show that the opposite is true. On aggregate, people actually make somewhat rational economic decisions about having children. When times are uncertain, a fraction of people decide to postpone plans they might have had to have children, and a certain fraction of those people either miss their window or just change their minds. This shows up in the data.

The article acknowledges that immigration is a potential answer to this. But it is difficult politically, and even if you can convince your population that it is a good idea, you need a good plan to make sure the immigrants can make a positive economic contribution, and you need a plan to ease them into your culture. This doesn’t mean erasing their culture, religion, or language, of course, but nor do you want your culture, religion, or language to change massively in a short time or your country may lose its sense of national identity. Having a sense of national identity while still being relatively trusting and tolerant is a balancing act, and my thought is that you want to allow change but try to make it slow and gradual. Maybe we need a Federal Reserve of Cultural Change to manage this rate.

As a working parent, I also recognize that spending more time at home does not mean more free time for everyone. Working from home full time and taking care of young children who are also home all the time, with no babysitters or minimal support from grandparents and extended family, has been very difficult for many people, including yours truly. If you are not in this situation, those of us who are may chafe a bit when you tell us how “bored” you are. But I also recognize there have been no happy mediums, with part of the population stressed out of their minds and half bored out of their minds, and some of the people who are bored (like grandparents) wishing they could help more but unable to.