Humans are complicated creatures; studying them is complicated, too. The social sciences contain as many as 12 core disciplines, depending on who’s counting. And they range widely, from anthropology, psychology and sociology to more quantitative fields like economics and demographics. Being able to grasp the vast variations in human activity, from one person’s mental state to the movements of nations, is essential for navigating the chaotic times we live in.
To keep you current on the science behind hot button issues in the news, we’re expanding our coverage of the social sciences with a new column, Being Human, in this issue. First up: whether trying to encourage people to have more babies, an idea being put forth by pronatalist movements in the United States and elsewhere, will help reverse falling birth rates, and whether that should be a goal.
Our social sciences writer Sujata Gupta dug into the research and found that government incentives aimed at encouraging individuals to have more children have rarely succeeded. That’s especially likely now, when young people are struggling to find jobs and affordable housing, and when the headlines get scarier by the day.
“Whether you are liberal or conservative, the way we think about the family is the nuclear family,” Gupta told me. But, she notes, the notion of a family being just parents and kids is a surprisingly recent invention, and one that puts a lot of pressure on parents. As a married working parent whose own parents are far away, Gupta has been feeling that pinch herself.
Evolutionary history shows that humans have long relied on cooperative child-rearing approaches that included extended kin, older siblings and community members. Some current hunter-gatherer societies continue in that mode, Gupta reports, but it would be hard to emulate in Western societies.
A better focus for encouraging parenthood, experts say, may be on improving well-being in a community overall. Policies that support all inhabitants may make it more likely that young adults will feel secure enough to take the big leap into parenthood, and that their children will feel secure too, Gupta says. That’s a much larger undertaking than, say, sending new parents a check in the mail. But it might make society work a little better for all.
