Raising the retirement age is tanking the birth rate because it forces grandparents to stay at the office instead of helping with childcare.
SSRN · March 18, 2026 · 6430167
The Takeaway
In many societies, the decision to have children relies heavily on 'free' labor from grandparents; when the government delays retirement to save the pension system, they inadvertently destroy the informal childcare network. The study found the loss of grandparental time has a bigger negative impact on fertility than any extra income the family earns from working longer.
From the abstract
To address the persistent decline in fertility and the potential conflict between delayed retirement and fertility-support policies in China, this paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium overlapping-generations (OLG) model that incorporates delayed retirement, family and social childcare, and other fertility-related factors. We show that delayed retirement affects the equilibrium fertility rate through two channels. First, it reduces grandparental childcare time, thereby generating a negati