The Institute for Family Studies Launches its Pronatalism Initiative

(Charlottesville, VA.)—For Immediate Release

Contact: Chris Bullivant 

The Institute for Family Studies (IFS) launches the Pronatalism Initiative this week under the leadership of new senior fellow Lyman Stone.

Demographer Lyman Stone has been awarded an IFS senior fellowship to establish the Pronatalism Initiative. With governments around the world grappling for urgent solutions to a rapid decline in fertility, the IFS Pronatalism Initiative will pioneer new research to create a suite of policies to counteract global fertility decline.

Lyman Stone, chief information officer of the consulting firm Demographic Intelligence, joins the team at the Institute of Family Studies where he was previously a research fellow.

His most recent publication last month, “Demographic Rearmament in Southern Europe”, Stone made the case for government enacting specifically pronatalist policies. In the report, he claimed that not only do government pronatalist policies have historic precedence but that they also work. By comparing the plummeting fertility rates in Portugal, Spain, and Italy with those of France, Stone and report co-author Erin Wingerter, note that France had a population advantage compared to its neighbors because of specifically pronatalist policies enacted by the French government in the twentieth century.

Lyman Stone says, “I am delighted to be joining the Institute for Family Studies as a senior fellow. The IFS is respected by policy makers and the media for its high caliber research. The IFS Pronatalism Initiative will lead the broad and urgent interest in fertility to clear, well-researched suite of policy solutions. Fertility rebound is not only possible, it may even be likely.”

The IFS Pronatalism Initiative has been seed-funded with a $50,000 award from Emergent Ventures.

The IFS Executive Director, Michael Toscano, said, “We are thrilled to receive this award from Emergent Ventures. The fertility crisis in the United States and around the world demands rigorous research identifying drivers and solutions of the collapse in fertility rates. The IFS Pronatalism Initiative will build a team around Stone’s research to show countries, willing to make a concerted effort, how to address their fertility problems.” 

ENDS.
 
Notes.

1. The Institute for Family Studies (IFS) is a think tank researching marriage, family life, and the well-being of children, based in Charlottesville, VA: https://ifstudies.org/
2. The IFS Pronatalism Initiative is anticipated to produce a major report a year which will be made available to policy makers and journalists alike via our website. https://ifstudies.org/blog/category/fertility
3. Emergent Ventures is a grant award program of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University: https://www.mercatus.org/emergent-ventures
4. Lyman Stone is a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies. He is the chief information officer of the consulting firm Demographic Intelligence, and a PhD student at McGill University. His work has been covered in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Vox, and The Federalist, as well as numerous local outlets. He formerly worked as an international economist for USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service and currently lives in Montreal, Quebec, with his wife and daughter. They formerly lived in Hong Kong.