The Heritage Foundation released the report Saving America by Saving the Family: A Foundation for the Next 250 Years. In it, the authors had many suggestions on how to increase birth rates in America and strengthen marriages between men and women.

For reporters covering these topics of marriage, natalism and population decrease, Syracuse University Professor Leonard Lopoo is available for interviews.

Lopoo, the Paul Volcker Chair in Behavioral Economics in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, is the author of the forthcoming book, “Wanting Children, Family-Planning Policies and the Engineering of America’s Population,” which looks at many of the issues raised in the report by the Heritage Foundation. He offered a few reactions to the report:

• “The Heritage Foundation does not seem to understand that family decisions are not so simple that people would marry or have more children if they just received a few extra thousand dollars,” Lopoo says. “Families are the biggest institutions in people’s lives. A family change, either by marriage or to have more children, is a lifelong commitment. These proposed changes, even if one believes they are good ideas, are superficial and have never worked.”
• “What this policy might do is change social norms—that could change our demography,” Lopoo says. “What we should be doing is trying to help those who already want to have children to have them—support fertility assistance.  My book emphasizes wantedness.  More wanted (by parents) children should be the goal, not more wanted children by the Heritage Foundation or policymakers.”

Please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu to arrange an interview.