Cornell Population Center Innovations in Population Science Speaker Series presents Wanting Children: Family-Planning Policies and the Engineering of American's Population" with Leonard M. Lopoo, Paul Volcker Chair in Behavioral Economics,Maxwell School, Syracuse University. This seminar is co-sponsored with CSI.

This talk is based on Dr. Lopoo's recently published book, Wanting Children: Family-Planning Policies and the Engineering of America's Population (University of Chicago Press). Unlike most of the world, U.S. family-planning policy has focused almost exclusively on limiting fertility, with little attention to supporting people who want to have children. Lopoo traces the historical and political roots of this asymmetry and argue for a more balanced approach to population policy — one that takes seriously the needs of those who want to become parents. Drawing on population research, he will discuss what a more supportive fertility policy should look like and why it matters for the future of the American population.