I had a post on the subject a few months ago; a recent online discussion started me thinking about it again and I have some new ideas. One was due to a poster whose list of ways government could reduce the birth rate included banning divorce. I suspected he had it backwards. The obvious reason to think that is that modern societies have both easy divorce and low birth rates. Marriage is a serious, often life changing, step; some people might be unwilling to take it if the other party was free to back out later; willingness to marry is a stronger signal of intent to stay married if divorce is not an option, one reason eliminating or restricting divorce might result in more people getting married. If that seems wrong to you, consider the effect on the mortgage market of a legal change that made it easy for borrowers to default. Producing a child is much riskier if you are not sure the marriage will last, so making divorce more difficult might also make married couples more willing to...
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