Cambridge Reproduction Forum: Why do people have children?

This event has already happened

Wednesday 12 March 2025 3:00pm to 7:00pm

East 2 Room, West Hub, JJ Thomson Ave, Cambridge CB3 0US

About

Today over half the global population lives in states or nations with below replacement-level fertility. In some populations a quarter or more of 50 year-old women have never had children. While many states, economists, evolutionary biologists and demographers (not to mention journalists) puzzle over why so many people are choosing to have few or no children, these patterns raise the more fundamental question of why people have children at all. 

When: 12 March 2025, 3pm for a 3.15pm start 
Where: East 2 Room, West Hub, JJ Thomson Ave, Cambridge CB3 0US

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In this forum we will gather biologists, economists, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, demographers and historians to ask:  What are children for?

  • Do they offer to fulfil an evolutionary urge to transmit genetic attributes or to nurture?
  • Do we expect them to perpetuate our identity or lineage, to make us happy, or to provide security in sickness and old age?
  • And to what extent can these roles be substituted by non-biological strategies, including adoption, extended family or non-kin support, non-human relationships, or other forms of self-realisation?
  • Could social norms change so far as to make biological reproduction a minority choice, as some demographers have suggested?
  • What roles do social norms play, and how influential is the two-child norm that has been associated with replacement-level fertility and with many family planning programmes?

The afternoon will feature interdisciplinary conversation and flash talks from academics across the university, followed by a networking reception. 

PROGRAMME

15:15 - Welcome and introduction - Kathy Niakan (PDN and Co-Chair of Cambridge Reproduction)
 
FLASH TALKS

  • Hao Li (Sociology)
  • Emma Diduch (Geography)
  • Kat Moiseeva
  • Chaired by Ceren Canse (Obstetrics and Gynaecology)

INTERDISCIPLINARY DIALOGUE (1) 

What is the value of children?
Mark Dyble (Archaeology) and Or Perah Midbar Alter (Psychology), chaired by Romola Davenport (Geography)
 
16:25 - TEA BREAK
 
FLASH TALKS

  • Staci Weiss (Computer Science and Technology)
  • Xiwen Fu (Psychology)
  • Yiyun Bai (Sociology)
  • Chaired by Nienke Groskamp (History and Philosophy of Science) 

INTERDISCIPLINARY DIALOGUE (2) 

What kind of family do people want?
Robert Pralat (THIS Institute) and Kai Liu (Economics), chaired by Alice Reid (Geography)
 
18:00 - Drinks and networking reception

Registration open

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