On this Father's Day, let's think of young guys and the future. How can young men, most of whom really want children one day, boost their odds of achieving fatherhood? 🧵!

Perhaps the first thing for young men to focus on is gaining income and building a career. There is a strong positive relationship between a man's income and the number of children he will have. This was true in the past and it is still true today, all over the world. 2/9

Part of this of course is that higher earning men are more attractive to women. But even for among married men, studies find that when men earn more, they tend to have more children. This isn't just some relic of the past. It is even more true for younger men! 3/9

Related to this, a man can boost his odds of having a family by going to college. Why? Part of it is the earnings boost. But also, there is a shortage of college-educated men for all the college-educated women out there. Men with a college degree have a huge dating advantage! 4/9

Next is marriage. Despite all the talk of marriage being an outdated institution, marriage is still the surest path to parenthood for most people. In fact, in a world where unintended pregnancy is less and less common, married people still have way more children on average. 5/9

But it's not just about getting married. Young men who want a larger family need to start early enough. Fertility declines with age for women, but it also declines for men. 6/9

Having a religious community helps. As demographer @lymanstoneky and many others have demonstrated, those who have a faith community are much more likely to have a family, and to have a larger family at that. 8/9