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The Eastern European nation of Georgia successfully reversed its fertility collapse — not through financial incentives, but the influence of the Church.

There’s no shortage of bad news when it comes to the global birth dearth.

Already in 2021, over half the world’s countries had total fertility rates (TFR) below 2.1 children per woman — the number needed for a population to remain stable, not counting immigration.

In Japan and Korea, that rate is already critically low, at 1.21 and 0.72 respectively. Australia isn’t faring much better, with the latest data showing “perilously low” fertility rates of just 1.5 TFR.

While climate catastrophists no doubt cheer these figures, economists are sounding the alarm.

A shrinking (and thus, aging) population means slower economic growth, reduced innovation, and, more urgently, fewer taxpayers to support Australia’s already strained health and pension systems — pressures that will only deepen as the fertility crisis worsens.

The reasons for declining fertility are numerous — from feminism to urbanisation to high living costs. What’s most concerning is that pro-natal policies like child subsidies, parental leave or tax breaks for mothers have had limited impact in the countries that have tried them.

Once a nation’s fertility rate starts to drop, in other words, it’s very difficult to reverse the trend.

Georgia, in Eastern Europe, is an exception to this rule.

A Miracle in Georgia

In 2005, women in Georgia were having just 1.4 babies each, which was among the lowest fertility rate in the world at the time. But by 2014, the country had managed to raise its TFR to 2.1 — a 50% increase in less than a decade.

What did Georgia do to reverse its birth dearth? The strategy — which I just learned about from my friend Jamie Bambrick on X — was as bold as it was unlikely.

In 2005, women in Georgia averaged just 1.4 babies each—among the lowest in the world.

However, they managed to raise this to 2.1 by 2014. That’s a 50% increase in under a decade.

They are the only nation to successfully reverse declining birthrates.

Here’s how they did it: 🧵 pic.twitter.com/ObelyeH20t

— Jamie Bambrick (@j_bambrick) July 30, 2025

“In 2007 the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, announced he would personally baptise and become the godfather of any third or higher-order child,” Jamie explains.

“Since 2007, over 30,000 babies (34.5% of third-or-higher births) have been baptised under this program.”

Georgia’s government also backed this push with child benefits and tax breaks, but the financial incentives were only as good as the faltering efforts of other nations.

“It was the religious push that drove the change,” Jamie explains.

The Church Drove the Change

Jamie isn’t speculating. A study published earlier this year in the Journal of Population Economics confirms that the Patriarch’s offer to baptise third or later-born children significantly boosted birth rates.

In an article titled “Religiously inspired baby boom: evidence from Georgia,” researchers found that Georgia’s national fertility rate rose by 17% — about 0.3 more children per woman — after the Patriarch’s announcement.

This translated to roughly 38,000 additional births between 2008 and 2013.

Among Georgian Orthodox women, third-and-higher-order births doubled, and marriage rates jumped by over 10 percentage points.

Even more striking, abortion rates dropped slightly, yet unwanted births did not increase. In other words, women weren’t simply being pressured to carry unwanted pregnancies to term — they were choosing to have more children they actually wanted.

Crucially, the study ruled out the ending of the 2008 Russo-Georgian War as the cause of the fertility turnaround: the birth spike occurred directly after the Patriarch’s announcement, and it appeared consistently across the nation, even in regions unaffected by conflict.

Researchers concluded that it was indeed the Georgian Orthodox Church that precipitated the birth spike by helping shift social attitudes towards family and childbearing.

“These results imply that religious life plays an important role in shaping the fertility decisions of individuals in society,” they conclude.

Restoring the Honour of Motherhood

Jamie Bambrick breaks it down in everyday terms:

Men generally don’t want to pressure their wives to go through more pregnancies and childbirths than they desire.

This makes women the primary arbiter of the number of children born in marriage. When a woman wants to have more kids, she does.

But women are much less driven by economic concerns than men are, which is why purely economic policies don’t work.

Can you really imagine a woman deciding to have another child for an income tax break? Me either.

What does drive women, however, is their social environment. They want to be accepted and thought well of by others.

He then gets to the heart of the matter:

The genius of this program is that it restored the honour of motherhood.

It didn’t just make the role economically desirable. It made it socially desirable.

This works much better than money.

A slight increase in income cannot overcome a pervasive media and a feminist culture which tells women that motherhood and homemaking are, at best, lesser vocations, and at worst, a betrayal of other women.

Instead, women need to be told that motherhood matters.

They need to know that it’s the most important role they can have in life, and that the entire future of civilisation depends on them doing it well.

Jamie acknowledges that offering financial incentives and structuring the economy around the family unit instead of the individual can also help turn around declining birth rates.

“But without motherhood being the primary way women pursue social approval, it’s doomed to fail,” he says.

“Offering cash to people devoid of values just won’t do it.”

Here’s real-world proof that, even in the 21st century, Christian values and the moral guidance of the Church can help solve complex political problems — and shape the economy and the culture for the better.

What might this look like in Australia?

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Image courtesy of Reddit.