‘Here comes the airplane’: Why America needs to make travel family-friendly

As the Trump administration promotes pronatal policies, researchers have identified a problem that disincentivizes large families – air travel.

Institute for Family Studies Senior Fellow Lyman Stone examined the frequency of travelling women and how it affects family size.

When looking at women who traveled internationally for a vacation in the past three years, Stone found higher rates of travel among wealthy women and women with college degrees. Rates held steady across age groups.

However, childless women were the most likely to report international vacations (35%). The rates decreased for women with two children (32%), four children (20%) and five or more children (7%).

“Even as Americans are traveling more, and as international travel appears to be strongly associated with social class and social status, a stark reality confronts potential parents: when you have kids, you travel less,” Stone wrote.

“Since international travel is a strong signal of social status, having children creates an automatic downgrade in social status. This is an example of how a specific cultural norm (widespread high-status international leisure travel) might directly influence concrete fertility choices.”

Notably, women who travel frequently report having fewer children than they would like to have, resulting in less satisfaction with their long-term family outcomes.

The Trump administration is attempting to address the issue, however, having announced its new “Make Travel Family Friendly Again” campaign in December.

“Bringing about a Golden Age in travel has to involve making the family travel experience happier and healthier,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy – himself the father of nine children with wife Rachel Campos-Duffy. “Today’s announcement demonstrates the Trump Administration’s commitment to enacting a Family First agenda and improving the lives of the American people.”

The administration is investing $1 billion toward airport improvements, including:

• Creating more children’s play areas or exercise areas 
• Adding mothers’ rooms or nursing pods 
• Reconfiguring security checkpoints to create family screening lanes 
• Building sensory rooms for children with special needs 

Stone suggested even more ways the federal government can make air travel easier for families, such as:

• Require early boarding rules to favor families with children 
• Require airlines to guarantee families be seated together 
• Waive federal taxes and security fees for children under age 12 
• Make luggage trolleys free in U.S. airports 

“It’s tempting to suggest that the solution here is for pronatalists to counterprogram luxury travel: promote a norm of being happy staying home,” Stone concluded. “Unfortunately, that strategy is probably doomed to failure.

“Rather than try to roll back the clock on travel, the Department of Transportation should take concerted action to make travel cheaper, smoother, and more accessible for families. Doing so would help increase the ability of families to access an emerging high-status good in American society.”