PIP: Fertility decline, the natural consequence of an overemphasis on material comfort, has 5 main causes: parenthood has become a voluntary act; the emphasis on the quality of children has resulted in ever heavier parental responsibilities; the traditional sense of the family is gone; the social role of women has changed; and a generalized and diffuse moroseness has invaded the social tissue. Reversing the fertility decline requires a new social justice, which will merely return true freedom of choice. Because mothers of large families, honored in traditional societies, are today scorned and despised, there is no real freedom of procreative choice. A family policy worthy of the name would insure more just distribution of wealth in favor of those who contribute to the collective survival by bringing up future generations. Tax laws, urbanization patterns, female and parental work, and the numerous social goods and services should be adapted to the needs of family life and children. Also needed to encourage couples to have numerous families is a sense of cultural rootedness, of ethnic identity, that has largely been lost to technoindustrial society. Although the vision of history from which these reflections spring is materialist and determinist, it differs from a Marxist viewpoint in that it views history in terms of emphases rather than of relations of domination or force.