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Rebecca Zerzan is the senior editor of UNFPA's State of World Population report, which explores globally urgent matters related to population and sexual and reproductive health and rights.

As policymakers and pundits clamour to solve the riddle of slowing fertility rates, one idea in particular seems to crop up again and again: What if we hand out “baby bonuses”? In other words, let’s offer lump sum payments – often thousands of dollars – to encourage more women to have more babies.

Baby bonuses aren’t actually a new creation; it’s an approach that’s been tried, tested, and recycled over many years, in countries around the world. That means there is a mountain of evidence as to whether they work. Spoiler alert: They don’t.

For those not swayed by academic studies, young people are delivering the same message. Young women, it turns out, are telling us exactly what they need to feel secure enough to have children – and it’s not a one-off cash bonus. What they want is paid leave, family-friendly workplaces, affordable housing and childcare, access to quality reproductive healthcare, and the ability to believe that their children will be born into a safe world where they can thrive.

Broadly speaking, baby bonuses offer none of these assurances. Neither do the governments of the countries offering them. The newest report from my organization, the United Nations Population Fund - the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency - shows that lump-sum payments are mostly ineffective.

And why are we surprised? Even thousands of dollars would barely cover the costs of childbirth in some countries. And while some governments claim their cash payments have boosted birth rates, there's no solid proof that is the case: Often they are measuring the number of births taking place in a year, rather than the number of births a woman will have in her lifetime. Deeper analyses of the data show that, when bonuses have an impact, it’s more in convincing people to have a baby earlier to take advantage of a cash benefit, rather than helping them actually have more children. The result is a false impression that a time-limited or one-off policy, like a baby bonus, has worked.

But it’s not just baby bonuses – even longer-term tax breaks or childcare credits or housing benefits, although much more helpful to parents, fall short. Our report surveyed around 14,000 people across 14 countries, which together are home to more than a third of the global population, to ask if people wanted children, how many they would ideally like, how many they realistically thought they would have, and why they might not meet their ideal number.

People overwhelmingly want children – even in the lowest-fertility countries. Most want at least two. In other words, people are not rejecting parenthood; they feel shut out from it. And while money was reported as their biggest worry, there were other common barriers as well, including healthcare concerns, fears about the state of the world, and challenges finding a suitable partner (or any partner at all).

And that’s not all: Gender inequality is a major hurdle – not only for women but for men too. Workplace discrimination and social stigma keep men carrying their fair share of the domestic burden, even as more say they want to be involved.

The world is getting better at ensuring paid maternity leave (despite some countries notably lagging behind), but too few offer the same for fathers. When they do, it’s usually less than two weeks, and in many cases men are reluctant to use it in fear of suffering the same career fates as women – stalled advancement, discrimination, demotion and more. The gender pay gap also pushes men to keep up the breadwinner role, especially when women are so often obliged to stay home doing unpaid childcare.

Meanwhile, we are no longer making real progress in ending gender inequality. In fact, by many measures we are backsliding. Around the world, we are seeing attacks on reproductive rights and the vilification of feminism. We are seeing the proliferation of online misogyny among men of all ages, but particularly GenZ. Not only is this turning many women off relationships and dating, it’s fuelling a loneliness epidemic that actually makes lifelong singleness – and, because cohabitation and marriage are strongly linked to fertility, childlessness – more likely, for both men and women.

Baby bonuses won’t make a dent in any of these issues. In fact, they could make matters worse by reinforcing the trope that women will have babies purely for cash. Language like “incentives for childbearing” and “pronatalist policies” are inherently problematic, prioritizing the childbearing goals of policymakers over those of people. How useful is it to incentivize parenthood when most people already want to become parents but don’t feel able to? Research suggests people are actually less compelled to become parents when they feel their fertility choices are being manipulated.

So what works? Focusing on the actual fertility crisis, which isn’t people having too many babies or too few babies. It’s that people feel unable to make their own free and informed reproductive choices when it comes to having children, how many, when and with whom. Only by seeing the real crisis can we find real solutions – solutions that safeguard people’s health, well-being and futures so they can decide what they want for themselves – and are able to fulfill their dreams.