Egalitarian Justice and Population Size

How do considerations of egalitarian justice bear on how many children individuals may or should have in a just society? Most theorists of justice neglect this question by assuming that the principles they formulate apply to a group of individuals whose size is taken as given. This assumption seems unjustified, however, since how many children individuals have affects the size of everyone's just shares. This may lead us to view procreative choices as being, in one important respect, on a par with productive and consumption choices, and to think that principles of egalitarian justice have implications for how many children individuals may have. This paper explores a number of questions and problems that arise when we proceed this way.