In Aporia: A Second American Baby Boom
I have written an article in Aporia with suggestions on how to increase U.S. fertility. Extract:
The rise to power of J. D. Vance as vice president and Elon Musk as a right-wing mega-influencer has put natalism firmly in the middle of the American political agenda. The 2.0 Trump Administration is keenly aware that sustaining America’s growth, dynamism, and innovation depends in significant part on having more children. But just how realistic is this ambition?
Sub-replacement fertility (roughly defined as below 2.1 per woman) means a declining native labor force must increasingly be squeezed to support the ever-growing retirement and healthcare entitlement spending of the ballooning elderly population. This simple dynamic has crippled the economies of Japan and much of Europe, and has already started hitting China hard. With an official fertility rate of 1.09 in 2022, China’s population cohorts are being virtually halved every generation. . . .
But what can actually be done to raise the birth rate? The truth is no government in any developed countries has found the answer, with the significant exception of Israel.
Until comparatively recently, natalism was a non-issue for American political leaders. After all, the country experienced exponential population growth—driven by big families and, to a lesser and more varying extent, immigration—until the Great Depression. The U.S. fertility rate has only been consistently below replacement since 2008 and now is around 1.6. Today, American women of all levels of education have less children than they hoped, with the most educated missing their family-building goals the most (about 0.6 children less on average). . . .