Why People Aren’t Having Kids

The urban family exodus, men's influencers converting to Islam, and more in this week's digest.

Christine Emba has moved from the Washington Post to the Atlantic and wrote an interesting piece on why people aren’t having kids.

The facts of the so-called fertility crisis are well publicized: Birth rates in the United States have been trending down for nearly two decades, and other wealthy countries are experiencing the same. Among those proposing solutions to reverse the trend, the conventional wisdom goes that if only the government were to offer more financial support to parents, birth rates would start ticking up again.

But what if that wisdom is wrong?

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South Korea has spent more than $200 billion over the past 16 years on policies meant to boost fertility, including monthly stipends for parents, expanded parental leave, and subsidized prenatal care—yet its total fertility rate fell by 25 percent in that time. France spends a higher percentage of its GDP on family than any other OECD member country, but last year saw its lowest number of births since World War II. Even the Nordic countries, with their long-established welfare states, child-care guarantees, and policies of extended parental leave, are experiencing sharp fertility declines.

Policy shifts that make life easier and less expensive for parents are worthwhile in their own right. But so far, such improvements haven’t changed most countries’ low-fertility rates. This suggests the existence of another, under-discussed reason people aren’t having kids—one that, I have come to believe, has little to do with policy and everything to do with a deep but unquantifiable human need.

That need is for meaning. In trying to solve the fertility puzzle, thinkers have cited people’s concerns over finances, climate change, political instability, or even potential war. But in listening closely to people’s stories, I’ve detected a broader thread of uncertainty—about the value of life and a reason for being. Many in the current generation of young adults don’t seem totally convinced of their own purpose or the purpose of humanity at large, let alone that of a child. It may be that for many people, absent a clear sense of meaning, the perceived challenges of having children outweigh any subsidy the government might offer.

Click over to read the whole thing.

It’s a more thoughtful article than your average take on falling birth rates. You may remember Emba from her excellent piece in the Washington Post on why men are lost. I interviewed her about that piece last year which is definitely worth your time if you haven’t already listened.

Related from Anthony Bradley: Why Don't Modern American Parents Want Boys?

In another related piece, Derek Thompson wrote that the urban family exodus is a warning to progressives.

In large urban metros, the number of children under 5 years old is in a free fall, according to a new analysis of Census data by Connor O’Brien, a policy analyst at the think tank Economic Innovation Group. From 2020 to 2023, the number of these young kids declined by nearly 20 percent in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. They also fell by double-digit percentage points in the counties making up most or all of Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and St. Louis.

This exodus is not merely the result of past COVID waves. Yes, the pace of the urban exodus was fastest during the high-pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. But even at the slower rate of out-migration since then, several counties—including those encompassing Manhattan, Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco—are on pace to lose 50 percent of their under-5 population in 20 years.

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Behavior is contagious, as the Yale sociologist Nicholas Christakis has shown. If you have a friend who smokes or exercises, it significantly increases the odds that you will do the same. The same principle might hold for having or not having kids. As young children become scarce in big cities, people in their 20s and 30s who are thinking about having children will have fewer opportunities to see firsthand how fulfilling parenthood can be. What they’re left with instead are media representations, which tend to be inflected by the negativity bias of the news.

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America’s richest cities are profoundly left-leaning, and many of them—including New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco—are themselves ensconced in left-leaning states. These places ought to be advertisements for what the modern progressive movement can achieve without meddlesome conservatism getting in the way, at the local or state level. If progressives want to sell their cause to the masses, they should be able to say: Elect us, and we’ll make America more like Oakland. Or Brooklyn. Or suburban Detroit. If they can’t make that argument, that’s a problem.

Right now it’s hard to make the argument, because urban progressivism is afflicted by an inability to build.

Thompson criticizes Vance for his “cat lady” remarks, but the reality is that the Democratic party draws heavily from unmarried people, especially women. You can see that in these Pew stats, which show that 72% of never-married women support the Democrats. For never married men it’s still 61%.

When your party disproportionally draws support from singles (many, though of course not all, childless), don’t expect family friendly policies to result.

Religion and Socioeconomic Status

Ryan Burge recently took a look at the socioeconomic status of various denominations. The mainline Presbyterians came out on top for educational attainment. They do extremely well considering their aging membership (since older cohorts are much less likely to have gone to college).

If you want to look at income, you have to subscribe.

Burge also look at whether or not there’s an emerging post-religious right. He doesn’t see it. You can also see my thoughts on the subject.

The Manosphere and Islam

Sneako is a very popular online personality that I haven’t really followed, but his his name comes up a lot. He’s a controversial figure who’s often labeled “far right.”

Apparently was raised Christian but Sneako recently converted to Islam. Anthony Bradley posted this clip showing Sneako and some Muslim apologist discussing religion with a young women I don’t know.

I find this interesting for a couple of reasons. First, Sneako isn’t the first men’s influencer to convert to Islam. Andrew Tate did the same. Secondly, the Muslim apologist featured in the video knows Christian theology far better than the vast majority of Christians do.

There seems to be a split among online influencers, with some turning to religion (often Christianity, but as we see, sometimes Islam), and others turning to a more materialist Nietzschean sensibility.

Best of the Web

Michael Foster has a couple of interesting pieces this week, one on becoming a man on a mission, and another on 50 actions for clueless fathers.

Eric Schansberg wrote a review of Richard Reeves Of Boys and Men.

NYT: War Shatters Dating Scene for Women in Ukraine - This is such a classic. “Russia invades, men killed and maimed, women’s dating prospects hardest hit.”

After Babel: Chasing Childhood - One of the Best Documentaries on the Loss and Recovery Of Childhood Independence

The London Review of Books reviews Marilynne Robinson’s Reading Genesis.

Michael Young: Postmodern Christians and Their Nice Arrangements of Epithets

Kennaquahair: Eighty Years in the Waste Land

Josh Abbotoy: 20 Million Americans Want To Move. Here’s How They Could Change The Country.

New Content and Media Mentions

I was a guest on the Good Citizen podcast. And I got a mention from Rod Dreher.

New this week:

• My podcast was an interview with Jared Musgrove and Will Pesch of the Christian college fraternity BYX.

• I wrote a review of Rob Henderson’s great new memoir Troubled.

• I also wrote about how JD Vance avoided turning into Pete Buttigieg.

• And Joseph Holmes contributed a great review of the Neil Armstrong biopic First Man.

I got favorable feedback on the movie review, so perhaps I’ll post more cultural coverage like this. Also, my former colleague Kay Hymowitz wrote a great review of First Man when it originally came out.

Don’t forget to subscribe to my podcast on Apple Podcasts, Youtube, or Spotify.