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It wasn’t only women without kids who were displeased by Vance’s “childless cat lady” remarks. It was also pro-natalists: people who don’t resort to name-calling but are also worried about the growing number of women choosing not to have children.
The U.S. fertility rate is at a historic low of 1.6 births per woman, well below replacement level. A recent study shows that it’s Americans having no babies at all—rather than people having fewer babies—who account for over two-thirds of the drop in births between 2012 and 2022. Though the question of why people don’t have children can be sensitive, declining fertility rates pose serious long-term problems—from worker shortages and pension shortfalls to national security.
Last week—in the midst of cat-lady-gate—Pew published new research examining why young adults say they’re “unlikely” to have kids. Top answers include prioritizing careers and hobbies, insufficient funds, concerns about the state of the world, and climate change. But the number-one reason, particularly among women: they “just don’t want to.” Pew also found that between 2018 and 2023, the share of U.S. adults under 50 who say they are “unlikely to ever have kids” rose 10 percentage points, from 37 percent to 47 percent.
Should politicians incentivize baby-making for the sake of civilization? Vance thinks so. He has argued for greater tax benefits for those with children and has even suggested that parents should be able to vote on behalf of their children before they turn eighteen.
But incentivizing child-rearing, be it through tax cuts or votes, can go only so far. “Where the drama is,” says Catherine Pakaluk, an economist, mother of eight children and six stepchildren, and the author of Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth, “is whether men and women, couples, households, want a child.”
While she favors “removing obstacles to both marriage and childbearing whenever we find them,” Pakaluk says she’s “skeptical that straightening all those things out will change the fundamental desire that people have to be married and to have children.” Those things, she says, come “from deeper places.”
“If you would like to promote a culture of childbearing,” says Pakaluk, “then you need to focus on. . . what drives people’s desires and expectations for life.”
Madeleine Kearns is an associate editor at The Free Press. Follow her on X @madeleinekearns. Read her piece “Trump Might Regret Picking J.D. Vance.”
The change in why people aren't having kids is the tell. It's gone from "can't afford them" (which is a policy issue) to "don't want them" (which is a values issue). I can think of nothing that captures the current political moment in the United States better than that.
Having skin in the game, so to speak, and a focus on community - and legacy - is how civilizations exist - or don't. It's that simple. Families - whether biological, adopted, step, created, or inherited - give people a purpose, a history, and legacy.
The reason why the cat ladies are hissing is that Vance struck a nerve. Not only about their individual values and priorities, but the country's.
One doesn't need kids or biological kids to be a powerful, positive force in the world. We see this all the time with individuals who abstain from having children but who somehow seem to give of themselves to many others. For some, knowing that your decisions and choices will affect future generations is also an important barometer for using common sense.
But we're in a moment of maximal "me-ness" and selfishness that's some mixture of Marxist, nihilist, and, yes, Satanic (if we understand Satanism in its self-worship level of meaning).
You don't maintain a country or a civilization unless you are willing to continue it by having kids and raising families. We can make policy choices that make that easier but the values part of it is what's really on the ballot this year.
I guarantee more people will have more children if economic incentives are granted. A lot of people genuinely want kids but don't think they can afford them. This isn't a black or white issue.