No kids on the block

Summary

Today, Explained: "No Kids on the Block" – A Detailed Summary

Podcast Information:

• Title: Today, Explained
• Host/Author: Vox
• Description: Today, Explained is Vox's daily news explainer podcast. Hosts Sean Rameswaram and Noel King guide listeners through the most important stories of the day.
• Episode: No Kids on the Block
• Release Date: March 20, 2025

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Introduction: The Global Decline in Birth Rates

The episode "No Kids on the Block" delves into the alarming trend of declining birth rates worldwide. Hosts Noel King and Rachel Cohen explore the multifaceted reasons behind this phenomenon, its implications for society, and the controversial pronatalist movement advocating for higher fertility rates.

The Pronatalist Movement and Its Leaders

Elon Musk and J.D. Vance:
The episode opens with discussions about prominent figures leading the pronatalist movement. Elon Musk emphasizes the existential threat of declining birth rates, stating at [02:00] "So let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America." Similarly, J.D. Vance criticizes childlessness, stating at [03:20] "Childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made."

Controversy and Criticism:
The movement is controversial not only because of its goals but also due to its leadership. Musk, with 14 children from four different mothers, and Vance, who has publicly criticized non-parents, have sparked debates about the motivations and implications of promoting higher birth rates.

Expert Insights: Understanding the Decline

Interview with an Expert Demographer:
Rachel Cohen speaks with an expert demographer who outlines the global decline in birth rates across diverse nations, including traditionally high-fertility countries like India, Brazil, and Mexico. The expert points out that the United Nations predicts the global population will peak within the next 75 years, a significant shift from previous projections.

Reasons for Declining Birth Rates:
Several factors contribute to this trend:

• Economic Challenges: High costs of living, expensive childcare, and economic instability deter families from having more children.
• Rise of Singles: Increasing numbers of individuals remain single or choose not to marry, correlating with lower fertility rates.
• Technological Distractions: The proliferation of online entertainment and digital solitude reduces opportunities for socializing and forming relationships conducive to starting families.

At [08:15], the expert warns against historical population panics, such as China’s one-child policy, highlighting the dangers of involuntary measures to control fertility.

Political Perspectives: Left vs. Right

Right-Wing Blame:
Conservative figures often blame over-educated, career-focused women for declining birth rates. The expert demographer challenges this by showing that low fertility rates exist even in societies where female labor participation is minimal, such as Tunisia and Turkey ([14:14]).

Left-Wing Concerns:
On the left, the primary argument is economic. Rachel Cohen discusses how exorbitant housing costs and childcare expenses prevent young people from having more children ([15:45]). However, the expert suggests that economic factors alone don’t fully explain the global decline.

Alice Evans’ Perspective: The Rise of Singles

Interview with Alice Evans:
Alice Evans, a senior lecturer at King’s College London, presents her research on the increasing prevalence of single individuals worldwide. She identifies several key factors:

• Cultural Liberalization: Societal shifts towards valuing personal freedom and romantic love over traditional marriage.
• Economic Independence: Greater financial independence, especially among women, reduces the need to marry for economic security.
• Technological Impact: The dominance of hyper-engaging digital media fosters isolation and reduces in-person interactions necessary for relationship building.

Evans emphasizes that the rise of singles, rather than just economic or educational factors, is a central driver of declining fertility rates. She suggests that building community connections and fostering social skills are essential to reversing this trend ([23:16]).

Policy Responses and Future Directions

Current Policies:
Governments worldwide have attempted various policies to boost birth rates, such as extending child tax credits and making childcare more affordable. However, these measures have had limited success, as birth rates continue to decline despite increased support ([09:44]).

Potential Solutions:
Evans proposes focusing on the core issue—the rise of singles—by:

• Building Community Groups: Creating local clubs and societies to facilitate social interactions.
• Enhancing Social Skills Education: Implementing programs in schools to improve interpersonal skills and reduce anxiety in social settings.
• Regulating Technology: Considering measures to limit excessive use of digital media that contributes to social isolation.

Implications of Continued Decline

Economic and Social Challenges:
The expert demographer outlines potential consequences of sustained low birth rates, including:

• Shrinking Workforce: Fewer workers mean less tax revenue and challenges in sustaining pension and welfare systems.
• Aging Population: An increasing proportion of elderly individuals can lead to greater economic strain and intergenerational conflicts ([06:07]).

Global Perspective:
While most countries are experiencing declining birth rates, some, like Uzbekistan, have seen slight increases due to strong cultural imperatives supporting marriage and childbearing. However, these efforts are often small-scale and insufficient to counteract the global trend ([20:38]).

Conclusion: Navigating a Childless Future

The episode concludes with a nuanced view of the declining birth rates, emphasizing the need for balanced and humane policies that respect personal freedoms while addressing societal challenges. The hosts highlight the importance of fostering community and interpersonal relationships as foundational steps toward potentially reversing the fertility decline.

Final Thoughts from Rachel Cohen:
At [23:16], Rachel Cohen advocates for a world that prioritizes romantic love and community building, stating, "That's quintessentially what makes us human." She underscores the urgency of addressing the social isolation empowered by technological advances to ensure a stable and thriving population in the future.

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Notable Quotes:

• Elon Musk ([02:00]): "So let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America."
• J.D. Vance ([03:20]): "Childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made."
• Expert Demographer ([07:55]): "Demographers have been really wrong in the past... So I think we should be humble in these moments."
• Alice Evans ([23:16]): "Let's focus on the core problem and that's the rise of singles."

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This episode of Today, Explained offers a comprehensive exploration of the global decline in birth rates, dissecting political narratives, societal changes, and the profound implications for the future. Through expert insights and thoughtful analysis, the podcast encourages listeners to consider the underlying causes and potential solutions to this complex issue.

Transcript

[Noel King]

Birth rates around the world are declining. Women are having fewer children. The question of why this is is hotly debated and on Today explained. We're going to talk to an expert who says she has an answer.

[Rachel Cohen]

You have the option of going out with your friends, getting dress coordinating or you can just relax, chill out on the sofa and watch a film or play a video game and maybe that's a bit easier, a bit more relaxing when you've had a hard day, you just trash out and relax.

[Noel King]

But the movement to get us to have more children publicly led by people like Vice President J.D. vance and Vice President Elon Musk, is also controversial because it is led by Elon Musk who has as many as 14 children by four different mothers and by JD Vance who has suggested that non parents should get fewer votes than parents. What should we make of the pronatalist movement that's coming up?

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[Elon Musk]

So let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America.

[Noel King]

It's today explained. I'm Noel King with Vox's Rachel Cohen who covers, among other things, family policy. Okay, everybody has been talking about who's having babies. For my money, it's given none of your business, but you've actually been covering this as a news story. What's going on?

[Expert Demographer]

So there's a few reasons we're hearing about it more lately. 11 is that birth rates are falling pretty much everywhere, including in some of the countries we used to associate with really high birth rates like India, Brazil or Mexico. And yes, the United States. It's happening worldwide at such a fast rate that Last year the UN announced the number of people on Earth will probably peak in the next 75 years, which is a pretty big change from even what they were projecting a decade ago, when experts thought the population peak was still well over a century away. And the other main reason people are talking about it in the US at least, is that you have people like elon Musk and J.D. vance. They're speaking out about it a lot lately. Musk calls falling birth rates the biggest danger civilization faces by far. If we don't make enough people to at least sustain our numbers, perhaps increase a little bit, then civilization is going to crumble. And J.D. vance, who opposes abortion rights, notoriously blasted, quote, childless cat ladies.

[Elon Musk]

We're effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of, of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made. And so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.

[Noel King]

Mm, yes, I do remember these gents, and they are mostly gents, call themselves pro natalists. What do they actually want to happen here? Or do they just want to criticize?

[Expert Demographer]

So pronatalists, it's essentially this broad ideological movement driven by concerns that the world is not producing enough children and that society should work to change that. Now, not all pronatalists are politically conservative like Musk and Vance, and not all conservatives are particularly pronatalists. Some self identified pronatalists really support abortion rights. They would never want to force women into having children they don't want. But given the power and influence of people like Musk and Vance, their sort of interest and involvement in the movement has definitely caused a lot of people to feel pretty afraid.

[Noel King]

Hmm. Yes. And it makes you wonder, is there a similar thing happening on the left of the American political spectrum?

[Expert Demographer]

Not exactly in the same way. Like Donald Trump campaigned for president and said he wanted a new baby boom.

[Donald Trump]

How does that sound?

[Expert Demographer]

That sounds pretty.

[Donald Trump]

I want a baby boom.

[Expert Demographer]

Oh, you men are so lucky out there. You sound lucky. No Democratic politician is talking like that. And that makes sense because abortion rights remain very much under attack and people want to be really careful in how they talk about both falling birth rates and reproductive freedom. But I think a political change is happening with the Democrats is we are seeing more of an effort lately from them to emphasize being, quote, pro family.

[Rachel Cohen]

Too many young parents are forced to.

[Noel King]

Exit the workforce because they can't find affordable childcare.

[Commercial Voice]

If we want to grow our population.

[Noel King]

We must continue expanding affordable child care.

[Rachel Cohen]

This is pro Family, pro child and pro growth policy.

[Expert Demographer]

Democrats rightly recognize that they don't want to cede all the family friendly political rhetoric to conservative pronatalists. So that was a really big part of the Harris Walls campaign. They framed a lot of their care policy ideas as being more pro family than the gop. For example, extending the child tax credit to help them buy a car seat, to help them buy baby clothes, a crib.

[Noel King]

Many of us are concerned about climate change, concerned about what human beings are doing to the planet, concerned about limited resources on planet Earth. And some people choose to have no kids or have fewer kids because of that. So what is the argument? That there should be real concern that people are having fewer children.

[Expert Demographer]

Right. So people do debate whether falling birth rates are problems. And the case for why it is essentially goes like this. Most people on Earth right now live in a country below what demographers call the replacement rate, meaning each woman on average would have 2.1 children. That's essentially the mathematical amount of children needed to maintain a population's current size in a generation or two. So whether or not that's a problem, the idea is as the number of babies goes down, the number of workers will shrink too. And that means there can be fewer people paying taxes, fewer people available to do important jobs, less money going into welfare and pension systems.

[Elon Musk]

Japan's baby bust is believed to be partly to blame for the nation losing its title as the world's third largest economy.

[Rachel Cohen]

Italy has the highest share of people over 65 years old among all EU member states. And if the trend continues, it will be very hard to sustain both the pension and the health Systems.

[Expert Demographer]

In the UK, by 2070, the number of workers is projected to rise by a million. The number of pensioners will rise by 5 million. And this could lead to all sorts of economic and political challenges. More poverty, less investment. And you can also imagine some real intergenerational political conflict in this situation where there are fewer resources to care for the elderly, but they still have more political power.

[Noel King]

All right, so I understand in the relatively immediate term that fewer people means fewer young people, fewer workers, fewer people paying taxes. The pronatalists seem to think we are heading toward like a near term disaster. Is there any proof of that?

[Expert Demographer]

Demographers have been really wrong in the past. There have been population panics the other way that the world was producing too many people. And that led to really horrible policy responses like mass sterilization campaigns and forced abortions and eugenics. So I think we should be humble in these moments. As we're making predictions about the future.

[Noel King]

China's one child policy went on for, I don't know, 35 years, and that was a freak out over too many people.

[Expert Demographer]

Exactly. Now they're stigmatizing childless women in China and trying to figure out how to get people to have more babies.

[Noel King]

Do we have data showing that women really want more children and can't have them or are being barred in some way, or is this just what we want?

[Expert Demographer]

I think this is a key question. We know that most women, even those who do really want to be parents, tend to prefer smaller families, which, you know, they're easier to balance with jobs, hobbies, friends, and of course, less expensive. Most people don't really want five to 10 kids anymore. I think the real fundamental question is whether women with zero kids might want, have wanted at least one or two if they had felt more supported either by society, their government, or a partner, or both. So one of the big arguments that pronatalists make, including progressive liberal ones, is they point to surveys that suggest some people would be open to having more kids if it were easier and more affordable. So from that perspective, I think pronatalism has some overlaps with the reproductive justice movement, which says we should build a society that supports people having however many or how few children that they want.

[Rachel Cohen]

But.

[Expert Demographer]

But it is complicated.

[Noel King]

Well, fortunately, the pronatalists in the US now have a lot of power, and therefore, I imagine they can make policy to get us all to have more kids. What. What policies have they introduced?

[Expert Demographer]

Well, you know, in the US we do have debates around the child tax credit, which is supposed to help ease the burden of raising children. And there's been some efforts over the last 25 years around the world to try and boost birth rates with things like more affordable childcare and other sort of family policies. But even in all these countries, including the U.S. birth rates continue to decline.

[Noel King]

Throughout history, Rachel, having children or not has often been viewed as a very personal, private decision. We're at a time in which the government seems to want to insert itself into that decision to help us make choices one way or the other, the one way being to have more kids. What does it mean for the government to be involved in this decision?

[Expert Demographer]

I spend a lot of time writing about attacks on abortion rights in the US and attacks on ivf. And I think your question gets at some of the most uncomfortable parts of this whole discourse, because if it turns out it's not possible to use policy to voluntarily boost birth rates, politically or otherwise, the question is will leaders start then to talk about involuntary ways to do it? And it doesn't seem inconceivable to me at all that if you make the issue of falling birth rates more salient, if you get people really activated around this idea that it's a huge problem and a threat to humanity, that you are going to see some people become more open to old reactionary ideas about controlling women's body, that you might see people saying, oh, women not having more kids are being selfish to human civilization. This, I think, is the real fear that rhetoric like from Elon Musk and JD Vance create.

[Noel King]

Vox's Rachel Cohen. She covers housing, homelessness and family policy. Coming up, the baby bust isn't just an American phenomenon. Basically no place in the world is having as many kids anymore.

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[Noel King]

I'm Noel King with Alice Evans. She's a senior lecturer of International Development at King's College London. Her research focuses on gender and babies not having babies. And Alice has been everywhere from Mexican.

[Rachel Cohen]

Villages to the Atlas Mountains to Uzbek towns to Korean universities. And by talking, learning from young men, older men and women across the world, I've started to think about, okay, well why is fertility collapsing? What's going on? And my interviews have really helped me understand this massive global problem.

[Noel King]

So birth rates are going down all across the world. What are the leading theories as to why this is happening?

[Rachel Cohen]

So I guess there's the right wing, the left wing, and then there's the Alice Evans take. Okay, I think the conservative right in the US will blame childless cat ladies. Right? So they'll say that these women are over educated, they're living with their cats and they're very, very selfish.

[Noel King]

Correct.

[Rachel Cohen]

But here's the thing. That theory has two major emissions because the collapse in fertility is happening at vastly different political economies. I mean in Tunisia and Turkey, female labor force participation is very low, 30%. And yet their fertility is only 1.5. So even in places where women aren't even getting jobs, they're not having kids. You know, in India, extremely patriarchal casteist society. But in, in Tamil Nadu in the south, it's got exactly the same fertility rate as England and Wales, that's 1.4. So it's not just about these over educated women pursuing their careers. Also there's also a class based variation. So the, the US right tends to blame these over educ. In Sweden and in Finland the rate of childlessness is actually amongst the most disadvantaged people, they're least likely to have children.

[Noel King]

I wonder if J.D. vance knows any of this.

[Rachel Cohen]

He should call me up.

[Noel King]

All right, so, so that's on the right. And then we heard earlier that on the left there's one theory that you often hear is that it's just become too expensive. Women would like to have more children, but they can't afford to, there's not enough support, people aren't making enough money, et cetera.

[Rachel Cohen]

Absolutely. So many people across the world experience economic difficulties. And so these could be like very high house prices in New York, making it much more expensive to have an apartment with an extra room or the very expensive cost of childcare. You know, when I was in San Francisco, people would say might be 30,000 super super expensive. And that's prohibitively difficult for many families. Now those difficulties are real and governments should take those economic concerns seriously. And I'm all here at supporting cheaper housing, more affordable Hous greater access to safer, accessible childcare. However, I don't think that explanation is a full story because it won't explain why it's happening everywhere all at once, even at very, very different levels of income.

[Noel King]

And so that brings us to the Alice Evans theory.

[Rachel Cohen]

Yes, exactly. So what has happened everywhere all at once is that we see a rise of singles and the rise in singles, that is, I mean, people neither being married or cohab, and it precisely correlates with the decline in fertility. Now, previously, late from the 1960s, American couples had fewer children, but now what's happening is they're not even forming those couples. So in America, for example, over half of 18 to 34 year olds are neither in a steady relationship nor living with a partner. Furthermore, just out from Pew, most single Americans don't feel much pressure to find a partner. Half say they're not even looking.

[Noel King]

Are we sure that sexy singles are to blame? Because for many years people have had kids without being married or without living with someone without being in relationships.

[Rachel Cohen]

Oh, that's a great point, but that's actually going down too. Now, in America, it's been the least educated who are less likely to marry, and that's where there's been the steepest decline in fertility.

[Noel King]

All right, so I'm assuming you looked into why more people are staying single and also saying, I want to be single, what's going on?

[Rachel Cohen]

So here's the thing. I think historically people would have married for one of three reasons, very crudely, love, money or respect. You know, in conservative societies where singledom is totally stigmatized, then you have to marry for respectability. You know, in India, where it's so important, lots of aunties and uncles might be pestering people. You know, when are you getting married? When are you getting married? You know, for my grandparents, it was just a done thing to get married married. But now, as society liberalizes, you know, Miley Cyrus championing flowers, I can buy myself flowers, there's more permissibility. So that's one thing. There's also economic convergence. So as women earn their own incomes, they can increasingly be more independent. So compatibility increasingly depends on love, whether people really enjoy each other's company. But of course, there are lots of frictions. You know, people might be manipulative, deceitful, unfaithful, and if there are lots of frictions, they may call it quits. So that might be one aspect of it. Economic convergence between men and women's earnings and cultural liberalisation making singledom more permissible. On top of that, on Top of those shifts. I think the big change that we see all across the world, all at very different levels of income, is the massive improvement in hyper engaging online Entertainment in that TikTok video games, call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Bridgerton, Netflix, you can, you know, browse blackpink's livestream. Let's kill this love. Well, go on pornhub.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Rachel Cohen]

Anything you like. All these technological advances enable instant access to world's most charismatic charming content. Or maybe you prefer to do sports bets and gambling. And so why venture out when everything is at your fingertips from Netflix to Zoom meetings? And so we see tracing the data over time that there is growing isolation. Young people are spending much more time alone. So in recent surveys, 65% of young American men say no one knows me well, 28% of Gen Z didn't socialize with anyone they didn't live with in the past week. So we just see this global trend and it is absolutely global. So for example, last year I was in Mexico in lots of different Mexican little towns and mothers would say the biggest problem here is that our teenage sons are spending all their times in their bedroom. And I'll hear the same stories in little Indian villages, in Bangladeshi vil. All these people being hooked on hyper engaging media.

[Noel King]

Are there any countries that buck the trend?

[Rachel Cohen]

Well yes, actually. So for example, I was in Uzbekistan for a month last year and there, there's been an increase in fertility. When I'm in Uzbekistan, people will typically ask me four questions and the answer should always be yes. Do you like Uzbekistan? Do you like Uzbek food? Are you married? Do you have children? And that tells you a lot about people's priorities, about, you know, a straw, a national pride and also this strong onus that women should be married and have children. So you know, that's one option. You just pump up the status of marriage infertility. In Georgia, their orthodox patriarch similarly did the same of bumping up the status of children and fertility. In Hungary they tried to give people cheaper mortgages if they promised to be married and have children. But what I'm saying, the Alice Evans theory of the collapsing fertility is that these pronatal incentives are same $2,000, $5,000 to have an extra child. They're simply too small. If the prior constraint is that most people are increasingly single, I think that, you know, most governments are putting the cart before the horse by focusing on couples rather than realizing this prior constraint. And, and I think that if, if I'm right that the problem is technology this hyper engaging media distracting us from us and driving this digital solitude which ultimately prevents people from forming need to think. Well, you know, we have various options. Could we regulate technology in some way? Could we introduce further restrictions? Or what can we do in schools to ensure that we're fostering social skills? Because just as we see declining maths in English reading skills across the OECD simultaneously, my interview suggests that if people aren't spending time socializing, then they're not necessarily developing the capacity to bond and charm and woo. You know, if you're not mixing and mingling, then you get a little bit anxious if you go out into a crowd of unknown strangers.

[Noel King]

Yeah, I know, this is such a good point. And so the question becomes like, what do we do that doesn't simultaneously make us feel like we are losing personal civil liberties? Like, the government could take my phone and send me to speed dating, but that would feel like a real invasion. A real invasion. And you know, personal freedoms, people feel pretty strongly about those. So in terms of how we should change the conversation around, what went wrong here, what is going wrong here and what we should do about it, what's your best idea?

[Rachel Cohen]

So my message for the world based on my globally comparative research is let's focus on the core problem and that's the rise of singles. Now how can we address that? I need you to listen. First and foremost, we need to understand and tackle the problem. Let's have a range of pilot initiatives to build community groups, to build local clubs and societies to support communities so that people can mix and mingle and fall in love. I'm a great advocate for romantic love, for sharing our life stories, for empathizing and understanding with each other. That's quintessentially what makes us human. So if we put that problem front and center and start working on that tricky conundrum, then maybe we can, you know, address the loneliness and boost up the fertility. I want you, baby.

[Noel King]

Alice Evans of King's College London. Today's episode was made in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect Team. It was produced by Miles Bryan, edited by Jolie Myers and Miranda Kennedy. Fact checked by Laura Bullard. Laura Bullard and engineered by Andrea, Kristen's daughter. I'm Noel King. It's Today explained.