May 8, 2025 • 42 mins
In this episode, Ryan welcomes Daniel Hess & Cremieux Recueil to explore the multifaceted reasons behind the decline in birth rates in America and other Western countries. They discuss cultural shifts, the impact of education and awareness on fertility, and various policies that could encourage childbearing. They also examine successful national strategies, the role of religion, economic factors, and the effects of immigration on birth rates. It's a Numbers Game is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
Read Cremieux's work HERE
Read Daniel's work HERE
#birthrates #fertilitycrisis #culturalshifts #education #familypolicies #immigration #economicfactors #religion #housing #nationalstrategies
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to a Numbers Game with Brian Graduski. Happy
to have you all here on this Thursday episode of
the show. We are approaching or we are not approaching.
We are in the month of May. It is approaching.
High school graduations May in June, depending on what say
you live in. And the class of twenty twenty five
is special because I most probably don't know this. It
is the largest group of eighteen year olds in American history.
(00:25):
There was The peak year to be born was two
thousand and seven, which makes you about eighteen now, would
make you eighteen this year, which means you're probably graduating
high school. So four point three two million Americans were
born in year two thousand and seven. Most have lived
the eighteen seventeen years required to go to high school
and graduate without moving. Every class afterwards, every graduating class
(00:49):
for the next two decades at least will be smaller
than this one. This is the peak. How much smaller
is a great question. In twenty twenty two, there were
only three point six seven million people born in America.
That's about seventeen percent smaller than the class than the
population born in twenty and seven. In the class of
twenty twenty five, the class of twenty forty will be
(01:12):
seventeen percent smaller than the class of twenty twenty five,
just because people had fewer children. Two thousand and seven
was also the last year that America had a birth
rate of replacement level. To have a replacement level birth
rate for society, you need two point one children per woman.
That's the minimum amount, right, because it's usually two, but
(01:33):
not everyone makes it to adulthood, so it's two point one.
And there was a slight baby boom in two thousand
and six twousand and seven, and during this brief period
we had sustainable growth. If you want to go before then,
though the last one, we had real sustainable growth, real
sustainable growth from just people having children now from migration.
You have to go back to nineteen seventy one, which
(01:54):
is sixteen years before I was born. America's had chronically
low fertility rate and something too big concerned about because
if you have two few children and the population shrinks
over time, home value shrink, economy shrinks, schools closed, societies
become sadder and more depressed. It's what's inflicting a lot
of baby boomers now who find themselves that they're not grandparents.
(02:16):
There's no grandchildren. Millennials. Their millennial children who are in
their mid to late thirties and early forties never had kids,
and it's produced a lot of sadness of depression that
Your Times has written some brilliant pieces discussing this. And
the Trump administration is aware of this and they want
to do something about it. They want to make it
easier for people to have kids and to increase fertility.
(02:37):
So I'll pose the question to my audience, what would
it cost for you to have a baby or for
someone you know of fertility age to have a child,
or have another baby if you have one. According to
Your Times, several ideas are being floated. Some are reserving
thirty percent of full Bright scholarships to married applicants with children,
so that way there's more encouragement for people to have
(03:00):
kids to go and pursue higher degrees. Another idea was
a five thousand dollars cash baby Bowman Is to every
American mother after delivery. Another idea was to make hospitalization
free during pregnancy and delivery or guests government subsidize. Now,
these are just all ideas. There's no specific bill being proposed,
(03:21):
and not all These ideas are very original because most
of the developed world has suffered from low birth rates
for a very very long time, and they've tried a
multitude of different solutions to try to answer this. Women
in Hungary who have four or more children a or
exam from income tax for life. In South Korea, private
companies give bonuses to workers who have kids, and in
(03:41):
Poland they have some version of universal basic income for
people with children. And some of these places have had
some good results, some limited impacts. Fun In fact, the
only nation to a seismic change in fertility rates in
the modern era is the nation of Georgia, and that's
only because it only reversed to have positive fertility levels
(04:02):
after having below replacement because the Georgian Orthodox patriarch, Patriarch
Ela the second I announced he was going to personally
baptize everyone's third child third or more so, he personally
baptized thirty thousand children in a very small country, and
the fertility rate increased from one point five to nine
(04:22):
children per woman in two thousand and four to two
point two in twenty sixteen. I guess the idea of
taking a selfie with the patriarch was enough to entice
millennials to have kids. If Kim Kardashian offered the same proposal,
I'm sure we'd see a baby boom. I mean, it's
just maybe if the next pope does that, we'll see
something going on. In Italy, there are I guess, wastes
(04:45):
that they're incentivized in some capacity outside just giving money.
And it's not just places in Europe and East Asia
which are a low fertility levels, and they've had them
for decades, I mean parts of year. We're going back
to the nineteen sixties and fifties where they've had replacement
level birth rates below replacement levels. Countries that you think
(05:05):
have enormous population booms lots of kids do not. They
used to a long time ago, but they don't anymore. India, China, Mexico, Brazil, Chile,
Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Colombia all have ertiliy
rates below replacement levels every one of these nations. Generations
are getting smaller over time, and that's why many people
(05:28):
in America anyway and in Western Europe have argued, well,
we can't get people to have kids, so what are
we gonna do. We're just gonna impoor people. But it's
not that simple. You cannot just interchange people through mass immigration.
Germany try this, and over a decade ago they imported
millions of Syrians and Afghans with the promise that they'll
be as productive as natural born Germans in no time
(05:50):
at all. Well, here we are a decade later, and
according to the Wall Street Journal, they're suffering from a
massive worker shortage. But how how do you have a
worker shortage when Angela Marko kicked the doors open for
your country to the almost basically the whole Third World.
Because while over sixty five percent of natural born Germans
and native Germans have a job and we're going to
(06:10):
contributor to society, the same is only true for a
third of Afghans and Syrians. They don't have the same
education level they do on the same work level. They're
just not German. People are not interchangeable. And you need
to understand that high performing, high IQ societies need children
to innovate, to grow, to produce, to have economic booms.
(06:32):
It's why Elon Musk has been so worried about the
chronicle low birth rates and developed countries. And I don't
believe what we should do what Elon Musk is doing,
trying to have, you know, ten thousand kids with millions
of different cockumines all across the world. That's not the answer,
but there is an answer to it, and all countries
aren't the same. Places like Italy, Spain, Greece, Poland, South
(06:53):
Korea and China, for example, they're in dire straits like
they're in a place where it is incurable in the
near future, their population is going to have a massive
decline and there's nothing at this point they could do
about it. In our own hemisphere, Puerto Rico has such
extremely low birth rates and such high domestic migration that
(07:14):
is one of the fastest shrinking places as far as
population on Earth. Their population today is as low as
it was in nineteen eighty. China, our largest global adversary
in the world, is losing two million people per year.
That's two million per year. They're going to lose one
(07:34):
hundred million over the next twenty years and five hundred
million over the next seventy five years. How do you
fix a problem like that. You have to reverse in
an immense way. When you put that into a calculation
in seventy five years, which is not that long ago. Truly,
(07:57):
there are people alive that are seventy five years old
and above seventy five years you're talking about they had
homes for one point four billion people, and now they
only have eight hundred million. Who is going to live
in all those empty homes? What will happen to those
property values, What will happen to those schools? Who will
take care of those seniors, who will work? I mean,
maybe we'll have rows of the robot do it in
(08:18):
everyone's house is but I still think you're probably going
to need people to a certain extent. And that's just China.
In the epidemic of low birth rates is in every
corner of the world outside of Israel, several Islamic states,
and most parts of Africa, and even in Africa they're
having population decline. People seem to think that this is
(08:39):
low fertility is only like a white issue or an
Asian issue, European and Asians because they've suffered from the longest.
In America, that is not sure at all. In twenty
twenty four was the first year and record that black
women actually had a lower fertility rate than white women.
Black women had one point five one eight children per woman.
White women had one point five three five. And while
(09:00):
Hispanics had a baby boom and part because of Joe
Biden's open border policy, and they also failed to reach
fertility level above replacement. They're sticking at one point nine
to eight and it's going to decline next year. And
while there are a few states that have normally like
higher forertillity levels than others, the Dakota's have pretty high
up fertil levels, Utah, Idaho, and Nebraska, there's not many.
(09:20):
Many suffer from huge blights of very few children. And
you're going to see the problem of school closures and
this problem of what do you do in societies with
don't have kids. You can't just import everyone in the
world to come here and expect them to expect America
to be America, like it didn't work in Germany, like
it won't work in other parts of the world. Government's
(09:43):
policies have to start thinking about how they facilitate economies
and housing policies and cultural policies that promote childbearing. So
I asked the question again, what would it cost for
the government to entice you or some some one you
know of child bearing years to have a baby that's
(10:04):
the ultimate question that many governments around the world will
be facing the century. We have on two guests next
discuss these policies, what are and aren't working, and what
this all means for our nation and the world's fertility.
Up next, Okay, on this week's episode, this Thursday episode
of Numbers Game, we have on two very brilliant guests
(10:26):
who know a ton about the subject, the versus crameu
rey Q. He is a writer on demographics and fertility.
You can read his blog at cramew c r E
m I u X dot x y z. And then
Daniel has writes for a blog called Moorebirths dot com, which,
as you can guess, looks at birth and data and fertility.
And I'm excited for having them both here. So I'm
(10:48):
gonna start with Daniel first. Daniel, and I'll ask the
same question to Krew. Daniel first, question, why aren't Americans
having as many children as they used to and also
as many they desire? Because most polls show that Americans
want to have more kids, They just don't.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah, there's there's there's a bunch of factors and one
thing that you quickly understand when you study fertility and
birth rates is that it is multi factored, but uh,
the biggest one is marriage rates have have plummeted dramatically.
Birth control has gotten very good, so so actually, ironically
marriage matters more than before because people are much more
(11:31):
able to avoid pregnancy unless conditions are basically perfect. So
that usually means long term, committed relationship, usually means completed education,
being established, especially for young men in good work and
so forth. So the list of requirements has has shot up,
and people are taking longer and longer to sort of
(11:51):
establish themselves, and marriage rates have plummeted, so so conditioned
just not yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
And I think Cameron asked this ques you because maybe
you know this. There is this a lot of times
when it comes to fertility information. There's a lot of
things in people's minds that were true many decades ago
but are no longer true. For instance, you know the
idea that Puerto Ricans have tons of babies, when in
fact they have actually one of the lowest birth rates
(12:18):
in the whole world. Why is it that? Why is
it that it used to be where low income people
had a ton of kids and higher income people had
relatively few, and now it's actually vice versa from data
the eyebread, whereas actually lower income people do actually have
(12:38):
fewer children than before. Is that correct as it might not?
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Yeah, that's actually correct in many countries, but not in
all of them. There are For example, Sweden's one of
the earliest countries to make this transition towards a positive
fertility by income gradient. And the major compositional reason for
this gradient shift is that the number of unintended births
has declined. He never done into the berths for the
source of births for people in employees, the lowest income
(13:02):
brackets for a very long time. As they've cultivated, as
we've gotten better healthcare, as we've improved the quality of
birth control and well not many things more mivigeable, it's
become possible for the fewer of those only to the
births white. Whereas people who are you know, getting married
and whatnot, they are often wanting to have kids, so
they will end up having those kids today. Try shifted
(13:23):
things around of the years.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Well, and it's so funny because the story of declining
birth rates within the two thousands and the twenty tens
is the story really of teenage pregnancy in part stopping
I mean that's part of that's a big part of
the story is that teenagel agancy decreased substantially. It's also
that you know, people are having as as many families
with only one child as they used to. That's been
(13:46):
pretty flat. It's just more people. We're having no kids period.
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Since about two the number of teenage pregnancies has declined
pretty precipitously. It was declining beforehand, but it would going
down the law faster afterwards. And yeah, the number of
childish people has got up great baths, like in terms
of people being able to pay off because when they
pay off, it didn't have the kids. If they don't
pay off old and they don't have the kids, that
seems to be going towards Daniel.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Is that is that your research goes well.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
You know, that's yeah, that's that's quite accurate. Cremuwa is
quite quite correct. But yeah, your your your your fertility
rate has been dropping at every age up to age
thirty five is the latest. So it's you're you're delaying
and delaying and delaying so much that you know it
was it's even it's even gotten into into the thirties.
(14:36):
So it's it's only thirty five and above above that
fertility is actually increasing now.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Is that because of like ivy AF and other drugs.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Well, also, people are just finally getting around to getting
married and wanting to start a family, you know, in
their thirties, sometimes in their mid thirties. But by that
time you're pushing up against, uh, some of the limits
of biological fertility, so so people cannot People are just
starting so late.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Right. I go between two things. One is that I'm
a millennial. I'm thirty. I just turned thirty eight on Tuesday.
That's Tuesday. So I have a lot of friends of
mine who are women who are in my age range
where I've went to high school with, who are now
at a frantic pace saying I have to get pregnant now.
(15:24):
They they were sold on the idea that they had
way more time than they actually had, that they could
spend a decade or so chasing guys who were never
interested in them, and it just frankly and things just
didn't work out. There were some health issues and they're
in a separate bucket and other ones. But I've noticed
that substantially the people were kind of lied to. But
(15:46):
how much time they have really And my friend Megan
McCain said to me one time, if you're a woman
and you're spos having kids, you need to take your
fertility as serious as you take your job.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, that's a great point. And I call this the
kind of the lowest hanging fruit is awareness about fertility
and you know, trying to you know, educate people to
start much much younger than they are because that you know,
you said it exactly, people are you know, delaying so
much and that they are at a frantic point in
their late thirties. By that, some people will will succeed,
(16:20):
some people will have the families that they want to have.
A lot won't. So it shouldn't change one thing that's
you know, your easiest thing, the thing that you that
that's probably the most amenable to you know, to change
is simply awareness. I mean, in high schools, people should
be having education about the fertility window, which is actually fertility,
(16:43):
the ability to get pregnant actually peaks in the early twenties.
It's and it's going down, you know, all throughout the
twenties into the thirties. It's much earlier than anybody realizes.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Right, I mean, because everyone will see a celebrity getting
pregnant at forty and saying, oh, that could be me,
you know, and not everyone is Megan Kelly who had
her first kid I think at forty or forty one,
and good for her. But not everyone's like that, Carimea.
If you were with now, President Trump has been floating ideas.
He hasn't had a concrete policy on how to increase utility.
(17:14):
There has been everything from five thousand dollars cash bonuses
to having having classes on fertility and other things about childcare,
or taking Social Security money out for a longer, longer
maternity leaves. If you were with in front of the
president or his administration, what is an effective policy that
(17:35):
has been tried that actually increases fertility levels?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, so when they order to return to you for more,
that was would you guys just talk to them? This
is the Tipo effect where people like fertility is reduced
to some period because people are delaying longer. If you
want to fight the typical effect, you get fighting on
the front end by cutting down. This is something they
can do cutting down on high school graduation agents because
you can get people out of high school at age sixteen.
He allow them to go to college of six and
(18:00):
start having them start their adult lives earlier, giving them
agicial time to find a partner as an adult, find
a partner of accomplished person to become accomplished earlier in life.
She can gain back a few years and you can't
extend your fertility. Does you can have more kids in
that window. That is something they could immediately do. They
have the power to do it. Have the power to
encourage acceleration at school, so people can do that even
(18:21):
more readily than were able. Somebody who is capable of
going to college at twelve but is held back because
the system is very slow, could be doing that. They
could start their adult life much earlier, give them a
lot more time to do whatever.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Wow, I never wanted to. I never actually thought about before.
There was a book called Generations. I can't remember the
end of the author. It's a very it's a very
data heavy book, and it was about how people nowadays
have the life experience, the very delayed life experiences. So
someone of thirty years now would have had the same
(18:54):
experience as someone who who was twenty years old maybe
thirty years ago. And you're saying that that is if
we were to accelerate the high school experience and accelerate
the schooling experience and get kids to graduate at sixteen
instead of eighteen. That would help propel their life in general.
So I've never heard of before, honestly, but it sounds interesting.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Son in Germany have done these reforms at certain regions
and they have not resulted in any loss in academic achievement.
They have resulted in people entering the workforce earlier. They've
resulted in slight income increases for people who graduate younger.
It's just been all around pretty good without any apparent downside.
So I think the family information is exactly pretty positive
and pretty easy to implem into. It costes nothing to
(19:38):
centric to school for less time.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Wow, Daniel, what were you going to say?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
No, I strongly agree that is an outstanding point. We
were in full agreement on that actually, and another point
I think Krimia has probably made this at some point
in his writing, but as well. It is the idea
that you can give people tests to show their competency,
you know, so maybe you know, instead of you know,
(20:03):
somebody getting their PhD at the age of thirty two,
maybe they can, you know, show their college competency at
the age of twenty show their PhD competency at the
age of twenty three. They can be often running with
their life at the age of twenty four instead of
at the age of thirty five like it is for
postdocs these days. So so we know that fertility is
much lower for people that have high education. But the
(20:26):
reason for that mainly is that all these years, the
most fertile years, are consumed by education when they do
not need to be. And if people can show their
competency much sooner, then they can they can really you know,
that they can really change the whole ballgame and enjoy
income and start their lives, you know, start having families
(20:48):
in their twenties, and that that would be a dramatic
paradigm shift that would let people realize the fertility that
they would like to have.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
So so it's funny because last year, and I'm sure
I read it fertility all the time on Twitter. That's
why I found both of you guys. I read both
of your Twitter is pretty franqulently. In twenty twenty four, the
two countries that had minor baby booms but significant enough
were South Korea and Norway. They had decent upshots in
(21:16):
a year that most of the world's fertility dropped pretty substantially.
You know, nations like hungry offers. You know, I think
it's no income tax if you have four children or more.
There's other cash benefits from some countries. I know in
South Korea, companies are now handing out cash bonuses. Do
any of those cash bonus policies work? And I guess
(21:36):
because they all all these countries have fairly low fertility
raise well.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I think they work. And I think one very important
point is that you need to try things. You need
to the idea that you know, our mutual friend Limanstone
has a saying we've tried absolutely nothing and nothing works.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
The point being is that is that people only learned
just yesterday that there even is a fertility crisis, and
now like you're talking like two minutes later, you're you're
going to declare the problem hopeless. You know, you actually
have to make effort. And I think a wonderful example
to my mind of a country that has, you know,
made very long running effort and has been very successful
(22:17):
actually is Israel. Israel has always tried many, many things
all the time. You know, for for the last fifty
sixty years, you know, to be pronatal. And uh, you know,
it's not an accident that they have high fertility. They have.
It has been on their mind. They have been, you know,
focusing on it for longer than any you know, any
major country.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Maybe because before before we go to you two questions
on Israel then is it is it one because their
national identity is such a part of their core that
gives them meaning to want to have kids. And secondly,
I forget someone told me this once. Part of the
(22:58):
reason Israel has a highigh fertility rate is because Israel
has a high fertility rate in the sense that because
your friends have kids, you have kids. It's more, it's
not socially weird to have a child in your early twenties.
In America, if a girl announced she was getting married
at twenty one, someone would say, is everything okay with you?
(23:19):
Or are you being conditioned to do this? And because
the social pressures to not get married young are so
heavy in the West and the United States and Canada
and whatnot, and they're not present Israel, that's part of
the reason as well. Is that true at all?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
The cross cultural thing, you know, the shared culture is
part of it, and certainly the Orthodox population that culture
is bleeding out into the rest of Israel in the
sense that they're normalizing, you know, high fertility in early marriages,
so that impacts the others. But also we have to
remember as well that you know, the founders of Israel,
like David Ben Gurion and gold in my ear, were
(23:56):
extremely directly you know, they directly told people, please, everybody
have a lot of kids, and that with the sense
of national identity really, you know, is something that israelis
really believed in part, you know, the national cause is
having children, you know, in some sense.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
So yeah, it's just Russia is very highly nationalistic as well,
and Putin is begging people to have kids and no
one's doing it. So it's just it's very interesting. So Krime,
what were you going to say about about that? As
far as as far as policies go, and do cash
bonuses work or anything, I will see.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
The cash fuguses work quite well, with extensive us on
this from a ton of different countries. Cash bonus has
actually seen to be the reason for Mongolia has rebound
from slightly but low replace of fertility to quote above
it and they've worked incredibly well. Maybe skid of universal
cash transfers the whole amazing way. I will say on
the Israel subject, most heredeem are not friends with fling
(24:49):
him and vice versa. The friend groups tend to be
quite insular. So if you're gonna mix across these like
eye fertility and low fertility, check to see a lot
about it. So I don't think that's actually amazing major
a reason for the fertiliar rate.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
In Israel and Israel even even secular people have a
lot of kids. Everyone has a lot of kids, No, No,
the countries they do relative to like secular people in America.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
They do so sure, but it's still a big struggle
and it's a common topic of like a little bit
of grievance there and as well. But we're often talking
about what are we gonna do when the future is
mostly already or like that, and everything like that, and
it's just not be able to be held up by
the name that systemically held with the country. Now, I
will say, Field doesn't have a lot of good policy
(25:37):
that is very very pro family. I do think Israel
has a good number of pro family policies. Some of
the protect like oh pre technological like few can get
two kids through IVF before age forty five. That is
a universal benefit that is quite good, that allows people
to have to use the struggle with fertility. There's a
lot of focus on fertility. You might have seen some
(25:58):
of the pocket and focused on fertility for deceeized soldiers
where their sperm was electric other testicles there found dead
and then it was used to a friend their wives. Like,
there's a huge, huge focus on fertility in that respect
and keeping families alive and all that is. That's one
of the highest woods in terms of Polish.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
I did not know any of those things. That's really wild.
I did not. Wow, that's that is being very pro family.
I have a someone wrote this in an article a
couple of weeks ago and it's stuck with me ever since.
And they said to me that they send the article
on to me, but they send the article that the
ultimate problem is we separated retirement government subsized retirement, which
(26:42):
is paid for by children with child bearing. So in
the sense that you work today for retirees of today
and your children will work for you, but there's no
requirement to have kids. And that has That is what
a lot of Western countries' problems with the wealth fair
state welfare dependency child bearing? Is that separation of retirement
(27:06):
to child bearing. Do you agree with that? Oh, there is.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Something to it. I do believe it would be great
if we reformed ocial sinciurity around having kids. Robert Hanson
has a wonderful proposal for this, where you get a
transferable tax portion from your kids they grow up. So,
for example, each year, if your kid earns one hundred
thousand dollars and they're payable, taxes are ten percent of that,
then you might get a quarter of that ten percent
(27:29):
you get to go ahead and that could be a
wonderful benefit. That could encourage you to promote your own
kids productivity. If you get a grand it's a bit offit,
then you could take a portion of the benefits from
beer kids and so on and so forth. That could
be wonderful and reform. It wouldn't hold people who don't
have kids out of the retirement system because you could
(27:50):
Robin's schemes sell that license to your kids, you know,
future taxes and whatnot. That could work great. I don't know,
I didity even possible. That very hard to manage these
things because people really really want to protect some of security.
It's kind of form and even if it's not going
to bene them, it's uh just not good. Yeah, in
is well, the old age pensions are not for a
(28:12):
good either. They're very very small and the basic pension
is only about eighteen hundred chuckles, which is like, h.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Dane, what do you think about all that idea?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Well, yeah, I mean one thing that we have to understand,
you know, kind of is kind of the financial situation
of people in their twenties, of young people. So we
you know, people are like, oh, society has never been richer,
like why are people having fewer children? But the actual
actually if you look at kind of the age distribution, uh,
(28:45):
you know, are you know, financial strength is overwhelmingly you know,
correlated with increasing age. So young people are having a
brutal time often trying to buy a house or trying
to get established. And meanwhile, you know, for example, if
you look at houses, you know, something that's incredibly important
(29:08):
in terms of uh natalism, in terms of people having
a family is having having a house, especially a house
with a yard, and single family homes are overwhelmingly owned
by baby boomers and millennials and gen Z who are
the ones who are who need to be having children
right now have a much own a much smaller share
(29:29):
of houses. And you know, there's this this huge wealth disparity. Uh.
And actually, if you look at how transfer payments tend
to work in this country, they you know, young people
are paying taxes, you know, toward older people on on
net on average, and and yet older people actually have
a great deal more wealth than younger people. So that's
(29:50):
actually a very regressive tax. You're actually taxing in a
sense when you're taxing young people to pay for the old,
you're taxing the poor to pay for the rich.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
So so that's what What role does immigration play in
all of this? Because there is obviously a fixed number
of housing in a year, they have to build more
of it. It takes time. Immigrants need a place to live,
and they the comment in the media and among establishment
politicians a lot of times as well, we could fix
(30:20):
any issue when it comes to birthing with just bringing
more immigrants in. But it seems that not only do
Americans were not even just Americans, Brits Canadians when they're
influx immigrants, only do they have fewer children than the
immigrants themselves also have fewer children. Is an underlying societal
problem or is it just one or two cultural things?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Daniel, Well, there is a problem if your immigration is
outrunning your housing stock. I mean, if you you know,
the perfect example of where this happened is Canada. Canada's
single family home is like a million dollars. Yeah, and
you know, and it's cold too, right, So, but a
(31:02):
single family home is like, you know, it's just completely
out of reach of you know, anybody under forty in Canada.
And so the birth rate in Canada has just been
falling like a rock to like Japanese levels, you know.
So it so. And then there's another problem with that
because Canada has been trying to solve its housing by
erecting these high rise towers of very small apartments. And
(31:28):
you know, if you look around the world, the lowest
fertility that you find anywhere in the world is in
these metropolis is you know, like in Shanghai or Soul
or places like this, where everybody lives in a high
rise apartment tower. You know, in places where people live
in tiny apartments and towers, you know, you can get
fertility of you know, zero point seven point six point
(31:49):
five just insanely low levels. So if Canada ends up
with a housing shortage, you know, from from having more
immigration than they can handle, and then they turn around
and try to solve it by building high rise apartment towers,
they're making the problem much much worse.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yeah, I have a question for you. This is kind
of we're going to wrap it. I'm on this question,
but on this topic, but like, what is religion? What
role does religion play in it? So I talked about
this in the beginning of the hour. One of the
only countries to solve below replacement fertillity levels was Georgia.
The nation of Georgia, when their patriarch decided he was
(32:28):
going to personally baptize every third child in the country.
And when that happened, the birth rate went from one
point five to nine to like two point two over
a course of six years. Because my fellow millennials were like, great,
I get a selfie with the patriarch if they baptized
my kid, this is going to be fantastic, and they
wanted to have a third baby because of that. Do
(32:50):
you have in America? Specifically in America, you have subset
religions like Orthodox Jews or Hasthitic Jews, Amish, some branches
of Mormonism but very very few. Some Latin Mass Catholics
but very very few, who have extraordinarily high fertility levels.
But the average American being less religious, seems to also
(33:13):
than how complicate fertility levels is? It? Is it that simple?
Just a marriage of religion and children, Like, if you
don't have high religioussity, you're not going to have a
lot of kids.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
I'd go to the housing thing real quick, you wish, Yeah, sure,
not all countries a dude, like than real projects for
failing it like having it go together with fertility is
reel is actually a good example. I wanted to mention
them before because they have a very pro family housing
policy that allows them aults in their cities considerably. There
have these two urban rule programs what is the vacum
(33:47):
to be built and the other one is telling with
and they allow you to basically all in with everyone
around you to do sort of urban renewal where if
you get your neighbors to approve of you building something
large your space or with some of them, then you
can go ahead and do that. And you can build
large condominiums with like four or five rooms, and these
(34:07):
can be great for a family. They're not just they
could be. They look like a high rise at times,
they can look much much larger. They're generally higher quality
than the old Star because if those programs allowed to
replace buildings built before the nineteen eighties whenever they were
just trying to build as much as they could to
account for the influx of people. And these programs have
been tremendous, Like in the areas where people are allowed
(34:29):
to do them, if you see a traditional family, like
a sort of family who uses the program, they will
tend to get a lot more floor space, and they'll
tend to have kids right after they get their bills done.
It tends to be a very very good program for
increasing the density as.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Well as modern architecture specifically in Israel, really reflects that
that complements the family versus like a lot of really
crappy architecture in you know, especially in New York where
I am, where it's literally like as it's open. They
just care have an open floor plan, and that's basically
(35:03):
all it is. It's just for one it's basically for
a single couple with either one child or no children.
Everyone needs a home office now, so basically one child
or no children. That's an interesting point. Does religion play
a pardon it though?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Oh yeah, sure can't.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Actually, it's funny. This program can be very much compliment
about religion. You will often see communities where people share
the same sort of strict religious backgrounds coming together to
get these housing things done together like they a traditional
community might see like, oh, you know, I have seven kids,
I need a few more bedrooms around might be more
meanable to agree to allow that person to up zode
(35:38):
to build a bigger home in that area, more condominiums,
build more apartments, bill more of whatever, and the girls
are used the proceeds for like building more apartments to
you know, funds their lifestyle and they're having more kids
and whatnot. Yeah, I think you seeks doctell very well.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
I think generally you will see in less religious communities
a less agreement of zone because work less red lead
ready agreement because there are a fewer religious fonds to
think of. Those woligious bonds help people too, you know,
make the decision to allow somebody to build something there,
which is kind of nice. It speaks poorly to the
(36:14):
ability to do this in places that are less religious,
because if they don't have those sorts of common reasons
to agree, like oh, all over their needs a big
are hole. We should allow all devoted in your own
If you do it in San Francisco, I don't think
you're going to have a religious part of that, and
you're going to see a lot less agreement.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah. Well, I mean that you can barely build anything
at all. You know, in America specifically, you have these,
as they said before, these minor communities like Casidic Jews
and or Amish, and some Latin mask Catholic, some sects
of Mormonism that still have large, large families. But as
a whole, you don't is our future destined to be
(36:52):
where you know, we have Hasidic Jewish or Amish states
And that's kind of the who's going to be are
more of our children? You know, well fifty years down line?
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, I mean there's no question that h that for
fertility of religious people has held up much much more
than it has for secular people. There was a wonderful
talk h actually at the at the Natalism conference by
my friend, professor Catherine Paccolic.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
We had her on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
A wonderful, wonderful. Yeah. So her point really is that,
you know, we have gotten to the point where people
don't really have children, They don't really have to have
children unless they have a reason to. So you need
a sort of an ideological basis or a philosophical basis.
(37:46):
And it doesn't have to come from religion, but most
often in the world today it does, especially since I
think the culture, the broader culture is not pronatal, is
not you know, people are not encouraged, uh, you know,
to have children, and it's not a strong part of
(38:06):
the culture. But within these these subcultures, you know, whether
it be Orthodox Catholics like uh, like Catherine Pacolic or or.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Saint Mary's Kansas, which is a small Latin mass town
in Kansas but has lots more children anywhere around it.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Sure, sure, sure, Or it can be you know, the
Amish or almost any community you you have, you have
you know, sort of Protestant Christian communities that are that
are like that as well. But but really somewhere I
think you have to have an ideological basis or reason
(38:45):
a belief system that values that and and encourages that
and unites people around that as a vision, because without
without that, it really looks like uh, you know, and
we can also learn from it. I really do believe
that broader culture can can orient itself to to to
elevate the value of having children more highly uh than
(39:07):
it than it does. But certainly, certainly religious communities seem
to be like the only ones that are doing that
comprehensively in the world right now. So so they're the
only ones really having children in appreciable numbers.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Well, this is so fascinating. I want to thank you
both for coming on the podcast. Tell everyone where they
could read your stuff? First, Crimean, where can't everyone read
your read your stuff? They want to? It's fascinating stuff.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
So you actually go read a recent article man of
my subsection yesterday and he disowned this exact subject of
fertility benefits that seem to work. You can find that
at crime you dot x y z. That's the c
R E M I e U x stock.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
X y z. Thank you so and Dana. Where can
I read your stuff?
Speaker 2 (39:47):
So my mainly I post on uh on Twitter, uh,
you know, pronatal ideas and pronatal content at more births.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Yeah, also go to this Twitter account all the time
at arms.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
That's so inspiring that that that.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Gives me, Yes, you guys, good information.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Wonderful, wonderful, and also more births dot com that that
I cross post some some things that I that I
have have posted there and at morebirths dot com. Right now,
I have this, you know, a publication, a one page
mini book that you can download, which which I present,
which I which I brought to the Natalism Conference on
(40:26):
fertility Factors. So that's all coming.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Great, and thank you all both for being here. You're
listening to It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Grodowsky. We'll
be right back, and that was time for the Ask
Me Anything segment of the show. Please send me your
questions on any kind of policy questions, history, culture, book
and movie and music reviews. I'll do my best answer
for you. Email Ryan at Numbers Game Podcast dot com.
(40:53):
A's Ryan at numbers Plural Game podcast dot com and
send them my way. I got a message asking what
will tariffs ultimately play in the midterm elections. That is
a great question and it's a big question of all
these companies. According to CBS News, tons of companies have
promised to start making manufactur in America to avoid Trump's tariffs.
(41:14):
Apple was one of them. There's a lot that have
promised if those jobs come back, it come to America,
if the market doesn't suffer, and if we don't go
into recession, I think tariffs will be a very small player.
I think the biggest problem with the tariff so far
has been the messaging because it has been so confusing.
It has been all over the place, and I don't
(41:37):
know the end goal. But if the result of that
is we never go into a recession, the stock market's up,
even if it's slightly up, it's up, and job growth continued,
and job growth for American citizens, which is not what
happened n to Joe Biden, it was mostly immigrants. If
job growth for American citizens happens and wages go up,
I think you'll be absolutely fine. I think Republican will
(41:59):
be absolutely funn will not be the level of chaos
that people are that people are predicting right now. We
are way too early, and we live in you know,
a news cycle. By news cycle, everyone's just having knee
jerk reactions. That should calm down. We'll see what plays,
We'll see how it goes. Job numbers in April were
pretty good. Job growth from American citizens were pretty good.
Wages are out four percent. We'll see how that continues
(42:21):
to play out. But people's anxieties should be calmed, and
let's see how if Donald Trump can continue write that
ship anyway. Thank you so much everyone for listening this week.
I really really appreciate it. I hope you found this podcast interesting.
Please like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'll see you all
next week.
Welcome back to a Numbers Game with Brian Graduski. Happy
to have you all here on this Thursday episode of
the show. We are approaching or we are not approaching.
We are in the month of May. It is approaching.
High school graduations May in June, depending on what say
you live in. And the class of twenty twenty five
is special because I most probably don't know this. It
is the largest group of eighteen year olds in American history.
(00:25):
There was The peak year to be born was two
thousand and seven, which makes you about eighteen now, would
make you eighteen this year, which means you're probably graduating
high school. So four point three two million Americans were
born in year two thousand and seven. Most have lived
the eighteen seventeen years required to go to high school
and graduate without moving. Every class afterwards, every graduating class
(00:49):
for the next two decades at least will be smaller
than this one. This is the peak. How much smaller
is a great question. In twenty twenty two, there were
only three point six seven million people born in America.
That's about seventeen percent smaller than the class than the
population born in twenty and seven. In the class of
twenty twenty five, the class of twenty forty will be
(01:12):
seventeen percent smaller than the class of twenty twenty five,
just because people had fewer children. Two thousand and seven
was also the last year that America had a birth
rate of replacement level. To have a replacement level birth
rate for society, you need two point one children per woman.
That's the minimum amount, right, because it's usually two, but
(01:33):
not everyone makes it to adulthood, so it's two point one.
And there was a slight baby boom in two thousand
and six twousand and seven, and during this brief period
we had sustainable growth. If you want to go before then,
though the last one, we had real sustainable growth, real
sustainable growth from just people having children now from migration.
You have to go back to nineteen seventy one, which
(01:54):
is sixteen years before I was born. America's had chronically
low fertility rate and something too big concerned about because
if you have two few children and the population shrinks
over time, home value shrink, economy shrinks, schools closed, societies
become sadder and more depressed. It's what's inflicting a lot
of baby boomers now who find themselves that they're not grandparents.
(02:16):
There's no grandchildren. Millennials. Their millennial children who are in
their mid to late thirties and early forties never had kids,
and it's produced a lot of sadness of depression that
Your Times has written some brilliant pieces discussing this. And
the Trump administration is aware of this and they want
to do something about it. They want to make it
easier for people to have kids and to increase fertility.
(02:37):
So I'll pose the question to my audience, what would
it cost for you to have a baby or for
someone you know of fertility age to have a child,
or have another baby if you have one. According to
Your Times, several ideas are being floated. Some are reserving
thirty percent of full Bright scholarships to married applicants with children,
so that way there's more encouragement for people to have
(03:00):
kids to go and pursue higher degrees. Another idea was
a five thousand dollars cash baby Bowman Is to every
American mother after delivery. Another idea was to make hospitalization
free during pregnancy and delivery or guests government subsidize. Now,
these are just all ideas. There's no specific bill being proposed,
(03:21):
and not all These ideas are very original because most
of the developed world has suffered from low birth rates
for a very very long time, and they've tried a
multitude of different solutions to try to answer this. Women
in Hungary who have four or more children a or
exam from income tax for life. In South Korea, private
companies give bonuses to workers who have kids, and in
(03:41):
Poland they have some version of universal basic income for
people with children. And some of these places have had
some good results, some limited impacts. Fun In fact, the
only nation to a seismic change in fertility rates in
the modern era is the nation of Georgia, and that's
only because it only reversed to have positive fertility levels
(04:02):
after having below replacement because the Georgian Orthodox patriarch, Patriarch
Ela the second I announced he was going to personally
baptize everyone's third child third or more so, he personally
baptized thirty thousand children in a very small country, and
the fertility rate increased from one point five to nine
(04:22):
children per woman in two thousand and four to two
point two in twenty sixteen. I guess the idea of
taking a selfie with the patriarch was enough to entice
millennials to have kids. If Kim Kardashian offered the same proposal,
I'm sure we'd see a baby boom. I mean, it's
just maybe if the next pope does that, we'll see
something going on. In Italy, there are I guess, wastes
(04:45):
that they're incentivized in some capacity outside just giving money.
And it's not just places in Europe and East Asia
which are a low fertility levels, and they've had them
for decades, I mean parts of year. We're going back
to the nineteen sixties and fifties where they've had replacement
level birth rates below replacement levels. Countries that you think
(05:05):
have enormous population booms lots of kids do not. They
used to a long time ago, but they don't anymore. India, China, Mexico, Brazil, Chile,
Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Colombia all have ertiliy
rates below replacement levels every one of these nations. Generations
are getting smaller over time, and that's why many people
(05:28):
in America anyway and in Western Europe have argued, well,
we can't get people to have kids, so what are
we gonna do. We're just gonna impoor people. But it's
not that simple. You cannot just interchange people through mass immigration.
Germany try this, and over a decade ago they imported
millions of Syrians and Afghans with the promise that they'll
be as productive as natural born Germans in no time
(05:50):
at all. Well, here we are a decade later, and
according to the Wall Street Journal, they're suffering from a
massive worker shortage. But how how do you have a
worker shortage when Angela Marko kicked the doors open for
your country to the almost basically the whole Third World.
Because while over sixty five percent of natural born Germans
and native Germans have a job and we're going to
(06:10):
contributor to society, the same is only true for a
third of Afghans and Syrians. They don't have the same
education level they do on the same work level. They're
just not German. People are not interchangeable. And you need
to understand that high performing, high IQ societies need children
to innovate, to grow, to produce, to have economic booms.
(06:32):
It's why Elon Musk has been so worried about the
chronicle low birth rates and developed countries. And I don't
believe what we should do what Elon Musk is doing,
trying to have, you know, ten thousand kids with millions
of different cockumines all across the world. That's not the answer,
but there is an answer to it, and all countries
aren't the same. Places like Italy, Spain, Greece, Poland, South
(06:53):
Korea and China, for example, they're in dire straits like
they're in a place where it is incurable in the
near future, their population is going to have a massive
decline and there's nothing at this point they could do
about it. In our own hemisphere, Puerto Rico has such
extremely low birth rates and such high domestic migration that
(07:14):
is one of the fastest shrinking places as far as
population on Earth. Their population today is as low as
it was in nineteen eighty. China, our largest global adversary
in the world, is losing two million people per year.
That's two million per year. They're going to lose one
(07:34):
hundred million over the next twenty years and five hundred
million over the next seventy five years. How do you
fix a problem like that. You have to reverse in
an immense way. When you put that into a calculation
in seventy five years, which is not that long ago. Truly,
(07:57):
there are people alive that are seventy five years old
and above seventy five years you're talking about they had
homes for one point four billion people, and now they
only have eight hundred million. Who is going to live
in all those empty homes? What will happen to those
property values, What will happen to those schools? Who will
take care of those seniors, who will work? I mean,
maybe we'll have rows of the robot do it in
(08:18):
everyone's house is but I still think you're probably going
to need people to a certain extent. And that's just China.
In the epidemic of low birth rates is in every
corner of the world outside of Israel, several Islamic states,
and most parts of Africa, and even in Africa they're
having population decline. People seem to think that this is
(08:39):
low fertility is only like a white issue or an
Asian issue, European and Asians because they've suffered from the longest.
In America, that is not sure at all. In twenty
twenty four was the first year and record that black
women actually had a lower fertility rate than white women.
Black women had one point five one eight children per woman.
White women had one point five three five. And while
(09:00):
Hispanics had a baby boom and part because of Joe
Biden's open border policy, and they also failed to reach
fertility level above replacement. They're sticking at one point nine
to eight and it's going to decline next year. And
while there are a few states that have normally like
higher forertillity levels than others, the Dakota's have pretty high
up fertil levels, Utah, Idaho, and Nebraska, there's not many.
(09:20):
Many suffer from huge blights of very few children. And
you're going to see the problem of school closures and
this problem of what do you do in societies with
don't have kids. You can't just import everyone in the
world to come here and expect them to expect America
to be America, like it didn't work in Germany, like
it won't work in other parts of the world. Government's
(09:43):
policies have to start thinking about how they facilitate economies
and housing policies and cultural policies that promote childbearing. So
I asked the question again, what would it cost for
the government to entice you or some some one you
know of child bearing years to have a baby that's
(10:04):
the ultimate question that many governments around the world will
be facing the century. We have on two guests next
discuss these policies, what are and aren't working, and what
this all means for our nation and the world's fertility.
Up next, Okay, on this week's episode, this Thursday episode
of Numbers Game, we have on two very brilliant guests
(10:26):
who know a ton about the subject, the versus crameu
rey Q. He is a writer on demographics and fertility.
You can read his blog at cramew c r E
m I u X dot x y z. And then
Daniel has writes for a blog called Moorebirths dot com, which,
as you can guess, looks at birth and data and fertility.
And I'm excited for having them both here. So I'm
(10:48):
gonna start with Daniel first. Daniel, and I'll ask the
same question to Krew. Daniel first, question, why aren't Americans
having as many children as they used to and also
as many they desire? Because most polls show that Americans
want to have more kids, They just don't.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah, there's there's there's a bunch of factors and one
thing that you quickly understand when you study fertility and
birth rates is that it is multi factored, but uh,
the biggest one is marriage rates have have plummeted dramatically.
Birth control has gotten very good, so so actually, ironically
marriage matters more than before because people are much more
(11:31):
able to avoid pregnancy unless conditions are basically perfect. So
that usually means long term, committed relationship, usually means completed education,
being established, especially for young men in good work and
so forth. So the list of requirements has has shot up,
and people are taking longer and longer to sort of
(11:51):
establish themselves, and marriage rates have plummeted, so so conditioned
just not yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
And I think Cameron asked this ques you because maybe
you know this. There is this a lot of times
when it comes to fertility information. There's a lot of
things in people's minds that were true many decades ago
but are no longer true. For instance, you know the
idea that Puerto Ricans have tons of babies, when in
fact they have actually one of the lowest birth rates
(12:18):
in the whole world. Why is it that? Why is
it that it used to be where low income people
had a ton of kids and higher income people had
relatively few, and now it's actually vice versa from data
the eyebread, whereas actually lower income people do actually have
(12:38):
fewer children than before. Is that correct as it might not?
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Yeah, that's actually correct in many countries, but not in
all of them. There are For example, Sweden's one of
the earliest countries to make this transition towards a positive
fertility by income gradient. And the major compositional reason for
this gradient shift is that the number of unintended births
has declined. He never done into the berths for the
source of births for people in employees, the lowest income
(13:02):
brackets for a very long time. As they've cultivated, as
we've gotten better healthcare, as we've improved the quality of
birth control and well not many things more mivigeable, it's
become possible for the fewer of those only to the
births white. Whereas people who are you know, getting married
and whatnot, they are often wanting to have kids, so
they will end up having those kids today. Try shifted
(13:23):
things around of the years.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Well, and it's so funny because the story of declining
birth rates within the two thousands and the twenty tens
is the story really of teenage pregnancy in part stopping
I mean that's part of that's a big part of
the story is that teenagel agancy decreased substantially. It's also
that you know, people are having as as many families
with only one child as they used to. That's been
(13:46):
pretty flat. It's just more people. We're having no kids period.
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Since about two the number of teenage pregnancies has declined
pretty precipitously. It was declining beforehand, but it would going
down the law faster afterwards. And yeah, the number of
childish people has got up great baths, like in terms
of people being able to pay off because when they
pay off, it didn't have the kids. If they don't
pay off old and they don't have the kids, that
seems to be going towards Daniel.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Is that is that your research goes well.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
You know, that's yeah, that's that's quite accurate. Cremuwa is
quite quite correct. But yeah, your your your your fertility
rate has been dropping at every age up to age
thirty five is the latest. So it's you're you're delaying
and delaying and delaying so much that you know it
was it's even it's even gotten into into the thirties.
(14:36):
So it's it's only thirty five and above above that
fertility is actually increasing now.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Is that because of like ivy AF and other drugs.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Well, also, people are just finally getting around to getting
married and wanting to start a family, you know, in
their thirties, sometimes in their mid thirties. But by that
time you're pushing up against, uh, some of the limits
of biological fertility, so so people cannot People are just
starting so late.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Right. I go between two things. One is that I'm
a millennial. I'm thirty. I just turned thirty eight on Tuesday.
That's Tuesday. So I have a lot of friends of
mine who are women who are in my age range
where I've went to high school with, who are now
at a frantic pace saying I have to get pregnant now.
(15:24):
They they were sold on the idea that they had
way more time than they actually had, that they could
spend a decade or so chasing guys who were never
interested in them, and it just frankly and things just
didn't work out. There were some health issues and they're
in a separate bucket and other ones. But I've noticed
that substantially the people were kind of lied to. But
(15:46):
how much time they have really And my friend Megan
McCain said to me one time, if you're a woman
and you're spos having kids, you need to take your
fertility as serious as you take your job.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, that's a great point. And I call this the
kind of the lowest hanging fruit is awareness about fertility
and you know, trying to you know, educate people to
start much much younger than they are because that you know,
you said it exactly, people are you know, delaying so
much and that they are at a frantic point in
their late thirties. By that, some people will will succeed,
(16:20):
some people will have the families that they want to have.
A lot won't. So it shouldn't change one thing that's
you know, your easiest thing, the thing that you that
that's probably the most amenable to you know, to change
is simply awareness. I mean, in high schools, people should
be having education about the fertility window, which is actually fertility,
(16:43):
the ability to get pregnant actually peaks in the early twenties.
It's and it's going down, you know, all throughout the
twenties into the thirties. It's much earlier than anybody realizes.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Right, I mean, because everyone will see a celebrity getting
pregnant at forty and saying, oh, that could be me,
you know, and not everyone is Megan Kelly who had
her first kid I think at forty or forty one,
and good for her. But not everyone's like that, Carimea.
If you were with now, President Trump has been floating ideas.
He hasn't had a concrete policy on how to increase utility.
(17:14):
There has been everything from five thousand dollars cash bonuses
to having having classes on fertility and other things about childcare,
or taking Social Security money out for a longer, longer
maternity leaves. If you were with in front of the
president or his administration, what is an effective policy that
(17:35):
has been tried that actually increases fertility levels?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, so when they order to return to you for more,
that was would you guys just talk to them? This
is the Tipo effect where people like fertility is reduced
to some period because people are delaying longer. If you
want to fight the typical effect, you get fighting on
the front end by cutting down. This is something they
can do cutting down on high school graduation agents because
you can get people out of high school at age sixteen.
He allow them to go to college of six and
(18:00):
start having them start their adult lives earlier, giving them
agicial time to find a partner as an adult, find
a partner of accomplished person to become accomplished earlier in life.
She can gain back a few years and you can't
extend your fertility. Does you can have more kids in
that window. That is something they could immediately do. They
have the power to do it. Have the power to
encourage acceleration at school, so people can do that even
(18:21):
more readily than were able. Somebody who is capable of
going to college at twelve but is held back because
the system is very slow, could be doing that. They
could start their adult life much earlier, give them a
lot more time to do whatever.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Wow, I never wanted to. I never actually thought about before.
There was a book called Generations. I can't remember the
end of the author. It's a very it's a very
data heavy book, and it was about how people nowadays
have the life experience, the very delayed life experiences. So
someone of thirty years now would have had the same
(18:54):
experience as someone who who was twenty years old maybe
thirty years ago. And you're saying that that is if
we were to accelerate the high school experience and accelerate
the schooling experience and get kids to graduate at sixteen
instead of eighteen. That would help propel their life in general.
So I've never heard of before, honestly, but it sounds interesting.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Son in Germany have done these reforms at certain regions
and they have not resulted in any loss in academic achievement.
They have resulted in people entering the workforce earlier. They've
resulted in slight income increases for people who graduate younger.
It's just been all around pretty good without any apparent downside.
So I think the family information is exactly pretty positive
and pretty easy to implem into. It costes nothing to
(19:38):
centric to school for less time.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Wow, Daniel, what were you going to say?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
No, I strongly agree that is an outstanding point. We
were in full agreement on that actually, and another point
I think Krimia has probably made this at some point
in his writing, but as well. It is the idea
that you can give people tests to show their competency,
you know, so maybe you know, instead of you know,
(20:03):
somebody getting their PhD at the age of thirty two,
maybe they can, you know, show their college competency at
the age of twenty show their PhD competency at the
age of twenty three. They can be often running with
their life at the age of twenty four instead of
at the age of thirty five like it is for
postdocs these days. So so we know that fertility is
much lower for people that have high education. But the
(20:26):
reason for that mainly is that all these years, the
most fertile years, are consumed by education when they do
not need to be. And if people can show their
competency much sooner, then they can they can really you know,
that they can really change the whole ballgame and enjoy
income and start their lives, you know, start having families
(20:48):
in their twenties, and that that would be a dramatic
paradigm shift that would let people realize the fertility that
they would like to have.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
So so it's funny because last year, and I'm sure
I read it fertility all the time on Twitter. That's
why I found both of you guys. I read both
of your Twitter is pretty franqulently. In twenty twenty four, the
two countries that had minor baby booms but significant enough
were South Korea and Norway. They had decent upshots in
(21:16):
a year that most of the world's fertility dropped pretty substantially.
You know, nations like hungry offers. You know, I think
it's no income tax if you have four children or more.
There's other cash benefits from some countries. I know in
South Korea, companies are now handing out cash bonuses. Do
any of those cash bonus policies work? And I guess
(21:36):
because they all all these countries have fairly low fertility
raise well.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I think they work. And I think one very important
point is that you need to try things. You need
to the idea that you know, our mutual friend Limanstone
has a saying we've tried absolutely nothing and nothing works.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
The point being is that is that people only learned
just yesterday that there even is a fertility crisis, and
now like you're talking like two minutes later, you're you're
going to declare the problem hopeless. You know, you actually
have to make effort. And I think a wonderful example
to my mind of a country that has, you know,
made very long running effort and has been very successful
(22:17):
actually is Israel. Israel has always tried many, many things
all the time. You know, for for the last fifty
sixty years, you know, to be pronatal. And uh, you know,
it's not an accident that they have high fertility. They have.
It has been on their mind. They have been, you know,
focusing on it for longer than any you know, any
major country.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Maybe because before before we go to you two questions
on Israel then is it is it one because their
national identity is such a part of their core that
gives them meaning to want to have kids. And secondly,
I forget someone told me this once. Part of the
(22:58):
reason Israel has a highigh fertility rate is because Israel
has a high fertility rate in the sense that because
your friends have kids, you have kids. It's more, it's
not socially weird to have a child in your early twenties.
In America, if a girl announced she was getting married
at twenty one, someone would say, is everything okay with you?
(23:19):
Or are you being conditioned to do this? And because
the social pressures to not get married young are so
heavy in the West and the United States and Canada
and whatnot, and they're not present Israel, that's part of
the reason as well. Is that true at all?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
The cross cultural thing, you know, the shared culture is
part of it, and certainly the Orthodox population that culture
is bleeding out into the rest of Israel in the
sense that they're normalizing, you know, high fertility in early marriages,
so that impacts the others. But also we have to
remember as well that you know, the founders of Israel,
like David Ben Gurion and gold in my ear, were
(23:56):
extremely directly you know, they directly told people, please, everybody
have a lot of kids, and that with the sense
of national identity really, you know, is something that israelis
really believed in part, you know, the national cause is
having children, you know, in some sense.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
So yeah, it's just Russia is very highly nationalistic as well,
and Putin is begging people to have kids and no
one's doing it. So it's just it's very interesting. So Krime,
what were you going to say about about that? As
far as as far as policies go, and do cash
bonuses work or anything, I will see.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
The cash fuguses work quite well, with extensive us on
this from a ton of different countries. Cash bonus has
actually seen to be the reason for Mongolia has rebound
from slightly but low replace of fertility to quote above
it and they've worked incredibly well. Maybe skid of universal
cash transfers the whole amazing way. I will say on
the Israel subject, most heredeem are not friends with fling
(24:49):
him and vice versa. The friend groups tend to be
quite insular. So if you're gonna mix across these like
eye fertility and low fertility, check to see a lot
about it. So I don't think that's actually amazing major
a reason for the fertiliar rate.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
In Israel and Israel even even secular people have a
lot of kids. Everyone has a lot of kids, No, No,
the countries they do relative to like secular people in America.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
They do so sure, but it's still a big struggle
and it's a common topic of like a little bit
of grievance there and as well. But we're often talking
about what are we gonna do when the future is
mostly already or like that, and everything like that, and
it's just not be able to be held up by
the name that systemically held with the country. Now, I
will say, Field doesn't have a lot of good policy
(25:37):
that is very very pro family. I do think Israel
has a good number of pro family policies. Some of
the protect like oh pre technological like few can get
two kids through IVF before age forty five. That is
a universal benefit that is quite good, that allows people
to have to use the struggle with fertility. There's a
lot of focus on fertility. You might have seen some
(25:58):
of the pocket and focused on fertility for deceeized soldiers
where their sperm was electric other testicles there found dead
and then it was used to a friend their wives. Like,
there's a huge, huge focus on fertility in that respect
and keeping families alive and all that is. That's one
of the highest woods in terms of Polish.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
I did not know any of those things. That's really wild.
I did not. Wow, that's that is being very pro family.
I have a someone wrote this in an article a
couple of weeks ago and it's stuck with me ever since.
And they said to me that they send the article
on to me, but they send the article that the
ultimate problem is we separated retirement government subsized retirement, which
(26:42):
is paid for by children with child bearing. So in
the sense that you work today for retirees of today
and your children will work for you, but there's no
requirement to have kids. And that has That is what
a lot of Western countries' problems with the wealth fair
state welfare dependency child bearing? Is that separation of retirement
(27:06):
to child bearing. Do you agree with that? Oh, there is.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Something to it. I do believe it would be great
if we reformed ocial sinciurity around having kids. Robert Hanson
has a wonderful proposal for this, where you get a
transferable tax portion from your kids they grow up. So,
for example, each year, if your kid earns one hundred
thousand dollars and they're payable, taxes are ten percent of that,
then you might get a quarter of that ten percent
(27:29):
you get to go ahead and that could be a
wonderful benefit. That could encourage you to promote your own
kids productivity. If you get a grand it's a bit offit,
then you could take a portion of the benefits from
beer kids and so on and so forth. That could
be wonderful and reform. It wouldn't hold people who don't
have kids out of the retirement system because you could
(27:50):
Robin's schemes sell that license to your kids, you know,
future taxes and whatnot. That could work great. I don't know,
I didity even possible. That very hard to manage these
things because people really really want to protect some of security.
It's kind of form and even if it's not going
to bene them, it's uh just not good. Yeah, in
is well, the old age pensions are not for a
(28:12):
good either. They're very very small and the basic pension
is only about eighteen hundred chuckles, which is like, h.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Dane, what do you think about all that idea?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Well, yeah, I mean one thing that we have to understand,
you know, kind of is kind of the financial situation
of people in their twenties, of young people. So we
you know, people are like, oh, society has never been richer,
like why are people having fewer children? But the actual
actually if you look at kind of the age distribution, uh,
(28:45):
you know, are you know, financial strength is overwhelmingly you know,
correlated with increasing age. So young people are having a
brutal time often trying to buy a house or trying
to get established. And meanwhile, you know, for example, if
you look at houses, you know, something that's incredibly important
(29:08):
in terms of uh natalism, in terms of people having
a family is having having a house, especially a house
with a yard, and single family homes are overwhelmingly owned
by baby boomers and millennials and gen Z who are
the ones who are who need to be having children
right now have a much own a much smaller share
(29:29):
of houses. And you know, there's this this huge wealth disparity. Uh.
And actually, if you look at how transfer payments tend
to work in this country, they you know, young people
are paying taxes, you know, toward older people on on
net on average, and and yet older people actually have
a great deal more wealth than younger people. So that's
(29:50):
actually a very regressive tax. You're actually taxing in a
sense when you're taxing young people to pay for the old,
you're taxing the poor to pay for the rich.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
So so that's what What role does immigration play in
all of this? Because there is obviously a fixed number
of housing in a year, they have to build more
of it. It takes time. Immigrants need a place to live,
and they the comment in the media and among establishment
politicians a lot of times as well, we could fix
(30:20):
any issue when it comes to birthing with just bringing
more immigrants in. But it seems that not only do
Americans were not even just Americans, Brits Canadians when they're
influx immigrants, only do they have fewer children than the
immigrants themselves also have fewer children. Is an underlying societal
problem or is it just one or two cultural things?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Daniel, Well, there is a problem if your immigration is
outrunning your housing stock. I mean, if you you know,
the perfect example of where this happened is Canada. Canada's
single family home is like a million dollars. Yeah, and
you know, and it's cold too, right, So, but a
(31:02):
single family home is like, you know, it's just completely
out of reach of you know, anybody under forty in Canada.
And so the birth rate in Canada has just been
falling like a rock to like Japanese levels, you know.
So it so. And then there's another problem with that
because Canada has been trying to solve its housing by
erecting these high rise towers of very small apartments. And
(31:28):
you know, if you look around the world, the lowest
fertility that you find anywhere in the world is in
these metropolis is you know, like in Shanghai or Soul
or places like this, where everybody lives in a high
rise apartment tower. You know, in places where people live
in tiny apartments and towers, you know, you can get
fertility of you know, zero point seven point six point
(31:49):
five just insanely low levels. So if Canada ends up
with a housing shortage, you know, from from having more
immigration than they can handle, and then they turn around
and try to solve it by building high rise apartment towers,
they're making the problem much much worse.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yeah, I have a question for you. This is kind
of we're going to wrap it. I'm on this question,
but on this topic, but like, what is religion? What
role does religion play in it? So I talked about
this in the beginning of the hour. One of the
only countries to solve below replacement fertillity levels was Georgia.
The nation of Georgia, when their patriarch decided he was
(32:28):
going to personally baptize every third child in the country.
And when that happened, the birth rate went from one
point five to nine to like two point two over
a course of six years. Because my fellow millennials were like, great,
I get a selfie with the patriarch if they baptized
my kid, this is going to be fantastic, and they
wanted to have a third baby because of that. Do
(32:50):
you have in America? Specifically in America, you have subset
religions like Orthodox Jews or Hasthitic Jews, Amish, some branches
of Mormonism but very very few. Some Latin Mass Catholics
but very very few, who have extraordinarily high fertility levels.
But the average American being less religious, seems to also
(33:13):
than how complicate fertility levels is? It? Is it that simple?
Just a marriage of religion and children, Like, if you
don't have high religioussity, you're not going to have a
lot of kids.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
I'd go to the housing thing real quick, you wish, Yeah, sure,
not all countries a dude, like than real projects for
failing it like having it go together with fertility is
reel is actually a good example. I wanted to mention
them before because they have a very pro family housing
policy that allows them aults in their cities considerably. There
have these two urban rule programs what is the vacum
(33:47):
to be built and the other one is telling with
and they allow you to basically all in with everyone
around you to do sort of urban renewal where if
you get your neighbors to approve of you building something
large your space or with some of them, then you
can go ahead and do that. And you can build
large condominiums with like four or five rooms, and these
(34:07):
can be great for a family. They're not just they
could be. They look like a high rise at times,
they can look much much larger. They're generally higher quality
than the old Star because if those programs allowed to
replace buildings built before the nineteen eighties whenever they were
just trying to build as much as they could to
account for the influx of people. And these programs have
been tremendous, Like in the areas where people are allowed
(34:29):
to do them, if you see a traditional family, like
a sort of family who uses the program, they will
tend to get a lot more floor space, and they'll
tend to have kids right after they get their bills done.
It tends to be a very very good program for
increasing the density as.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Well as modern architecture specifically in Israel, really reflects that
that complements the family versus like a lot of really
crappy architecture in you know, especially in New York where
I am, where it's literally like as it's open. They
just care have an open floor plan, and that's basically
(35:03):
all it is. It's just for one it's basically for
a single couple with either one child or no children.
Everyone needs a home office now, so basically one child
or no children. That's an interesting point. Does religion play
a pardon it though?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Oh yeah, sure can't.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Actually, it's funny. This program can be very much compliment
about religion. You will often see communities where people share
the same sort of strict religious backgrounds coming together to
get these housing things done together like they a traditional
community might see like, oh, you know, I have seven kids,
I need a few more bedrooms around might be more
meanable to agree to allow that person to up zode
(35:38):
to build a bigger home in that area, more condominiums,
build more apartments, bill more of whatever, and the girls
are used the proceeds for like building more apartments to
you know, funds their lifestyle and they're having more kids
and whatnot. Yeah, I think you seeks doctell very well.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
I think generally you will see in less religious communities
a less agreement of zone because work less red lead
ready agreement because there are a fewer religious fonds to
think of. Those woligious bonds help people too, you know,
make the decision to allow somebody to build something there,
which is kind of nice. It speaks poorly to the
(36:14):
ability to do this in places that are less religious,
because if they don't have those sorts of common reasons
to agree, like oh, all over their needs a big
are hole. We should allow all devoted in your own
If you do it in San Francisco, I don't think
you're going to have a religious part of that, and
you're going to see a lot less agreement.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah. Well, I mean that you can barely build anything
at all. You know, in America specifically, you have these,
as they said before, these minor communities like Casidic Jews
and or Amish, and some Latin mask Catholic, some sects
of Mormonism that still have large, large families. But as
a whole, you don't is our future destined to be
(36:52):
where you know, we have Hasidic Jewish or Amish states
And that's kind of the who's going to be are
more of our children? You know, well fifty years down line?
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, I mean there's no question that h that for
fertility of religious people has held up much much more
than it has for secular people. There was a wonderful
talk h actually at the at the Natalism conference by
my friend, professor Catherine Paccolic.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
We had her on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
A wonderful, wonderful. Yeah. So her point really is that,
you know, we have gotten to the point where people
don't really have children, They don't really have to have
children unless they have a reason to. So you need
a sort of an ideological basis or a philosophical basis.
(37:46):
And it doesn't have to come from religion, but most
often in the world today it does, especially since I
think the culture, the broader culture is not pronatal, is
not you know, people are not encouraged, uh, you know,
to have children, and it's not a strong part of
(38:06):
the culture. But within these these subcultures, you know, whether
it be Orthodox Catholics like uh, like Catherine Pacolic or or.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Saint Mary's Kansas, which is a small Latin mass town
in Kansas but has lots more children anywhere around it.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Sure, sure, sure, Or it can be you know, the
Amish or almost any community you you have, you have
you know, sort of Protestant Christian communities that are that
are like that as well. But but really somewhere I
think you have to have an ideological basis or reason
(38:45):
a belief system that values that and and encourages that
and unites people around that as a vision, because without
without that, it really looks like uh, you know, and
we can also learn from it. I really do believe
that broader culture can can orient itself to to to
elevate the value of having children more highly uh than
(39:07):
it than it does. But certainly, certainly religious communities seem
to be like the only ones that are doing that
comprehensively in the world right now. So so they're the
only ones really having children in appreciable numbers.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Well, this is so fascinating. I want to thank you
both for coming on the podcast. Tell everyone where they
could read your stuff? First, Crimean, where can't everyone read
your read your stuff? They want to? It's fascinating stuff.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
So you actually go read a recent article man of
my subsection yesterday and he disowned this exact subject of
fertility benefits that seem to work. You can find that
at crime you dot x y z. That's the c
R E M I e U x stock.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
X y z. Thank you so and Dana. Where can
I read your stuff?
Speaker 2 (39:47):
So my mainly I post on uh on Twitter, uh,
you know, pronatal ideas and pronatal content at more births.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Yeah, also go to this Twitter account all the time
at arms.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
That's so inspiring that that that.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Gives me, Yes, you guys, good information.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Wonderful, wonderful, and also more births dot com that that
I cross post some some things that I that I
have have posted there and at morebirths dot com. Right now,
I have this, you know, a publication, a one page
mini book that you can download, which which I present,
which I which I brought to the Natalism Conference on
(40:26):
fertility Factors. So that's all coming.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Great, and thank you all both for being here. You're
listening to It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Grodowsky. We'll
be right back, and that was time for the Ask
Me Anything segment of the show. Please send me your
questions on any kind of policy questions, history, culture, book
and movie and music reviews. I'll do my best answer
for you. Email Ryan at Numbers Game Podcast dot com.
(40:53):
A's Ryan at numbers Plural Game podcast dot com and
send them my way. I got a message asking what
will tariffs ultimately play in the midterm elections. That is
a great question and it's a big question of all
these companies. According to CBS News, tons of companies have
promised to start making manufactur in America to avoid Trump's tariffs.
(41:14):
Apple was one of them. There's a lot that have
promised if those jobs come back, it come to America,
if the market doesn't suffer, and if we don't go
into recession, I think tariffs will be a very small player.
I think the biggest problem with the tariff so far
has been the messaging because it has been so confusing.
It has been all over the place, and I don't
(41:37):
know the end goal. But if the result of that
is we never go into a recession, the stock market's up,
even if it's slightly up, it's up, and job growth continued,
and job growth for American citizens, which is not what
happened n to Joe Biden, it was mostly immigrants. If
job growth for American citizens happens and wages go up,
I think you'll be absolutely fine. I think Republican will
(41:59):
be absolutely funn will not be the level of chaos
that people are that people are predicting right now. We
are way too early, and we live in you know,
a news cycle. By news cycle, everyone's just having knee
jerk reactions. That should calm down. We'll see what plays,
We'll see how it goes. Job numbers in April were
pretty good. Job growth from American citizens were pretty good.
Wages are out four percent. We'll see how that continues
(42:21):
to play out. But people's anxieties should be calmed, and
let's see how if Donald Trump can continue write that
ship anyway. Thank you so much everyone for listening this week.
I really really appreciate it. I hope you found this podcast interesting.
Please like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'll see you all
next week.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.