Watch China--yes, China--for clues on our own pronatalism movement
2024 was the year employers and the military finally faced reality, when the oldest of 11M missing US births would have turned 16--potential employees and recruits clearly showing up missing.
Wondering why tradwives and large families are suddenly a Thing?
US fertility and birth rates are at a 40-year low, with no signs of a bounce-back. Using 2007 birth rates, 11 million births haven’t happened since our 2008 recession, with huge implications for everything from employment and military recruits to the viability of Social Security. And it’s not just us—it’s much of Europe and Asia as well.
Among peers, though, the US remains in the bottom five of 40 OECD countries in support of pregnancy and early parenting (see more here) with aging policy-makers seemingly blissfully unaware there is a massive difference between the economy of older Americans and our current childbearing-age populations, Millennials and Gen Z. It’s pretty simple Maslow’s hierarchy: if you can’t afford a home, you’re sure not going to plan a family. The second emerging reason? Loss of hope in things getter better. Happy, hopeful, people have babies, and if you’re a Millennial or Gen Z, that’s not where you are, whether it’s the economy or ecology.
IMO, the real tradwife concept (not just the handy political amplification) was actually a predictable phase in the evolving maturation of our place as women in the world over the last century. As we strove for financial success in an arguably male model, many of us found getting rich alone wasn’t deeply satisfying. Alternatives beckoned; going back to simpler times was one option. So learn about it, but be smart about the joyful tradwife influencers, of course. For starters, as you’d suspect, it’s not all joy for all. And if you’ve lived past 50, you’ve seen what happens when men seek a newer, sexier replacement model for the same service. More importantly, however, watch for strange tradwife bedfellows. It’s not just natalism—pure nativism is hiding in plain site behind those who simply enjoy large families. Check out the inaugural US ProNatal conference, with a clear focus on the ‘correct’ type of births. “Native born” is natavist-speak. It’s not hard to define; “white” is all but shouted.
Given conference speakers and role model countries and where we are politically, it’s definitely worth watching how China is starting to handle its own plummeting birth rate. Neil Howe’s (Generations) Demography Unplugged does a great job breaking that down.
Last, keep in mind estimates are that it would take an investment of at least 1% of our current GDP to get to birth- and parenting-support levels of leading OECD countries. Doesn’t sound like much—until you ask what defunding of other programs will be necessary to get there with our growing massive debt. And there’s no guarantee 1% will even be adequate, as China is discovering.
As Peter Turchin notes, an “intolerable wealth gap” is the stuff of revolutions (Hello, Syria.) Our own US wealth gap has skyrockted up since 2020, following Trump’s tax cuts, which we now know most benefitted the top 5% of tax payers. For Boomers—21% of the population but holding 52% of our total US wealth—it’s hard to even imagine the huge economic limitations of Millennials and Gen Z, although the national debt—that they and their children will pay for—should e a clue. The percent of the US population age 65 and above is 18%, but in the US Senate, it’s 50% (median age of 65), and that plays out in economic policy every day.
Stay tuned. Odds are 100% we’re going to hear more and more about tradwives and the joy of big families. And under the moral arguments against abortion, the economics of falling birth rates plays out in abortion politics. And it will almost certainly play out in birth control when ACA comes up for renewal in 2025 now that even more interesting bedfellows are jumping into the mix. This isn’t going away.
I’ll do another post soon on the tradwife concept. I’m not opposed: the real idea—absent the nativist bedfellows—isn’t a surprising response phase. We’ll figure it out: after all, defining who we are as women—rather than letting someone else define us—is pretty new. To quote Eric Sevareid, “I’m a pessimist about tomorrow, but I’m an optimist about the day after tomorrow.”