Pro-natalism
In my undergrad public policy class this week, we’re discussing the demographic context of American public policy. Big population, wealthy, aging, diverse, etc. That basket of things.
The specific policy focus of the class is the declining birthrate, which is gaining a lot of traction as a policy issue in the chattering class. Here are the readings we are doing:
- Azeen Ghorayshi, "Birthrates Languish at record lows," NYT, 4/23/2025
- Noah Smith, "Let's Save the Human Species!" Substack post, 1/21/2026
- Lyman Stone, "Thou Shall Not Lie" Blog post, 1/14/2026
- Richard Hanania, "I am a Pro-Natalist" Blog post, 1/19/2026
A few conceptual notes about politics that spring from these readings:
You don’t need to get consensus on why something is a problem in order to build solutions. In fact, most public policy changes are carried on coalitions with very different goals. That pro-natalism is a mix of those seeking virtuous freedom, technocratic GDP sustainment, and in-group survival is not particularly noteworthy, but it does create frictions.
In some cases, it makes for outright uncomfortable bedfellows and ambivalence about the coalition itself. As Hanania writes in his piece:
One reason I’ve hesitated is that those who care a lot about this issue are the kinds of people I find extremely unappealing. If you look at last year’s Natal conference, many of the attendees and featured guests are prone to white nationalism, spreading fake news, MAGA cultism, anti-vaxx, Based Ritualness, and overall rightoidism....And when I find myself holding a view that I share primarily with evil and stupid people, it rationally gives me pause. At the very least, by advocating for such a cause, I may make it more likely that these types of people could gain power, which would itself be a reason not to support the cause in the first place. Some people clearly just like pro-natalism as an ideology because it provides an excuse to tell people what to do, primarily women.
- One fundamental divide in public policy that springs from demographics is between those who want to reverse the demographic trends and those that want to adapt. This is so obvious that it's almost built-in to the landscape of the pro-natalism politics. That the fertility rate was higher X years ago makes anti-modernism a large component of some pro-natalists thought, be it for traditional gender roles of 50 years ago or traditional economies of 200 years ago.