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