Rage Against the Childfree
Birth rate backlash is coming for the "childless left”—and women with less than 2.1 kids.
America’s in its “birth dearth” era, allegedly. Reproductive ambivalence is up, marriage is down, and people are freaking out. Especially on the right.
“To modern conservatives, women are first and foremost breeders,” historian Nancy Isenberg wrote a decade ago in White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. Indeed, Politico reported last year how “various factions of the old and the new right have coalesced around the idea that babies might be the cure for everything that’s wrong with society, in the United States and other parts of the developed West.”
Quick context: fertility is down around the world. The US birth rate has been dropping since the Great Recession (and can you blame us elder millennials who graduated into it??). That plus longer lifespans means the American population is aging up–except for Brian Johnson, bless his biohacked heart. And as a straight white married woman without children, I’m exactly the kind of problem the broligarchy is obsessed with solving.
Womb doom?
Nothing makes a girl feel like a breeder more than seeing her societal function reduced to a stat, so let’s talk birth rates. Currently, the US birth rate is 1.6 babies per womb, which is below the population replacement rate of 2.1–theoretically as low as we can go before our apparently vacuum-sealed off country will begin shrinking into oblivion. Sound the alarms and corral the women!!
By that math, I’m THREE (rounding up 2.1) babies short of my role in saving America and capitalism. My apologies to you all. None to my dog.
There are valid reasons for headcount concerns. The not-new economic conundrum goes something like this: old bones America is a drain on the social security state because fewer babies means fewer workers means less money which means economic instability and so forth.
Except it’s not just a matter of procreation. It’s immigration, too. Whether we’re talking about population or workforce growth, immigrants are the backbone. As sociologist Philip Cohen told Yahoo Life reporter Natalie Rahhal last month, “The only problem for the American birth rate and the population size is if you prefer American babies to immigrant workers.” (And yes, I’m just as shocked as you are that Yahoo Life is doing journalism??)
But back to making–or not making–babies. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of 18 to 49-year-olds who say they’ll probably never have kids rose from 37% in 2018 to 47% in 2023. Which is a lot, though I’d be shocked if the pandemic didn’t accelerate it. As for why they don’t see kids in their future, a lot more women (64%) than men (50%) said they just didn’t want to.
Public opinion on the uptick is negative. In July 2024, Pew found nearly half of Americans think “fewer people choosing to have children in the future would have a very/somewhat negatively impact the US,” while 20% see it as a positive, and 31% are neutral. The demographic breakdown is more revealing though. Men are likelier to take the negative view (54% vs. 42% of women), as are wealthier people (56% vs. 38% of lower income) and Republicans (60% vs 37% of Democrats).
And the childless left shall depopulate the earth.
Meanwhile, the right wing has been spinning birth rate decline and population stats into their version of a globally catastrophic climate crisis, and I probably don’t have to tell you Elon Musk won’t shut up about it. Their “depopulation” doomsaying about what the childless left hath wrought aligns with a broader agenda of scapegoating trans people in the name of “protecting women,” stripping away reproductive rights and birth control access, criminalizing miscarriage and pathologizing the not-having-of-children as arrested moral development and bad patriotism.
I’m also skeptical it’ll make a dent in birth rates (and in the TARIFFS economy??). Pronatalist politics don’t actually breed higher birth rates. Just like abortion bans don’t actually stop abortion, we’re stubborn ass creatures when it comes to reproductive desire.
That’s why I’ve been wondering: What does it mean for my fellow dinks and gwoks 🥑(grownups w/o kids) and aspirationally childfree girlies? I’ll be exploring some answers in a future newsletter.
unladylike news feed
Juliana turned 10 — The world’s biggest youth climate lawsuit lost in court, but it ‘changed the world’ (Joseph Winters, Grist)
When
tells you it’s a must-read, you must read. —Abortion pill prescriptions are now being tracked in parts of the US — with help from a little-known tech company. (Rebecca Torrence, Business Insider)“Instead of outright rejecting feminism, as has traditionally been the case at the far-right, these activists selectively [appropriate] feminist themes–particularly those related to gender-based violence and women’s safety…” —Far-Right Women’s Appropriation of Feminism in France. (Charlène Calderaro, Reactionary Politics Research Network)
Make vibrators “obscene” again. —Texans Might Soon Have to Show Photo ID to Buy a Dildo Online (Samantha Cole, 404 Media)
If ONLY I’d started investing in godly funds when I was a church girl (who wasn’t allowed to wear Levi’s jeans because the company “supported the homosexual agenda”) —Biblically Responsible Investing Is Booming and LGBTQ Americans Are Paying the Price (Tom Sayers and Spencer Macnaughton,
)
til next time…
As the leader of my state’s Childfree social group, I’ve been watching the birth rate doomerism with growing concern over the last few years. Last year Russia banned “Childfree Propaganda”. Speaking about having children as a choice now carries a hefty fine. Our own VP has suggested taxing childfree women at higher rates. The solution is obvious- we need more policies that support families and make having children more affordable. I worry we will decide to punish childfree and childless women instead.
Oops... Too late. I am a little over 50 & in menopause, no babies for me, too bad so sad. Or that was my plan and I decide my fate.