The Fertility Crisis Is Already Here | Lyman Stone on Fertility, Forecasting, and the Future America Isn't Ready For

Lyman Stone is a demographer and senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies. He is also the founder of Demographic Intelligence, which produces fertility and population forecasting models for organizations that need to plan beyondwhat government reports are willing to model. His headline finding: the Social Security trustees are not modeling the worst-case. Their baseline assumes the US returns to near-replacement fertility in the 2040s. Their worst-case holds flat at 1.6 children per woman. Lyman believesfertility could go lower. He has tried to notify them. They haven't changed the model. In this conversation Lyman and Dee Dee talk about the low fertility trap — what it looks like when a society loses its muscle memory for having children, and how hard it is to climb back out. About what the iPhone did to socialization, and why marriage and fertility are just two items on a long list of social activities that are declining. About the girl boss myth — why women's labor force participation is not the primary driver of low fertility. About what actually shapes whether a young person wants children: not policy, not economics, but the rating they give their friends. They also talk about the crowbar model of pronatal policy, why he wants to pay Taylor Swift a billion dollars to make a lullaby album, and what four moms in his basement sounded like while they were recording. Lyman Stone on X@lymanstoneky Lyman Stone on Substacklymanstonky.substack.com Institute for Family Studiesifstudies.orgDemographic Intelligencehttps://www.demographicintel.com/IFS Survey: Supportive Friends and Fertility Intentionsifstudies.org IFS Report: What Makes Parents Feel Supported?https://ifstudies.org/blog/what-makes-parents-feel-supported-money-not-babysittingIFS Report: Open Floor Plans and Family-Friendly Housinghttps://www.city-journal.org/article/family-homes-real-estate-bedrooms-apartmentsLyman's appearance on Christopher Rufo's podcasthttps://christopherrufo.com/p/whats-fueling-americas-fertility  Topics:Demography  |  US Fertility Crisis  |  Social SecurityProjections  |  Pronatal Policy  |  Low FertilityTrap  |  Institute for Family Studies  |  Marriage andFamily  |  Religious Community  |  Housing Design |  Gen X Women  |  Principled Living More Than One Way to Live a Principled Life  |  Fort Collins, CO