Nicholas Eberstadt on What Declining Birthrates Mean for the Future of the West

Until recently, America was an outlier: despite rising affluence, its birthrate remained high, unlike in other countries where more riches have brought fewer children. That's no longer the case today. America is now in demographic decline. Writing in National Review, the political economist and demographer Nicholas Eberstadt observes that  U.S. fertility levels have never before fallen as low as they are today. In 2019—before the coronavirus pandemic—America's total fertility rate (TFR—a measure of births per woman per lifetime) was 1.71, roughly 18 percent lower than the roughly 2.1 births per woman required for long-term population stability. By then, U.S. fertility levels were so low that even Mormon Utah had gone sub-replacement. And U.S. fertility levels were even lower in 2020. With a TFR of 1.64, America was well over 20 percent below replacement. Eberstadt goes on to note that there's reason to believe that the U.S. fertility rate may drop even further in the coming years. He joins this week's podcast to discuss why this is happening, what it means for American society, whether it can be reversed, and, if it can't, how America can cope with it. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.