As birthrates tumble, some progressives say the left needs to offer ideas and solutions

When Emma Brennan and Lauren Wright got married last year, the couple began weighing seriously whether or not to have a child. “A lot of people our age are not having kids, or are waiting, and they have a great life regardless,” Brennan said.

Wright and Brennan, who live in what they describe as a liberal enclave of Baltimore, said they lean toward wanting to be parents, but the world often feels like a scary place to raise children. They worry about climate change, rising income inequality, and America’s polarized politics. “We have conversations about the state of the world,” Wright said.

Like a lot of young, liberal-leaning Americans, they’ve heard about falling birthrates, and the world’s rapidly shifting demographics. But they said the most prominent voices offering ideas and solutions are coming from the political right. “That whole Trump thing, we’ll give you a bunch of money” to have a baby, Brennan said, sounding skeptical.

A growing number of researchers, and thinkers on the left, told NPR they worry that progressive leaders have largely opted out of the growing public discussion over birthrates and shrinking families, ceding the policy space to right-wing voices.

“If progressives don’t want to talk about it, and self-censor, then no one is going to talk about things that might impact progressives,” said Alice Evans, who studies gender issues at Kings College London and is currently a visiting professor at Stanford University.

Evans wrote an essay arguing birthrate decline is a serious problem and warning that the debate over policy responses is being skewed by “silence from many progressives.”

According to Evans, the issue has become so deeply conservative-coded, that many researchers, feminist thinkers and others on the political left shy away from talking about it publicly. “These things are all a tricky minefield,” she told NPR.

As families shrink, the right takes the lead

Birthrates around the world, including in the U.S., are dropping steadily, to a level that demographers say falls well below the number of children per woman — roughly 2.1 on average — needed to maintain a stable population. The “total fertility rate” in the U.S. has fallen to a record low of 1.6, while in many countries the rate has dropped below one child per woman on average.

The United Nations and other organizations have warned that the trend poses profound challenges over the long term, as communities age and begin to shrink. Economists say the population of working-age people is already declining in many countries, while the number of elderly people is rising at a rate that could destabilize healthcare and pension programs.

Most researchers and academics interviewed by NPR agree with Evans that, so far, conservative, right-wing and populist thinkers have dominated the debate over what the shift means and what governments and societies should do about it. “Pro-natalist” figures like Elon Musk have grabbed media attention with alarming warnings.

“Low birth rates will end civilization,” the billionaire declared on his social media platform X last year. In a later post, he warned, “Population collapse continues to accelerate.”

Conservatives in the U.S. have already proposed — and in some cases, enacted — a range of policies designed to encourage families to have more children. Under a program passed by the Republican-controlled Congress, the U.S. government will invest a thousand dollars for each baby born to American citizens during Trump’s term in office.

Right-leaning activists have also eliminated or tightly constrained legal access to abortion in 41 U.S. states, a policy shift embraced by many in the pro-natalist movement, who advocate for having more babies with urgency.

This month, the conservative Heritage Foundation think-tank released a comprehensive package of ideas, most based on support for traditional families, aimed at stabilizing boosting birthrates.

“The family is the foundation of every healthy society, and, tragically, the American family is on the brink,” said Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts in a statement. “We are dangerously close to being unable to reverse the decline. Our country will not survive if families continue to crumble at this rate.”

“The left has largely been absent”

Most sociologists and population experts who study birthrate trends believe these assessments are exaggerated. Serious social and economic strains caused by shrinking families are expected to play out over years or even decades.

But Ruth Braunstein, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University who studies right-wing movements, agreed that progressive thinkers and mainstream academics have largely failed to offer alternative ideas about how to respond to a profound shift in human behavior.

“The left has largely been absent on this issue,” she said.

According to Braunstein, it can be politically and culturally risky for liberal politicians, activists and thinkers to talk about falling birthrates and the choices couples are making around parenthood.

NPR could find no broad policy document addressing this population shift from think tanks or activist groups on the left, comparable to the one put forward by the Heritage Foundation.

A journalist from NPR was allowed to listen in on a policy discussion over declining birthrates last summer held for progressive-leaning thinkers and activists. The session was organized by Capita, an independent thank tank that focuses on family issues.

“We want to provide a space for you all to wrestle with some of these topics,” said Elliot Haspel, a senior fellow at Capita.

In a sign of how challenging this topic has become for many on the left, the discussion was held under so-called Chatham House privacy rules, meaning NPR isn’t allowed to identify speakers or quote them directly.

Some participants voiced concern that the issue of shrinking families is being used to push conservative or traditional values. Others said the debate often minimizes benefits for the environment and the welfare of women.

“This has been a pretty fraught conversation [over birthrates] certainly in the United States,” said Haspel, who agreed to allow NPR to quote his comments made during the exchange. “A lot of high emotions come along with it and it hasn’t always been a productive discourse.

In the discussion, speakers pointed to one concern also raised by Braunstein: Hearing government officials and policy-makers talk about trying to increase birthrates heightens fears about the prospect of women facing coerced reproduction.

“Once we start talking about things as a crisis, it justifies all manner of emergency measures [and] that often involves controlling people,” Braunstein said.

Will affordability be a family issue embraced by progressives?

This concern hasn’t only affected the public debate over shrinking families in the U.S. Martina Yopo Diaz, a sociologist at the Catholic University of Santiago, in Chile, describes herself as a progressive and credits feminists and thinkers on the left with making big gains in Latin America expanding women’s rights and reducing child- and teen-pregnancies.

But Yopo-Diaz, too, said falling birthrates have emerged as a major societal challenge in many developing countries. She echoed the view that progressives have remained on the sidelines too long.

“It’s a problem that has been avoided by feminists,” she said, adding that she thinks new ideas and solutions are needed. “From a very feminist perspective, people have the right not to have children. But also people have the right to have children and to parent in safe and sustainable environments.”

Activists, academics and others interviewed by NPR pointed to a wide range of liberal-leaning policies that might make it easier for couples, and women, to choose more children. They include boosting gender equity so that women carry less of the burden, and financial cost, of parenting. Also, expanding paid parental leave, health insurance and housing subsidies for families that want kids.

“Across the ideological spectrum, people have identified that maybe these are winning policies,” said Leslie Root, a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder, adding that it makes sense for societies and governments to help families that for financial reasons “maybe aren’t able to have the children that they want to have.”

Emma Brennan and Lauren Wright, the couple in Baltimore, told NPR that as they plan for their first child, these questions of affordability – and not the kind of culture war issues talked about by conservatives – are their biggest concern. Both work full time and say the prohibitive cost of health insurance and quality day care make them nervous. “Universal pre-K would be awesome,” Brennan said.

Both women said they view motherhood as a hopeful part of their future. “I never really envisioned having a baby with someone until I met Lauren,” Brennan said. “Then I thought, this is the person I want to do it with.”

“I actually have a wonderful life that it would be wonderful to bring a child into,” Wright said.

As they think about growing their family, Brennan and Wright said they want to hear more about how to make having children easier and less costly. They also said parenting should remain a personal choice, made by couples and women, without government or social pressure.