The White House wants women to have more babies. They're ignoring part of the problem — men.

USA Today

29-05-2025

The White House wants women to have more babies. They're ignoring part of the problem — men.
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Has the pronatalism movement gone mainstream?
The Trump administration is considering a baby bonus. Is it enough to encourage people to have more kids?
America's birth rate has been on a steady decline since 2007, and pronatalists − both in and outside the White House − are determined to raise it. But how?
President Donald Trump and his administration have reportedly begun wading through various proposals aimed at reversing America's declining birthrate. Per the New York Times, some ideas that have been floated include scholarships for married people and parents, a one-time $5,000 cash "baby bonus" for mothers and government-funded education on menstruation and ovulation. One pronatalist activist also proposed that mothers of six or more receive a 'National Medal of Motherhood."
And calls for women to bear more children aren't just inside the White House – they've infiltrated the cultural zeitgeist.
Trad wives, or 'homestead creators,' are making waves on social media for romanticizing the nuclear family unit that Trump and Vice President JD Vance have lauded.
But when partners struggle to conceive, the burden is rarely distributed evenly between men and women. Still, fertility experts say we're missing a key component of the conversation – male infertility.
Research shows that for heterosexual couples trying to conceive, when the cause of infertility can be attributed to a known factor, it's a roughly 50-50 split between male and female factors. The male partner was found to be solely responsible in about 20% of infertility cases, and a contributing factor in another 30-40% of all cases. Male and female infertility factors often coexist, yet a high number of men do not undergo testing before their female partner begins IVF, according to Dr. Neel Shah, the Chief Medical Officer at Maven Clinic, a virtual clinic for women's and family health.
'Our healthcare system generally seems better designed for men than for women, but men are more reluctant to engage with it in the first place,' he says. 'It's relatively common for women to go through entire fertility journeys, and the men to never be tested. But when you don't treat the couple as a unit, the burden is disproportionately on one person.'
1 in 6 people are affected by infertility, but women often carry the burden
According to a 2025 report released by Maven Clinic that surveyed 1,000 women struggling with infertility, 65% said they felt that the burden of fertility lay almost entirely with them, not with their partner.
'In the design of the healthcare system, but even more broadly, socially, we have unfortunately put the entire burden on women,' Shah says. 'They're the ones who get tested first. They bear the most emotionally. But the science is very clear, infertility is just as likely to be caused by male factors as female ones.'
Characterizing fertility solely as a woman's issue is part of a 'broader cultural misunderstanding,' limits the accessibility of fertility care and contributes to the feelings of shame some women experience when struggling with infertility.
Trump wants a baby boom. Is his 'pronatalism' agenda missing the point?
Men are more reluctant to do fertility testing
Women have biological markers, such as their menstrual cycle, that serve as a checkpoint for reproductive health. Men, on the other hand, don't have an obvious, visual indicator for sperm health.
To test male infertility, doctors can look at the concentration of sperm and motility, meaning how active the sperm are. This usually involves going to a clinic and producing a semen sample, which Shah says many men are reluctant to do.
'Men like having things to do and appreciate being able to support their partners,' he says. 'But in many cases ... they're not being engaged in a way that makes them comfortable.'
In some cases when male infertility is a contributing or sole factor, in-vitro fertilization (IVF) is still necessary. However, it should be done using intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), which involves injecting a single, healthy sperm into an egg.
'It's the world's tiniest surgery,' Shah says.
Some factors contributing to male infertility are lifestyle-based; things like wearing tight underwear and sitting in hot tubs actually can decrease sperm count. Other factors, such as taking testosterone, can work as a contraceptive, just like estrogen in women. 'Men think they're taking testosterone to make themselves more virile, but it's doing the opposite,' Shah explains.
Women want parental leave, greater financial incentives to raise the birth rate
In a video with over 330,000 views, a pair of parents expressed their shock at some of the White House's suggestions for raising the birth rate. "Obviously no women were involved in this council that's coming up with these ideas," a man says in the video, as his wife reads him some of the proposals and they react to each one. She laments, 'Not like, free health care or, I don't know, paid maternity leave."
Jennifer Sciubba, a demographer and the author of the book "8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World," previously told USA TODAY the reasons for America's declining birthrate are vast and complex. For starters, more people feel they simply can't afford to have families amid economic uncertainty and rising housing prices. Couples seeking IVF are often met with high prices, leading some to partake in "medical tourism" for cheaper fertility care abroad.
Sciubba added that more couples are also delaying marriage, shortening their window to conceive naturally with their spouse. More people also don't see children as necessary to a fulfilling life.
Shah advises against framing fertility in moral and political terms.
"It sends the message that women's bodies are public battlegrounds," he cautions. "It could end up overriding some of the real medical struggles (and) emotional distress that people have when they're trying to build their trying to build their family."
Contributing: Charles Trepany, Jonathan Limehouse