Latest news with #pronatalist
The Guardian
13-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Give birth? In this economy? US women scoff at Trump's meager ‘baby bonuses'
In theory, Savannah Downing would love to be a mom. At 24, the Texan actor and content creator is nearing the age at which her mother had kids. Some of her friends are starting families. But having children in the United States is wildly expensive – and so when she saw the news that the Trump administration was considering giving out $5,000 'baby bonuses' to convince women to have kids, Downing was incensed. 'Maybe people will want to have children more often if we weren't struggling to find jobs, struggling to pay our student loans, struggling to pay for food,' she said. 'Five thousand dollars doesn't even begin to even cover childcare for one month. It just seems really ridiculous.' Trump officials have made no secret of their desire to make America procreate again. In his very first address as vice-president, JD Vance said at the anti-abortion March for Life: 'I want more babies in the United States of America.' Weeks later, a Department of Transportation memo directed the agency to focus on projects that 'give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average'. Then, in late April, the New York Times reported that the administration was brainstorming policies to encourage people to get married and have kids, such as giving out those baby bonuses or awarding medals to women who have at least six children. All of these moves are evidence of the growing power of the pronatalist movement within US politics. This movement, which has won adherents among both traditional 'family values' conservatives and tech-bro rightwingers such as Elon Musk, considers the falling US birthrate to be an existential threat to the country's future and thus holds that the US government should enact policies designed to incentivize people to give birth. But many of the women who are, in theory, the targets of the pronatalist pitch have just one response: Have babies? In this economy? After the New York Times report broke, social media exploded with indignation at the proposed policies' inadequacy. 'Go ahead and tell Uncle Sam what he needs to give you to make him daddy Sam,' a woman rasped at the camera in one TikTok with nearly 1m likes. 'Universal – ?' she started to say, in a presumable reference to universal healthcare. 'No. No. Where did you even hear that?' 'Five thousand? That doesn't go very far!' one 24-year-old stay-at-home mother of four complained in another TikTok, as her children babbled in the background. 'It costs 200, 300 bucks just to buy a car seat for these kids. I just feel like it's really just insulting. If you want people to have more kids, make housing more affordable. Make food more affordable.' Although the cost of raising a child in the US varies greatly depending on factors such as geography, income level and family structure, a middle-class family with dual incomes can expect to spend somewhere between $285,000 and $311,000 raising a child born in 2015, a 2022 analysis by the Brookings Institute found. That analysis doesn't factor in the price of college tuition, which also varies but, as of last year, cost about $11,600 per year at an in-state, public university. The cost of merely giving birth is more expensive in the US than in almost any other country on the planet. An uncomplicated birth covered by private insurance. which is basically the best-case scenario for US parents, tends to cost about $3,000, according to Abigail Leonard's new book Four Mothers. Paige Connell, a 35-year-old working mom of four who regularly posts online about motherhood, had a long list of pro-family policies she would like to see adopted. For example: lowering the cost of childcare, which runs Connell's family about $70,000 a year. (An April Trump administration memo proposed eliminating Head Start, which helps low-income families obtain childcare, although the administration appears to have recently reversed course.) Or: preserving the Department of Education, as Connell has children in public school and some of them rely on specialized education plans. (Trump has signed an executive order aiming to dismantle the department, in an apparent attempt to get around the fact that only Congress can close federal departments.) 'They want to incentivize people to have children. I don't think they have a real stake in helping people raise them,' Connell said of the Trump administration. 'Many women that I know – women and men – do want more kids. They actually want to have more children. They simply can't afford it.' Lyman Stone, a demographer who in 2024 established the pronatalism initiative at the right-leaning Institute for Family Studies, argued in an interview last year that 'most of missing babies in our society are first and second births' – that is, that people avoid having a second child or having kids at all. Pronatalism, he said, should focus on helping those people decide otherwise. 'The misconception is this idea that pronatalism is about tradwives and giant families, when it's really about, on some level, helping the girl boss, like, girl boss in her family life a little bit earlier and harder,' Stone said. Some Americans may indeed be having fewer children than they would like. Among adults under 50 who say they are unlikely to have children, close to 40% say that they are not doing so due to 'concerns about the state of the world' or because they 'can't afford to raise a child', according to a 2024 Pew survey. A 2025 Harris poll for the Guardian found that the state of the economy has negatively affected 65% of Americans' plans to have a child. But to say that pronatalism is about helping the 'girl boss' have one or two kids is not quite accurate, given that several prominent pronatalists are deeply interested in producing 'giant families'. Malcolm and Simone Collins, who have become the avatars of the tech-right wing of pronatalism, have at least four children and show no signs of slowing down. (The Collinses were behind the medal idea reported by the Times; they called it a 'National Medal of Motherhood'.) Musk, perhaps the most famous pronatalist on the planet, reportedly runs something of a harem and has 14 children. Republicans are also currently exploring policies that would entice more parents to stay at home with their children, the New York Times reported on Monday, such as expanding the child tax credit from $2,000 to $5,000. While these potential policies do not specify which parent would stay at home, four out of five stay-at-home parents are moms. However, this goal is seemingly at odds with Republicans' desire to slash the US budget by more than $1.5tn. Indeed, Republicans have proposed dramatically curtailing Medicaid – a proposal that would appear to hinder the pronatalism agenda, because Medicaid pays for more than 40% of all US births. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion Pronatalism has long been intertwined with racism, eugenics and authoritarian governments. Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union gave out medals to women who had large numbers of children, while in the United States, interest in pronatalism has historically surged in eras, such as the early 20th century, when women and immigrants were trying to participate more in public life. Today, fears about the consequences of the near record low US birth rate are often tied to concerns about the country's shrinking workforce. Immigration could help alleviate those concerns, but the Trump administration is deeply opposed to it. All this leads to a fundamental question: do pronatalists want everybody to have children – or just some types of people? 'What I've seen online of the pronatalist movement, it does seem very aligned with white supremacy, because it does seem like a lot of the conversation around it is more geared towards white couples having more babies,' said Madison Block, a product marketing manager and writer who lives in New York. She's also leery of the Trump administration's focus on autism, which could translate into ableism: 'A lot of the conversations around pronatalism, in addition to being borderline white supremacist, I think are also very ableist.' Now that she's 28, Block said that many of her friends are starting to get married and consider having babies. But Block is afraid to do so under the current administration. And when she thinks about potentially starting a family, affordable healthcare is non-negotiable. 'I personally wouldn't want to have kids unless I know for a fact that I am financially stable enough, that I can provide them with an even better childhood than what I have,' Block said. 'I think, for a lot of younger millennials and gen Z, a lot of us are not at that point yet.' Perhaps the ultimate irony of the Trump administration's pronatalist push is that it is not clear what pronatalist policies, if any, actually induce people into becoming parents. In past years, Hungary has poured 5% of its national GDP into boosting births, such as through exempting women who have four children or more children from paying taxes. This herculean effort has not worked: as of 2023, the country's birth rate has hovered at 1.6, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. (For a country to maintain its population, women must have about two children each.) More left-leaning countries, such as those in Scandinavia, have also embarked on extensive government programs to make it easier for women to have kids and maintain careers – yet their birth rates also remain lower than the replacement rate and, in the case of Sweden, even dropped. It may be the case that, when access to technologies like birth control give people more choices over when and how to have children, they may simply choose to have fewer children. In that 2024 Pew survey, nearly 60% of respondents said that they are unlikely to have kids because they 'just don't want to'. Downing is not that concerned about pronatalism taking root among the general public. Personally, she doesn't feel like there's too much governmental pressure on her to have kids, particularly since she is Black and much of the pronatalism movement seems focused on pushing white women to have babies. 'I feel like a lot of women are fed up. I think that's why the birth rate is going down,' she said. 'Women are realizing that they're more than just birthing machines.' But images from The Handmaid's Tale – the red capes, the white bonnets – haunt her. 'I think $5,000 and a medal trying to coax women into having more kids is a start,' she said, 'and I really am worried to see how far they will go to try to force women and have children'.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Elon Musk has his 'legion.' How will Republicans encourage other Americans to have babies?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Elon Musk says the world needs more babies, and he is doing his level best to help the cause. The world's richest man has fathered at least 14 children with four women. Pronatalist Republicans increasingly see him as a champion for their cause. "Multiple sources" say it is likely the "true number of Musk's children is much higher than publicly known," said The Wall Street Journal. He reportedly refers to all those children as his "legion" and says they are "relevant to his ambition for NASA" to send humans to Mars. That effort, Musk has said, is "critical to ensuring the long-term survival of humanity and all life as we know it." And "helping seed the earth with more human beings of high intelligence" is part of that mission, said the Journal. That makes Musk the "country's most famous pronatalist," said The New York Times. With President Donald Trump in the White House and Musk at his side, the pronatalist movement has "never had so much political power in America." Family-minded GOP officials are contemplating offering a $5,000 "baby bonus" for new children and creating public education efforts about "menstrual cycles and fertility windows." Musk's prominence in the Trump administration is "enormously encouraging to those who want their cause to hit the mainstream." There is a difference "between being pro-natalist and being pro-family," said Elizabeth Bruenig at The Atlantic. The pronatalist movement breaks down along "tech versus trad, future versus past, reproduction versus family" lines. Conservative Christian "trads" have long "animated" the GOP, but tech people like Musk have "more resources and power to market their ideology." Musk's own values, meanwhile, appear to be "detached from the usual ties of familial love" that trads embrace. One thing that is clear is that most of the billionaire's fans "won't be able to replicate the scale of his bloodline empire." "Pronatalists focus on the numbers game," said Haley Strack at the National Review. That is why one of the proposals now contemplated by the Trump administration includes giving a "National Medal of Motherhood" to women who have given birth to six or more children. If the president wants Americans to have more children, his administration would be better off thinking about how to "address the indirect costs of parenthood, and how to create a baby-friendly culture." He should also take recommendations from pro-family advocates "for whom children are not just numbers." The U.S. National Center for Health Statistics reported that the "number of births in 2023 fell to the lowest level in over 40 years," said Newsweek. "Low birth rates will end civilization," Musk said in a post on X. Cuts driven by Musk's Department of Government Efficiency have "slashed" a number of existing fertility and maternal health programs, said The Washington Post. Maternal health experts said the cuts "will have an enduring effect on women and children." They worry that other resources, including a maternal health phone line operated by the federal government, may also soon be shuttered. "We truly can't overstate the risk for families," said Wendy Davis, the CEO of Postpartum Support International.
The Guardian
06-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Trump is trying to pay his way into a US baby boom. Experts say it won't work
One of Donald Trump's priorities for his second term is getting Americans to have more babies – and the White House has a new proposal to encourage them to do so: a $5,000 'baby bonus'. The plan to give cash payments to mothers after delivery shows the growing influence of the 'pronatalist' movement in the US, which, citing falling US birthrates, calls for 'traditional' family values and for women – particularly white women – to have more children. But experts say $5,000 checks won't lead to a baby boom. Between unaffordable health care, soaring housing costs, inaccessible childcare and a lack of federal parental leave mandates, Americans face a swath of expensive hurdles that disincentivize them from having large families – or families at all – and that will require a much larger government investment to overcome. It is true that the US is seeing declining birthrates – and has been for some time. While fertility rates bounced around what demographers call 'replacement level' – the rate at which the population replenishes aging people with new ones – in the decades that followed the post-world war two baby boom, they have been on a steady downward trend since the 2010 Great Recession, so that now, US fertility rates sit at around 1.6 births per woman. But these numbers are far from alarming, according to demographers and policy analysts. US birthrates are still in line with those in other developing countries, where societies and economies are continuing to thrive, and concerns about the sustainability of programs such as social security can be fixed through other remedies, like raising the tax limit. In the US, the modest decline in fertility can be attributed to a drop in teen pregnancy rates, as well as more families with two working parents and delaying having children. But these elements alone do not explain the trends we're seeing, says Paula Lantz, a social demographer and professor of health policy at the University of Michigan. While the number of people who don't have any children isn't changing, demographers are seeing the percentage of families who have two kids drop, and the percentage of those who have just one increase. 'There is something else going on,' she said. That 'something else', Lantz and her colleagues say, is how challenging it is to raise a family in the US from a financial perspective. For many Americans, having a larger family means sacrificing quality of life. Between the costs of healthcare, including the thousands on average that Americans pay just to give birth in a hospital, childcare, housing and basics such as formula and diapers, having a baby in the US is a huge expense – one that experts say a single $5,000 payment would barely make a dent in. 'I had a baby a few months ago, and a one-time payment of $5,000 wouldn't do much if I didn't also have paid leave that let me keep my job, good health insurance, family support, incredible childcare and the kind of job that allows me to both provide for my family and be there for pickup,' said Lily Roberts, the managing director for inclusive growth at the Center for American Progress. 'Every mom in America deserves that, and every dad does too.' Stephanie Schmidt, the director of childcare and early education at the Center for Law and Social Policy, emphasized that the average cost of infant care in the US is $14,000 per year, with that number ticking up to closer to $25,000 per year in high-cost-of-living areas. '$5,000 gets you almost nowhere when you're thinking about utilizing it to pay for the expenses of having a young child,' she said. Schmidt also noted that when other countries have tried similar approaches, they made little to no difference in how many children people choose to have. In Australia, where a $3,000 baby bonus was put in place in 2004 to reverse declining fertility rates, there was a brief spike in birthrates immediately after a bonus was offered, but those rates dropped again in subsequent years. Experts say this is because families simply move up their timelines, having the same number of kids they already intended to have, only earlier. 'They want to make sure they get [the benefit] before that policy is changed by the next government,' said Ron Lee, the director of the Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging at the University of California, Berkeley. Plus, most of the other countries that have tried baby bonuses also have robust social and healthcare systems, so the cash payments went further than they would in the US. 'It's not working in those contexts, so it's certainly not going to work in ours,' said Lantz. To change minds and behaviors, there need to be much more substantial policy changes, experts say, that address the housing crisis, offer childcare subsidies, make healthcare accessible and affordable and guarantee paid family leave. '[This] would have such a more significant impact for families because it's not a one-time investment,' said Schmidt. Deliberate efforts to address the climate crisis could also encourage more people to have children as younger people are delaying or forgoing starting families because of climate anxieties, says Lee, pointing to surveys that suggest this trend. Evidence also shows that people have fewer children during times of political uncertainty and instability – a dynamic experts say this administration is only intensifying. 'If the problem they're trying to solve is addressing a low birthrate, then create the conditions to make birth possible and make raising a family possible,' said Mary Ignatius, the executive director of advocacy group Parent Voices California. That isn't to say that $5,000 wouldn't be well-received, says Roberts. It might help pay for a month or two of childcare; help families buy a new crib, stroller and other gear, all of which are poised to become more expensive with rising tariffs; or offset hospital costs. For lower-income families especially, research shows that receiving no-strings cash bonuses can help them reach a point of financial stability, especially when kids are younger. But experts emphasize that other actions taken by the administration to dismantle programs that already support American families and children belie any honorable intentions. To date, the Trump administration has proposed eliminating Head Start, a program that supports families with very low incomes in accessing childcare, as well as cutting funds to Medicaid, which provides health care coverage for low-income Americans. (The Biden administration also let the child tax credit – which expanded eligibility for pay outs of up to $3,600 for American families – expire, even though it's been credited with lifting millions of children out of poverty.) 'Those are the things that women need to be able to make the choices of how they want to be a parent,' said Ignatius. 'Eliminating the programs at Medicaid, Head Start, TANF (temporary assistance for needy families), food stamps – that equates to much more than $5,000 in support for low-income families.' The dismantling of the federal workforce in the Department of Education, the justice department, which oversees juvenile justice initiatives, and the Department of Health and Human Services, where staff responsible for distributing funds for state welfare and foster care programs were gutted, will also have a negative impact on American families. 'Even the little things that improve a family's life, like children's museum grants and public libraries, are reeling from cuts', said Roberts. 'All American families are going to feel the impact of this administration, and creepy plans to give moms a medal absolutely won't make up for what they're taking away.' For Schmidt, the White House's actions speak to a fundamental disconnect between statements that encourage Americans to have children and actions that make doing so increasingly out of reach. 'There is such an emphasis in this administration on birth, and such a lack of support for people once they're here,' she said.
