Low Fertility and Pronatalism in the U.S

Low birth rates in the U.S. (and elsewhere) have become a hot topic of conversation – and a cause for major concern among many, including the current Presidential administration. These concerns have given rise to strong claims about the causes and consequences of low birth rates as well as several potential policy responses to reverse recent declines. In this talk, I will provide background on U.S. birth rate trends, review what research shows is likely driving low birth rates, and discuss the population consequences. Further, I will provide an overview of the current U.S. rhetoric around low birth rates, review proposed formal and informal responses to raise birth rates, and discuss whether such responses are likely to be effective. I argue that the current alarmist discussion around low birth rates is, to a large extent, misdirection aimed at obscuring a larger effort to (re)create a hierarchy in the U.S. along sex/gender, race and ethnicity, ability, religion, nativity, and other axes of marginalization. Finally, I conclude with evidence-based suggestions for addressing the impacts of low birth rates for population structure and composition.

BIO

Karen Benjamin Guzzo is a family demographer and sociologist. She serves as Director of the Carolina Population Center and is a Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Guzzo’s research has been funded by multiple grants from federal agencies, including the NICHD Population Dynamics Branch (PDB), the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) within the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Science Foundation. She has served on the Boards of the Population Association of America and the National Council on Family Relations. She has been a Deputy Editor for Demography since 2017 and serves on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Marriage and Family, Family Transitions, and Journal of Family Theory and Review. She is the chair of the American Sociological Association’s (ASA) Sociology of Population section. Dr. Guzzo’s research has been published in top demography and family science journals, and she frequently appears in major news outlets, such as NPR’s Fresh Air, The New York Times, CNN, and The Wall Street Journal, to provide insight into contemporary childbearing patterns in the U.S.