Real Population Growth Means Strong, Faith-Filled Families

There is a surprising coalition dancing in the streets following the reelection of Donald Trump. We cannot say that the group of political actors involved with Trump’s victory are “conservative” generally. The Republican Party has come to include such a wide range of diverse worldviews, many of which bear no resemblance to a conservative social outlook and lack sound moral philosophy. If this is conservatism, it is a new brand.

A common thread developing between previously disparate political groups is concern with demographic decline. As of 2022, the birth rate in the United States is 1.66, well below the 2.1 needed for replacement. This is concerning for many reasons. One, which has brought together an interesting assortment of tech millionaires and economists, is that the basis for our economy is growth. As the population contracts, economic systems as we know them become untenable and international tensions will likely escalate as countries compete for immigration.

The concern is not only economic, however. A nation that is aging has a different character. The populace becomes more risk averse and less likely to produce technological advancement. As I heard from someone who visited South Korea—where the birth rate has dropped to .78 per woman—a place with few children can feel sterile; the streets are clean and quiet but lifeless. 

You don’t have to fly to Korea for that experience; a trip to a “gray” parish in the United States, a parish where the median age at Sunday Mass hovers around 70, will show you what an aging population feels like. This observation is not meant as an ageist slight against people in such parishes but a recognition of the importance of children in a healthy society.

What is the response to this crisis from the new Right? 

In the frenzy of the presidential campaign trail, both sides made extravagant promises for entitlements. Disturbingly, Trump promised to fund in vitro fertilization (IVF) through tax dollars. His casual support for this morally unacceptable medical technology reveals the likely opinion of the majority of Americans. The focus for many is on the psychological suffering of infertile couples, pain that is real and undeniable. As one mother confused about IVF told me, “How can it be wrong to bring new life into the world?”

Yet, a desire to alleviate a couple’s suffering cannot come at the expense of the moral order. Separating the conception of a child from his natural parents is an injustice to the child. This fact reveals the challenges in partnering with elites who share a concern about the immanent demographic collapse but lack moral formation to address it in a humane way. A desire to alleviate a couple’s suffering cannot come at the expense of the moral order. Separating the conception of a child from his natural parents is an injustice to the child. Tweet This

In addition to taxpayer-funded IVF, many on the Right are floating proposals for tax incentives and handouts for those having children. Catherine Pakaluk’s book Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth, released earlier this year, addresses why these programs have failed and will continue to fail to move the needle on population numbers. 

Pakaluk, a mother of eight and stepmother to six, who is an economics professor at the Catholic University of America, conducted a qualitative economic study of mothers who had five or more children. What she found was a coherent set of decisions that led these women and their husbands to structure their lives differently because they valued being open to children more than the other lifestyle options, professional opportunities, or financial security that not being open to children might have offered. While a tax break for big families might be nice for the people already choosing to welcome more children, that money cannot begin to compensate the mothers for the losses in professional advancement, missed sleep, and the physical and mental exertion of having children.

The mothers with whom Pakaluk spoke were also, importantly, not looking to be compensated. Many of them articulated a strong sense that they had been richly rewarded for whatever sacrifices they had made to have children. This is not to say that their lives were easy; they were not. But this is to suggest that what Pakaluk found were people committed to spiritual ends that surpassed physical discomfort and short-term sacrifice.

That type of commitment cannot be cultivated in people through a few tax code revisions and government handouts. Demographic collapse is ultimately a result of the individual decisions of people in a particular place. Not any one person is responsible; many people cannot have children despite strongly desiring to have them. Yet, our collective decisions to value physical comfort and a sense of financial security above the gift of infinite value that is a child results in a declining culture.

And people know this to be true. If you go out in public with a baby, many people feel compelled to explain to you which of their children were “wanted” and which were not, when they had a vasectomy, and how many children they would have liked to have but never did. Many of these comments hint at painful regret that could be described as the pangs of conscience. 

A nation is only as strong as the individual families therein. The fearmongering about population numbers obscures the fact that we should live the same when there is demographic decline as when there is population growth: we should serve our families well and be open to the gifts that God offers us. Whether we have children or cannot have children, there will be suffering, which St. Faustina called “the greatest treasure on earth.”

Producing children by any means necessary is wrong. Trying to monetarily incentivize families is ineffective. Turning around a culture in the throes of self-destruction requires reawakening the conscience of individuals and remembering that our suffering has meaning.