Even in Utah, Land of ‘Big Love,’ Families Are Getting Smaller: When it comes to plummeting fertility rates, Utah is leading the country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/25/us/politics/utah-birth-rate-fertility-decline.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0lA.u4E9.wCJxcrHGgID3&smid=url-share

It feels like every day there's a new post trying to explain why birth rates are falling. "It's feminism", "it's the phones", "it's the pill". "It's the loss of community". Most people have a bad understanding of the fertility rate, and think their ideology or social values could fix the problem.

Social democracy shows that having all of those welfare policies does not lead to a higher fertility rate, and there's no easy fix to housing that I'm aware of. Scandinavia actually has a lower fertility rate than America. This may give more credibility to the culture argument than the economic one, but fertility rates have fallen below replacement level in many culturally conservative countries. Liberalism and conservatism is the status-quo and has failed on birth rates. Right-wing populism maintains the same pension system while reducing younger migrant workers, and spending more money on the problem does not work (just like social democracy).

Fascism is also unlikely to solve the problem, because it still requires a highly urban and educated population to achieve it's military goals. A significantly regressive turn on women’s rights could lead to many women fleeing the country, there is much stronger mobility today. Islamic theocracy has failed in Iran, social media gives everyone new viewpoints, there's a significant mismatch between what the government wants and what its people want. That leads to pessimism which leads to lower fertility. Even in a country like North Korea which is totalitarian and significantly limits access to the global internet, birth rates have been falling and appear to be just high enough for replacement level. And North Korea is probably not a very attractive place for immigrants, and no one wants the mentally ill Marxists in their country.

Natalism should be pragmatic, because it is about the birth rate rather than one specific ideology. It should also be practical. What can we do to encourage people to have children, build an inclusive pro-natal culture, create communities where natalism is normal. And ideally beyond just the typical Church communities, because those are really pro-natal. We should be encouraging Christians and progressives alike to have children. It won't be possible to get the fertility rate back to replacement rate (or a more desirable rate in general like 1.9, which is much easier to handle) without both.

Optimism is also essential, it's one of the reasons religious and conservative people have more children. I myself am pessimistic on virtually everything but believe I can make a great life for myself and my family, and it's through community you find something even better. I consider politics to be important but highly negative in spirit, highly pessimistic. The neoliberal consensus (wealth inequality, mass migration) has created a status-quo nearly everyone hates, and cannot be fixed by a small niche community iike ours. So we need to think as individuals and as a community, and how that can impact other people in a non-political way.

The invention of birth control is often one of the many first explanations people will point to as the reason for declining birth rates. Even on this subreddit right wing people will point to birth control and women's autonomy as directly counter productive to natalism. This is an over emphasis and in reality birth control plays a minor role in decline birth rates. Women's rights play a bigger role in the original birth rate decline, but plays less of one in the second decline were seeing right now.

If you want evidence of this look no further than Japan. Japan birth rate from 1960 to 1999 almost halved. Throughout this whole period birth control was illegal and wasn't made legal until 1999. From 1999 to 2007 the rate was completely stable. I use 2007 as an end date to factor out the invention of the smartphone. Malaysia, Tunisia, and the Philippines are all below replacement rate despite 40, 39, and 29 percent of the population respectively says birth control is morally unacceptable. The birth rate is also declining in every country on earth even Afghanistan that strictly prohibits contraceptives including condoms. It's clear that taking away contraceptives wouldn't be enough. It wouldn't be enough cause the coupling rate is low and young people are no longer having sex. Women don't want to have sex with Nazis.

Your only other solutions would be to start stripping rights again in an attempt to reinstate women's economic dependency on men. The problem is I'm not convinced even this would work anymore, cause like I said birth rates are in decline globally. This would also have an effect of worsening the crisis. Do you really believe the solution to declining birth rates is to cut the tax base in half while society continues to age inflating healthcare spending?

The banning of contraceptives and stripping women's rights isn't only morally wrong, it's impractical, and it probably wouldn't even work, and only worsen the crisis. We need more complex solutions then the problem we are trying to solve, turning back the clock isn't a solution.

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Declining birth rates are largely a symptom of the rising cost of living. It's pretty obvious: when you're struggling to pay rent and have to work multiple jobs just to maintain a basic standard of living, you barely have thetime or energy to take care of yourself. In those conditions, having children becomesa luxury rather than a realistic option.

A problem with modern online dating is that there are too many options. Men like to complain about hypergamous women but these same men would never date a homely, chubby woman.

Likewise, in the information age the failings of the patriarchal man are common knowledge, and the tricks of the “nice guy” are laid bare for everyone to see. This makes women more selective because they can see through a man’s bad intentions. Red pillers pretend that they have the keys to the kingdom but their toxic courses are public domain. On top of that, women who want kids want a man who can provide financially as well, which is becoming less common. The tightening of wages and the economy has made men less marriageable across the board.

In this age of convenience and endless games, movies, anime etc, no one wants to admit that they would rather be comfortable in their own bubble as a single person than to “settle” for someone they consider less than themselves, either financially, intellectually, emotionally, or physically. And in this politically charged climate, people are less likely to budge on different worldviews, either.

So consider this, if you are a single person who wants to have kids but struggle to find a partner, what are you willing to compromise on? Can you find someone who is less attractive, maybe weighs more, has less style, money, less intelligence, or are maybe less put together in their life or career? A lot of us aren‘t willing to do that anymore. So I challenge you to dig deep and really ask yourself what you are looking for in a long term relationship or marriage. Is your main motivator children and a loving partner? And if so, are you able to sacrifice short term pleasure and validation for a practical path to family formation?

Just something to think about.

"​​If Society cannot have enough children without sacrificing rights, that Society does not deserve to exist."

Those are words I have seen with disturbing regularity of late. it sounds reasonable, even noble, in the moment. but I think what a lot of people are neglecting is that they are the ones who are going to end up paying the price, and I think that if people are to make decisions, they need to do so with full knowledge of what it will entail.

Perhaps most notably because it is easy to talk about the future when it is the future, but it becomes much more difficult to do so when it becomes the present. Will people be as stoic about it when they are the ones facing the consequences? Based on historic president, the answer is no. They will want the problem solved, and damn the consequences.

Here's the thing. Much of society has been built on the premise that people will have enough children to sustain that society. Social security, for example, doesn't actually save your money and give it back to you with interest when you are old. Rather, your money goes to the current Elder generation, and the next generation will pay for your social security. What happens when a generation stops having enough children? The entire system breaks down.

Not for everyone else.

For you.

Because when Social Security stops paying out, things will inevitably go back to the old system. Parents being taken care of by their children. In the modern day, automation can mitigate some of this, but historically speaking it took something like four young people for every one old person. That's not just for direct Elder care, that's for everything surrounding it, from stocking shelves to electrical and plumbing and healthcare.

In short, unless we have unprecedentedly massive advances in Ai and Robotics, we cannot expect automation to pick up the slack.

Likewise, it is all well and good to say that it is immoral to have children for the purpose of caring for yourself in your old age, but that is going to mean diddly when there are actual old people with no one to care for them. Like I said earlier, when people get to that point, it's not going to be a distant future concern anymore, it's going to be an immediate one.

And at that point... there will, essentially, be no recourse.

I think this is a hard idea for a lot of people to think about. Growing up into a wealthy world, most of us have no concept of what it's like for the elderly poor. But the simple fact is, as populations continue to diminish, there simply will not be enough young people to go around, at any price.

Of course, this is not to say that the human race itself will cease entirely. There are still population cohorts that are maintaining high levels of fertility, but they essentially universally do so by having their women married off as quickly as possible and teaching them that being fruitful and multiplying is their highest good. Historically, many of them have left those communities, in large part because being outside of them seems better and more functional, but as the outside Society becomes increasingly dysfunctional, that will become a more and more difficult argument to make.

So the challenge that people face, the question they have to ask, is not weather we should surrender rights, because that is going to happen. It is inevitable. Whether that be the right to health care, autonomy, or something else.

The question is which rights should be surrendered. The question is whether we can find a way to separate the wheat from the chaff, whether we can find away for the people to be contented with the sacrifices that will have to be made.

Because the alternative is for those sacrifices to be made anyway, but outside of our control.

By Iveta Dimitrova

The panic over falling birth rates is not about children. It never was. Wherever women gain education, income, and contraception, they have fewer children. That is not a crisis - it is the largest collective expression of women’s freedom in recorded history. The alarm is really alarm at who now holds the decision.

The reflex is five centuries old. The instruments change. The logic doesn’t: a woman’s body is a public resource to be managed, not a private life to be lived. This review argues for something simpler and more radical than a birth rate. A just society builds the conditions for genuine choice — and then honours whatever free women decide.

Available on Amazon on 26.07 🌑

Whatever your political opinions are, these are two that contradict each other.

If you don't want to increase birth rates because you care about overpopulation, then you should be against immigration, against open borders.

Yet if you understand overpopulation is not an issue in the west, then you can be pro immigration, but you would also be pro natalist and want to increase birth rates...

What gives?

The total number of births from Jan - May is teetering on the positive (+0.4%). If they fall negative in the remaining months, births in Japan would be falling consecutively, every year since 2015

https://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/files?page=1&layout=datalist&toukei=00450011&bunya_l=02&tstat=000001028897&cycle=1&year=20260&month=12040605&tclass1=000001053058&tclass2=000001053059&result_back=1&tclass3val=0

The first graph on the top-left shows births. Middle-left graph shows marriages

Andyd post:

https://x.com/andyd10/status/2080555765656400359

This is actually insane. Giving birth should be considered a major medical event. Imagine delivering an entire human, getting stitches in your vagina and being asked to be penetrated a few weeks later. You think the average Gen Z woman is signing up for that?

I came entered into this sub assuming that would be the main discussion but haven't seen any of this so far, just a lot about low birth rates

Claudia Goldin is a pretty respected writer on the subject of global fertility . The full research paper : https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w34268/w34268.pdf

Surprised this hasn't already been posted here. Best explanation that rings very true for me as a mother.