Americans want more kids. Here’s what’s stopping them.
Americans want more kids. Here’s what’s stopping them.
Americans want more kids. Here’s what’s stopping them.
Anna Louie Sussman joins Shumita Basu to examine why many Americans who want children struggle to become parents, and what policies, workplaces, and communities could do about it.
Declining birth rates reflect more than changing preferences. Economic insecurity, housing costs, student debt, delayed adulthood, unstable relationships, expensive fertility treatment, and limited support make parenthood harder to achieve. The conversation explores how paid leave, affordable child care, job security, and corporate responsibility could reduce those barriers, while also considering the deeper social cost of weakened relationships and loneliness. It closes by asking what individuals can do to build reciprocal networks of care even when institutional change is slow.
01:42
01:42
Parenthood feels harder to achieve
05:06
05:06
Structural infertility delays parenthood
07:12
07:12
The cost is relationships
11:37
11:37
His debt was paid off when his daughter was born
15:37
15:37
America still lacks paid leave
18:43
18:43
Small baby bonuses are not enough
21:00
21:00
Companies have a role in solving the crisis
23:15
23:15
Technology has shaken up our basic drives
25:21
25:21
If you want a village, be a villager
