Ann Arbor, Michigan, Mar 21, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
The problem of below-replacement fertility rates across the globe and possible solutions to reverse the trend will be the subject of the Natal Conference on March 28-29 in Austin, Texas.
The conference website sets out the problem dramatically: “By the end of this century, nearly every country on Earth will have a shrinking population, and economic systems dependent on reliable growth will collapse. … Governments have tried everything in the standard technocratic toolset — tax incentives, subsidized child care, propaganda — and nothing has worked.”
Conference organizer Kevin Dolan of natalism.org told CNA that currently more can be said about what doesn’t advance natalism (the promotion of childbearing) than what does.
“Crude cash incentives are less likely to be effective than reforms which remove structural obstacles to raising families,” he pointed out, such as reforming family law and welfare penalties for two-parent homes.
Among the conference participants is Harvard-trained economist Catherine Ruth Pakaluk, a mother of eight and an associate professor of political economy at The Catholic University of America.
“I want to bring my dose of sanity to the conference so that people can appreciate the limits of policy,” Pakaluk told CNA. She will tell the conference about “positive outliers” bucking the birth dearth.
Pakaluk is the author of “Hannah’’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth,” a book that examines the lives of college-educated women who have chosen to defy the demographic norm by bearing five or more children.
Pakaluk also counts herself among these women who affirm the biblical sense that children are a blessing, “intrinsically valuable and worth having. Even if they cost me something.”
Pakaluk said that among Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, there are significant minorities that view children as a blessing. “They are people living according to biblical, grace-filled principles, despite the cost, when the rest of the world isn’t,” she said.
Because there are limits to what policies can do, “positive outliers,” she said, should be encouraged.
“If there is a broadened space for the Catholic Church and other churches to operate, and we can lean into religious liberty more, there is a reasonable expectation of a moderately higher birth rate, not through policy but through the living religious community,” she said.
Terry Schilling, a Catholic father of seven who heads the American Principles Project, is also among the conference’s scheduled speakers. He told CNA he will speak on the importance of fathers’ participation in family formation.
“We have to prioritize fatherhood to reinvigorate the family in America,” Schilling told CNA. An economy that encourages two-income families and divorce is worsened by attacks on manliness, he added.
Schilling also made a point of applauding the Trump administration for recently featuring so many children at White House ceremonies, including the children of billionaire Elon Musk, who is celebrated as a leading ally of the movement.
Currently, of the top 10 countries exhibiting the highest birth rate, all of them are in Africa. Leading the world is Niger, at a rate of 46.6 births per 1,000 people as of 2024. According to the CIA World Factbook, this means every woman in Niger can expect to deliver approximately six babies in her lifetime.
Greece, Taiwan, Spain, Italy, South Korea, Andorra, Japan, Monaco, St. Pierre and Miquelon, and Ukraine were at the bottom of the list. Ukraine, in the very last place, showed six births per 1,000 people in 2024, or 1.26 births per woman. The replacement fertility rate for a population is 2.1 children per woman.
The United States shows 1.66 births per woman, or 12.2 births per 1,000 people. According to a December 2023 U.S. Census Bureau press release, net international migration is driving growth in the U.S. population.
“What stands out is the diminishing role of natural increase over the last five years, as net international migration has become the primary driver of the nation’s growth,” Census Bureau demographer Kristie Wilder said.
Some governments have tried to affect fertility rates with policies. For example, Japan provides child allowances to women with three or more children, but according to the U.N., its rate of births per woman remains at 1.3 to 1.4 children. Hungary exempts mothers of four or more children from taxes, but at 1.51 live births per woman it remains below the replacement rate.
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