Religious Liberty Key To Increased Birth Rates, Says Harvard-Trained Economist

Natalism promotes high birth rates based on the concept that human reproduction is an intrinsic good for humanity. It has been opposed by numerous organizations and governments, such as Planned Parenthood and USAID. One group, at least, is organizing a conference to find ways to encourage maternity and larger families.

The Natal Conference will be held in Austin TX March 28-29 to bring together natalist speakers, including economist Catherine Pakaluk of 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.” In addition, she wants to bring to the attention of the conferees good news about “positive outliers” who are bucking the trend towards a lower birth rate. 

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.” 

Pakaluk teaches at CUA, and has studied Catholic social doctrine. She is a mother of eight.  Additionally, she is the author of ‘Hannah's Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth’. As a professional economist, she said questions about demographics and economic prosperity figure prominently. “Demographers and economists are among the professionals puzzling over declining birth rates,” she said. The replacement fertility rate for a population is 2.1 children per woman.

Citing Centers for Disease Control statistics, Pakaluk said the U.S. birth rate among native-born Americans has been below the replacement rate since the 1970s. A shift in birth rates came when more women entered the workforce, especially after the birth control pill became widely available, bringing the birth rate below replacement levels. At the conference, she will address whether government policies can address the problem.

Of the top ten 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 6 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 6 births per 1000 people in 2024, or 1.26 births per woman.  

The United States shows 1.66 births per woman, or 12.2 births per 1,000 population. According to a December 2023 U.S. Census Bureau press release, net international migration is driving growth in U.S. population. Census Bureau demographer Kristie Wilder said, “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.”

Declining birth rates affect the rest of the world. Poland has shown a steady drop in population growth rate since 1970, and experienced a significant drop in 2020, according to the World Bank, and now stands at -0.04%. Hungary has had a steady drop since 1970, with a growth rate now standing at -0.05%. Japan had an upward spike in 1970, but a steady drop since then to -0.05%. All three countries offer natalist incentives. 

Catholic majority Latin America is also seeing a decline. The fertility rate in Latin America was 1.84 children per woman in 2022, for example, and has been dropping since 2015 when it fell below replacement levels. The fertility rate may continue its fall, and reach 1.68 children per woman in 2100. Population in the region stands at about 660 million.

Some governments have tried to affect fertility rates with policies. For example, Japan provides child allowances to women with three or more children. Even so, according to the UN, the rate of births per woman remains 1.3 to 1.4 children, and thus remains below the replacement rate. Hungary exempts mothers of four or more children from taxes, but at 1.51 live births per woman it remains below the replacement rate.

In her book, Pakaluk describes “positive outliers” or exceptions to declining birth rates. She wanted to find out how policy makers might encourage these outliers having babies. “I think, all things being equal, I would always want another child. But where does that come from? It comes from the Biblical sense that children are a blessing, intrinsically valuable and worth having. Even if they cost me something. Now that the utilitarian reasons for having children are gone, what’s left over today is choosing children for their own sake,” she said.

Pakaluk said that among Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, there are minorities that take very seriously that children really are a blessing. “There is a very particular way of life that I observed that is not unique to Catholics,” she said. She said about 10% of Catholics see children in this light, while only 5% of the general population value children similarly.  ‘When you talk to Catholics who live this way, they often say ‘I love my faith’ or ‘I am living my faith. So they do think it is connected deeply to their faith,” Pakaluk said. Whether Catholic or not, she said, people living according to Biblical principles are difficult to measure because they describe themselves according to their religion rather than any sect. “They are people living according to Biblical, grace-filled principles, despite the cost, when the rest of the world isn’t,” she said.

Pakaluk said she will tell the natalist conference that there are limits to what policies can do. The “positive outliers”, she said should be encouraged, “If can 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. “This would mean having schools and parishes that pass on pro-life values and for believers to support each other through difficult times. The march of a secular society has pushed the Church out and definitely short-changed family formation. Churches can make a big difference,” she said.