The influence of ideologies on a healthy pronatalism 

 Kimberley Heatherington (OSV News).

Depending on the context, the concept of pronatalism - encouraging people to have children or promoting motherhood - can be a reason to celebrate the fundamental role of the family in society. A techno-elitist vision of a future populated by humans designed to have specific traits. Or a shameful expression of anti-immigrant nativism.

What is the difference?

The definition found in the Cambridge Dictionary illustrates the complexity of arriving at a universal understanding. It states flatly that pronatalism is "the idea that it is important to have children in order to increase the number of people in a country, especially the number of people who are not immigrants."

Well, no, not always.

"Fundamentally, when we talk about pronatalism, we mean people who think it's not good that fertility is so low. So, if you think it would be good if we had more babies, you're pronatalist," explained Lyman Stone, principal investigator and director of the Institute for Family Studies' Pronatalist Initiative.

"Now," he continued, "you may find yourself saying, 'But that doesn't seem to be what most people who describe themselves as pronatalists in the media think; they seem a little weird.' 

This is because people think there should be more babies for many different reasons, and they see the problem of low fertility as a problem for many different reasons."

Why low fertility is a problem. First, economic pronatalism

What are some of the reasons people might consider low fertility to be a problem? Stone identified three.

"The first set of reasons could be called structural or economic," he noted. ""We need babies because, if we don't have them, who will pay for Social Security?"" Or, "If we don't have babies, who will be the workforce to drive economic growth or innovation? Who will serve in the military and defend us?"

"Basically, this perspective says we need babies because they are useful to other people," Stone said. "I call it economic or structural pronatalism."

Second, pronatalism by the community

"The second type of pronatalism," he continued, "I would say that low fertility is a problem because there is a community that is intrinsically valuable and worth perpetuating."

But Stone said the reasons behind "communitarian pronatalism" can vary widely. On the one hand, it can have "totally reasonable and innocuous motives, like, 'I want the community of my family lineage to continue, so I'm going to have children.' But it can also include, for example, people calling for more white babies out of an ideology of white superiority. 

"That's not innocuous," he said. "Just as there are many varieties of economic structural pronatalism, there are many varieties of communitarian structural pronatalism."

Third type, "individualistic pronatalism".

He said that the third type of pronatalism is "individualistic pronatalism".

"Basically, he says that the reason it's a problem that fertility is low is because people want to have more children than they have, and clearly there are barriers that prevent them from doing so. And, Stone concluded, "it's really strange that we live in a society where people consistently don't have the families they want to have. That's inherently bad...".

Declining fertility rates, a worldwide phenomenon

In July, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the U.S. fertility rate fell to its lowest level in 2024, at 1.62 children per woman. In the early 1960s, the rate was 3.5; in 1976, it was 1.7. In 2007, the United States still had a birth rate that ensured that each generation would have enough children-about 2.1 babies per woman-to replace itself.

Birth rates in Europe are comparable to those in the United States, with France at 1.64 babies per woman; the United Kingdom at 1.54; Germany at 1.46; Spain at 1.21; and Italy at 1.2.

But the decline in fertility rates is a global phenomenon. In Asia, India's birth rate is 1.94 babies per woman; the Philippines, 1.88; and South Korea, 0.75. 

In the Americas, Guatemala's birth rate is 2.26 babies per woman, while Mexico's is 1.87 and Argentina's is 1.51.

Except in Africa 

The five countries that, according to the United Nations, have the highest rates of number of children per woman are on the African continent. They are Chad (5.94), Somalia (5.91), the Democratic Republic of Congo (5.90), the Central African Republic (5.81) and Niger (5.79). 

Cultural views and pronatalism

"I believe that the legacy of the population bomb - the myth of the overpopulation- is still in the debate," says Patrick Brown, a research fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. "If you look at public opinion polls, almost as many Americans think our problem is having too many babies globally, versus a future where we won't have enough."

The other side of the coin, according to Brown, "is the idea that if we talk too openly about the birth rate, we will end up forcing women to have children, i.e., forced pregnancies. We'll take away their rights, something akin to what you see in 'The Handmaid's Tale,' which is what you hear the left saying."

The six seasons of 'The Handmaid's Tale' on Hulu and Margaret Atwood's novel of the same name depict a totalitarian, theocratic state that stands in for the United States of America. The maids are a caste of women forced into sexual servitude in an attempt to repopulate the world.

Simple apathy: nothing happens either... 

However, simple apathy can be another challenge to pronatalism.

I think a lot of it is just a cultural shift that says, "If you want to have a child, great; if you don't want to have a child, that's fine. There's nothing really right or wrong. There's no social value to it. It's simply a matter of consumption, of individual preferences, and who are we to say that having children is better than not having children?" explained Brown. 

"I think that's probably the dominant trend that pronatalism, in all its varied forms, is trying to fight against to say, 'No, there's actually something valuable and necessary in the hard work of having children.'"

Ideological forces seek to dominate the pro-natalist debate

The Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that the family is "the original cell of social life. It is the natural society in which husband and wife are called to give themselves in love and in the gift of life. Authority, stability and the life of relationships within the family constitute the foundations of freedom, security and fraternity within society".

"We are trying to use the family as the cornerstone of a healthy society," Brown said, referring to a healthy pronatalism in line with the Church's vision of the human person.

At the same time, however, he warned that pronatalism is also beset by ideological forces seeking to co-opt the movement. 

"Pronatalism, the kind of official pronatalist movement, has quickly become colonized by racists on the one hand and eugenicists on the other," Brown said. 

"Silicon Valley money is manipulating reproduction in a way that is not only really morally troubling. But it's also pushing us ethically, socially and culturally towards a kind of eugenics that consists of optimizing what your child should look like and selecting the embryo with the highest IQ."

Alerts

Perhaps the world's most famous pronatalist, tech industrialist Elon Musk - father of at least 14 children by several different women - declared in a March 2025 interview with Fox News. "The birth rate is very low in almost every country, and unless that changes, civilization will disappear. ... Humanity is dying." 

However, Musk is selective. In his 2015 biography, he is quoted as saying,""If each successive generation of smart people has fewer children, that's probably a bad thing." 

Influential pronatalists Simone and Malcolm Collins, founders of Pronatalist.org, came to public attention after admitting that they used genetic testing and selection to optimize the mental health traits of their unborn children.

"That kind of thing, which is part of the current pronatalist movement, gives people the creeps, and rightly so, doesn't it?" asked Brown. "It's not about helping people start a family and being able to afford to have children. It's about turning children into commodities."

The challenge of faith formation: "Most Catholics do not live pronatalistically".

Kody W. Cooper is an associate professor in the Institute for American Civic Education at the Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. And he has suggested that Catholics could do more to improve the declining birth rate.

Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate noted in 2011 that the average size of a U.S. Catholic household was the same as the national average, 2.6 persons per household. 

"Catholics need to be honest with themselves," Cooper said. "If we go by survey data, most Catholics do not live pronatally. By some estimates, as many as 90 % of Catholics who regularly attend Mass use artificial contraception, contrary to the teachings of Humanae Vitae."

He understands the common objections, but still insists on this point.

"Perhaps the project could be advanced if Catholics would put their own house in order," Cooper said. "And by that I mean bishops and priests courageously exercising their roles preaching pronatalism, and the laity seeking to cultivate the virtues necessary to live pronatalistically."

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Kimberley Heatherington is a correspondent for OSV News. She writes from Virginia (USA).

This report was originally published in OSV News. You can consult it here.

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