E79: Uncovering Why People Aren’t Having Kids (w/Tim Carney)

Timothy Carney joins the podcast to discuss his new book Family Unfriendly, exploring how cultural norms, workism, and modern safetyism have made raising kids in America harder than it needs to be.

Guest bio:
Timothy P. Carney is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a columnist at the Washington Examiner. He is the author of several books, including Alienated America and the newly released Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be.

Topics discussed:

• Fertility decline and demographic trends in the U.S. and abroad
• Cultural barriers to parenthood, including workism and safetyism
• The limits of pro-natalist government policies
• Role of religion and subcultures in sustaining birth rates
• Helicopter parenting, loss of community, and childhood independence
• Housing, education, and economic myths around family affordability
• How cultural expectations delay family formation
• Policy ideas for building a more family-friendly society

Top quote:

“Pregnancy is contagious... It’s not primarily through sermons or rational discourse that people decide to have kids—it’s through culture, community, and what they see around them.”

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