Why JD Vance worries about childlessness

livemint.com:

Sen. JD Vance sees Americans’ reluctance to have children as tied to risk aversion and a culture of social isolation that threatens to weigh on U.S. economic dynamism.

Since becoming Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee, the Ohio Republican has come under scrutiny for criticizing people who don’t have children. In 2021, he told Fox News that the U.S. is being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too." He singled out Vice President Kamala Harris, now the expected Democratic nominee, among others.

Harris is married with two stepchildren. After joining the Senate last year, Vance became one of the most outspoken lawmakers about the decline in U.S. fertility.

The total fertility rate—a snapshot of how many children a woman is expected to bear over her lifetime—fell to 1.62 last year, provisional government figures show, the lowest on record, and well below the 2.1 replacement rate needed to keep population steady, absent immigration. The issue has long been on Vance’s mind. In an interview in April with The Wall Street Journal, Vance described low fertility as having many causes, no simple remedy and negative consequences beyond simply a smaller workforce and less sustainable programs such as Social Security.

“A very important part of kids’ social development obviously is spending time with other kids," Vance said. But with lower birthrates, “you have a lot less brothers and sisters, you also have many, many fewer cousins. I think childhood has become much more socially isolated." In the interview, Vance listed several possible causes of lower birthrates.