I think one item important to note regarding the drop in birth rates for low to middle income families is the ACA impact on birth control. Around 2013 is when birth control became 100% covered by insurance—so it became much more accessible to all. Those who couldn’t afford it before now could, thus preventing accidental pregnancies, lowering the birth rates.
It's pretty cool to revisit these Greatest Hits! Some thoughts:
"while it’s true that people at the very bottom of the income distribution still tend to have more kids on average than those at the top, households earning more than $200,000 (the upper limit in the data set) represented around 19% of the population in 2023—but accounted for nearly one in four families with five members (most often, this means three kids)."
so ~19% of the population is slightly over indexed at... ~< 25% of five-member nuclear families. That doesn't seem that disparate, especially when acknowledging that "people of the very bottom of the income distribution" are *even more* over-indexed than those at the top.
I'd also add that having made a conscientious decision to be parents-of-one-child, it was very much driven by the desire not to divide both monetary and non-monetary resources among multiple children, so our decision-making would suggest that we're certainly aligned with your thesis here. At the same time, taking the average of all of our respective sibling's families and those of our close friends (18 families in total, excluding those with blended families or adoptions*, since we're talking about "birthrate" here), the average is 2.2 children. Those families have 100% bachelors degrees-or-higher, and incomes ranging from middle class teachers and civil employees to straight-up HENRYs (corporate legal, tech, physicians). I'd list them all, but trust me: it's an extreme diversity of professions and incomes. Also of note: 25% of the families have SAHMs despite all school-aged children, each at different levels of the represented income spectrum.
All that to say, even though that's a small sample size with selection biases, I wonder if there's a different correlation that makes more sense than income. I've found that social pressures/community norms are far more influential on family formation than anything else. In fact, I see most people more or less replicating the structure of the families they grew up in. There are outliers of course (like my wife and I, collectively 2-of-7), but in general I think if you had a single-marriage two-parent multiple-children household growing up, that's probably what you're going to replicate when you have the chance. It's certainly not my area of expertise, but I'd bet that if you isolate that population, you'd see it in the data. The macro trend is probably driven simply by less marriages overall.
*my sister has 4 adopted children (5 in total) and has been a SAHM for 12+ years. Including her would've skewed the data pretty significantly.
**the Nordic birthrate being lower doesn't surprise me; if a culture is gearing toward involved and intentional parenting (10/10 recommend), it's naturally going to produce fewer children per family. The more children, the more variability of needs, and the less intention (and attention) you can give to an individual child. We're only human, after all :)
I think this is a great article but similarly wonder about other demo correlations, especially religion, *political orientation,* and education levels. I’m from Utah and all my friends back home have at 3+ kids (and I’m only early 30’s), regardless of income, because it’s just what you do there, especially within the LDS subculture. Now that I’ve moved across the country, I live in an affluent, highly educated, purpleish suburb where 2 kids is much more normal. The culture between the two cities is so different when it comes to what families prioritize in terms of raising kids. Out here families seem to put a lot more emphasis on high quality childcare, intensive extracurricular child enrichment activities and camps, and super expensive higher education than in Utah, and in Utah more emphasis is placed on intensive parenting (still very common to be a SAHM). Growing up, I noticed that even in extremely wealthy suburbs of Utah the status symbol of attending elite universities is just not really a thing. (I knew multiple exceptionally wealthy families who required their kids to pay for their own education. It was a more socially acceptable part of the culture.) Anyway, all this to say, there are cultural norms that also play heavily in all this. Would love some exploration of all this on a DL ep!
entirely possible this is a hammer <> nail observation given that i'm *money* with katie, after all ;) but yeah i agree with both of you that cultural norms (which are influenced by, as you both noted, politics and religion, and as i'm noting, the economic reality of a society) will influence these choices. i guess as i sit back and reflect on the headspace i was in when i originally wrote this piece, i think the broader question is: what does it mean when billionaire culture specifically appears to place such an emphasis on procreation? what does that tell us about the direction we're moving in socially, and is that observation generalizable to the public writ large?
Oh yes to be clear, I think this was a super interesting article and good food for thought! I think that how billionaires spend their wealth probably impacts what’s perceived as a status symbol for us regulars. I also agree that there are likely many people in this country who would have more kids if it wasn’t so damn expensive. But, man, being a billionaire would really change the nature of parenting to an extent even I couldn’t imagine as someone in the upper middle class with plenty of money and tons of familial and household support to have a third child (and more). I mean if I could (and felt morally okay with) hiring a surrogate and outsourcing literally every challenging part of parenting, I’d probably consider having more kids.
I'm an Occam's Razor type of guy; I think they just want to make more of themselves. When it comes to Elon, I think it's a perverted fusion of Effective Altruism and Genghis Khan-type seed spreading. The more of his genes he can pass on, the better chance he believes humanity will have of becoming a multi-planetary species.
I live in the Nordics, and it feels very disingenuous how this piece is cherry-picking one Nordic success story (of a petrostate that invests its oil profits in more oil), while those of us not propped by the same massive resource wealth are discovering the cracks in the model.
Saying 'the point isn't birth rates, it's quality of life' or whatever only works if you can fund quality of life indefinitely with a shrinking tax base. For those of us funding the welfare state through taxation of workers and not through the oil rig, the birth rate (or some equivalent population renewal strategy) is absolutely the point. I support better parental support in the US, but hand-waving away demographic sustainability (i.e. suggesting that we replace a policy that doesn't work with another policy that doesn't work and also costs more money) is unlikely to get anyone there.
interesting; i have a few follow-up questions. first, when you say, "replace a policy that doesn't work with another policy that doesn't work," can you be more specific about the policy that does not work? are you referring to universal childcare as something that does not "work," or something else?
secondly, if i'm understanding correctly, your primary objection to the invocation of norway is that because the birth rate in norway is lower, this cannot be considered a true 'success' story in the conventional sense (especially because they fund their welfare state with oil revenue rather than income tax revenue). the logic being, i assume: (1) replacement rate is the only metric that matters in the US, because (2) replacement rate is necessary to sustain the tax base, and (3) the tax base is what's necessary to sustain the social safety net.
if i'm understanding your objection correctly, i think i'd point to a few things, but primarily the fact that an economy which distributes its income more evenly would grow its tax revenues even if the number of taxpayers stagnates or shrinks. when 20% of a country's income goes to 1% of earners, a substantial percentage of whom are realizing that income as capital gains at 20% (rather than the top marginal rate of 37%), there's a substantial amount of revenue that's being lost — provided that loophole remains, then yes, you'd need a countless growing supply of low-wage workers each paying taxes to compensate. but endless population growth seems harder to achieve than changing the tax code, imo.
My main objection to the Norway example is that it's not really a system built around "the belief that every person has a right to a family". A system truly built around that principle would be agnostic about whether one parent stays home, extended family provides care, both parents work part-time, etc. Instead, the Nordic model (through tax structure, no joint filing, benefit timing, and other incentives) structures and constrains family choices towards dual full-time employment (which requires institutional childcare that most kids start around 12 months, which requires tax revenue, which requires incentives for both parents to work, which requires childcare, which requires revenue...). The reason why it's a luxury to be a SAHM here is that SAHMs don't earn income that they could be taxed on and the social model requires high workforce participation to fund itself.
Obviously replacement rate isn't the *only* metric that matters, but it's a significant constraint on what's fiscally sustainable. If progressive taxation of top earners could solve everything, why are the Nordic countries (which have less income inequality and more progressive taxation than the US AND tax their middle class at the level that would be an absolute political non-starter in the US) experiencing fiscal strain when not backed by natural resources? What's your explanation for their struggles right now despite having the tax equity advantage?
Endless population growth does seem pretty difficult to achieve. Luckily, nobody needs endless population growth - even getting to replacement levels, which no developed country has solved so far, would be a huge achievement. I'll end this already very long comment by saying that my position isn't "never help out parents whatsoever" or "tax equity doesn't matter". What I'm interested in is "what can we have given that we probably will have low birth rates regardless", and the current economic situation here points to "probably not this".
“Where are the men?” is the first thought that comes to mind looking at this family. Families need everyone - the aunts, the uncles, the moms, the dads, the grandmas and the grandpas. We’re better together
When my neighbors had their fourth child, they had to invest in a huge van. A normal car will not fit four car seats. I’m not proposing we stop using car seats . . . . Merely that there are expenses and inconveniences in having a large family that are never even acknowledged
"The Government Pension Fund of Norway (Norwegian: Statens pensjonsfond) is the sovereign wealth fund collectively owned by the government of Norway. It consists of two entirely separate sovereign wealth funds: the Government Pension Fund Global (Norges Bank Investment Management)[1] and the Government Pension Fund Norway.
The Government Pension Fund Global (Statens pensjonsfond utland), also known as the Oil Fund (Oljefondet), was established in 1990 to invest the surplus revenues of the Norwegian petroleum sector. As of June 2025, it had over US$1.9 trillion in assets,[2] equal to 1.5% of the value of the world's listed companies, making it the world's largest sovereign wealth fund in terms of total assets under management.[3][4] This translates to over US$340,000 per Norwegian citizen.[5] It also holds portfolios of real estate and fixed-income investments. Many companies are excluded by the fund on ethical grounds.[6]
The Government Pension Fund Norway is smaller and was established in 1967 as a type of national insurance fund. It is managed separately from the Oil Fund and is limited to domestic and Nordic investments and is therefore a key stock holder in many large Norwegian companies, predominantly via the Oslo Stock Exchange."
no, it's not crazy skewed, you're right — just disproportionate and therefore worth noting, imo, since it's the only data point we have about that group based on how the census data was collected.
you really only see the extremes in the long tail — billionaires with 8 kids, etc. — and i think those trends are indicative of the broader shift
Great read. Will be moving to Norway now to afford my family.
In an interesting twist of political ideology - the U.S. almost passed universal childcare in 1970s (Comprehensive Child Development Act). Nixon killed the bill though because it looked too communist (called it government overreach into family life). Needs to be reintroduced, clearly.
I've always enjoyed your takes on the finances of family life, thinking of a MWK episode where you found out how much childcare costs in America.
Paid parental leaves are a boon, in any form, but there's miles to go after the first 6 months are up and should be prioritized within this conversation accordingly (also since this mainly affects women and their short/longterm prospects, unless they are an influencer, no one cares 😝😭).
Putting aside the "premium size" family, just paying childcare for two children is exorbitant for all but the richest (we make upward of $250K combined and it'd be a significant reduction to our savings and investments if we didn't have obliging grandparents).
The NYT published an article last month interviewing 8 families across the income spectrum in NYC what their childcare costs were and the results were WILD. It struck me that daily childcare was not all that there is to pay for. Aftercare, beforecare, tutoring , sports.... the ways of paying people to watch your kids are endless.
It'd be interesting to see a study about impact to the economy that subsidized childcare would have.
So many current events happening right now are only going to exacerbate these costs.
OH, also Derek Thompson is fresh off paternity leave so let's get him and Ezra on it. #AbundantChildcareSolutions.
I think one item important to note regarding the drop in birth rates for low to middle income families is the ACA impact on birth control. Around 2013 is when birth control became 100% covered by insurance—so it became much more accessible to all. Those who couldn’t afford it before now could, thus preventing accidental pregnancies, lowering the birth rates.
woah, I did not know that. thank you.
I think we’re kind of already there no? Everyone I know with a bunch of kids is in fact, rich.
If only we were a rich country with oil reserves...oh wait
no erica that's why we need venezuela's oil remember
New Mexico recently started providing free childcare-I wonder if this will catch on
i am watching them with bated breath. nyc is apparently extending theirs as well
Since it is a republish, I'll forgive you but the examples of billionaires is getting worse. Catch this one from last month: https://nypost.com/2025/12/14/us-news/xu-bo-chinese-billionaire-reportedly-sires-more-than-100-kids/
POINT = PROVEN
I am one of 3 kids, in the 80s/90s that did not feel like a particularly big family. I now have 3 kids of my own, and it feels big. Very big.
I live in the Bay Area and when I announced to parents at our preschool we were having a second child, I got a lot of brow raises
It's pretty cool to revisit these Greatest Hits! Some thoughts:
"while it’s true that people at the very bottom of the income distribution still tend to have more kids on average than those at the top, households earning more than $200,000 (the upper limit in the data set) represented around 19% of the population in 2023—but accounted for nearly one in four families with five members (most often, this means three kids)."
so ~19% of the population is slightly over indexed at... ~< 25% of five-member nuclear families. That doesn't seem that disparate, especially when acknowledging that "people of the very bottom of the income distribution" are *even more* over-indexed than those at the top.
I'd also add that having made a conscientious decision to be parents-of-one-child, it was very much driven by the desire not to divide both monetary and non-monetary resources among multiple children, so our decision-making would suggest that we're certainly aligned with your thesis here. At the same time, taking the average of all of our respective sibling's families and those of our close friends (18 families in total, excluding those with blended families or adoptions*, since we're talking about "birthrate" here), the average is 2.2 children. Those families have 100% bachelors degrees-or-higher, and incomes ranging from middle class teachers and civil employees to straight-up HENRYs (corporate legal, tech, physicians). I'd list them all, but trust me: it's an extreme diversity of professions and incomes. Also of note: 25% of the families have SAHMs despite all school-aged children, each at different levels of the represented income spectrum.
All that to say, even though that's a small sample size with selection biases, I wonder if there's a different correlation that makes more sense than income. I've found that social pressures/community norms are far more influential on family formation than anything else. In fact, I see most people more or less replicating the structure of the families they grew up in. There are outliers of course (like my wife and I, collectively 2-of-7), but in general I think if you had a single-marriage two-parent multiple-children household growing up, that's probably what you're going to replicate when you have the chance. It's certainly not my area of expertise, but I'd bet that if you isolate that population, you'd see it in the data. The macro trend is probably driven simply by less marriages overall.
*my sister has 4 adopted children (5 in total) and has been a SAHM for 12+ years. Including her would've skewed the data pretty significantly.
**the Nordic birthrate being lower doesn't surprise me; if a culture is gearing toward involved and intentional parenting (10/10 recommend), it's naturally going to produce fewer children per family. The more children, the more variability of needs, and the less intention (and attention) you can give to an individual child. We're only human, after all :)
I think this is a great article but similarly wonder about other demo correlations, especially religion, *political orientation,* and education levels. I’m from Utah and all my friends back home have at 3+ kids (and I’m only early 30’s), regardless of income, because it’s just what you do there, especially within the LDS subculture. Now that I’ve moved across the country, I live in an affluent, highly educated, purpleish suburb where 2 kids is much more normal. The culture between the two cities is so different when it comes to what families prioritize in terms of raising kids. Out here families seem to put a lot more emphasis on high quality childcare, intensive extracurricular child enrichment activities and camps, and super expensive higher education than in Utah, and in Utah more emphasis is placed on intensive parenting (still very common to be a SAHM). Growing up, I noticed that even in extremely wealthy suburbs of Utah the status symbol of attending elite universities is just not really a thing. (I knew multiple exceptionally wealthy families who required their kids to pay for their own education. It was a more socially acceptable part of the culture.) Anyway, all this to say, there are cultural norms that also play heavily in all this. Would love some exploration of all this on a DL ep!
entirely possible this is a hammer <> nail observation given that i'm *money* with katie, after all ;) but yeah i agree with both of you that cultural norms (which are influenced by, as you both noted, politics and religion, and as i'm noting, the economic reality of a society) will influence these choices. i guess as i sit back and reflect on the headspace i was in when i originally wrote this piece, i think the broader question is: what does it mean when billionaire culture specifically appears to place such an emphasis on procreation? what does that tell us about the direction we're moving in socially, and is that observation generalizable to the public writ large?
Oh yes to be clear, I think this was a super interesting article and good food for thought! I think that how billionaires spend their wealth probably impacts what’s perceived as a status symbol for us regulars. I also agree that there are likely many people in this country who would have more kids if it wasn’t so damn expensive. But, man, being a billionaire would really change the nature of parenting to an extent even I couldn’t imagine as someone in the upper middle class with plenty of money and tons of familial and household support to have a third child (and more). I mean if I could (and felt morally okay with) hiring a surrogate and outsourcing literally every challenging part of parenting, I’d probably consider having more kids.
I'm an Occam's Razor type of guy; I think they just want to make more of themselves. When it comes to Elon, I think it's a perverted fusion of Effective Altruism and Genghis Khan-type seed spreading. The more of his genes he can pass on, the better chance he believes humanity will have of becoming a multi-planetary species.
Don't forget the show Modern Family which is as blended of a family as you can get:
The soccer parent/nuckeat family the Hispanic wife and Al Bundy, and the Gay couple with an adopted daughter
I live in the Nordics, and it feels very disingenuous how this piece is cherry-picking one Nordic success story (of a petrostate that invests its oil profits in more oil), while those of us not propped by the same massive resource wealth are discovering the cracks in the model.
Saying 'the point isn't birth rates, it's quality of life' or whatever only works if you can fund quality of life indefinitely with a shrinking tax base. For those of us funding the welfare state through taxation of workers and not through the oil rig, the birth rate (or some equivalent population renewal strategy) is absolutely the point. I support better parental support in the US, but hand-waving away demographic sustainability (i.e. suggesting that we replace a policy that doesn't work with another policy that doesn't work and also costs more money) is unlikely to get anyone there.
interesting; i have a few follow-up questions. first, when you say, "replace a policy that doesn't work with another policy that doesn't work," can you be more specific about the policy that does not work? are you referring to universal childcare as something that does not "work," or something else?
secondly, if i'm understanding correctly, your primary objection to the invocation of norway is that because the birth rate in norway is lower, this cannot be considered a true 'success' story in the conventional sense (especially because they fund their welfare state with oil revenue rather than income tax revenue). the logic being, i assume: (1) replacement rate is the only metric that matters in the US, because (2) replacement rate is necessary to sustain the tax base, and (3) the tax base is what's necessary to sustain the social safety net.
if i'm understanding your objection correctly, i think i'd point to a few things, but primarily the fact that an economy which distributes its income more evenly would grow its tax revenues even if the number of taxpayers stagnates or shrinks. when 20% of a country's income goes to 1% of earners, a substantial percentage of whom are realizing that income as capital gains at 20% (rather than the top marginal rate of 37%), there's a substantial amount of revenue that's being lost — provided that loophole remains, then yes, you'd need a countless growing supply of low-wage workers each paying taxes to compensate. but endless population growth seems harder to achieve than changing the tax code, imo.
My main objection to the Norway example is that it's not really a system built around "the belief that every person has a right to a family". A system truly built around that principle would be agnostic about whether one parent stays home, extended family provides care, both parents work part-time, etc. Instead, the Nordic model (through tax structure, no joint filing, benefit timing, and other incentives) structures and constrains family choices towards dual full-time employment (which requires institutional childcare that most kids start around 12 months, which requires tax revenue, which requires incentives for both parents to work, which requires childcare, which requires revenue...). The reason why it's a luxury to be a SAHM here is that SAHMs don't earn income that they could be taxed on and the social model requires high workforce participation to fund itself.
Obviously replacement rate isn't the *only* metric that matters, but it's a significant constraint on what's fiscally sustainable. If progressive taxation of top earners could solve everything, why are the Nordic countries (which have less income inequality and more progressive taxation than the US AND tax their middle class at the level that would be an absolute political non-starter in the US) experiencing fiscal strain when not backed by natural resources? What's your explanation for their struggles right now despite having the tax equity advantage?
Endless population growth does seem pretty difficult to achieve. Luckily, nobody needs endless population growth - even getting to replacement levels, which no developed country has solved so far, would be a huge achievement. I'll end this already very long comment by saying that my position isn't "never help out parents whatsoever" or "tax equity doesn't matter". What I'm interested in is "what can we have given that we probably will have low birth rates regardless", and the current economic situation here points to "probably not this".
🍿
“Where are the men?” is the first thought that comes to mind looking at this family. Families need everyone - the aunts, the uncles, the moms, the dads, the grandmas and the grandpas. We’re better together
When my neighbors had their fourth child, they had to invest in a huge van. A normal car will not fit four car seats. I’m not proposing we stop using car seats . . . . Merely that there are expenses and inconveniences in having a large family that are never even acknowledged
that jon & kate +8 mercedes sprinter life
One comment on Norway.
Oil from the North Sea.
See below.
"The Government Pension Fund of Norway (Norwegian: Statens pensjonsfond) is the sovereign wealth fund collectively owned by the government of Norway. It consists of two entirely separate sovereign wealth funds: the Government Pension Fund Global (Norges Bank Investment Management)[1] and the Government Pension Fund Norway.
The Government Pension Fund Global (Statens pensjonsfond utland), also known as the Oil Fund (Oljefondet), was established in 1990 to invest the surplus revenues of the Norwegian petroleum sector. As of June 2025, it had over US$1.9 trillion in assets,[2] equal to 1.5% of the value of the world's listed companies, making it the world's largest sovereign wealth fund in terms of total assets under management.[3][4] This translates to over US$340,000 per Norwegian citizen.[5] It also holds portfolios of real estate and fixed-income investments. Many companies are excluded by the fund on ethical grounds.[6]
The Government Pension Fund Norway is smaller and was established in 1967 as a type of national insurance fund. It is managed separately from the Oil Fund and is limited to domestic and Nordic investments and is therefore a key stock holder in many large Norwegian companies, predominantly via the Oslo Stock Exchange."
Confused by this part “19% of the population in 2023—but accounted for nearly one in four families”
One in four = 25%.
For a well off group to be 19% of the population and 25% of large families does not seem that crazy to me? It’s written like it’s crazily skewed?
no, it's not crazy skewed, you're right — just disproportionate and therefore worth noting, imo, since it's the only data point we have about that group based on how the census data was collected.
you really only see the extremes in the long tail — billionaires with 8 kids, etc. — and i think those trends are indicative of the broader shift
Great read. Will be moving to Norway now to afford my family.
In an interesting twist of political ideology - the U.S. almost passed universal childcare in 1970s (Comprehensive Child Development Act). Nixon killed the bill though because it looked too communist (called it government overreach into family life). Needs to be reintroduced, clearly.
Snaps for taking your content back!
I've always enjoyed your takes on the finances of family life, thinking of a MWK episode where you found out how much childcare costs in America.
Paid parental leaves are a boon, in any form, but there's miles to go after the first 6 months are up and should be prioritized within this conversation accordingly (also since this mainly affects women and their short/longterm prospects, unless they are an influencer, no one cares 😝😭).
Putting aside the "premium size" family, just paying childcare for two children is exorbitant for all but the richest (we make upward of $250K combined and it'd be a significant reduction to our savings and investments if we didn't have obliging grandparents).
The NYT published an article last month interviewing 8 families across the income spectrum in NYC what their childcare costs were and the results were WILD. It struck me that daily childcare was not all that there is to pay for. Aftercare, beforecare, tutoring , sports.... the ways of paying people to watch your kids are endless.
It'd be interesting to see a study about impact to the economy that subsidized childcare would have.
So many current events happening right now are only going to exacerbate these costs.
OH, also Derek Thompson is fresh off paternity leave so let's get him and Ezra on it. #AbundantChildcareSolutions.