Stephen Shaw

Birth-Rate Politics Collide With Feminism as the Ideological Fertility Gap Widens

Public arguments about birth rates quickly become fights over feminism, coercion and political identity, Chris Williamson, Lyman Stone, Stephen J. Shaw and Simone Collins argue in a Modern Wisdom discussion. Stone says the backlash is rooted in a real tension between gender egalitarianism and the cultural patterns associated with higher fertility; Shaw wants the issue framed around helping people have the children they already want, without pressure. Collins is willing to let hostile subcultures opt out of the future, while Williamson argues that abandoning the left makes any effort to raise birth rates too narrow.