Episode 9: The Decline of Fertility: A Dialogue with Andrew Glover from Pronatalism Australia
Episode 9: The Decline of Fertility: A Dialogue with Andrew Glover from Pronatalism Australia
In this episode of the Veriditas Podcast, Petra interviews Dr. Andrew Glover, who discusses the profound societal and demographic challenges posed by declining fertility rates. They explore themes such as the impact of social media, shifts in cultural norms, the role of academic and ideological pressures, and the loss of traditional family structures. Andrew outlines several complex factors contributing to fertility decline, including economic pressures, housing affordability, and career-focused lifestyles. He also proposes potential solutions like stable long-term family rentals, superannuation-backed parental leave, and workplace fertility metrics. The conversation delves into the ethical considerations of immigration as a solution to population decline and contrasts high fertility cultures with those experiencing precipitous declines. This comprehensive discussion underscores the urgency and complexity of addressing fertility issues as a pressing civilizational concern.
Andrew Glover is a social scientist, a member of Heterodox Academy and the founder of Pronatalism Australia, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to revitalising birth rates through evidence-based policy and cultural renewal.
References
Pronatalism Australia | Andrew Glover | Substack [https://pronatalism.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips]
Andrew Glover, “Falling Fertility: A Crisis We Refuse to Face [https://quillette.com/2025/06/13/falling-fertility-a-crisis-we-refuse-to-face-demographics/]”, Quillette, 13 June 2025.
Institute of Family Studies. Fertility Blog. https://ifstudies.org/blog/category/fertility [https://ifstudies.org/blog/category/fertility]
Daniel Hesse, More Births [https://www.morebirths.com/] Substack.
Birth Gauge: Tracking the Global Fertility Decline. https://x.com/birthgauge/ [https://x.com/birthgauge/]
The Lancet: Dramatic declines in global fertility rates set to transform global population patterns by 2100 [https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-releases/lancet-dramatic-declines-global-fertility-rates-set-transform], March 20, 2024.
Australian Government. 2023 Intergenerational Report [https://treasury.gov.au/publication/2023-intergenerational-report].
Jonathan Boymal, ‘Australia’s fertility rate has reached a record low. What might that mean for the economy [https://theconversation.com/australias-fertility-rate-has-reached-a-record-low-what-might-that-mean-for-the-economy-241577]?’ The Conversation, October 21, 2024.
David Taylor, ‘Australia's birth rate hits rock bottom with severe consequences for economic future’ [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-17/australia-birth-rate-hits-rock-bottom-economic-consequences/104480816], ABC News, October 17, 2024.
Anna Brown, ‘Growing share of childless adults in U.S. don’t expect to ever have children’ [https://pewrsr.ch/3DAU3RR], Pew Research, November 19, 2021.
Marc Novicoff, ‘The Birth-Rate Crisis Isn’t as Bad as You’ve Heard—It’s Worse [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/birth-rate-population-decline/683333/]’, The Atlantic, June 30, 2025.
Elizabeth Bruenig, ‘Why the Left Should Embrace Pronatalism' [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/democrats-pronatalism-family-policies/681827/], The Atlantic, February 25, 2025.
Elissa Strauss, ‘THE ESSAY: What Both the Left and the Right Get Wrong about Pronatalism [https://elissa.substack.com/p/the-essay-what-both-the-left-and]’, Made with Care Substack, June 26, 2025.
Darel E. Paul, ‘Mass Immigration Lowers Fertility’ [https://www.compactmag.com/article/mass-immigration-lowers-fertility/], Compact Magazine, May 30, 2025.
Emily Klancher Merchant and Win Brown, ‘The problem with pronatalism: Pushing baby booms to boost economic growth amounts to a Ponzi scheme’ [https://theconversation.com/the-problem-with-pronatalism-pushing-baby-booms-to-boost-economic-growth-amounts-to-a-ponzi-scheme-235725], The Conversation, August 9, 2024.
References for topics specifically discussed in the show
Ramesh Thakur, ‘Academic freedom is so last century: Has the free speech fightback begun [https://www.spectator.com.au/2021/04/academic-freedom-is-so-last-century/]?’, The Spectator, April 3, 2021.
*This article discussed the publication of my article ‘An Apology to J.K. Rowling’ published in Areo Magazine, June 23, 2020. https://areomagazine.com/2020/06/23/an-apology-to-jk-rowling/ [archive]. Areo magazine is no longer on the web Quillette have bought the rights to the Areo magazine archive.
Arlie Hochschild and Barbara Ehrenreich, Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy [https://www.amazon.com.au/Global-Woman-Nannies-Workers-Economy/dp/1862075883], Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2002.
Lyn Craig, ‘Children and the Revolution: A Time-Diary Analysis of the Impact of Motherhood on Daily Workload [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1440783306064942]’. June 2006; Journal of Sociology 42(2):125-143.
Lyn Craig, Contemporary Motherhood: The Impact of Children on Adult Time [https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315573878/contemporary-motherhood-lyn-craig], Routledge, 2007.
Lauren Day, ‘The Rise of Pronatalism in America’. Video. ABC News, 30 July 2025. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-30/the-rise-of-pronatalism-in-america/105593364 [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-30/the-rise-of-pronatalism-in-america/105593364]
Catherine Pakaluk, Hannah's Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth, [https://www.amazon.com.au/Hannahs-Children-Quietly-Defying-Dearth/dp/1684514576/ref=asc_df_1684514576?mcid=cf11aa0f62613a56a2b0f341550a00a4&tag=googleshopdsk-22&linkCode=df0&hvadid=712261052316&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2580185053242316798&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9071157&hvtargid=pla-2279069843953&psc=1&gad_source=1] Regnery Publishing, 2024.
The Data Team, ‘Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago. Except in France [https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/11/27/parents-now-spend-twice-as-much-time-with-their-children-as-50-years-ago]’, The Economist, 27 November, 2017.
Kate C. Prickett and Jennifer March Augustine, ‘Trends in Mothers' Parenting Time by Education and Work From 2003 to 2017 [https://doi.org/10.1215/00703370-9160022]’, Demography (2021) 58 (3): 1065–1091.
Reuters, ‘Hungary's Orban launches tax exemption for mothers, cap on housing loan rates [https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hungarys-orban-launches-tax-exemption-mothers-cap-housing-loan-rates-2025-02-22/]’, February 23, 2025.
‘Order of Parental Glory’ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Parental_Glory]. Russian medal awarded by the state to mothers who have four or more children.
Uliana Pavlova and Jack Guy, ‘Putin revives Stalin-era ‘Mother Heroine’ award for women with 10 children’ [https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/18/europe/putin-mother-heroine-award-decree-intl], CNN, August 18, 2022.
Taylor Weidman and Azat Ruziev, ‘The country where mothers win medals for having more kids’ [https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20191017-the-country-where-mothers-win-medals-for-having-more-kids], BBC News, 21 October, 2019.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9daille_de_l%27enfance_et_des_familles [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9daille_de_l%27enfance_et_des_familles]
Leslie Cannold, What no baby? Why women are losing the freedom to mother, and how they can get it back [https://www.amazon.com.au/What-No-Baby-Cannold/dp/1459609891]. Fremantle Press, 2002.
Petra Bueskens, Modern Motherhood and Women’s Dual Identities: Rewriting the Sexual Contract [https://www.routledge.com/Modern-Motherhood-and-Womens-Dual-Identities-Rewriting-the-Sexual-Contract/Bueskens/p/book/9780367460129]. Routledge, 2018.
Kathryn Edin, Promises I Can Keep – Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage, [https://www.amazon.com.au/Promises-Can-Keep-Motherhood-Marriage/dp/0520241134] University of California Press, 2005.
Charles Murray, In Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_Apart_(book)], Crown Forum, 2012.
Charles Murray, ‘The New American Divide’ [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204301404577170733817181646?reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink], The Wall Street Journal, 21 January, 2012.
Brad Wilcox and Chris Bullivant, ‘The Benefits of Marriage Shouldn’t Only Be For Elites [https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-benefits-of-marriage-shouldnt-only-be-for-elites#:~:text=We%20propose%20two%20solutions%20to,more%20attractive%20candidates%20for%20marriage.]’, Institute of Family Studies, June 3, 2022.
Brad Wilcox, ‘The Awfulness of Elite Hypocrisy on Marriage’ [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/elitism-marriage-rates-hypocrisy/677401/], The Atlantic, February 13, 2024.
Brendan Coates, Joey Moloney, Matthew Bowes, ‘Housing is less affordable than ever’ [https://grattan.edu.au/news/housing-is-less-affordable-than-ever/#:~:text=Home%20ownership%20is%20falling%20fast,due%20to%20rising%20house%20prices], The Grattan Institute, 28 March, 2025.
Antoun Issa, ‘It took me 15 years to save for a house. For millennials and Gen Z, the journey to home ownership has become an ultramarathon’ [https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2023/feb/13/it-took-me-15-years-to-save-for-a-house-for-millennials-and-gen-z-the-journey-to-home-ownership-has-become-an-ultramarathon], The Guardian, February 14, 2023.
Justin Fox, ‘The wealthy are starting to have more babies than the poor again’ [https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-12/the-rich-are-starting-to-have-more-babies-than-the-poor-again], Bloomberg, March 11, 2024.
Corinne Purtill, Dan Kopf, Corinne Purtill, and Dan Kopf, ‘The reason the richest women in the US are the ones having the most kids’ [https://qz.com/1125805/the-reason-the-richest-women-in-the-us-are-the-ones-having-the-most-kids], Quartz, July 21, 2022.
Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb], 1968.
Shanna Swann, Countdown: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race [https://www.shannaswan.com/countdown], Scribner, 2021.
Ashley Ahn, South Korea has the world's lowest fertility rate, a struggle with lessons for us all [https://www.npr.org/2023/03/19/1163341684/south-korea-fertility-rate#:~:text=Stone%20has%20studied%20global%20attitudes,the%20Institute%20for%20Family%20Studies.], NPR, March 19, 2023.
IEA Interviews Institute of Economic Affairs, ‘The Western Population Crisis: Lyman Stone’ [https://insider.iea.org.uk/p/the-western-population-crisis-lyman-bb3], May 20, 2025.
Boom, ‘On the higher fertility of semiconductor workers: One in every fifty Taiwanese babies born is a TSMC baby [https://www.boomcampaign.org/p/on-the-higher-fertility-of-semiconductor],’ Aug 21, 2024.
