Catherine Ruth Pakaluk, a renowned economist and recipient of the Acton Institute's Novak Award, addressed the BYU campus community on Tuesday. She applied her expertise in economics to highlight a shift in the value of having children.
She began her address by pointing out that last year marked the lowest birth rates recorded in the United States, less than two expected births per woman.
“This number is not explained by COVID or the financial crisis. It’s the culmination of a century-long implosion,” elaborated Pakaluk.
She paralleled this statistic with the decline of the horse population in New York City when Ford Motor Company released the Model T. As more cars were produced, people gradually realized that it was more economical and practical to make the switch to cars for transportation, labor and general well-being.
Pakaluk explained that with the rise of birth control and a career-focused society, “children have gone the way of horses. The reason birth rates are really falling is because no one needs a kid — and fewer and fewer people want one.”
Now more than ever, it is vital to look deeper than an economical need and new perspective for having children, Pakaluk advised. She said that many people who are able to look past the economic factors of having children have selfless tendencies, usually from a religious background. In addition to secondary research, Pakaluk interviewed religious mothers and asked them where their inclination to have children came from.
“The women I met wanted kids so much because they believe children are blessings from God, expressions of divine goodness and the purpose of their marriages,” Pakaluk said. “They believe children are like health and wealth: You can’t have too much of any of those things. No one-and-done for them: All things being equal, they would always choose another child.”
Those that were interviewed shared experiences of how bearing children required great sacrifice and dedication but that it is “the most worthwhile thing that [they] will do in this life.”
Pakaluk prescribed the remedy of “the fire of faith” as the “anti-venom” to the economic burdens children bring. She described this fire as the reclamation of the value of a child and the blessings they can bring into families.
Though addressing BYU students, Pakaluk also shared counsel for governments, stating, “This isn’t a program of doing nothing. Rather, it’s a program of relentless deference to churches as the providers of a public good that nations cannot buy.”
She continued to advise specific actions like taking more pride in alumni families from religious universities, involving religious community members in policy creation and rooting out welfare programs not centered on family wellness.
“People of all faiths (and none at all) who have children today are united by the view that having kids is as worthy a pursuit as other noble pursuits: climbing high mountains, making great art and falling in love,” Pakaluk expressed.
She ended by admonishing all to keep the fire of faith central in their lives and do their part to return it to the core of America.
Watch the full address at speeches.byu.edu.
