Population growth isn’t a progressive issue; it should be

JD VANCE has repeatedly said that Americans aren’t having enough children. Other right-wing figures agree with him. Elon Musk, broadening the complaint, has said that “population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilisation than global warming”.

Because population decline is widely seen as a conservative issue, many progressives don’t seem to worry about it. But they should. If left unchecked, population decline could worsen many of the problems that progressives care about, including economic inequality and the vulnerability of marginalised social groups.

This doesn’t mean adopting the conservative case wholesale. Progressives need to develop their own version of pronatalism. It should stress the need for government benefits and social services such as paid parental leave and subsidised child care while defending the right to abortion and rejecting the traditionalism and nativism that too often characterise the position on the right.