Macro Musings with David Beckworth Lyman Stone on Demographic and Marriage Decline
Mar 24, 2025
Lyman Stone, a demographer and director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies, dives deep into the challenges of demographic and marriage decline. He debunks the misconceptions surrounding degrowth theories and advocates for the benefits of pronatalist policies. The conversation unpacks how economic stability influences fertility rates, and he highlights successful examples from France. Stone emphasizes the need for cultural and policy changes to support families and reverse declining trends in birth and marriage.
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Target Predicts Pregnancy
- David Beckworth shares an anecdote about Target predicting a teen's pregnancy.
- Their buying patterns revealed the pregnancy before her father knew.
Two Sides of Demography
- Demography has two branches: classical quantitative and broader social/economic.
- Lyman Stone identifies as a classical demographer but works with economic data.
Marriage Decline Drives Fertility Decline
- Falling fertility rates are primarily due to declining marriage rates, not decreased desire for children.
- This is evident in the decline of shotgun weddings and increased non-marital births.