417: Research Behind Why Women Want Big Families with Catherine Pakaluk

Now That We're A Family

Elisha and Katie Voetberg

Kids & Family, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 12 August 2025

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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Catherine Ruth Pakaluk is an American economist and social philosopher at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Pakaluk is author of the acclaimed ethnography Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth (Regnery, 2024), a multidisciplinary account of American women choosing to have large families against the global trend to sub-replacement fertility. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, Slate, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and more. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. The mother of eight children, she is married to American philosopher Michael Pakaluk. They split their time between suburban Maryland and New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

“Hannah's Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth” by Catherine Pakaluk - https://amzn.to/41uGXmT
Website - https://pakaluk.com/
Twitter - https://x.com/CRPakaluk/highlights

Transcript

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0:00.0	Howdy folks, welcome back to the podcast. Katie and I just thoroughly enjoyed being able to talk with
0:05.2	Catherine Baculloch, who wrote Hannah's Children, the woman quietly defined the birth dearth.
0:11.5	She is an economist, and she interviewed 55 women who have five or more children throughout
0:17.5	the United States to get to the why. Why did they choose to have more children
0:22.8	when birth rates are declining? When people are having less children, people are choosing
0:27.9	not to have children. We're not replacing ourselves anymore. And yet there are these outliers
0:32.9	that are kind of, you know, helping out with that whole, you know, population thing.
0:38.8	So she got down to the wide.
0:40.0	It's a really interesting book that Katie and I both really enjoyed.
0:43.5	And I'm sure you guys will hear it here.
0:46.1	You guys will enjoy it as well.
0:47.4	A little bit about Catherine.
0:48.6	I'm actually going to read this from her book.
0:50.5	Catherine Ruth McCulloch is an associate professor in the Bush School of Business
0:54.7	at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. She earned her doctorate in
1:00.1	economics at Harvard University. She is a recipient of the Acton Institute's Nobeck Award
1:06.3	and the Heritage Foundation's Freedom and Opportunity Academic Prize. The mother of eight children, she lives in Hyattesville, Maryland, with her husband, Michael
1:15.6	McCulloch.
1:17.4	Enjoy today's interview.
1:23.7	All right, well, Catherine Piculloch, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with Katie and I today.
1:33.0	Your book has been a source of inspiration, not just for us, but for quite a few people that we know in person.
1:40.6	And so it's fun to be able to speak with you and hopefully hear more about just kind of some insights that were gained by you throughout this, throughout this process.
	...

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