Erin is it just me or does it seem like there's a doom and gloom article about the dangers of a falling birth rate like every few days?

Max are you messing with me right now? Like you know this is one of my favorite topics. I am not messing with you I promise. Okay fine I'll bite. No it is not your

imagination the US fertility rate has decreased to 1.6 children per woman. Which according to this

napkin math is less than the replacement rate.

You're doing birth rate napkin math? What? Don't worry about it. Okay fine.

This 1.6 children per woman thing means that if people don't start having more babies

in less than two decades there will be more old people than young people in the US.

Which although probably the best case scenario for Werther's Hard Candy sales is a big problem

for the economy as a whole.

But the real puzzler is that this isn't just an American problem.

All over the world countries are facing similar demographic collapse as they struggle to convince or

cajole people into having more babies and nobody's cracked it yet.

Everybody's got theories but nobody's got solutions. What are they all missing?

I'm Max Fisher. I'm Aaron Ryan. This is how we got here, the show that each week

asks one big question behind the headlines and tells a story that answers that

question. This week are humans the new giant pandas? Just kidding if only we as a

species were that cute and roly-poly. Have you seen the pandemic closure at the San Diego

Zoo? Oh it's great. It's nicer than my house. Have you seen the pandemic closure at the San Diego Zoom?

Oh, it's great.

It's nicer than my house.

Seriously, though, in the years post-pandemic, countries around the world have seen a precipitous

drop in their birth rates.

...