The Jeremy Boreing Show

We're Doing This to Ourselves: What's Really Behind The Birthrate Crisis | Weds LIVE Ep.64

October 1, 2026·2h 28m
Episode Description from the Publisher

The most advanced, most comfortable civilization in human history is choosing not to have children. The U.S. fertility rate is near 1.6, well under the 2.1 needed to replace a population. South Korea hit 0.72, the lowest ever recorded. Why is this happening, and can it be reversed? Jeremy Boreing sits down with neuroscientist Dr. Debra Soh, sociologist Dr. Brad Wilcox, and economist Dr. Catherine Pakaluk to dig into the biology, the ideology, and the policy behind the birth dearth, and what it would take to turn it around. They cover why people stopped pairing up, marrying, and having kids, the "fertility gap" between the families women want and the families they actually have, what the sexual revolution did to family formation, Hungary's pro-natalist experiment and what worked and what didn't, why religious families are the one group still having children, the tragedy of abortion, and whether there's any government or cultural path back to replacement-level fertility. Featuring: Dr. Debra Soh — Neuroscientist and author of Sextinction: The Decline of Sex and the Future of Intimacy Dr. Brad Wilcox — Director, National Marriage Project at UVA; author of Get Married Dr. Catherine Pakaluk — Economist at The Catholic University of America; author of Hannah's Children Support the show and shave with a company that doesn't hate you: https://www.jeremysrazors.com/ Jeremy's The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin is the #1 fantasy series on Amazon — watch it now on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0HFH7J5N3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Podzilla Summary coming soon

Sign up to get notified when the full AI-powered summary is ready.

Get Free Summaries →

Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.

Listen to This Episode

Get summaries like this every morning.

Free AI-powered recaps of The Jeremy Boreing Show and your other favorite podcasts, delivered to your inbox.

Get Free Summaries →

Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.