Falling fertility rates, 'childless cat ladies': A deeper look at JD Vance's comments

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance has been drawing a lot of attention for his past statements that Americans should have more kids.

Vance's resurfaced 2021 comments calling Vice President Kamala Harris a "childless cat lady" have gone viral and drawn criticism. Subsequent reports of Vance saying teachers should have their own kids and cautioning that car seats might be getting in the way of families having more kids have also resurfaced throughout his campaign. At times, Vance has even aligned with one of Harris' campaign promises, to expand the child tax credit, as a way to make the country more "pro-family."

As global fertility rates fall, more countries have turned to policies that encourage families to have more children, an ideal known as pronatalism. But throughout history, pronatalist rhetoric and policies have emerged as part of a backlash to women's rights and immigration, often with explicitly racist tones. Historians who spoke with USA TODAY said a lot of what they hear on the news during this election cycle sounds familiar.

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Fertility rate on the decline; advocates call out rise in pronatalist policies

A recent report from the United Nations shows the global fertility rate is falling, down one child per woman from 30 years ago. More than half of the countries have fertility rates below the rate needed to prevent population decline.

UK-based think tank Population Matters advocates for curbing population growth in order to promote sustainability and human rights. In a 2021 report titled "Welcome to Gilead," a nod to the dystopian story "The Handmaid's Tale," the organization said 30% of countries now have pronatalist policies in place, up from 10% in the 1970s.

The report said not all pronatalist policies restrict reproductive rights, but that's the case in some countries including Russia, Turkey, Poland, Iran and China.

Hungary's authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has touted pro-family economic policies as a counter to immigration in the face of declining populations, according to the Associated Press.

Italy, where far-right leader Giorgia Meloni became the country's first woman leader in 2022, has begun providing stipends for mothers. But Diana Garvin, an expert in fascism and Italian politics at the University of Oregon, points out that funding for the program is coming out of the immigration budget.

"They want to raise the birth rate, but it's with ethnic Italians in mind," Garvin told USA TODAY in an interview.

Pronatalist intertwined with 'race suicide' movement under Roosevelt

This is not the first time Italy has engaged in pronatalist policies. Garvin explained that under Italy's fascist rule of the inter-war period, women with more than six kids had a better chance at public housing, a "bachelor tax" on childless men aged 26 and older targeted gay men, and maternal healthcare was moved under state control.

Vance's pronatalist comments are not the first time the movement has appeared in the U.S., either. University of Pittsburgh history professor Laura Lovett wrote the book on the subject, and explained how pronatalism was a response to immigration in the early 20th century.

"As a historian, I've been stunned on how often what I'm hearing in the news is stuff that almost sounds like it's verbatim from my sources from the 1910s to the 1930s," Lovett told USA TODAY in an interview.

The 26th President Theodore Roosevelt was a big proponent of encouraging families to have kids. He argued it was necessary to avoid "race suicide," an idea from eugenicist Edward Ross, in which white, native-born Americans would lose in competition to other ethnicities, Lovett explained.

While the eugenics movement of that time seemed short-lived, Lovett's research shows how the American Eugenics Society's work rolled over into post-World War II housing development decisions, the racialized effects of which are still having an impact today.

Historians compare childless cat ladies to backlashes on women's rights

Vance isn't the only American public figure who is raising alarm bells on the need to have more kids. Tech Mogul Elon Musk has reportedly fathered 12 children and touted child bearing as a solution to a declining global population. But as Trump's running mate, Vance's past remarks have taken on new light as he runs for a more influential office.

Lovett compared Vance's"childless cat ladies" quip with men from the early 1900s who criticized women as being more interested in shoes and teddy bears than getting married and having children. (All the while they were fighting for the right to vote.)

Garvin said it reminded her of the flapper panic of the 1920s, where society became fearful over changing gender roles and pointed to urban, intellectual women as everything that was wrong with femininity at the time.

But viral comments aside, some similar forces are at play in this election, such as immigration and reproductive rights, have been the top-of-mind issues for voters.

USA TODAY reached out to the Trump-Vance campaign for comment.

Contributing: Sara Chernikoff, Claire Thornton, George Fabe Russell

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Childless cat ladies': A deeper dive into JD Vance's comments