JD Vance Wants More Babies. Cheaper Housing Could Be Key. – ryan

Proponents of Boosting the Declining US Birth Rate Are Targeting Americans’ Biggest Expens: Housing. They Say What Parents and Would-Be Parents Need Areed Homes That Wauld Give Families the Room and Financial Security to Grow.

A recent Report by the Institute for Family Studies, a Conservative Think Tank that Pushes for Police to Increase the Birth Rate, Concluded that Housing Costs Were the Single Biggest Factor Stopping Americans from Having As Mary Kids As they Want.

“Housing Cost Concerns are More Influential on Young Adults’ Plans Than Childcare Costs, Work Schedules, Job Stability, Debt, Healthcare Access, Paid Leave, Desire for Leisure Time, Personal Health, Other Care Care Obligations,” The Report Fowations. In ifs’ survey of More than 8,000 americans 18 to 54 years old, A Quarter of Respondents Lissent Housing as a Concern, while 30% Cost of Childcare, and 26% SAID MORE Leisure Time. But Housing Costs Had the Larger Effect of Those Three Factors on Family Size.

“Housing Costs Were Unique in Having a Very Large Effect and Being Extremely Common, so they Explain the Larger Total Amount of Forenshortening of Intections,” Lyman Stone, the Director of IFS.

The Group has an allry in vice President JD Vance, Who’s Among the Most Prominent Faces of the Conservative Push for More American Babies.

“Our People Aren’t Having Enough Children to Replace Themselves. That Said in 2019. In his first speech as vice president, he to told March for Life Gaterers“I want more babies in the United States of America.”

Are Housing Costs Affecting Your Family Planning Decisions? Reach out to this reporter at erelman@businsinsider.com

Vance has been critical of subsidizing childcare and expanding pararental leave; He favor police designed to Help Parents Who Don’t Work Outside The Home. The Vice President Has Also Called for Building New Housing on Federal Land That Wold Be Sold or Lease to Private Developers, and Supports Cutting Red TapeIncluding Land-Use Regulations, that Limit Housing Construction.

He and his conservative allies allies Find Common Ground on Housing with Democrats, who also Believe the US NEEDS to Build More Homes to Bring Costs Down. A White House Spokesperson didn’t Respond to a Request for Comment from Bi.

When it is comes to housing, conservatives properties have slightly differently aims than the typical yimby agenda, which Focuses on Building More Housing in High-Demand Urban and Inner-Ring Suburban Areas, Often Around Transit Hubs. GROUPS LIKE IFS WANT TO PRIORITIZE BUILDING MORE SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES, WHICH AMERICANS TO THE MUCH MULTIFAMILY Housing. An overwhelming Majority of ifs survey respondents-79%-Said they prefer to live in a detache, single-family home, while just 59% live in that kind of home.

“There’s that desire to give you are guids a backyard and have Space to Spread out it comes to Having and Raising a Family,” Brad Wilcox, A Sociologist at the University of Virginia and the Cofrounder of ifs, Told Bi.

Wilcox Said ifs Has Had Conversations with the Trump Administration’s Domestic Policy Council, and pointed to the administration of sell federal Land for housing Construction as a promising Path Forward. The Group ALSO WANTS TO SEE A SLEW OF POLICY Changes at the Local, State, and Federal Levels to Juice Housing Construction, Including Relaxing Land-Use Regulations More Construction in Undeveloped Areas.

“For a lot of Ordinary People, the Most Preferred and Fruitful Path to Pursue is to try to figure out Ways to make Affordable Single-Family Housing More Accessible to Working Middle-Class Americans,” Wilcox Said.

Replicating The Baby Boom

The US BIRTH RATE HAS BEEN LARGELY ON THE DECIDE SINCE THE FINANCIAL CRISIS OF 2008. Mory Factors Influenza the Choice to have Kids, Government Policy is well-posioned to address the economic drivers.

There’s Evidence That Rising Housing Costs Shrink Family Size. A 10% Increase in Home Prices LED to A 1% Decrease in Births Among Non-Homeowners, The Economists Lisa Dettling and Melissa Schetti Kearney Found in a 2012 Paper published in the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The researchers also foundnce from the distance past that easier access to homeownership can Help Boost Rates.

The advent of the modern, Low-Down-Payment Mortgage in the 1930s facilitated a Sharp uptick in the US HELPED CREATE the BOOM, Acciting to their February 2025 NBER WORKING PAPER. The loans, backed by the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration, Made It Easier for Some Younger Americans to Buy A Home by Allowing Very Low Payments Up Front and 30 Years to Pay off the loans. (Black Americans Were Effectively Excluded from these programs for Years.)

The researchers found that the two mortgage insurance programs helped loa the age People got and had the first baby and led to 3 million Additional BetWeen 1935 and 1957, Accounting for About 10% of the Spike in Birts Associated with the Baby Boom.

“Maybe How it is to have kids is less about can they take three months off work versus’ will have a bedroom to put this kid in for the next 18 years?