What happens to a society when people decide to have fewer children—or none at all? And what does that mean for our economy, our housing market, the workforce, and even our financial futures?

Today we’re looking at one of the most consequential demographic shifts of our time: the global decline in birth rates. And we’re doing it with someone who has spent the last year leading an extraordinary international reporting project on exactly this.

My guest is Sarah McCammon, National Political Correspondent at NPR and co-lead reporter of the series Population Shift: How Smaller Families Are Changing the World. You may have seen the headlines, but Sarah’s work goes far deeper—across Finland, Greece, and the United States—to understand why people are having fewer kids, and what the downstream effects look like on everything from the labor market to aging, immigration, childcare, housing, and the future of economic growth.

We talk candidly about the financial pressures families face, why even countries with generous social safety nets aren’t reversing the trend, how shifting relationship patterns and cultural expectations factor in, and what all of this means for you whether you’re raising kids now, hope to someday, or are simply planning for your financial future in a world that may look very different in the decades ahead.

Sarah also opens up about her own experience becoming a parent in her twenties without paid leave, what she might do differently today, and what economists and policymakers are still struggling to understand.

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