More and more women in the United States are saying no to motherhood. Alarmingly, in 2023, the U.S. fertility rate reached the lowest number on record. But the idea of non-motherhood is actually not a new phenomenon, nor did it come out of the modern feminist movement. For centuries, women have made choices about limiting births and whether or not to become ... Show More
Apr 30
Why the Fed Matters Now More Than Ever, with Douglas Diamond
From setting interest rates to keeping inflation in check, the Federal Reserve sits at the center of some of the most important economic decisions shaping our daily lives. As the Fed prepares for new leadership, following the tenure of Jerome Powell, many are wondering: What’s ne ... Show More
37m 8s
Apr 2
Could AI Models Forecast Extreme Weather Events? with Pedram Hassanzadeh
What if we could predict the world’s most dangerous weather events—not days, but weeks in advance? Extreme events like heat waves, hurricanes, and floods cause massive loss of life and billions in damage, but they’re also some of the hardest events for traditional weather forecas ... Show More
35m 16s
Nov 2024
Ep 8: Should You Have Kids?
For most of human history, having kids wasn’t much of a choice. Social expectations, lack of birth control, and limited autonomy for women presented a couple of options: Have children, or join a convent. But the 1960s ushered in a big change. With better options for birth control ... Show More
49m 31s
Feb 2025
Wages for Housework – then and now
From the early 1970s feminist activists from across the globe campaigned under a single demand – Wages for Housework. The historian Emily Callaci traces the lives and ideas of its key creators in her new book, Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise. The ... Show More
41m 37s
Mar 2024
Birthrates Are Plummeting Worldwide. Why?
<p>For a long time, the story about the world’s population was that it was growing too quickly. There were going to be too many humans, not enough resources, and that spelled disaster. But now the script has flipped. Fertility rates have declined dramatically, from about five chi ... Show More
1 h
Aug 2023
Courtney Adams Wooten, "Childfree and Happy: Transforming the Rhetoric of Women's Reproductive Choices" (Utah State UP, 2023)
Childfree and Happy: Transforming the Rhetoric of Womens' Reproductive Choices (Utah State University Press, 2023) examines how millennia of reproductive beliefs (or doxa) have positioned women who choose not to have children as deviant or outside the norm. Considering affect and ... Show More
43m 34s
<p>For decades, the great fear was overpopulation. Now it’s the opposite. How did this happen — and what’s being done about it? (Part one of a <a href="https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/cradle-to-grave/">three-part series</a>, “Cradle to Grave.”)</p><p> </p><ul><li><strong>SOU ... Show More
