I speak with Dr. Catherine Ruth Pakaluk in this week’s episode of AUL’s “Life, Liberty, and Law” podcast on American birth rates, pro-family policies, and “paths to glory” in everyday life.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020 and Americans entered into what authorities assured us would be “two weeks to slow the spread,” many predicted a baby boom would be the natural result of this time of closeness in quarantine. Yet there’s been no baby boom. And in fact, it looks like family formation and birth rates may, in fact, be continuing to decline as a result of the pandemic and the economic fallout of more than two years of ad hoc state and fiscal policy decisions. We speak about the challenging experiences and trends of the past few years in light of what a poe-Roe cultural and political future might look like.

Dr. Catherine Ruth Pakaluk joined the faculty of The Catholic University of America’s Tim and Steph Busch School of Business in 2016 and she is the founder of the Social Research academic area, where she is an Associate Professor of Social Research and Economic Thought. Formerly, she was Assistant Professor and Chair of the Economics Department at Ave Maria University. Her primary areas of research include economics of education and religion, family studies and demography, Catholic social thought and political economy.