how will the tariff-recession affect racial demographics / birth rates?
quick breakdown.
This is a brainstorming post. Most of my "regular" posts involve 4 hours on the first draft, 4 hours on the second draft, and 4 hours on the third draft. This one took me less than 3 hours. I probably got some things wrong here. Feel free to make substantive arguments involving numbers, statistics, and empirical data.
I'm not sending this out as an email. Therefore, if you read this post, that means you are a super-fan who is checking my blog manually for updates. That is very cool and I appreciate your dedication in keeping up with my insane ramblings.How will Trump's tariffs impact racial demographics and birth rates by socio-economic class?
In this analysis, I will assume that Trump’s tariffs will be as economically impactful as the 2008 recession or COVID. Obviously, if he rescinds them, then this won’t be the case. If he maintains them,1 then this isn’t an unreasonable possibility.
In this analysis, I assume 2008-levels of recession (although I’m sure you could imagine a Great Depression scenario that would be even worse).2
Lower Income Women
Tariffs disproportionately hurt lower-income women. Most of these women work in retail, food, elderly care, child care, or the service industry. Tariffs will not increase the number of restaurants, grocery stores, hospitals, retirement homes, or hotels. Therefore, their prices will go up (more expensive toaster ovens), while their wages stagnate (no increased demand, maybe even decreased demand as people eat out less and consumption decreases across the board).
The result is that the birth rates of lower income women will fall.
The biggest recent increase in fertility on record was from 2005 to 2006, where fertility increased from 2.06 to 2.11, a 0.05 increase.
The biggest drop was from 2008 to 2009, from 2.07 to 2.00.
There are at least 15.2 million women in this category.3
They presently have a TFR of ~2.1.
This will result in their TFR falling to 2.03.
Net birth decrease: 1.06 million fewer babies.
College Educated Women
College educated women, also known as Spreadsheet Americans (or Americans of Spreadsheet) will not benefit from increased manufacturing jobs. Higher costs of microwaves and toasters will not impact them as much as lower-income women. However, their spreadsheet jobs will be eroded by AI and the declining worth of college degrees. In Trump’s pro-AI anti-woke economy, college educated women are going to lose prestige, wages, and employment.
There are at least 12.3 million women, ages 22-37, in this category.
Current TFR: 1.6
New TFR: 1.53
Net birth decrease: 861,000 babies
As a counter-argument, you could propose that the impoverishment of college educated women will actually lead to increased birth rates, since it will force them to seek out husbands. But this isn’t actually what happens in recessions. Women do not start getting married more and having more kids when the economy is bad. They forego having children — especially those who are college educated.
Factory Workers
Supposedly, tariffs help factory workers, who are overwhelmingly lower-income men. By imposing tariffs on manufactured goods, manufacturers in America become competitive, build more factories, expand production, hire more workers, and raise wages. The problem here is that an increasing number of "factory jobs" are going to robotics engineers and computer programmers, not to manual laborers. Still, let's imagine that factory workers get a boost, for now.
If that’s true, then factory workers will see a significant increase in wages and a reduction of unemployment. This will boost their marital rates and fertility. Not by much, since prices will also increase. But we should expect that anyone who works in factories (auto workers, specifically) will see a boost in their fertility.
There are 2.8 million men in this category.
They presently have a TFR of 1.8.
Their TFR will raise to 1.85.
Net birth increase: 140,000 babies.
Immigrants
Recessions might lower immigration. When the economy is bad, maybe less people come across the border. During COVID, there were greater restrictions on immigration, but also, less people were trying to move. During Biden's presidency, which was a period of economic expansion, many more people wanted to come.
However, Trump’s Tariff Recession won’t be a typical recession. It will be a contraction of the economy overall, but an expansion of demand for factory workers. Hispanic immigrants love working in factories! Since the economy of Mexico will also be in a recession during this period, there will probably be pressure for more immigrants to come in.
It’s possible that Trump restricts crossings at the border to prevent this. But even if he is successful in shutting down the border, Hispanics who are already in the country will want to stay, for two reasons:
Higher factory wages under Trump;
Mexico will be in recession, so why go back?
First-generation undocumented Hispanic immigrants: 6.1 million; TFR 2.4.
First-generation legal Hispanic immigrants: 13.5 million; TFR 2.1.
Assume that no one comes in, but no one goes home either. A boost of 0.05 TFR for both gives:
Undocumented: 153,000 more babies
Documented: 338,000 more babies
Total additional Hispanic babies: 491,000 more babies
USA Totals:
