The Daily: ‘A Postcard From Our Future’

May 7, 2021

By Lauren Jackson

Khori Michelle Petinaud holding her son, Carver Elijah Petinaud, during a gathering with friends in Brooklyn Bridge Park in March.Maridelis Morales Rosado for The New York Times

Hi everyone, Happy Friday. This week, our team has been thinking a lot about the census. A big, government-run count of the population might not sound like the most urgent or pressing issue at the moment. But the census results are a big deal.

Specifically, they revealed that the U.S. population grew at the second-slowest rate since the federal government started counting in 1790. And one of the main reasons was births. They are down a lot. In fact, they've gone down for six straight years. "It seems like just a nerdy little number," Sabrina Tavernise, a demographics correspondent for The New York Times, said on Tuesday's episode. "But the truth is it's incredibly important because it touches on almost every aspect of American life," including "immigration, the social safety net, health insurance, hospitals, elder care, the role of government."

So we decided to devote two episodes this week to the topic, digging into the import of this trend long term by comparing the United States and Japan, the "grayest" nation in the world. "We realized that looking to Japan for our second episode could be like a postcard from our own future," Alexandra Leigh Young, deputy producer for The Daily, said.

Ultimately, our shows didn't give one simple answer. Each country's demographic trajectories depend on millions of responses to a deeply personal question, one freighted with social expectations, ethical concerns and human instincts: "Do you want children?"

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So after our shows aired, we decided to pose that question to you. In more than 11,000 replies, some of you said yes, you wanted children, but were unsure how it would be possible with the "unbelievable, horrible, crushing weight of student loan debt." Others said you weren't sure, sharing your desire for long-term autonomy and half-joked fears that a future child could become an influencer. For this newsletter, we called women around the world to hear their perspectives. You can read some of their stories below.

Weighing the climate costs

Cecille Villanueva, 36, a meteorologist from San Juan, P.R., had been quietly questioning whether she wanted children for years. While pursuing a doctorate in atmospheric science, she worried about the carbon footprint of having a family. But after studying the effects of emissions on extreme weather patterns and tracking Hurricane Maria's devastation of Puerto Rico in 2017, her surety that she wouldn't have children "cemented."

Economic and political uncertainties in her home territory, which has been vying for statehood for years, have only affirmed her decision. "In this territory, we have an economic crisis, crippling debt and a tanking economy," she said. "I just wish those things were different."

A lack of federal support

Elspeth Sprenkle, 43, from Baltimore, went into her first marriage planning to have two children. But after a divorce in 2015, she found herself as a single mother with one young son, a full-time job as a corporate paralegal for Marriott and rising child care costs. Then the pandemic hit.

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"I was put on furlough from April 2020 with the hope I'd be back by June or July," she said. "But travel was paralyzed so there wasn't any cash flow. They let me go this past October," the same month she remarried.

As a deaf woman who relies on reading lips to communicate, Elspeth said mask mandates had made it difficult for her to find a new job. While she hopes one day there will be increased federal support for both universal child care and more accessible employment, in the meantime, she said, she had let go of any plans for another child.

Looking abroad for a solution

Lynn Hirose, 23, from Chiba, Japan, thinks having one child might be possible — thanks to a Roomba or an international move.

As a student at the University of Tokyo, Lynn sits between two worlds. "In Japan, balancing work and child rearing is really difficult. Many of my friends who aren't in university hope to quit their jobs after finding a man," she said, decisions that she noted were in response to a social expectation that women are responsible for the majority of domestic work in the country.

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But at Japan's most elite university, where male Japanese students outnumber female Japanese students four to one, Lynn said many of her peers weren't planning to compromise their career ambitions with the demands of child care. As Motoko Rich, Tokyo bureau chief for The New York Times, explained in our episode on Wednesday, Japan has one of the highest work force participation rates of women and one of the lowest domestic participation rates from men. As a result, Lynn said "more than 80 percent" of her female friends at the university didn't plan on having children.

"My male friends in U-Tokyo are aware of the problem and the need to balance a future partner's job with housework," she said, adding that while some "say they want to have a double-income family, that's not standard. Others say they want their wives to be waiting for them when they get home." (Lynn noted heterosexuality is considered the norm in Japan. "There is almost no support," for gay, lesbian or transgender people, she said.)

Still, Lynn holds out hope that having a child and pursuing a doctorate might be possible for her. When asked how she will make it work, she said she saw promise in innovations, like Roombas and washing machines, that are automating some housework. In the meantime, though, she's weighing a move abroad. "I'd like to work in a better environment than Japan in terms of gender equality and flexibility for working mothers."

LISTEN TO BOTH OF OUR EPISODES ABOUT BIRTHRATES NOW:

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

A Population Slowdown in the U.S.

How the declining birthrate could profoundly shape the nation's future.

Behrouz Mehri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A Shrinking Society in Japan

The persistently low birthrate in the country has caused the population to contract. The U.S. is on a similar path.

'The most visual medium'

By Desiree Ibekwe and Mahima Chablani

Diana Nguyen worked for Marfa Public Radio before joining the Daily team.Sally Beauvais

There's an oxymoron that floats around the audio industry. "Radio is the most visual medium," Ira Glass, host of "This American Life," once said to college students, smiling at the joke. But for years, it stuck with Diana Nguyen, one of our producers responsible for getting The Daily onto the radio every morning.

After graduating from college, Diana originally set out to be a documentary filmmaker. But when she got a job working for Marfa Public Radio in West Texas, she realized that all the things she loved about documentaries were available to her in audio, too.

"I just love being transported into people's towns and worlds and heads," Diana said. And the saying about how visual radio is? "I think about that a lot when I think of documentary film versus audio journalism. You're hearing someone's voice and it really conjures up images, almost like reading a book. That's the connection for me. They are both very visual mediums but in their own right."

So in honor of Diana's two great loves, we asked her to share some watching and listening recommendations.

"The Act of Killing": This documentary, directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, is one of Diana's favorites. It's about perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian genocide, and it artfully weaves in elements of surrealism to "bring you closer to the truth" about one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century. "It's a crazy way of doing a documentary and it's insanely beautiful and haunting," Diana said. "It's stuck with me for all these years, inspiring me to work toward rethinking what we do as journalists and documentarians."

"Short Cuts": This BBC radio series showcases short and often experimental documentary pieces sent in by freelancers. Each episode builds rich, scenic worlds around a single theme — like motherhood, the color blue, acts of love and quizzes. For Diana, its host, Josie Long, is a major draw. "She's so fun and such a joy to listen to. I think she's my favorite host of all time," she said.