One of the buzziest books in America right now is Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompsons bestseller on why our failure to build enough homes has contributed to soaring costs and needless political strife. And one of the most provocative movements in politics these days is pronatalism a coalition sounding the alarm on people not having enough babies. Pronatalists are gaining power in the White House (Trump recently dubbed himself the fertilization president) and the movement just wrapped up its second annual US convention in Austin, Texas. As housing supply and birth rates have become twin focal points in Americas policy conversation, a growing number of wonks are drawing connections between these two, arguing that expanding housing supply wouldnt just ease affordability it could also help boost fertility. The Institute for Family Studies a think tank which launched its own pronatalism division last summer recently published a report making this case, revealing how housing costs have become crushing for young adults. The median home now costs nine years of a young persons income, up from five years in 1969. Homeownership rates for Americans under 35 have collapsed from 50 percent to around 30 percent since 1980.Many of these young adults arent even living in their own rentals. The National Association of Home Builders found that in 2023, 19.2 percent of young adults (or 8.5 million people) lived with their parents, compared to less than 12 percent of young adults in 2000. As Robert Dietz, chief economist of the National Association of Home Builders, noted last month at a conference in Washington, DC, the surge of young adults living with parents represents a failure to launch that directly impacts marriage and fertility rates.Dietzs conclusions are supported by IFS. Living with ones parents has a huge negative effect on fertility according to the think tank, meaning that as more young adults delay moving into their own homes, they also delay or forgo having children. In fact, IFS researchers find that no other factor not undesired singleness, preference for leisure, schooling, child care costs, or student debt limited ones childbearing goals more than housing costs. As a 32-year-old woman getting married in two months and still renting this all strikes a chord. Much of my reporting focuses on ways to expand the desperately needed housing supply, and I am compelled by the argument that making it easier for people to live independently would, in turn, make it easier for them to form and sustain romantic relationships.But banking too much on housing misses deeper shifts in our social fabric. Housing affordability matters enormously, but exists within a cultural landscape where attitudes toward family formation and parenthood are fundamentally changing. Fewer young adults are prioritizing committed partnerships as a life goal, with many explicitly choosing to remain single.Perhaps most significant are the widening economic, political, and cultural divides between young men and women. Between 2012 and 2023, young women became dramatically more liberal while young men drifted rightward. By 2023, over 50 percent of young women identified as liberal, up from 32 percent 11 years earlier. As women have pursued more education and focused more seriously on careers, mens earning power has declined. Meanwhile, the rising cost of living continues to reshape everyones economic future.The 2024 election revealed that among voters under 30, the gender gap between women and men who supported Kamala Harris was twice as large as in other age groups. This isnt just about voting habits; 68 percent of Harris voters believed society should dedicate more resources to helping girls, while only 35 percent of Trump voters shared that view.Disagreements over issues like whether women should have access to abortion and birth control are just far more fundamental than quibbles around zoning and sluggish permitting processes. A majority of young Democrats now say they wouldnt date someone with opposing political views with women far more likely than men to draw this line. Moreover, in the backdrop of all this is a society that has grown increasingly hostile to parents and kids. Ive written about millennial mom dread and the increasingly grim ways motherhood is depicted in America, and last week pop star Chappell Roan lit up the internet after declaring that all her friends with kids are in hell. The latest cover of the New Yorker depicts a mother hauling a baby and stroller alone down into a subway station, symbolizing the lack of accessibility and support for parents in much of society. These portrayals often overshadow the profound fulfillment many parents still find in raising children, creating a distorted picture of family life that discourages young adults from seeing parenthood as viable.Can housing policy help address these deeper problems? The IFS report makes a number of sensible recommendations: loosening zoning codes, allowing accessory dwelling units, reducing minimum lot sizes. More affordable family-friendly housing would certainly help.But we should be clear-eyed about the limits of policy interventions. A bigger home for raising children looks a lot less attractive if the surrounding community still remains hostile, and our public spaces and cultural institutions increasingly treat children as unwelcome intrusions. A recent Pew survey found 69 percent of adults say its rarely or never acceptable to bring a child into a place thats typically for adults like a bar or upscale restaurant, and complaints about kids on planes abound. Journalist Stephanie Murray has written thoughtfully about the ways in which people feel comfortable making proclamations about disliking kids. The uncomfortable truth is that we dont yet know if voluntary policy measures like more affordable housing, safer streets for pedestrians, better stroller accessibility, paid leave, and subsidized child care will be enough to reverse declining birth rates. I feel comfortable taking the bet that they would definitely help and are intrinsically worth pursuing even if not but they cant address the deeper question of whether young men and women want to build lives together in the first place.See More: