Who Gets to Have Kids?

The Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty

De: Anna Louie Sussman

An urgent investigation into the modern parenting crisis, and why we all lose out when only the wealthiest can afford to have kids.

For generations, starting a family was an ordinary part of life. But today, there’s a marked gap between how many children people want to have, and how many they actually will. In this era of extraordinary opportunity for women, soaring inequality, and incalculable climate change, who gets to have kids, and why?

Spurred by the obstacles she encountered in her own quest to become a parent, journalist Anna Louie Sussman explores what is keeping us from having the families we desire, as birth rates plummet around the world. Covering everything from romance to education to work, Sussman shows how decades of policy choices that elevated profits over people and individualism over interdependence have left people increasingly unable to envision a future in which they have children. From South Korea to Scandinavia, America to Poland, the stories she uncovers illustrate the deep personal and collective cost when such a fundamental human experience falls so far out of reach.

A singular and timely investigation into how parenthood has been altered by a capitalist system run wild, this is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the universal challenges (and triumphs) of becoming a parent in our uncertain age.

©2026 Anna Louie Sussman