Rachel Cohen Booth

The immigration crackdown threatening to break America’s child care system What happens if the people caring for American children get deported?

I wrote about this risk back in the spring: www.vox.com/immigration/...

Chris Herbst and @erdaltekin.bsky.social find the increase in ICE arrests since Trump took office to be associated with 39,000 fewer foreign-born child care workers and 77,000 fewer U.S.-born working mothers (as of July)

www.newamerica.org/better-life-...

And being in those kinds of relationships but not helping at home also decreases likelihood of kids

More housework≠ more children inherently, but in the modern world a *lack* of gender equality does seem to make the birth rate fall even faster. (See South Korea/ Japan/ Southern Europe)

most women do not live anymore in a world where they need to settle for selfish/demeaning partners to survive. the "reservation wage" of entering a relationship, as Patrick Brown puts it, has gone up. & not entering those types of partnerships decreases chance of having kids

Traditional gender roles won’t get men what they want Men’s search for meaning is everyone’s problem.

I wanted to know...do men care if that makes fertility less likely? what responsibility, if any, do they think they have for all this? www.vox.com/policy/47078...

I started working on this one originally because I was struck by the fact that men were registering more concern than women about falling birth rates, but also voicing greater support for a return to traditional gender roles

claudia goldin apology form

yes! I saw an interesting study on that, because it could make men more aware of the costs so more wary about inflicting them on themselves. I think her point at the end was important, we don't know if it's possible to live in a more egalitarian world where birth rates are also going up

@philipncohen.com how is the line you quoted from TNR an example of birth rate "panic" ?

Traditional gender roles won’t get men what they want Men’s search for meaning is everyone’s problem.

There's a lot of reluctance to—and frustration with—studying men and masculinity in particular. But avoiding it won't make problems go away.

I wrote about why this all matters, not just for birth rates, but for gender equality and relationships (3/3)

www.vox.com/policy/47078...

"This was definitely not well-documented, not much attention has been paid to it," the study's lead author told me. A Norwegian demographer put it more bluntly: "I've been screaming that we need more research about men for the last 20 years." (2/3)

A new study on 40+ European countries found women increasingly want men to share child care and housework equally—but men's attitudes have barely budged. In countries where this gap was widest, both birth rates and female employment were lower. (1/3)

This truly is exciting - and inspiring!

“Only about half of cases before 1991 were a result of transmission from an infected mother.”

just…staggeringly dangerous stuff

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/h...

I love this idea of highly flexible childcare, and the care during night shifts reminded me of this work on nighttime childcare in the US: www.erikson.edu/research/ill...

One idea from Bogotá I can't stop thinking about: 24-hour mobile child care for parents working night shifts — bus drivers, recyclers who sort trash before dawn. Or child care that comes to a college student on exam day, or to a workplace that pays for it and gets a tax break

One way I think about care blocks is they're part of a larger and powerful trend of taking single-use govt. buildings and transforming them into multi-purpose intergenerational hubs.

see also: public schools with declining enrollments, libraries

What happens when a city takes women’s unpaid work seriously? Bogotá’s radical experiment in caregiving is going global.

Like caregiving, this story took a village of talent and resources to come together. Grateful to my editor @chengela.bsky.social, photos from Juanita Escobar, travel support from Bainum Family Foundation and more.

gift link: vox.com/policy/46963...

20 years ago, no mayor talked specifically about "climate." Now every major city has a climate action plan. Bloomberg Philanthropies's James Anderson thinks care policy is on the same trajectory.

It's why the idea is spreading — not just across Latin America, but to Africa, England, and yes even the U.S.

Bogotá has opened 25 "care blocks" since 2020 — neighborhood hubs where women can hand off laundry, see a therapist, finish their education, join a fitness class or just rest, while their kids or elderly relatives are cared for nearby.

In Bogotá they're trying to do something tricky: elevate both care work and caregivers, while also saying, “You shouldn’t have to be doing this so much — you deserve a full life beyond caring for kids, for aging relatives, for your partner."

What happens when a city takes women’s unpaid work seriously? Bogotá’s radical experiment in caregiving is going global.

my goal as a journalist is to report carefully on the best, most practical social policy ideas that can change the world, and this is easily the most exciting one I’ve had the opportunity to cover this year

🧵↓

www.vox.com/policy/46963...

Cities made a bet on millennials — but forgot one key thing Can cities learn to love kids again?

After decades of building for singles, cities are realizing the bill has come due. I wrote about the dearth of housing for families — and what it’ll take to fix it

www.vox.com/policy/46981...

Excited to share that I'm writing a book: a history of the debates over funding public schools from the 1960's to now.
(Yes the working title is tongue in cheek.)

Now I just need to finish writing—stay tuned!

And if you want to follow my work, you can do so here: www.chalkbeat.org/newsletters/...

Vox is now on Patreon! 💛📣

We’re using Patreon’s tools to introduce great new benefits and give you even more insights into our journalism and the people who make it: exclusive videos, live conversations featuring our reporters, new community features, and more.

This week on Explain It to Me: the future of housing. We talk to @ayesharascoe.bsky.social about buying a house with her bestie, @rcobooth.bsky.social about the new options out there, and @jerusalem.bsky.social on why homeownership just might be overrated. open.spotify.com/episode/1JUU...

It’s My Party and I’ll Leave When I Want To Talking to the gerontocracy.

it's clear reading this @rtraister.bsky.social piece how little the Democratic Party thinks it erred in running Joe Biden at his age

Also this memorable quote: "Many can’t imagine doing anything in which they won’t be heavily staffed and relevant all the time.”

nymag.com/intelligence...

You don’t need better boundaries. You need a better framework. “Setting boundaries” is broken — but there’s a different way to think about caring for yourself and others.

I love reading @sigalsamuel.bsky.social's ethical advice column. It's refreshing and I always learn something new

www.vox.com/the-highligh...

Running Out of People In After the Spike, two economists make a provocative case that population decline could stall innovation and human progress.

a sharp @suzmkahn.bsky.social review in @washingtonmonthly.com on After the Spike. Parenting will always have something of an "opportunity cost" but that doesn't mean there's not a lot policy can do to make it a better option

washingtonmonthly.com/2025/11/02/a...