in Domestic Policy, Inside Policy, Latest News, Housing, Multimedia, Video, Podcasts, North America, Social Issues, Peter Copeland
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In this episode, Peter Copeland, Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Program at the Macdonald Laurier Institute, sits down with Tim Carney, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
In their discussion, Carney provides a comprehensive overview of the alarming trends around declining marriage rates, birth rates, and community belonging across North America. He shares insights from his extensive research, examining how government regulations, cultural shifts, and the erosion of civil society contribute to these challenges.
Carney also highlights successful policy approaches from other countries that prioritize family-friendly housing and community-building and explains how the housing crisis is intimately tied to the inability of young people to start families and put down roots in their communities.
Today, we’re diving into one of the most pressing challenges facing both Canada and the United States: the intersection of housing policy, family formation, and social stability. Housing affordability has become a dominant issue in Canada, with skyrocketing home prices and rental costs making it harder for young people to start families and put down roots. But is this just a market problem, or is it tied to something deeper—cultural shifts, government regulation, and the weakening of community institutions?
To explore these questions, I’m joined by Tim Carney, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Tim has written extensively on the decline of civil society and the policies that have undermined strong communities, particularly in his book Alienated America, and most recently, about how various aspects of our culture are ‘Family unfriendly’ in his book by the same name. He’s been at the forefront of the debate on how public policy shapes social well-being, and today, we’re going to discuss how housing policy and economic pressures are influencing marriage rates, birth rates, and family stability on both sides of the border.
Peter Copeland 