The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite

by Michael Lind

Reflecting the sacrifice of family commitments to career ambitions that is characteristic of many highly educated and ambitious overclass professionals, a survey of twenty-four advanced industrial democracies showed that, compared to the non-college-educated, university-educated individuals are more likely to describe children as a “burden” rather than as a “joy.”19 Working-class households are far more likely than overclass households to rely on a stay-at-home parent or relatives to care for children. In the United States, 66 percent of those whose education ended with high school say that children are better off when one parent stays at home to raise them; the number plunges to 51 percent for those with a bachelor’s degree or more.20 Urban hubs increasingly are populated by individuals without any children at all. According to the American Community Survey, in 2016 there were more dogs than children in San Francisco.21 Writing in The Atlantic in 2019, Derek Thompson concluded: “The Future of the City Is Childless.”