Here's an interesting theory I hadn't heard before. From the blog post: ... ... ... ... The article goes on to make a bunch of recommendations that seem terrible (everything extreme conservatives...
Here's an interesting theory I hadn't heard before. From the blog post:
[C]onventional explanations don’t work in any kind of consistent and predictable fashion, including the (seemingly credible) explanations most commonly given by the actual cohorts which have failed to have children. Failing to accept this leads to disaster, like South Korea spending hundreds of billions on economic incentives to have children, only for their birthrate to drop yet faster.
We are thus presented with an apparent paradox: a stable trend which continues to unfold across the West, in country after country, generation after generation, without an obvious causal logic. How is this to be explained?
...
In the mid 2000s, Georgia spiked its birth rate, which went from ~50,000 to ~64,000 over the course of two years - a 28% increase, which it sustained for many years. The country went from poor to replacement-level fertility, and it did so without spending more money or changing policy. What caused this?
The evidence points to an unusual factor: a prominent Patriarch of the popular Georgian Orthodox Church, Ilia II, announced that he would personally baptize and become godfather to all third children onwards. Births of third children boomed (so much so, in fact, that it eclipsed continuing declines in first and second children).
This has widely been understood as a religious phenomenon, but I propose that it is better understood as a status phenomenon. Becoming associated with a celebrity figure who becomes, in some sense, an intimate part of your family is an event which is primarily attractive because of our desire to be elevated in status.
...
... [G]oods which are essential for social status are in constant demand, even if they become very expensive. College attendance, for example, is near all-time-highs, even while most Americans now say that the education and career gains are not worth the extraordinary costs. This is because college attendance is understood as a necessary gateway into polite (high-status) society, whatever the cost may be.
...
This is true for the Western middle classes, but it is even more true for the Asian middle classes, which - due to structural factors - are subject to more extreme variations of the same pressures and whose fertility has further fallen accordingly.
...
Thanks to the Korean formalized systems of etiquette, language, and titles, social hierarchies are clear, explicit, and prominent. Because each person’s social status is unambiguous, individuals are incentivized to take whatever measures are necessary to ensure that their rank within the system is maximized. This process finds particular expression within the structure of the Korean economy, in which the only high-status employers are the small number of industrial mega-conglomerates like Samsung (the so-called ‘chaebols’). Gaining entry to and rank within these corporations has become of existential importance.
The article goes on to make a bunch of recommendations that seem terrible (everything extreme conservatives want), so that's really the best part and I don't recommend reading the rest. Interesting if true. Hopefully someone else will study this to see if it holds up.
"Interesting angle", and provides nice food for thought. I did enjoy reading "a" new take on fertility, because it is a very serious problem. To second your opinion, I would also encourage others...
Exemplary
"Interesting angle", and provides nice food for thought. I did enjoy reading "a" new take on fertility, because it is a very serious problem. To second your opinion, I would also encourage others to read the first part, and also to skip the middle linking to the conclusion. The links are very very poorly connected, this would have gotten an F at my high school English class, not for boldness of ideas (we were also encouraged to write teenage ridiculous, grandiose and delusional manifestos if we can support it) but for how choppy the logic flow is, how many unsubstantiated claims it makes, and how far it requires to reader to leap between ideas. I'll copy pasta the end so no one else has to slog through the middle.
The conclusion is almost comically bad. Actually no, it's comically evil. Basically, build isolation patriarchies and enslave the women as baby factories. Then generationally, through sanctioned discrimination, keeping the girl children as stupid and as locked up as possible. It's not asking for the entire nation to do this, he claims, but he is asking authorities to turn a legal blind eye to abusers in exchange for higher birth rate. Eerie similarity to Handmaid's Tale - I'm surprised he didn't mention doling out wives to high status, obedient young men. Pay attention to how much it internally conflicts even in this excerpt: don't worry, it's all voluntary, except the numerous draconian laws necessary in many of the numbered items and what voluntary means for women and children.
Unfortunately for liberal readers, there is no way to do this that does not conflict with Enlightenment values. However, the good news for liberals is that none of the solutions require impositions on liberals - governments just need to ease restrictions on those who wish to pursue alternatives. Most of the obvious interventions would actually save the state money, even while raising the birthrate.
The support for these communities would involve:
Not forcing their young to undergo a liberal education;
Supporting religious and home schooling;
Ending universal mandatory examinations;
Ending mandatory sex education which condemns teen pregnancy;
Allowing children to work from a young age at local businesses;
Equalizing state support for religious colleges;
Ending programs which promote universal tertiary education;
Ending universal state incentives for women’s further education;
Not forcing communities to elevate women professionally;
Not forcing communities to take migrants (domestic or foreign);
Not forcing communities to cultivate diversity;
Allowing hiring discrimination;
Allowing business discrimination;
Ending state messaging championing women’s professional success;
Ending state funding to national liberal media outlets;
Removing hate speech laws that de facto mandate particular sexual ethics;
Ending inheritance taxes that force property sales;
Removing taxes (gas, cars) that raise the cost of children.
I know its bad faith to focus on the author more than the text but I could not help myself. I don't like that I gave discount Jordan Peterson $7 (seriously, his first post was How to find a...
I know its bad faith to focus on the author more than the text but I could not help myself. I don't like that I gave discount Jordan Peterson $7 (seriously, his first post was How to find a traditional wife by pretending to be a normal person and fostering unhealthy dependence) but its a fascinating insight into researching from the conclusion. It embodies the hyper-conservitive ideal of every societal problem being progressive illnesses and always solved through tradition, isolationism or abusive hierarchy.
This article is enough to highlight his thinking. He identifies so many factors contributing to the phenomenon across multiple cultures, formulates a grand philosophical conclusion rooted in status and prestige (that will definitely not permanently mess up everyone's self esteem) and even provides policy that will immediately fix the issue. But let me demonstrate an alternative research method:
I asked a married , college educated, career woman why they don't want kids -
Short answer: They don't want to.
Long answer: Low income and no job security (someone with a masters degree), stonewalled career, debt, rent, cost of child-everything, history of health issues, bad school options, no support structure, negative effects on body, existential anxiety, dangerously toxic grandparent ...
Is there anything that will change her mind: If it were safe, easy and affordable they might consider it.
Asked a married, college educated, career woman why she had a kid -
Short answer: Because she wanted to.
Long answer: She owns her own home. They have the income, savings and support to afford it and handle most issues. She has a supporting husband that shares the load with.
Why don't they have more kids: They barely have enough time and energy for the first child, each other and themselves. Also the financial situation is not as stable.
But that's beside the point. Dude is just the Catholic Jordan Peterson throwing pseudo-intellectual BS to kids with horrible prospects and directing their anger at people who should "know their place".
[Twirl Patriarchy Mustache] Ahh, see, my dear /u/SloMoMonday, but there is a glaring, elementary flaw in your research methodology: you were asking the women! [/Twirl] In all honesty, I read the...
[Twirl Patriarchy Mustache]
Ahh, see, my dear /u/SloMoMonday, but there is a glaring, elementary flaw in your research methodology: you were asking the women! [/Twirl]
In all honesty, I read the post late at night and it kept me up with anger. The icon photo is one of those phony AI strong men pedophile pics isn't it, and the tag line of the profile is stomach turning:
Build power, resources, family, and security as the West declines.
My dude, you even pointed out Georgia is doing it right and Georgia is part of the East of the East West Schism. They're Eastern European. And NKorea is doing terrible. All of asia is doing terrible for fertility!!
Watch this space for further rant [/old woman grumble fist shake]
Edit: haha touché, who listens to women, and old, past fertility years women, to boot.
Men in patriarchy
The funniest thing about these strong dude fantasy realms is that they think patriarchies are for men. It's not. Patriarchies are for A Few Men. In horrible polygamy circles, younger males are routinely run out of the enclave to further concentrate resources. The most fertile set ups are never 50-50 men women, they're always a King/Sultan/Czar/Cult Leader Supreme/Prophet/All Father and his 500 enslaved women. It's actually the men who will suffer the most in these set ups, but like young teens reading Brave New World all thinking they're hot sh*t Alphas, they're not. Nothing is less secure as a bunch of other men in his kind of a world. The women will be enslaved, but the vast majority of the men will be gone.
Fertility confused with prosperity
There's a reason why China installed the One Child Policy: they were poor as dirt and vastly illiterate and unable to feed everyone. The kind of enclave he's envisioning is not going to be as productive as free societies where people are happy and women contribute labour and ideas. The poorest places on the planet have positive fertility rate for a reason. In a culture like he's proposing, you have to feed 100% of the citizens on at best 50% of the outside-of-home labour. It's not going to be competitive against a civilization with 50%+ work force, to say nothing of happiness.
"Internal security spendings"
Even if one discounts contribution from all women, a society with massively inhumane policies always has to spend a significant amount of resources for internal security against uprising instead of going forward, and will always be spending money to prevent escape from their hell holes. In his fantasy these enclaves still enjoy 'Merica trade and prosperity and advantages, I guess. But how will they prevent flight and brain drain?
The most disgusting thing about all this, though, is that if you read the comments (maybe don't) there is no shortage of Serena Joy type women cheering for this kind of rhetoric. They really think they'll enjoy all the rights and freedoms and resources they have today, while being able to lord it over dem libs and their childless cat ladies.
Final thought - Patriarchy
Perhaps a form of this kind of society can exist. One where there's no Prophet at the top: we already have more than enough frozen sperm to populate a solar system. We have weapons and tech and the role of brute force is diminishing by the day. Power tools, power suits, and maybe the older women can take hormonal supplements if we need more of (...?) I fail to see why even cult enclaves like the one he suggests needs him and his ilk in them at all.
Yeh. I really wanted to point out the AI picture and how parts of his recent stuff seems to follow the cadence from Essay Writing Data Models. Like over defining concepts Or just how they wormed...
Yeh. I really wanted to point out the AI picture and how parts of his recent stuff seems to follow the cadence from Essay Writing Data Models. Like over defining concepts
Status, or ‘social status’, is a key field within sociology. The term denotes a universal set of human instincts and behaviors. Status describes the perceived standing of the individual within the group. It denotes their social value and their place within the formal and informal hierarchies which comprise a society. It finds expression in the behaviors of deference, access, inclusion, approval, acclaim, respect, and honor (and indeed in their opposites - rejection, ostracization, humiliation, and so forth).
Or just how they wormed their to the completely incorrect conclusions based on easily referenced facts like how he states:
At the national level, Mongolia supports the isolation thesis. One of the only European or Asian countries with a high birthrate (2.84), it has unusual demographic features for a large country. A very small percentage of the population is fluent in English (due in part to Soviet suppression). They’re ethnically and linguistically homogenous, geographically isolated, non-Christian, and have their own alphabet. In other words, our cultural mechanics have less purchase there than in almost all other Northern Hemisphere countries.
We start to see a trend emerge: the more isolated a population is from liberal modernity, the higher their fertility. And, our theory goes, this is due to the fact that in a modern liberal paradigm, having children provides a lower status payoff than competing pursuits.
but if you just dig into Mongolian fertility:
Under socialist rule, Mongolia had a strong pronatalist population policy under which those families having children were provided with generous benefits. The changes made to these policies have had a considerable impact on fertility and family formation in Mongolia. In the mid-1970s, the country started to experience a dramatic decrease in the level of fertility, which intensified when the country moved towards a market economy. The country experienced a drop in its total fertility rate (TFR) from 7.2 children per woman (of reproductive age) in 1975 to about 3 children in 1995, and it has remained constant at about 2.3 children since that time.
So with just one additional fact, it looks a lot like Jordan's precious FREE MARKET CAPITALISM TANKED FERTILITY RATES IN HIS EXAMPLE COUNTRY AND FAMILIES MIGHT GROW WITH INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT.
But unlike the author, I decided to be charitable since Humans and LLM seem to have the same capacity for ignorance.
On that note, if you want something to really rant about, might want to look into this guys views on charity.
Classic Substack bullshit, I see. And of course the random jump to Eastern Orthodoxy; these turds love that shit despite having a very dim conception of how the world actually works (Religion? Who...
Unfortunately for liberal readers...
Classic Substack bullshit, I see. And of course the random jump to Eastern Orthodoxy; these turds love that shit despite having a very dim conception of how the world actually works (Religion? Who asked? You're not going to convert the whole world to your little religion du jour, and you'll change your mind next time 4chan decides to care about a different one anyway).
:p obligatory: in the last number of years, Eastern Orthodoxy has sadly become a magnet for a particular type of convert, who left Evamgeliciam and Catholicism when they werent radical...
:p obligatory: in the last number of years, Eastern Orthodoxy has sadly become a magnet for a particular type of convert, who left Evamgeliciam and Catholicism when they werent radical conservative enough for them, and they look at us and go ah yes the true Christiandom from before the Enlightenment that must be where men were Real Men™ and none of this women are people nonsense. But not all of us are like that.....this last weekend we just celebrated the beginning of the new Liturgical year which begins with the Nativity of our most important Saint, the Theotokos, and the year ends with her death. .....I'd like to offer that a lot of these types come into the physical building and don't like how we do things and leave, and go back into Internet Orthodox corners instead.... I'm sorry
In addition to all the normal handmaid's tale shit in there, I love that he thinks: removing hate speech laws "that de facto mandate particular sexual ethics" (I assume this is hate speech against...
In addition to all the normal handmaid's tale shit in there, I love that he thinks:
removing hate speech laws "that de facto mandate particular sexual ethics" (I assume this is hate speech against gay people but idk if there's anti-women hate speech covered by laws like this) will benefit the birthrate. I guess he thinks being allowed to call people faggots makes them more likely to pop out kids?
that it's legally feasible to prevent domestic migration somehow and that this will somehow improve birthrates (I guess you're shit outta luck if your hometown doesn't have a 50:50 ratio of men and women).
His horrendous opinions aside, one circle I can't square with these people is how he expects capitalism-loving America to be on board with removing women from the labor pool. Over 50% of American...
His horrendous opinions aside, one circle I can't square with these people is how he expects capitalism-loving America to be on board with removing women from the labor pool. Over 50% of American households are dual-income, and removing women from the labor pool will drive up labor costs.
Children need to be taken care of either way. Daycare might be worth it for small families since it frees up the parents to work, but prohibitively expensive for large families? Economically, you...
Children need to be taken care of either way. Daycare might be worth it for small families since it frees up the parents to work, but prohibitively expensive for large families? Economically, you could think of it as specializing in daycare / education by people who are better at that. It doesn't mean everyone needs to do it.
But in order for it to be high-status, we'd need some confidence that the people who have large families actually are doing a pretty good job of it, and I think often, people are skeptical. Particularly when you don't share their values.
One might even call it a separate sphere of excellence - a domestic sphere that just so happens to be politically subservient to the other. Funny how that works. ;) But it doesn't really answer...
Economically, you could think of it as specializing in daycare / education by people who are better at that.
One might even call it a separate sphere of excellence - a domestic sphere that just so happens to be politically subservient to the other. Funny how that works. ;)
But it doesn't really answer the question. Capitalists in this country are used to the productivity gains and labor costs from two-income households. If the labor pool becomes smaller - which would be the natural outcome of the authors comedically evil suggestions - where is the difference made up?
I'm not sure who you mean by capitalists? I expect investor sentiment to change based on economic conditions and professional managers to make forecasts and plans based on what they expect to...
I'm not sure who you mean by capitalists? I expect investor sentiment to change based on economic conditions and professional managers to make forecasts and plans based on what they expect to happen. Meanwhile, politicians and government officials make policy.
If labor became more scarce then I guess that would be incentive to try to make it up somehow, with higher wages and further investment in labor-saving technology.
(Every so often we worry about the opposite problem: what if AI eliminates too many jobs?)
At least here in the US, politicians are in large part influenced by businesses. There are many problems with this model, but it's also what I feel makes his evil proposals complete non-starters....
Meanwhile, politicians and government officials make policy.
At least here in the US, politicians are in large part influenced by businesses. There are many problems with this model, but it's also what I feel makes his evil proposals complete non-starters.
Such policy asks businesses to be on board with policy designed to encourage women to abstain from the labor market - thereby making the cost of doing business higher. I don't see businesses hopping on board with these sorts of policies.
There are ways to offset this increase, such as increasing reliance on prison industry complex slave labor, illegal immigrants, and offshoring - but you could do all of those things anyway while also not raising the costs of domestic labor at the same time.
I think proposals to restrict women's rights would be opposed by just about everyone and subsidies for mothers might be opposed as too expensive and ineffective. But I'm doubtful that any...
I think proposals to restrict women's rights would be opposed by just about everyone and subsidies for mothers might be opposed as too expensive and ineffective.
But I'm doubtful that any businesses would telling politicians "you can't do this because we need the workers" because the push to stop discrimination against women in the workplace comes more from feminists than from businesses. Backroom deals are not needed when you can just support women's rights and things working women want.
Also, notice that businesses benefit from hiring immigrants and yet it's very hard to get pro-immigration laws passed. Business is not really in charge - they often don't get their way.
This is a poor example. Businesses are getting their way in this arrangement. Illegal immigrants aren't citizens. This means that they are missing many of the rights and protections that citizens...
Also, notice that businesses benefit from hiring immigrants and yet it's very hard to get pro-immigration laws passed. Business is not really in charge - they often don't get their way.
This is a poor example. Businesses are getting their way in this arrangement.
Illegal immigrants aren't citizens. This means that they are missing many of the rights and protections that citizens have. Employers can pay them for pennies on the dollar and threaten them with deportation.
On paper there are consequences for knowingly employing undocumented workers, but standard operating procedure seems to be to look the other way, especially in sectors that are reliant on immigrants like agriculture.
Politicians might take advantage of anti-immigration sentiment to get elected, but you will never see any legislation to that effect that has any teeth.
Sure, it depends on the business. Some businesses that depend on immigrant labor will look the other way, while others have lots of lawyers and are wary of taking unnecessary legal risks. I...
Sure, it depends on the business. Some businesses that depend on immigrant labor will look the other way, while others have lots of lawyers and are wary of taking unnecessary legal risks. I believe the Big Tech companies are mostly in favor of more legal immigration.
It's also worth pointing out that many companies are in favor of what helps their employees, not on every issue, but on things like gay rights.
The big tech companies do want legal immigration, but on restrictive visas that limit their workers' ability to negotiate or leave for a different job. Different tactics, same objective.
The big tech companies do want legal immigration, but on restrictive visas that limit their workers' ability to negotiate or leave for a different job. Different tactics, same objective.
They do hire employees who are on restricted visas, but this is the first I've heard about them actually preferring it that way. Do you have a source on that?
They do hire employees who are on restricted visas, but this is the first I've heard about them actually preferring it that way. Do you have a source on that?
You're conflating discrimination in the workplace and women being removed from the workplace entirely. Business (as a category) wants women in the workplace (deflating the value of labor by...
You're conflating discrimination in the workplace and women being removed from the workplace entirely. Business (as a category) wants women in the workplace (deflating the value of labor by expanding the total pool) but also are often fine with some wage and other discrimination (lowering the necessary wages required to keep women, and thus lowering overall payroll costs.)
It's just a different way of looking at it. They aren't for or against women's issues as a category; they're for things that drive down the price of labor and against things that drive up the...
It's just a different way of looking at it. They aren't for or against women's issues as a category; they're for things that drive down the price of labor and against things that drive up the price of labor. As such, those issues intersect with the issues relevant to women in ways that don't easily map if you're only thinking about businesses as being "for" or "against" women.
It's also worth noting that this isn't a rational process. Biases like this aren't rational - the assumption of which jobs are women's work, or which kinds of women should work, the willingness to...
It's also worth noting that this isn't a rational process. Biases like this aren't rational - the assumption of which jobs are women's work, or which kinds of women should work, the willingness to discriminate against good employees due to perceptions of inconvenience or appearance, etc.
It could be hypothetically some broader "Business" best interest to have women in the workplace. That doesn't mean that some business owners and decision makers don't want to push (white) women out of most or all of it.
I’m kind of disappointed something so low quality was shared. The first three sentences of the second paragraph are basically a giant, flashing “Stop” sign: That’s as far you need to go before you...
I’m kind of disappointed something so low quality was shared.
The first three sentences of the second paragraph are basically a giant, flashing “Stop” sign:
Broad conclusion: economic interventions fail.
Specific intervention: Hungary spends 5% of GDP on this.
Specific outcome: Hungary’s situation has improved.
That’s as far you need to go before you close the tab and move on.
On the contrary I was very happy to see this share from skybrian -- (1) it's an interesting and important topic (2) it's coming from an angle outside of my usual framework (3) gave me an...
On the contrary I was very happy to see this share from skybrian --
(1) it's an interesting and important topic
(2) it's coming from an angle outside of my usual framework
(3) gave me an opportunity to think about my own assumptions and if it makes any more sense than the writer's,
(4) skybrian gave good warning ahead of time so I brought my Diligence hat with me when I started reading >:D
(5) the discussion sparked from this community has been insightful and wonderful.
I don't know what it is but sometimes very high quality content on Tildes don't get a lot of engagement, so I'm thrilled when we get a thread like this. My sincere apologies if my original comment sounded too grumpy, it was an intrigued kind of grumpy? Like, internet armchair "umm, actually this person is wrong on the internet let me fix this!" Kind of excitement?
I agree it’s nice to see fuller, longer-lived conversations. skybrian and everyone else have seemed cordial and well intentioned in these comments. And approaching things from outside your normal...
I agree it’s nice to see fuller, longer-lived conversations. skybrian and everyone else have seemed cordial and well intentioned in these comments.
And approaching things from outside your normal framework is laudable, so is challenging your own assumptions.
But doing that based on a rando LiveJournal post that starts with obviously flawed reasoning, ends with explicitly discriminatory proposals, and plays loose with factual accuracy?
I think this is the sort of situation where it would be fine to copy the entire section from the blog post that you want people to read, and then just post that section as a (text) topic here on...
I think this is the sort of situation where it would be fine to copy the entire section from the blog post that you want people to read, and then just post that section as a (text) topic here on Tildes. Then, at the bottom of the topic body, you could just include a little "hey the rest of this is really awful but if you want to subject yourself to reading it then here it is: https://becomingnoble.substack.com/p/its-embarrassing-to-be-a-stay-at" kind of message for anyone who was willing.
Also, doing it that way would (I think) make it much less likely for the comments to focus on the bad parts of the blog post you warned them about (though I think the discussion in this instance has been fine), and instead the discussion would be more likely to focus on the sections that you actually posted to Tildes (if that's what you're going for)
They keep talking about this like it is some kind of catastrophe to be avoided. It is not a good or or a bad thing that fewer people want to have kids. It is a neutral fact. It is our choice, stop...
They keep talking about this like it is some kind of catastrophe to be avoided.
It is not a good or or a bad thing that fewer people want to have kids. It is a neutral fact. It is our choice, stop trying to tell us it's wrong.
I think there’a a distinction between individual choices and what makes sense for society as a whole to promote with incentives. I wouldn’t expect incentives to work for people who have overriding...
I think there’a a distinction between individual choices and what makes sense for society as a whole to promote with incentives. I wouldn’t expect incentives to work for people who have overriding reasons not to have kids, and that’s fine. But on the margin it can make a difference. And one thing I thought was interesting is the idea of selectively encouraging parents to have one more child, going from two to three, for example. Hopefully they are stable families already? It would be a way of building on success, rather than assuming everyone has to do the same thing.
It’s unclear to me how much a problem decreased fertility actually is. For rich countries that are more open to immigration and are also able to attract immigrants that would be a good fit, maybe it’s not a problem? The US and Canada are clearly attractive to immigrants. But that’s not necessarily true everywhere.
Yes definitely the marginal people can be nudged a little bit to have one, or have more, and maybe they'll actually be happier for it too if they could swing it, with dignity and security. I feel...
Yes definitely the marginal people can be nudged a little bit to have one, or have more, and maybe they'll actually be happier for it too if they could swing it, with dignity and security.
I feel like even though the article is terrible, the Topic is important and interesting -- babies are nice and babies make people feel nice. Having a society of old people who've eaten up the future of the young is terrible, and we need to make sure society encourages people to feel some kind of future they can envision children in.
I giggled at @babyPuncher 's username on this thread, seems interestingly relevant....I used to be the annoying teen who makes dead baby jokes and was staunchly Noner. But I became less of a terrible person (edit: independently of my stance on kids I was terrible for other reasons) after I had some exposure to happy well adjusted families, to responsible and loving parents, to community that builds up one another and encourage each other to make choices that focus on a happy communal future.....
For those who choose not to, we must protect their right not to feel lesser than or forgotten or stigmatized or attacked or made to feel irrelevant. But we must also try to do similar for those who choose to have kids lovingly....
One unsavory consequence of this is that often we're pulling the creme de la creme from the labor pools of emigration countries, which stifles their development. That's not really fair and could...
For rich countries that are more open to immigration and are also able to attract immigrants that would be a good fit, maybe it’s not a problem?
One unsavory consequence of this is that often we're pulling the creme de la creme from the labor pools of emigration countries, which stifles their development. That's not really fair and could arguably be construed as a modern form of colonialism. If you don't filter off the best, you're now playing with massive problems if you allow relatively unfiltered access. Not the least of which is the massive resurgence of xenophobic authoritarianism we're currently seeing. And without either immigration or addressing fertility, you're looking at a hell of a demographic problem. I also don't really see a global long-term future that I like where this continues to remain unaddressed: If the leaders in human development now don't start to work on the problem, eventually it's going to blow up in the faces of currently-developing countries too, and they'll have nowhere to turn for immigration. And I don't think actual degrowth policies will realistically happen. So eventually this will mess humanity up. Might as well look for a solution now, especially considering that it's an extremely long-term problem, what with every proposed solution taking potentially about a generation to study and then another to deploy.
It's true that there can be a selection effect (immigrant workers are often more ambitious and willing to work) and "brain drain" is sometimes a worry, but it overlooks that being able to work in...
It's true that there can be a selection effect (immigrant workers are often more ambitious and willing to work) and "brain drain" is sometimes a worry, but it overlooks that being able to work in rich countries is strongly beneficial for the workers and their families, including people back home. Remittances (sending money home) are a significant source of foreign currency for some countries. It shouldn't be looked at as a zero-sum game; both sides benefit.
I see it as smart rather than unethical to have selective immigration policies. As you say, when badly managed, immigration can be unpopular.
The future is hard to predict and I don't think we can easily predict what problems there will be many years out. But the problems of fertility seem well worth studying, even if they're not immediate problems everywhere.
I have no children, never will, and I'm on your side here. But purely based on how our economy works, it is a bad thing. Being able to retire depends on being able to live on the accrued savings...
I have no children, never will, and I'm on your side here. But purely based on how our economy works, it is a bad thing. Being able to retire depends on being able to live on the accrued savings of a lifetime, be it personal cash, retirement accounts, whatever. Without younger people to provide labor to keep the economy moving, the price of labor continues to rise until people who would otherwise retire choose to keep providing their labor for money. They'll do this either because they don't have enough to retire on, or because the pay is just that good, but either way, retirement as a concept depends on there being new laborers to replace the old. In the extreme, no one retires at all, and businesses start closing because the labor isn't there at any price point.
I agree with this so much. It seems like so many people devote way too much time worrying about birth rates. Some people are concerned about there not being enough babies being born and we're...
I agree with this so much.
It seems like so many people devote way too much time worrying about birth rates. Some people are concerned about there not being enough babies being born and we're going to go extinct. Other people are concerned about there being too many babies and we'll eat all the food and go extinct.
Maybe we shouldn't keep inventing apocalypses and instead focus on the stuff that's actually real?
Seriously. We are nowhere near the point where humanity will go extinct from lack of procreation. We number in the billions. That's a healthy gene pool if I've ever seen one. We're also not likely to suffer from mass starvation because as things are we are already massively overproducing food and have a huge calorie surplus that is currently part of the reason for an obesity epidemic across the globe.
And the worst thing about these worriers is that if they've actually thought through the actual details if such a thing were to happen, they probably already know that it wouldn't be an apocalypse. We're part of an ecosystem, and the ecosystem is pretty good at balancing itself out. So the things that they are actually worried about are the economics about it. In other words, the thing they are trying to defend is the status quo. People worried about underpopulation are worried about not having enough people for the labor pool to continue an economy that favors endless growth. People who are worried about too many people are worried about not being able to eat animals - or are at least are usually unable to comprehend a world where people do not eat them, and simply default to people fucking dying instead.
So I beg everyone who sees these kinds of scribes and articles to simply ignore them. They are simply not worth merit, and spreading them just makes the world a worse place.
How is it that "collapsing fertility" is so widely accepted to be an actual problem? When i was born in the mid 60s the population was about 3 and a half billion. Now it's over 8 billion. We live...
How is it that "collapsing fertility" is so widely accepted to be an actual problem?
When i was born in the mid 60s the population was about 3 and a half billion. Now it's over 8 billion. We live on a finite planet with decreasing usable resources, including drinkable water, arable soil, and vastly increasing toxic by-products of our own thoughtless and greedy behaviors. The last thing we need is faster population growth. Fewer babies being born and the subsequent problems due to the failure of our current pyramid scheme of an economic system is vastly preferable to the inevitable devastation caused when our excess population results in planetary collapse.
(Edited to remove accidental sentence fragment)
Take a look at this page talking about the demography of that population, specifically the second chart labeled "The Demography of the World Population from 1950 to 2100". In 1950, there were way...
Take a look at this page talking about the demography of that population, specifically the second chart labeled "The Demography of the World Population from 1950 to 2100". In 1950, there were way more children than old people. Each decade since then, the ratio of old people to children has shifted, with an expectation of the proportion of people in each decade of their life being nearly even by 2100.
In its own right, this is a good thing. If we can get environmental things under control we may well have a chance of staying within the carrying capacity of the planet and hit a stable population.
The challenge is the degree to which the global economy depends on an inexpensive and continually replenished labor pool. For every person in their 60s or 70s who wants to stop working, we needs someone to replace them, and also to provide them services. So the ratio of consumers to producers is expected to continue to shift. If we as a species can continue to advance technology to increase the productivity of labor and the fruits of that efficiency are evenly spread so as to take care of everyone, it won't be a problem. We could have our fully automated luxury space communism.
But our current economic structure has some problems with the looming future in which labor is rarer and more expensive than ever before.
Problem is that population shrinking and growth are happening unevenly. Ideally, all countries would gradually shrink. The arrival of affordable, secure food supplies and basic medicine in...
Problem is that population shrinking and growth are happening unevenly. Ideally, all countries would gradually shrink.
The arrival of affordable, secure food supplies and basic medicine in high-fertility societies has resulted in their populations exploding: this is socially destabilizing. These countries don't have the capacity to educate and absorb all these young people into their economy, resulting in social unrest.
Low-fertility societies are experiencing different social unrest: the lack of replacement workers in their aging societies makes it difficult to support retirees, and accepting too many foreign workers can be socially and culturally destabilizing in itself.
As the pushback here shows, I don't think it's all that widely accepted in general. It's something some countries care about enough to change their policies, but that's a national perspective, not...
As the pushback here shows, I don't think it's all that widely accepted in general. It's something some countries care about enough to change their policies, but that's a national perspective, not necessarily a global one.
It's enough of a trend that multiple countries care about it. I don't think it's much of a concern in the US, though?
We go back and forth between talking about the problems of too much growth and not enough. That's true of both population and economic growth.
I don't consider it to be a problem I need to spend time on for any practical reasons, but I'm interested in a lot of things I have no stake in. It's just interesting to discuss what's going on in the world.
I'm kind of bristling at the notion of status being the focal point. But if I allow a softer use of language: higher fertility happens when the entire family receives not just vain status, but...
I'm kind of bristling at the notion of status being the focal point. But if I allow a softer use of language: higher fertility happens when the entire family receives not just vain status, but
Respect, dignity, safety, security, wellbeing
I think that many of the strange arguments apply quite well if we modify them towards these more positive traits. We don't want to bring innocent children into a world where they are in danger, where their future is bleak, and where overall children are thought of as labour and consumers. We can all observe medical care of children being cut, schools being cut, teachers salary being cut etc: we can see for ourselves that our society hates children but yet is eager to exploit them. No thanks.
The example of Georgia is great. It isn't just celebrity bragging rights. Afterall, if the Patriarch is Godfather to tens of thousands of kids, what bragging rights is there over literally every parent at your kid's school? It isn't about status in the shallow, competitive and the boastful sense - it's status as in honour, dignity, and respect. They have an authority figure with resources and influence demonstrating that they care for your child, and showing a commitment not just during pregnancy and the first year, but an eternal commitment to your child's wellbeing. Even for non Church attending parents, being in a society where the powerful show commitment to your child's wellbeing confers dignity and respect and an expectation for a safe future.
We can see across the world that this is not true at all. People have more kids when safety and security are low. More kids means more hands for labor. More kids are a hedge against child mortality.
Respect, dignity, safety, security, wellbeing
We can see across the world that this is not true at all. People have more kids when safety and security are low. More kids means more hands for labor. More kids are a hedge against child mortality.
Even within the US, we see that wealthier households have fewer children. Households that make >$200k have the fewest children despite having the most financial security and safety. Interesting,...
Households that make >$200k have the fewest children despite having the most financial security and safety.
Interesting, Latino and Mormon Americans have the largest families because within their communities, having large families is seen as something to aspire to. People within these communities see their peers striving toward larger families and assimilate those goals as their own.
It would be interesting to dig into this further. My hunch is that it’s largely due to what it takes to achieve this income, which usually entails many years in school and/or the workforce and...
Households that make >$200k have the fewest children despite having the most financial security and safety.
It would be interesting to dig into this further. My hunch is that it’s largely due to what it takes to achieve this income, which usually entails many years in school and/or the workforce and sometimes comes with piles of student loans.
Many people in this band don’t get to the point where they’re marking that much and have tuition paid off until they’re in their thirties, and some want to wait to start until they own a home which drags that timeline out even further. It’s easy to end up only being “ready” (which is something that educated couples are more likely to want) right around the age that reproductive health starts declining steeply.
It's also the problem that the metros with the highest wages usually have the worst housing supplies. My wife and I have seriously discussed adopting, but it would require moving to a bedroom...
It's also the problem that the metros with the highest wages usually have the worst housing supplies. My wife and I have seriously discussed adopting, but it would require moving to a bedroom suburb and driving much further to work. Urbanization negatively impacts fertility rates when there isn't space for children.
Having kids is very time and money expensive, specially if you want them to keep them in your social stratum. Families that are well off but not old-school wealthy probably work a lot themselves...
Having kids is very time and money expensive, specially if you want them to keep them in your social stratum. Families that are well off but not old-school wealthy probably work a lot themselves and might not be ok with the traditional ways of dealing with kids (shipping them to boarding school and / or having service workers deal with them).
Most monied people in my country that have more than a couple kids also belong to some kind of sect, which, religious doctrine expectations aside, also likely provide means to deal with the kids and lets them interact with other families in the same situation.
We had a few more babies after the great wars, though, didn't we? There's good stats on fertility and exposure to armed conflicts. Do you want to help me look up some research? I'm talking about,...
We had a few more babies after the great wars, though, didn't we? There's good stats on fertility and exposure to armed conflicts. Do you want to help me look up some research? I'm talking about, same group of people same culture same circumstances, before during after war fertility, not comparison between vastly different groups with different starting baseline of violence.
I feel like these are things where there's a bit of a U shape, where the ideal fertility rate is found where it is probably not a super cozy life, but too much hardship also cause a big drop. See North Korea fertility rate.
I'm not following the part about the great wars, but they don't represent security to me. At the time, given that two world wars had already happened in such a short time, I believe the feeling...
I'm not following the part about the great wars, but they don't represent security to me. At the time, given that two world wars had already happened in such a short time, I believe the feeling was that it could happen again. So not a whole lot of safety/security there.
Gaza's population has increased 13x in 75 years. I don't have any expertise here to fall back on, but it looks like all across the developed countries, where human rights is correlated, we're seeing declining birthrates. I think that at least gives pause to the idea that it's respect/safety/security that drives birth rates even if we can't separate out all the cultural differences. It doesn't discredit the idea of stress though. Countries with a focus on economics and human rights could also be correlated with stress (higher necessity to keep up with your peers). I don't know what the reason for declining fertility is, but I've never seen proof that it's a decrease in human dignity that does it, as sad as it is to say.
Edit: U shaped might be correct here, but then I'd argue the point where fertility is high is also not the pinnacle of respect/safety/security
The fertility rate there peaked in the 1960s around 8.0, in the top 5, and declined steadily to 4.2 since the 1970s, outside the top 40. The USA’s has declined from around 3.23 to 1.88 over the...
The fertility rate there peaked in the 1960s around 8.0, in the top 5, and declined steadily to 4.2 since the 1970s, outside the top 40. The USA’s has declined from around 3.23 to 1.88 over the same period. That’s a decline of -47.5% and -41.8% respectively.
To add on to that picture: Gaza has a 150x higher population density. The U.S. has way more immigrants per year, a group that has a higher birth rate than the native population. Gaza started from...
To add on to that picture:
Gaza has a 150x higher population density.
The U.S. has way more immigrants per year, a group that has a higher birth rate than the native population.
Gaza started from a much higher birth rate, so the deceleration would expectedly be faster.
I’m not sure I understand where population density came from or why we would expect faster deceleration from a higher starting point? And yeah, the birth rate in the US is higher for immigrant...
I’m not sure I understand where population density came from or why we would expect faster deceleration from a higher starting point?
And yeah, the birth rate in the US is higher for immigrant women than native born women and is also declining more quickly.
But are we talking about birth rate, fertility rate, population density, or population growth?
It felt like the comparison between the US and Gaza was meant to show the two had similar deceleration, so my bullet points were to show the differences that would impact that. It's impressive...
It felt like the comparison between the US and Gaza was meant to show the two had similar deceleration, so my bullet points were to show the differences that would impact that. It's impressive that Gaza only dropped their birth rate 47.5% versus the US's 41.8% when their population is like 15,000 people per square mile versus 90 people per square mile in the US.
No, it was to show that the fertility rates there “(Before the war.)” had been declining on average for 50 years and aren’t exceptionally high globally. It’s aggregate, but TFR is similar to Kenya...
No, it was to show that the fertility rates there “(Before the war.)” had been declining on average for 50 years and aren’t exceptionally high globally.
It’s aggregate, but TFR is similar to Kenya and Uzbekistan for example. And if you look at birth rate it’s similar to Somoa.
The intent was to show it wasn’t an outlier. The information about the US was included because it was interesting to me.
Is that more babies or just deferred babies? There are fewer babies mid-war when the men are off in another country fighting, the food is literally rationed, and there is FULL EMPLOYMENT to the...
We had a few more babies after the great wars, though, didn't we? There's good stats on fertility and exposure to armed conflicts
Is that more babies or just deferred babies? There are fewer babies mid-war when the men are off in another country fighting, the food is literally rationed, and there is FULL EMPLOYMENT to the point of women being pulled into the workforce in the 1940s. And if you're in Europe you might be bombed.
Even if you accept the analysis that the low fertility rates can be explained by "status" I have a really hard time understanding why the proposals to fix the fertility rates don't adress the...
Even if you accept the analysis that the low fertility rates can be explained by "status" I have a really hard time understanding why the proposals to fix the fertility rates don't adress the "status" issue. Instead the proposals focus on creating societies that undermines liberal values and liberties and assume that a consequence would be that fertility would therefore increase. Presumably the reason would be because women wouldn't have the option to raise their status through "success" (which according to the essay is at odds with fertility) and would instead do so through "virtue" and "dominance"?
Wouldn't a much more straight forward path be to just raise he status of parenthood in general? That could be done in a multitude of ways. The proposals just seem to attempt to frame liberal society as anathema to higher birth rates while note really presenting any evidence of this (quite to the contrary the Iran example seem to contradict it quite a bit). But alas, this is likely the intent of the author. They don't come across as interested in actually finding a solution to their perceived cause (low status of parenthood) of the issue (low fertility). Instead they just spout garbage conservative wet dreams... meh.
Dug a little bit into the fertility rates of different countries based on this Wikipedia article. Interestingly when comparing TFR in 2024 and looking at the change since 2022 (country by...
Dug a little bit into the fertility rates of different countries based on this Wikipedia article. Interestingly when comparing TFR in 2024 and looking at the change since 2022 (country by country), the thing that stood out to me was that the ones that had managed to increase their numbers by more than 0.1 points were Denmark, Estonia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden (might have missed some scrolling on the phone). Most others either had no or a very small change in TFR (below my arbitrary cutoff) OR they had a decrease in TFR. So at a minimum the above mentioned countries seem to be bucking the trend. Might be interesting to look at them to see if there are some commonalities between them...
UNPF and World Bank use slightly different methodologies. Did you compare the 2024 and 2022 numbers on the wiki page or did you compare different years from a single source?
UNPF and World Bank use slightly different methodologies.
Did you compare the 2024 and 2022 numbers on the wiki page or did you compare different years from a single source?
Just the numbers on the wiki page. So methodology might have some impact... I'd be surprised if the used methodologies would have an impact on the measurement for the Nordic countries. Sweden at...
Just the numbers on the wiki page. So methodology might have some impact... I'd be surprised if the used methodologies would have an impact on the measurement for the Nordic countries. Sweden at least register each person born here and there's likely highly reliable official sources for the data.
Cold dark winters and/or poorer countries with conservative values? Aside from Kyrgyzstan, They're all above 50 degrees of latitude, at which point you're getting less than 8 hours of daylight a...
Cold dark winters and/or poorer countries with conservative values? Aside from Kyrgyzstan, They're all above 50 degrees of latitude, at which point you're getting less than 8 hours of daylight a day in the middle of winter.
I'm not really sure "cold dark winters" is the most salient similar feature among all those countries other than Kyrgyzstan when they all border the Baltic sea. Clearly the Baltic sea is boosting...
I'm not really sure "cold dark winters" is the most salient similar feature among all those countries other than Kyrgyzstan when they all border the Baltic sea. Clearly the Baltic sea is boosting their fertility. Germany and Russia are exceptions just because they're bigger, and thus have more landmass that doesn't border the Baltic sea.
In all seriousness though, I don't think you can really draw conclusions from this "data" without doing a bunch of extremely bad not-even-statistics. It's just not robust enough and it's far too easy to find patterns in even random noise.
The conclusion/call for action is kind of insane, not just in its contents but the idea that these weird traditionalist compounds would even make a dent on the fertility rate of a 300m nation that...
The conclusion/call for action is kind of insane, not just in its contents but the idea that these weird traditionalist compounds would even make a dent on the fertility rate of a 300m nation that is most inhabited by people that aren't weirdos who would want to live on these compounds?
IMO it's just about opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of having a child is fairly fixed, so although modern technology has made it easier, it's still one of the biggest trials mothers go through in their lives. Although not biological, it's a big commitment for (non-deadbeat) dads as well.
As people get richer, and have more things they can do, that's just going to seem a less and less attractive option. It is what it is.
I don't think it's necessarily cataclysmic like the author stipulates without evidence. You can't linearly project population numbers - South Korea isn't going to have negative people in 2100.
If you really want to alleviate it, I think you should try to reduce the risks of having children. The medical field is contributing to that all the time, and if laws would get out of the way of things like abortion access that would be helpful. Maybe a more robust orphanage system.
But in the end, it is what it is, most developed countries will probably have declining populations eventually. I don't think that's a deathspell for developed countries, or humanity as a whole. We'll figure it out.
The opportunity cost is a large component, but I’d suggest that for many it’s actually the combination of opportunity cost and financial risk. Raising children is increasingly expensive,...
The opportunity cost is a large component, but I’d suggest that for many it’s actually the combination of opportunity cost and financial risk.
Raising children is increasingly expensive, particularly for educated parents who want to try to situate their children as best as they possibly can (quality schooling, etc). So much so that a couple who on their own was doing well financially can suddenly find themselves walking a tightrope with the introduction of even a single child which they can easily be knocked off of by e.g. a string of unfortunate events.
In other words, for many becoming a family involves giving up whatever financial security they might’ve had, which is a tough sell on its own but becomes particularly unpalatable in addition to missing out on the opportunities that could’ve counteracted the decrease in financial security.
With that in mind, I believe that “simply” making sure that people don’t have to trade off their financial security to have kids will make a measurable positive impact.
I won't belabor the point since it's most pedantry, but opportunity cost includes, well, costs in addition to the implicit costs of not being able to pursue another opportunity. It's a strictly...
I won't belabor the point since it's most pedantry, but opportunity cost includes, well, costs in addition to the implicit costs of not being able to pursue another opportunity. It's a strictly broader category. So opportunity cost includes the nominative financial costs of child rearing.
That being said, one thing to note is that in countries with much stronger support networks from the government, where the cost of child rearing is much lower in nominative costs, the fertility rate isn't all that much better (in fact, compared to the US, the fertility rate in Nordic countries is worse), so while from a logical point of view I doubt more social support for the financial costs of child rearing would hurt, it seems that as wealth and QoL scales up, the fertility rate does not.
There basically nowhere in the world where we observe a nation being able to have a increase in fertility by outspending it. Even in very special cases, where you have small and fabulously wealthy nations, or amazing government support, the fertility rate only goes down, on a population level, with wealth.
My opinion is that the implicit part of opportunity costs takes over in that circumstances to continue the correlation between wealth and a decreasing fertility rate.
Even if you don't need a private school, you have free daycare, you have more than enough paternity leave, you have explicit government subsidies - it still doesn't change the fact that you're committing 5-10 years of your life at minimum to have your life revolve around your child 24/7 (and it keeps going - it just gets less intense as the child ages).
It doesn't help that those years are also the prime years of a person's adult life. That's a lot to commit to. There's a lot about having children that just kind of sucks.
That's a good point. The Nordic countries offer ludicrously more parental and childcare support as well as labor protections than any other society. Nordic societies are among the most stable and...
That's a good point. The Nordic countries offer ludicrously more parental and childcare support as well as labor protections than any other society. Nordic societies are among the most stable and safe.
Yet their fertility rates are still among the lowest.
My opinion is that the implicit part of opportunity costs takes over in that circumstances to continue the correlation between wealth and a decreasing fertility rate.
Wealthy advanced societies have liberal cultures that celebrate and prize self-actualization and individual achievement: education, travel, sport, hobbies, etc. Even if the financial burden of raising a child were eliminated like you said, indeed the sheer time and physical and emotional labor in raising a child hinders the pursuit of these liberal values.
Acemoğlu or some other modern pop econ author had a section about birth rates in an early chapter of one of their books. And Freakonomics addressed it in 2011. Children seem to be inferior goods,...
Acemoğlu or some other modern pop econ author had a section about birth rates in an early chapter of one of their books. And Freakonomics addressed it in 2011.
Children seem to be inferior goods, even if it might feel “wrong” to think of them that way, and they seem to have been inferior goods as far back as the 1820s.
[Edit] Consumption of inferior goods decreases as income increases. [/Edit]
This conversation isn’t new either. Harvey Leibenstein wrote about it in 1974 and 1975.
1974, Socio-economic Fertility Theories and Their Relevance to Population Policy, International Labour Review, May/June 1974.
1974, An Interpretation of the Economic Theory of Fertility, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XII, No. 2, June 1974.
1975, The Economic Theory of Fertility Decline, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol LXXXIX, No. 1, February 1975.
Gary Becker wrote about, most notably in 1969 and 1973:
1969, "An economic analysis of fertility", in National Bureau of Economic Research (ed.), Demographic and economic change in developed countries, a conference of the universities, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 209–240.
1973, "On the interaction between the quantity and quality of children" (PDF). Journal of Political Economy. 81 (2): 279–288.
The author’s proposals could make sense initially: make people poorer and they’ll “consume” more children. And by extension the obvious way to keep the birth rate up would be to keep people poor, which I suppose might be the ultimate goal: make and keep people poor.
Thanks for the links. There is clearly a strong correlation: families are smaller in richer countries. But maybe children aren’t always a Giffen good? Though he doesn’t use the term, the author...
Thanks for the links. There is clearly a strong correlation: families are smaller in richer countries. But maybe children aren’t always a Giffen good? Though he doesn’t use the term, the author claims that sufficiently well-off families do have more children.
Clarifying first: a country’s fertility decreases as a country’s GDP per capita increases. Broadly speaking, from a demand perspective, children behave like an inferior good. Yes, a consumer with...
Clarifying first: a country’s fertility decreases as a country’s GDP per capita increases.
Broadly speaking, from a demand perspective, children behave like an inferior good.
Yes, a consumer with a large budget may very well have more of a particular good than that same consumer with a lower budget? But that’s a shift from Macro-land to Micro-land where we’d want to talk about indifference curves, expansion paths, isoquants, etc..
Edit: I think consumer micro can feel more intuitive if you’re not already familiar with it, but in this context I might suggest starting on the producer side with something like Marginal Rate of Technical Substitution?
One that strikes me as odd in this article and similar ones is the use of the term fertility. I always thought that fertility represented the ability to have children, not the willingness. When...
One that strikes me as odd in this article and similar ones is the use of the term fertility. I always thought that fertility represented the ability to have children, not the willingness. When was this term used interchangeably? Technology and medical advances such as IVF has helped actual fertility, but the willingness to have children due to a variety of social and economical reasons is what has decreased.
When used as a national statistic, fertility is simply the average number of children women have in the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate The author is a weirdo, but the...
When used as a national statistic, fertility is simply the average number of children women have in the country.
The total fertility rate (TFR) of a population is the average number of children that are born to a woman over her lifetime, if they were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) through their lifetime, and they were to live from birth until the end of their reproductive life.
I think there are some interesting points made, though his suggestions to solve the problem are ridiculous, immoral, and likely ineffective, anyway. Still, like I said, he made a few interesting...
I think there are some interesting points made, though his suggestions to solve the problem are ridiculous, immoral, and likely ineffective, anyway. Still, like I said, he made a few interesting points. I can’t help but wonder if he stole them from somewhere since his suggestions seem silly despite an otherwise thoughtful analysis and the conclusions he draws are (probably) overly-colored by his political opinions. Then again, maybe that’s a hard thing to escape. I’m sure I might be biased, too.
A claim I see here is one I tend to consider a likely cause, too - that the core reason folks don’t want kids is due to our culture. Making it financially easier is a good thing and it helps, but it isn’t enough. It’s apparently not even a strictly “western” problem, since I’m not really sure I’d consider Iran (another country mentioned) “western”. Honestly, his ideas around status would still fit with that theory rather nicely.
There is something particular about their cultural isolation and the structure of their social constitution which facilitates birthrates that other religious groups could only dream of.
…
We start to see a trend emerge: the more isolated a population is from liberal modernity, the higher their fertility.
But then this trend he suggests is adding extra political fluff that I’m not convinced the evidence supports. Could it be that plain modernity is the problem? Could it not be that children as an inferior “good” or as a detractor of economic productivity are valued less thanks to our economic system? If by “liberal” he means neoliberalism, then maybe I could understand. But I suspect he means leftists. I gotta say, I don’t blame leftists for this, I blame capitalists with zero social or legal protections from their incessant greed.
Having moved from Quebec (highest birth rate in Canada) to Ontario (middling birth rate), I have some anecdotal observations. In Quebec women have children younger, and there’s been...
Having moved from Quebec (highest birth rate in Canada) to Ontario (middling birth rate), I have some anecdotal observations.
In Quebec women have children younger, and there’s been state-sponsored daycare for almost 30 years, and more generous parental leave (for both parents) than Ontario. The attitude towards having children in Quebec is, « if you want them, have them » whereas in Ontario it’s, « I have to create stability before I have kids ».
My friends in Quebec trust they’ll be able to find childcare, housing, and schooling for their kids. My friends in Ontario stress out about finding daycare, multi-bedroom housing, and being in good school districts.
Anecdotally it also feels like my friends in Ontario are having a much harder time trying to conceive in the first place. My wife and I also went through this - it took us over a year to conceive, and ultimately it came down to the fact that my wife was just stressed.
What do all these anecdotes mean? I feel like the society we have created (work-first, dopamine-driven, hyper-capitalist) has created an environment where it feels less psychologically safe to have kids.
I think it bears consideration that a high global population (whatever that means) is not some kind of intrinsic, inherently desirable good. What's the magic number? Is it 8 billion people? 12? 4?...
I think it bears consideration that a high global population (whatever that means) is not some kind of intrinsic, inherently desirable good. What's the magic number? Is it 8 billion people? 12? 4? Is sustaining or increasing the current global population inherently desirable? To whom? For what purpose?
I find the argument that we need some kind of large number of working-age population to support their non-working elders specious. Sure, I want that to be the case when I get old so that I can enjoy comfort and ease during my old age. But self-interest is no basis for arguments over social welfare (in the broad sense of "wellbeing") policies.
The proposed policies are just on-shoring economic exploitation. In many ways, his policies are already being implemented on a global scale. Wealthier countries conspire to perpetuate poverty in poorer countries so as to ensure unfettered access to resources and minerals at deeply discounted prices, whereby they enjoy the benefits of the material goods without needing to supply the equitable capital or labor needed to produce them. These policies just propose that countries exploit their own citizens, rather than those of other countries.
Instead, we could just accept that the future will have fewer people than the present. The adjustment will not be without some discomfort for many, but in exchange, that smaller population will enjoy more freedoms with less competition and a more egalitarian distribution of mineral resources.
How will they manage the challenge of supporting a larger share of the aging population once the population pyramid flattens out? I don't know. But the challenge of sustaining a population of 3 billion can't be harder than the challenge of feeding 8. Maybe having less competition for resources will allow for a range of equitable approaches that would currently be either exploitative or exorbitantly expensive.
I don't know that slow declines in population will lead to more desireable living conditions, but again it bears asking, "Why are more people intrinsically better than fewer?"
Yes, growth isn’t always good. But promoting fertility is typically discussed in the context of national policy in a single country where population is declining. It’s not a contradiction to...
Yes, growth isn’t always good. But promoting fertility is typically discussed in the context of national policy in a single country where population is declining. It’s not a contradiction to believe that fertility is still too high in some countries (say, in Africa) while being too low in others (typical examples are South Korea, Japan, and Italy.) They are different countries with opposite problems.
This suggests “gains from trade” - that is, immigration from countries with too many people to those with too few would benefit both countries. I’m in favor of immigration because I think both sides often do gain from it, but in practice, it’s not so simple.
A focus on world population growth implicitly assumes either that all countries should have similar policies, or that there should be a lot more immigration than there actually is.
I think you’re right that a decline in population isn’t always bad. However, the rate of change will make a difference in how disruptive it is; in some countries the decline seems pretty steep?
A particular pet peeve is talking about countries and then naming Africa. Especially while not doing the same on other continents. I don't think the previous poster is unaware that this is...
Exemplary
say, in Africa
A particular pet peeve is talking about countries and then naming Africa. Especially while not doing the same on other continents.
I don't think the previous poster is unaware that this is discussed by country. Kurtz is nationalist and believes the nation is an inherent identity. But that still doesn't mean that birth rates must rise in any particular country. It is perhaps necessary to either reconsider the idea of our nations or to reconsider immigration for those reasons.
Kurtz however has particular anti-immigrant opinions, wanting government to "reverse immigration and diversity", feeling the migration has "hollowed out" Europe and that Europe is "on its way out, ethnically." And that immigrants are artificially propping up the American Catholic Church so that the message isn't being delivered to its "Native" population. (He does not mean Indigenous peoples.) His positive examples are homogenous communities that one commenter describes as being away from the liberal and multicultural cesspools. Kurtz doesn't disagree.
And thus his solutions are about increasing the number of (white) babies, reducing exposure to education and thus different ideas about the world, etc. As I noted elsewhere, he somehow managed to twist the Good Samaritan into a story about how you have to take care of your own people first. His Catholic worldview is an incredibly conservative, insular one and in my opinion, antithetical to actual Church teachings but certainly antithetical to a secular society. I don't think he'd disagree with that last bit. I find converts and reverts the most exhausting theologians most of the time.
I am aware you dislike having the opinions of the people you share mentioned instead of only reading (in this case only part of) the linked material, but once again you've linked to someone who espouses racist ideology, and one with <10k followers this time. I don't know if I've ever found a Catholic with quite this level of "in group" ideology before. And I get that Scott Alexander reposted him, but as established previously, he also supports an explicitly racist ideology. This tracks.
But I just don't see how to separate the ideas from the other, the concerns about the fertility rate are directly in line with fears of (white and Catholic) cultural collapse, he has an almost folkish insularity as his ideal, and he would see (all) women disenfranchised in the name of honoring them (white women) with the vocation of motherhood. Because you can't. The one underlies the other. I don't have the impression that he would separate them either. So I don't like trying to launder his ideas in the same of palatability. If he wanted to make them more palatable, he could.
He doesn't even seem like a real person, with the apparent pseudonym, zero real pictures of him (that profile pic is looks fake to me), no appearance on camera during podcasts, etc. Frankly he can go find his yellow light only homogenous enclave if it makes him happy, but I doubt it would since he's not, apparently, living there now.
A problem with discussing global issues is that to do it right, you need to know so much about so many different countries. I said “in Africa” out of laziness; I was vague because I didn’t trust...
A problem with discussing global issues is that to do it right, you need to know so much about so many different countries. I said “in Africa” out of laziness; I was vague because I didn’t trust my memory and didn’t want to do the search. But I was thinking of an article I posted a while back which is about coastal West Africa: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Lagos in Nigeria.
My knowledge of these countries is pretty shallow - not that much beyond a few articles. But I think it’s fair to say that they are growing rapidly and have very different problems than South Korea.
Entirely agreed that this author is very sketchy. I don’t like his “solutions” at all. But I think he came up with an interesting question, and I suggest we just take that and move on, reinterpreting it in our context, not his.
I agree that the laziness is a problem, not that it's too hard to talk about the different countries. The laziness being consistently directed at Africa specifically is a particular problem. I...
A problem with discussing global issues is that to do it right, you need to know so much about so many different countries. I said “in Africa” out of laziness; I was vague because I didn’t trust my memory and didn’t want to do the search. But I was thinking of an article I posted a while back which is about coastal West Africa: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Lagos in Nigeria.
My knowledge of these countries is pretty shallow - not that much beyond a few articles. But I think it’s fair to say that they are growing rapidly and have very different problems than South Korea.
I agree that the laziness is a problem, not that it's too hard to talk about the different countries. The laziness being consistently directed at Africa specifically is a particular problem.
Entirely agreed that this author is very sketchy. I don’t like his “solutions” at all. But I think he came up with an interesting question, and I suggest we just take that and move on, reinterpreting it in our context, not his.
I don't agree with this conclusion. The "interesting question" is built on top of that problematic foundation. It's not like the layer of plastic on a new screen where you can peel it off the top and deal with it separately. It's like trying to separate layers of 7 layer bean dip. Once constructed, it's inseparable, and to use it, you mix it together further.
It absolutely has to be discussed within the context it's proposed, and if that makes it too distasteful, then that is a problem with the source, not with our not choosing to ignore parts of it. I point out the pattern of a racist ideologue posting and sharing other racist ideologues and then it being posted here with an active desire not to mention the racist part of the ideologue. I don't want us to wash these ideas.
If there's no one proposing these similar thoughts without that underlying racist ideology then there's a fundamental racism to the proposals.
They're not "tainted", that implies contamination. They are racist. If you mix the flour into the cake batter and bake it, there is no way to pull flour back out of the final product and the cake...
They're not "tainted", that implies contamination. They are racist. If you mix the flour into the cake batter and bake it, there is no way to pull flour back out of the final product and the cake wouldn't be the same without it there.
Plenty of people talk about fertility rates and "solutions" without being racist. If you cannot come to this conclusion without being a racist ideologue to start, then the idea is born from racism.
I personally wish you'd stop posting the racist ideologues and giving them air, but I definitely won't silently wash their ideas pretending that there isn't racism (and misogyny and homophobia but I digress) baked in.
For my part, I agree with @DefinitelyNotAFae about this piece being objectionable, but I'm also glad you posted it. Normally, I wouldn't seek out this kind of opinion piece, so I don't come across...
For my part, I agree with @DefinitelyNotAFae about this piece being objectionable, but I'm also glad you posted it. Normally, I wouldn't seek out this kind of opinion piece, so I don't come across these ideas much. I certainly don't go looking for and find a robust debate about them elsewhere. Finding it here provides me with a chance to learn about it and see a rich dialogue about it.
I work with a very chatty conservative Catholic colleague who would support many of these proposals. For all I know, he reads this stuff all the time. Accordingly, I'm glad to have the benefit of the disucssion here to provide alternative perspectives to these issues when he raises them.
I think solving the problematic parts of these issues will be impossible without an international governing body to harmonize rules for immigration. The claim that transnational issues like immigration can be resolved equitably with any patchwork of nationalist policies is currently being proven demonstrably wrong. The necessary authority of such an international governing body will naturally need to come from nation states that cede a part of their sovereignty. Even if this seems distant, I think it is an inevitable, desirable outcome for an increasingly global society.
NB: I am an admirer of you and @DefinitelyNotAFae both and very flattered to find this thread on my reply.
This is a fantastic piece, and I really enjoyed reading it. There's a well-defined premise—the author presents collapsing fertility rates as a socially exisential problem—and paints a clear story...
This is a fantastic piece, and I really enjoyed reading it. There's a well-defined premise—the author presents collapsing fertility rates as a socially exisential problem—and paints a clear story connecting this "status framework" to lower fertility rates. A note before diving into my thoughts: I consider a piece of writing good if it causes me to think about things in a different way; I disagree with a lot of what the author concludes, but it caused me to think quite a lot.
I think the status framework could be quite effective for analyzing socioeconomic issues. Our current society has quite different values than past societies. Society operates off of the decisions of well-educated, well-connected, and sometimes ruthless businesspeople and politicians (i.e., venture-starters), as opposed to religious figureheads or royalty. Far more people view the uncapped accumulation of resources, and thus, power and control, as commendable than in eras past. National elections garner far more attention than local elections, as people look to the most powerful people in the world to solve problems. Pre-communications, local politicians were on the hook for people's issues.
I agree with the author that modern society's value set is opposed to having children, except for the most elite. The parenting standards of the early 1900s would be deeply frowned upon today; children were additional labor. Today, they are expected to be in school until 18. I also agree with the author that a lot of the absurd suggestions he proposes would have the effect of increasing fertility.
However, I think this piece has the same fundamental issues as a lot of strong conservative arguments I read: they accept as axioms the wrong ideas. Even if you have a strong argument, if your premise can't hold up to scrutiny, then your conclusions also can't be accepted.
In the past, fertility rates were connected strongly to economic growth. In the future, this does not necessarily hold in my view. As we approach a point in history where we are maximally exploiting the world's resources, and the world's resources (and our ability to exploit them) are going to shrink due to climate change, too many people could be a burden on your society.
If you only have enough farmland, water, and energy to support 1/2 of your population, you'll have a civil war before the other 1/2 decide to lay down and die (and that war will cause further resource depletion). In the future, our ability to sustain our society will be far more important than growth; the groups that thrive will be those that aren't greedy for growth. Even if there are more old people than young people, our technology allows such efficient resource extraction that our limitation will be those resources, and not our access to labor.
I think the author notices that our current society's set of values is unsustainable; right now, we depend on continuous growth, which we simply won't get in the next fifty years, due to decreases in both labor and resource availability. We will need to shift our value set, but I'm not convinced increasing the fertility rate will be a solution, or even beneficial, to the problems we will face.
I suspect that there is hardly any society with an attitude towards children can be summed up as “opposed.” It seems more nuanced than that? Based on popular culture, at least, Japan seems pretty...
I suspect that there is hardly any society with an attitude towards children can be summed up as “opposed.” It seems more nuanced than that? Based on popular culture, at least, Japan seems pretty pro-children and yet population is declining. The fertility rate is low in Korea, but there are government programs to boost it and I assume they have some support?
Individuals sometimes express strong opinions, but for entire societies, the situation seems conflicted.
It’s not like, say, attitudes towards teen pregnancy in the US, where mainstream opinion is that it’s a problem to be minimized.
Compare with discussions about how difficult it is for women to “have it all” in the US. This is generally understood as making difficult tradeoffs - that is, both having a career and having children are important.
You’re absolutely right. I was making a comparison in my head, not an objective statement. A more precise statement might be: modern society has emphasized values that are opposed to having...
You’re absolutely right. I was making a comparison in my head, not an objective statement. A more precise statement might be: modern society has emphasized values that are opposed to having children, and simultaneously lessened the social stigma around not having children.
Looking at figures with attention (celebrities, businesspeople, etc.), there are substantially more divorces, remarriages, and generally public admissions that the traditional family structure didn’t work for them. This would’ve been unacceptable 150-200 years ago.
I think having children has always required sacrifices from the parents, there’s just more good options nowadays that don’t involve making those sacrifices. More social mobility, more hobbies and interests to invest time in, etc.
I think it’s true that many people would like to have kids, but I think today it’s much easier to fill in the statement “____ is more important to me than having kids.” and you get less social criticism for making that statement than ages past. That’s what I meant when I said our values are opposed to (i.e., adding pressure against) having kids.
I feel like with that push of people having hobbies/interests and the ease of accessing those things at all times along with the modern social acceptance you mentioned of not having the...
I feel like with that push of people having hobbies/interests and the ease of accessing those things at all times along with the modern social acceptance you mentioned of not having the traditional family structure being a goal for many people and talked about pubicly contributes to people just not looking for relationships as well. This of course leads to them not having kids.
This may be anecdotal, but in my high school friend group (now turning 30) I'm the only who married with kids. The only other guy with kids got his girlfriend pregnant (twice now) but doesn't plan to get married and I'm not sure if they'll stay together long term. Out of the other 7 of them only 2 have girlfriends and they aren't interested in having kids. They all seem happy and I'm glad they enjoy their lives but I do wonder how much of the current culture influences them staying single. I feel like the only social criticism they would get at this stage is from their parents who would want grandkids but even then I'm not sure how much pressure that is.
Of course I'm not them and can only speculate about stuff like this. With my other friends I see a similar trend of guys just staying single or not wanting to have kids.
I have to say that the article is quite interesting and I agree that most of the stuff we do is driven by status once the most basic needs are satisfied. Even if sometimes we don't call it status...
I have to say that the article is quite interesting and I agree that most of the stuff we do is driven by status once the most basic needs are satisfied.
Even if sometimes we don't call it status but with other names...
Anyway, what i find quite strange are the proposed solution. I feel there is a dissonance there... He keeps on talking about status and how it plays a very important role in our life, so much so that i can help or disrupt the fertility rate. But his solutions don't align with this hypothesis, he seems to more interested to keep the enclosed, isolate communities doing their stuff. Something like "western civilisation is doomed so we need to preserve some niches where our culture is forbidden so they can have 7 children per family".
If status is so important and (inside this piece) we agree that we should leverage that to increase the fertility rate how come the solution is something like "less education" instead of something like "if you have a child you get an automatic promotion or a raise" / "when you have a child you have more power to drive the society so that only you can vote for some issues within the communities"? ...or stuff like that...?
No I think this is why the argument falls apart and whole separating the "good parts" from the overarching beliefs, is a foolish task. Because the alleged good parts are either a) built on the...
No I think this is why the argument falls apart and whole separating the "good parts" from the overarching beliefs, is a foolish task. Because the alleged good parts are either a) built on the foundation of those beliefs, or b) built to try to obfuscate the them. At a minimum it dishuised that he's writing from a very conservative Catholic stance which is useful information in why he supports certain things and for his worldview.
Without reading all of this work but skimming his Twitter and substack, he probably thinks the fact that women want status based on what men have is why we aren't having kids - degrees and jobs? - instead of reorienting society based on very conservative Catholic principles which do hold that being a mother is one of the highest vocations that one can have. (For women, one of 2-3 options. In fairness being a husband and father is also a vocation)
Other things this man argues:
Preferential treatment and partiality for one's "own" is morally correct and an ethical mandate.
Similarly, "You're called to love your neighbor not everyone" where he somehow twists the narrative of the Good Samaritan through some particularly bad theology to imply that your community is more important again.
Logically then that "The rich should leave their money to their children not charity". He really disliked the idea of financial charity (in contrast with charity as love)
That it is acceptable to hate, once again even moral to do so, the evil in our neighbors.
"Catholic support for migrants undermines the faith" he says in explicit response to the Pope saying the opposite. (If he's not a modern Sedevacantist I'd be shocked tbh)
He uses autistic as an insult a lot.
And that's about all I can handle from him.
I'd rather we see him baldly than avoid that. But I'm also not interested in reading his work further after this. He doesn't seem to exist outside of substack and Twitter, and is fairly minor on both. Coming across his work requires already being in that circle. He's not even mentioned on TradCath or Catholicism or the like.
While this suggestion isn't as horrific as his, it's still pretty awful when you look at it from any perspective other than encouraging people to have children at all costs. But in general I think...
"when you have a child you have more power to drive the society so that only you can vote for some issues within the communities"
While this suggestion isn't as horrific as his, it's still pretty awful when you look at it from any perspective other than encouraging people to have children at all costs. But in general I think that attempting to lower the status of people who don't have children relative to those who have children is a bad idea. It's obviously discriminatory against many queer people, for example, as well as people who can't have children for medical reasons. But for another, as someone who was raised as a woman in a conservative Christian environment, I'm well aware of what it looks like when singleness and childlessness are looked down upon, and I think it's fundamentally bad for society to try and spread those attitudes. The idea that someone is worth more or a better person because they have children simply isn't true, and fundamentally that's what the author wants to encourage culturally. Of course, the author of this article is a very conservative Catholic, so it's unsurprising that he believes the exact opposite.
It’s deeply ingrained in the culture in some parts of the US. I’m not a woman, but back in my semi-rural very church-y hometown, people (thankfully not my parents) were starting to ask if I was...
But for another, as someone who was raised as a woman in a conservative Christian environment, I'm well aware of what it looks like when singleness and childlessness are looked down upon, and I think it's fundamentally bad for society to try and spread those attitudes.
It’s deeply ingrained in the culture in some parts of the US. I’m not a woman, but back in my semi-rural very church-y hometown, people (thankfully not my parents) were starting to ask if I was gay because I had reached the ripe old age of 22 without being married and at 1.5 kids. I left not too long after that.
At that age I was ill-equipped to be a well functioning adult, let alone to be married to someone and having children with them. If I had taken that route I’m confident it would’ve ended badly, given the change I’ve seen in myself in the decade and change since.
If I imagine that effect scaled up to the majority of young adults, well, that’d be quite the mess. Some would be able to make it work but for many it wouldn’t be pretty. Lots of broken homes and unnecessary trauma for the children involved, even more missed opportunities. So yes, it’s absolutely damaging to society, potentially in a way that spans generations.
I wasn't trying to suggest a solution to the problem... i just wanted to write down a couple of draft of examples that could tackle the issue using the "status" as their pillar. ...instead of...
I wasn't trying to suggest a solution to the problem... i just wanted to write down a couple of draft of examples that could tackle the issue using the "status" as their pillar.
...instead of something completely off rails like the original author :) but i digress.
I agree with you that the example wasn't ideal even if i was thinking something like "if you have children you have a better understanding on how kindergarden or school should be run..." or stuff like that and i really didn't think through how it could be unfair torwards some people if implemented. Because that was not the point i wanted to make.
Anyway I think that the author doesn't want to suggest that having children make someone worth more per sè but that in the society we live in:
you compete for higher status
usually you get status if you have economic success
but to have success you have to sacrifice something
and usually people don't have children because they are a burden to reach success/status (and rising children isn't seen as a success)
So he suggests that maybe there is a way to increase the fertility rate making the role of parent "cool" for society, a status that people can crave to get.
But trying to answer you I am also asking to myself, though, if there is really a way to find a solution to the problem using the "status" in a non-zero sum game.
I mean... can we really rise the status of a group A without lowering the status of a group B? Just like economically we can't invest our money to solve a problem without slashing the budget on other issues.
Yeah, I think your last paragraph is pretty much what I was getting at. I think this is generally a fundamental problem with the idea of trying to raise the status of those who have kids, so even...
Yeah, I think your last paragraph is pretty much what I was getting at. I think this is generally a fundamental problem with the idea of trying to raise the status of those who have kids, so even people like you trying to come up with more reasonable ideas will stumble into it because of what "status" really entails here.
We should just ignore all the solutions recommended. I see this article as raising an interesting question: what is the connection between fertility and status? It also points at some interesting...
We should just ignore all the solutions recommended. I see this article as raising an interesting question: what is the connection between fertility and status? It also points at some interesting evidence suggesting that it's important. But it doesn't prove the connection.
There's no reason that gay couples couldn't also be rewarded for raising families. The parenting is the important part. Ideally, both childless couples and couples with large families would be accepted as different ways of pursuing the good life, just as we don't expect everyone to have the same occupation.
Too often we see dumb stuff like the opening of Idiocracy, which raises fear and suspicion of getting "outbreeded" by people who have a lot of children because they are "the other" rather than doing something essential for continuing civilization. Often this is combined with other kinds of xenophobia.
I think we already got everything to be learned from this article and anyone interested in pursuing this should probably look elsewhere for other perspectives.
I think the evidence is pretty bad personally, but I also feel that if you're connecting fertility with status and talking about "plummeting birth rates", the natural next step is to try and raise...
I think the evidence is pretty bad personally, but I also feel that if you're connecting fertility with status and talking about "plummeting birth rates", the natural next step is to try and raise the status of people who have kids relative to their peers who don't. I don't think you can give credence to the claims about status and the framing of plummeting birth rates as a problem without as t least pointing towards some sort of solution related to raising the status of those who give birth artificially -- even if you, like anyone who isn't a horrible person, don't agree with the author's unhinged suggestions for how to do so.
We currently live in a society in which, among most people, having kids or remaining childless are both seen as valid life choices. If anything, remaining childless is stigmatized relative to having kids. Any attempts to artificially raise the status of those who have kids will only amplify any existing stigma there. Infertility is already subject to stigma, and any attempt to make having kids more of a status symbol would only increase the suffering for people struggling with it.
Furthermore, while you say that it's the parenting that matters, that obviously is not the case if what you actually care about is fertility rates. I think the justification for giving people who have kids special treatment is weak, but the justification for giving that special treatment to non-biological parents is even weaker in that context. Why should gay couples who choose to become parents be given special treatment (which is inevitably the way we "raise status" here) over gay couples who don't choose to do so if, like you said, these are just two equally acceptable life choices? Especially given the amount of effort and expense it generally takes for gay couples to have kids in the first place relative to cis straight couples with no fertility issues.
I used the subtitle when I posted the link, but the actual title is “It’s embarrassing to be a stay-at-home mom.” Is that true? It seems like it might be true sometimes. I think there’s plenty of...
I used the subtitle when I posted the link, but the actual title is “It’s embarrassing to be a stay-at-home mom.” Is that true? It seems like it might be true sometimes.
I think there’s plenty of status anxiety to go around. On the one hand, you’re right, having children or not are both accepted. But maybe people still feel defensive about the choice they made? Maybe they’re not sure society has their back. Feelings are not zero-sum; it’s theoretically possible for a party to be a mutual admiration society or for everyone to feel disrespected.
Maybe a rise in status doesn’t need to he at the expense of others?
I think the relative status of parents vs childless adults varies a lot by both culture and subculture. I think talking about stay-at-home moms is orthogonal to the fertility discussion -- unless...
I think the relative status of parents vs childless adults varies a lot by both culture and subculture. I think talking about stay-at-home moms is orthogonal to the fertility discussion -- unless you agree with the author's incredibly conservative views that oppose women in the workplace -- and that there are many people who absolutely would stay home with their kids (regardless of gender) if it weren't for economic factors. If the freedom to stay home and raise one's own kids is really the issue here, it is absolutely ridiculous to talk about status when the inability of a single income to support a family is ultimately the far bigger issue.
It’s hard to discuss this in abstract terms because people imagine different people in different living situations. Any claim we make will be true sometimes. You talk about an inability to have...
It’s hard to discuss this in abstract terms because people imagine different people in different living situations. Any claim we make will be true sometimes.
You talk about an inability to have children on one income and sometimes that will be true. Other people make it work. I know people who made it work. (In one case, taking advantage of the ability to work remotely to move somewhere with a lower cost of living.)
It’s not very clear to me how much a problem status is versus the economics of having children changing. Many people do point at the economics like you do, but I think alternative explanations aren’t ridiculous and are worth exploring.
That isn’t really the issue, though. It’s that people don’t intend to procreate. The rate at which people who do want to have children have children has never been higher thanks to technologies...
Seems to me the top of the list of candidates for poor birthrate (among those who intend to procreate)
That isn’t really the issue, though. It’s that people don’t intend to procreate. The rate at which people who do want to have children have children has never been higher thanks to technologies like IVF.
Not to mention that on a global level, many of the places with the highest fertility have the most plastic contamination…
Here's an interesting theory I hadn't heard before. From the blog post:
...
...
...
...
The article goes on to make a bunch of recommendations that seem terrible (everything extreme conservatives want), so that's really the best part and I don't recommend reading the rest. Interesting if true. Hopefully someone else will study this to see if it holds up.
"Interesting angle", and provides nice food for thought. I did enjoy reading "a" new take on fertility, because it is a very serious problem. To second your opinion, I would also encourage others to read the first part, and also to skip the middle linking to the conclusion. The links are very very poorly connected, this would have gotten an F at my high school English class, not for boldness of ideas (we were also encouraged to write teenage ridiculous, grandiose and delusional manifestos if we can support it) but for how choppy the logic flow is, how many unsubstantiated claims it makes, and how far it requires to reader to leap between ideas. I'll copy pasta the end so no one else has to slog through the middle.
The conclusion is almost comically bad. Actually no, it's comically evil. Basically, build isolation patriarchies and enslave the women as baby factories. Then generationally, through sanctioned discrimination, keeping the girl children as stupid and as locked up as possible. It's not asking for the entire nation to do this, he claims, but he is asking authorities to turn a legal blind eye to abusers in exchange for higher birth rate. Eerie similarity to Handmaid's Tale - I'm surprised he didn't mention doling out wives to high status, obedient young men. Pay attention to how much it internally conflicts even in this excerpt: don't worry, it's all voluntary, except the numerous draconian laws necessary in many of the numbered items and what voluntary means for women and children.
I know its bad faith to focus on the author more than the text but I could not help myself. I don't like that I gave discount Jordan Peterson $7 (seriously, his first post was How to find a traditional wife by pretending to be a normal person and fostering unhealthy dependence) but its a fascinating insight into researching from the conclusion. It embodies the hyper-conservitive ideal of every societal problem being progressive illnesses and always solved through tradition, isolationism or abusive hierarchy.
This article is enough to highlight his thinking. He identifies so many factors contributing to the phenomenon across multiple cultures, formulates a grand philosophical conclusion rooted in status and prestige (that will definitely not permanently mess up everyone's self esteem) and even provides policy that will immediately fix the issue. But let me demonstrate an alternative research method:
I asked a married , college educated, career woman why they don't want kids -
Short answer: They don't want to.
Long answer: Low income and no job security (someone with a masters degree), stonewalled career, debt, rent, cost of child-everything, history of health issues, bad school options, no support structure, negative effects on body, existential anxiety, dangerously toxic grandparent ...
Is there anything that will change her mind: If it were safe, easy and affordable they might consider it.
Asked a married, college educated, career woman why she had a kid -
Short answer: Because she wanted to.
Long answer: She owns her own home. They have the income, savings and support to afford it and handle most issues. She has a supporting husband that shares the load with.
Why don't they have more kids: They barely have enough time and energy for the first child, each other and themselves. Also the financial situation is not as stable.
Doesn't that sound like far more sane way to find the root of the issue. Aren't these sensible reasons for and against having kids. It would save a lot of time if someone expanded this revolutionary method by formally studying the history, culture and lived experiences of the people affected, then presenting their findings..
But that's beside the point. Dude is just the Catholic Jordan Peterson throwing pseudo-intellectual BS to kids with horrible prospects and directing their anger at people who should "know their place".
[Twirl Patriarchy Mustache]
Ahh, see, my dear /u/SloMoMonday, but there is a glaring, elementary flaw in your research methodology: you were asking the women! [/Twirl]
In all honesty, I read the post late at night and it kept me up with anger. The icon photo is one of those phony AI strong men pedophile pics isn't it, and the tag line of the profile is stomach turning:
My dude, you even pointed out Georgia is doing it right and Georgia is part of the East of the East West Schism. They're Eastern European. And NKorea is doing terrible. All of asia is doing terrible for fertility!!
Watch this space for further rant [/old woman grumble fist shake]
Edit: haha touché, who listens to women, and old, past fertility years women, to boot.
The funniest thing about these strong dude fantasy realms is that they think patriarchies are for men. It's not. Patriarchies are for A Few Men. In horrible polygamy circles, younger males are routinely run out of the enclave to further concentrate resources. The most fertile set ups are never 50-50 men women, they're always a King/Sultan/Czar/Cult Leader Supreme/Prophet/All Father and his 500 enslaved women. It's actually the men who will suffer the most in these set ups, but like young teens reading Brave New World all thinking they're hot sh*t Alphas, they're not. Nothing is less secure as a bunch of other men in his kind of a world. The women will be enslaved, but the vast majority of the men will be gone.
There's a reason why China installed the One Child Policy: they were poor as dirt and vastly illiterate and unable to feed everyone. The kind of enclave he's envisioning is not going to be as productive as free societies where people are happy and women contribute labour and ideas. The poorest places on the planet have positive fertility rate for a reason. In a culture like he's proposing, you have to feed 100% of the citizens on at best 50% of the outside-of-home labour. It's not going to be competitive against a civilization with 50%+ work force, to say nothing of happiness.
Even if one discounts contribution from all women, a society with massively inhumane policies always has to spend a significant amount of resources for internal security against uprising instead of going forward, and will always be spending money to prevent escape from their hell holes. In his fantasy these enclaves still enjoy 'Merica trade and prosperity and advantages, I guess. But how will they prevent flight and brain drain?
The most disgusting thing about all this, though, is that if you read the comments (maybe don't) there is no shortage of Serena Joy type women cheering for this kind of rhetoric. They really think they'll enjoy all the rights and freedoms and resources they have today, while being able to lord it over dem libs and their childless cat ladies.
Perhaps a form of this kind of society can exist. One where there's no Prophet at the top: we already have more than enough frozen sperm to populate a solar system. We have weapons and tech and the role of brute force is diminishing by the day. Power tools, power suits, and maybe the older women can take hormonal supplements if we need more of (...?) I fail to see why even cult enclaves like the one he suggests needs him and his ilk in them at all.
Yeh. I really wanted to point out the AI picture and how parts of his recent stuff seems to follow the cadence from Essay Writing Data Models. Like over defining concepts
Or just how they wormed their to the completely incorrect conclusions based on easily referenced facts like how he states:
but if you just dig into Mongolian fertility:
edit: sauce
So with just one additional fact, it looks a lot like Jordan's precious FREE MARKET CAPITALISM TANKED FERTILITY RATES IN HIS EXAMPLE COUNTRY AND FAMILIES MIGHT GROW WITH INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT.
But unlike the author, I decided to be charitable since Humans and LLM seem to have the same capacity for ignorance.
On that note, if you want something to really rant about, might want to look into this guys views on charity.
It probably sounded better in the original Russian.
I love this response
Seriously, the policy list is purest Duginism.
I’m not going to defend the author, but it doesn’t look like AI to me. Also, using the wrong names for people makes your post rather hard to follow.
Well, if it said old man grumble fist shake, maybe I would.
Classic Substack bullshit, I see. And of course the random jump to Eastern Orthodoxy; these turds love that shit despite having a very dim conception of how the world actually works (Religion? Who asked? You're not going to convert the whole world to your little religion du jour, and you'll change your mind next time 4chan decides to care about a different one anyway).
Pointless drivel as usual.
:p obligatory: in the last number of years, Eastern Orthodoxy has sadly become a magnet for a particular type of convert, who left Evamgeliciam and Catholicism when they werent radical conservative enough for them, and they look at us and go ah yes the true Christiandom from before the Enlightenment that must be where men were Real Men™ and none of this women are people nonsense. But not all of us are like that.....this last weekend we just celebrated the beginning of the new Liturgical year which begins with the Nativity of our most important Saint, the Theotokos, and the year ends with her death. .....I'd like to offer that a lot of these types come into the physical building and don't like how we do things and leave, and go back into Internet Orthodox corners instead.... I'm sorry
In addition to all the normal handmaid's tale shit in there, I love that he thinks:
His horrendous opinions aside, one circle I can't square with these people is how he expects capitalism-loving America to be on board with removing women from the labor pool. Over 50% of American households are dual-income, and removing women from the labor pool will drive up labor costs.
Children need to be taken care of either way. Daycare might be worth it for small families since it frees up the parents to work, but prohibitively expensive for large families? Economically, you could think of it as specializing in daycare / education by people who are better at that. It doesn't mean everyone needs to do it.
But in order for it to be high-status, we'd need some confidence that the people who have large families actually are doing a pretty good job of it, and I think often, people are skeptical. Particularly when you don't share their values.
One might even call it a separate sphere of excellence - a domestic sphere that just so happens to be politically subservient to the other. Funny how that works. ;)
But it doesn't really answer the question. Capitalists in this country are used to the productivity gains and labor costs from two-income households. If the labor pool becomes smaller - which would be the natural outcome of the authors comedically evil suggestions - where is the difference made up?
I'm not sure who you mean by capitalists? I expect investor sentiment to change based on economic conditions and professional managers to make forecasts and plans based on what they expect to happen. Meanwhile, politicians and government officials make policy.
If labor became more scarce then I guess that would be incentive to try to make it up somehow, with higher wages and further investment in labor-saving technology.
(Every so often we worry about the opposite problem: what if AI eliminates too many jobs?)
At least here in the US, politicians are in large part influenced by businesses. There are many problems with this model, but it's also what I feel makes his evil proposals complete non-starters.
Such policy asks businesses to be on board with policy designed to encourage women to abstain from the labor market - thereby making the cost of doing business higher. I don't see businesses hopping on board with these sorts of policies.
There are ways to offset this increase, such as increasing reliance on prison industry complex slave labor, illegal immigrants, and offshoring - but you could do all of those things anyway while also not raising the costs of domestic labor at the same time.
I think proposals to restrict women's rights would be opposed by just about everyone and subsidies for mothers might be opposed as too expensive and ineffective.
But I'm doubtful that any businesses would telling politicians "you can't do this because we need the workers" because the push to stop discrimination against women in the workplace comes more from feminists than from businesses. Backroom deals are not needed when you can just support women's rights and things working women want.
Also, notice that businesses benefit from hiring immigrants and yet it's very hard to get pro-immigration laws passed. Business is not really in charge - they often don't get their way.
This is a poor example. Businesses are getting their way in this arrangement.
Illegal immigrants aren't citizens. This means that they are missing many of the rights and protections that citizens have. Employers can pay them for pennies on the dollar and threaten them with deportation.
On paper there are consequences for knowingly employing undocumented workers, but standard operating procedure seems to be to look the other way, especially in sectors that are reliant on immigrants like agriculture.
Politicians might take advantage of anti-immigration sentiment to get elected, but you will never see any legislation to that effect that has any teeth.
Sure, it depends on the business. Some businesses that depend on immigrant labor will look the other way, while others have lots of lawyers and are wary of taking unnecessary legal risks. I believe the Big Tech companies are mostly in favor of more legal immigration.
It's also worth pointing out that many companies are in favor of what helps their employees, not on every issue, but on things like gay rights.
The big tech companies do want legal immigration, but on restrictive visas that limit their workers' ability to negotiate or leave for a different job. Different tactics, same objective.
They do hire employees who are on restricted visas, but this is the first I've heard about them actually preferring it that way. Do you have a source on that?
No, only anecdotes. But the very fact of the restricted visas makes those employees less able to negotiate regarding their position.
You're conflating discrimination in the workplace and women being removed from the workplace entirely. Business (as a category) wants women in the workplace (deflating the value of labor by expanding the total pool) but also are often fine with some wage and other discrimination (lowering the necessary wages required to keep women, and thus lowering overall payroll costs.)
Maybe, but I doubt that changes anything as far as the politics is concerned.
It's just a different way of looking at it. They aren't for or against women's issues as a category; they're for things that drive down the price of labor and against things that drive up the price of labor. As such, those issues intersect with the issues relevant to women in ways that don't easily map if you're only thinking about businesses as being "for" or "against" women.
It's also worth noting that this isn't a rational process. Biases like this aren't rational - the assumption of which jobs are women's work, or which kinds of women should work, the willingness to discriminate against good employees due to perceptions of inconvenience or appearance, etc.
It could be hypothetically some broader "Business" best interest to have women in the workplace. That doesn't mean that some business owners and decision makers don't want to push (white) women out of most or all of it.
I’m kind of disappointed something so low quality was shared.
The first three sentences of the second paragraph are basically a giant, flashing “Stop” sign:
That’s as far you need to go before you close the tab and move on.
On the contrary I was very happy to see this share from skybrian --
(1) it's an interesting and important topic
(2) it's coming from an angle outside of my usual framework
(3) gave me an opportunity to think about my own assumptions and if it makes any more sense than the writer's,
(4) skybrian gave good warning ahead of time so I brought my Diligence hat with me when I started reading >:D
(5) the discussion sparked from this community has been insightful and wonderful.
I don't know what it is but sometimes very high quality content on Tildes don't get a lot of engagement, so I'm thrilled when we get a thread like this. My sincere apologies if my original comment sounded too grumpy, it was an intrigued kind of grumpy? Like, internet armchair "umm, actually this person is wrong on the internet let me fix this!" Kind of excitement?
I agree it’s nice to see fuller, longer-lived conversations. skybrian and everyone else have seemed cordial and well intentioned in these comments.
And approaching things from outside your normal framework is laudable, so is challenging your own assumptions.
But doing that based on a rando LiveJournal post that starts with obviously flawed reasoning, ends with explicitly discriminatory proposals, and plays loose with factual accuracy?
I did recommend not reading that part.
I think this is the sort of situation where it would be fine to copy the entire section from the blog post that you want people to read, and then just post that section as a (text) topic here on Tildes. Then, at the bottom of the topic body, you could just include a little "hey the rest of this is really awful but if you want to subject yourself to reading it then here it is: https://becomingnoble.substack.com/p/its-embarrassing-to-be-a-stay-at" kind of message for anyone who was willing.
Also, doing it that way would (I think) make it much less likely for the comments to focus on the bad parts of the blog post you warned them about (though I think the discussion in this instance has been fine), and instead the discussion would be more likely to focus on the sections that you actually posted to Tildes (if that's what you're going for)
Yeah, maybe that would have been better. We did get some decent discussion out of it, so I guess that’s a win.
They keep talking about this like it is some kind of catastrophe to be avoided.
It is not a good or or a bad thing that fewer people want to have kids. It is a neutral fact. It is our choice, stop trying to tell us it's wrong.
I think there’a a distinction between individual choices and what makes sense for society as a whole to promote with incentives. I wouldn’t expect incentives to work for people who have overriding reasons not to have kids, and that’s fine. But on the margin it can make a difference. And one thing I thought was interesting is the idea of selectively encouraging parents to have one more child, going from two to three, for example. Hopefully they are stable families already? It would be a way of building on success, rather than assuming everyone has to do the same thing.
It’s unclear to me how much a problem decreased fertility actually is. For rich countries that are more open to immigration and are also able to attract immigrants that would be a good fit, maybe it’s not a problem? The US and Canada are clearly attractive to immigrants. But that’s not necessarily true everywhere.
Yes definitely the marginal people can be nudged a little bit to have one, or have more, and maybe they'll actually be happier for it too if they could swing it, with dignity and security.
I feel like even though the article is terrible, the Topic is important and interesting -- babies are nice and babies make people feel nice. Having a society of old people who've eaten up the future of the young is terrible, and we need to make sure society encourages people to feel some kind of future they can envision children in.
I giggled at @babyPuncher 's username on this thread, seems interestingly relevant....I used to be the annoying teen who makes dead baby jokes and was staunchly Noner. But I became less of a terrible person (edit: independently of my stance on kids I was terrible for other reasons) after I had some exposure to happy well adjusted families, to responsible and loving parents, to community that builds up one another and encourage each other to make choices that focus on a happy communal future.....
For those who choose not to, we must protect their right not to feel lesser than or forgotten or stigmatized or attacked or made to feel irrelevant. But we must also try to do similar for those who choose to have kids lovingly....
One unsavory consequence of this is that often we're pulling the creme de la creme from the labor pools of emigration countries, which stifles their development. That's not really fair and could arguably be construed as a modern form of colonialism. If you don't filter off the best, you're now playing with massive problems if you allow relatively unfiltered access. Not the least of which is the massive resurgence of xenophobic authoritarianism we're currently seeing. And without either immigration or addressing fertility, you're looking at a hell of a demographic problem. I also don't really see a global long-term future that I like where this continues to remain unaddressed: If the leaders in human development now don't start to work on the problem, eventually it's going to blow up in the faces of currently-developing countries too, and they'll have nowhere to turn for immigration. And I don't think actual degrowth policies will realistically happen. So eventually this will mess humanity up. Might as well look for a solution now, especially considering that it's an extremely long-term problem, what with every proposed solution taking potentially about a generation to study and then another to deploy.
It's true that there can be a selection effect (immigrant workers are often more ambitious and willing to work) and "brain drain" is sometimes a worry, but it overlooks that being able to work in rich countries is strongly beneficial for the workers and their families, including people back home. Remittances (sending money home) are a significant source of foreign currency for some countries. It shouldn't be looked at as a zero-sum game; both sides benefit.
I see it as smart rather than unethical to have selective immigration policies. As you say, when badly managed, immigration can be unpopular.
The future is hard to predict and I don't think we can easily predict what problems there will be many years out. But the problems of fertility seem well worth studying, even if they're not immediate problems everywhere.
I have no children, never will, and I'm on your side here. But purely based on how our economy works, it is a bad thing. Being able to retire depends on being able to live on the accrued savings of a lifetime, be it personal cash, retirement accounts, whatever. Without younger people to provide labor to keep the economy moving, the price of labor continues to rise until people who would otherwise retire choose to keep providing their labor for money. They'll do this either because they don't have enough to retire on, or because the pay is just that good, but either way, retirement as a concept depends on there being new laborers to replace the old. In the extreme, no one retires at all, and businesses start closing because the labor isn't there at any price point.
I agree with this so much.
It seems like so many people devote way too much time worrying about birth rates. Some people are concerned about there not being enough babies being born and we're going to go extinct. Other people are concerned about there being too many babies and we'll eat all the food and go extinct.
Maybe we shouldn't keep inventing apocalypses and instead focus on the stuff that's actually real?
Seriously. We are nowhere near the point where humanity will go extinct from lack of procreation. We number in the billions. That's a healthy gene pool if I've ever seen one. We're also not likely to suffer from mass starvation because as things are we are already massively overproducing food and have a huge calorie surplus that is currently part of the reason for an obesity epidemic across the globe.
And the worst thing about these worriers is that if they've actually thought through the actual details if such a thing were to happen, they probably already know that it wouldn't be an apocalypse. We're part of an ecosystem, and the ecosystem is pretty good at balancing itself out. So the things that they are actually worried about are the economics about it. In other words, the thing they are trying to defend is the status quo. People worried about underpopulation are worried about not having enough people for the labor pool to continue an economy that favors endless growth. People who are worried about too many people are worried about not being able to eat animals - or are at least are usually unable to comprehend a world where people do not eat them, and simply default to people fucking dying instead.
So I beg everyone who sees these kinds of scribes and articles to simply ignore them. They are simply not worth merit, and spreading them just makes the world a worse place.
How is it that "collapsing fertility" is so widely accepted to be an actual problem?
When i was born in the mid 60s the population was about 3 and a half billion. Now it's over 8 billion. We live on a finite planet with decreasing usable resources, including drinkable water, arable soil, and vastly increasing toxic by-products of our own thoughtless and greedy behaviors. The last thing we need is faster population growth. Fewer babies being born and the subsequent problems due to the failure of our current pyramid scheme of an economic system is vastly preferable to the inevitable devastation caused when our excess population results in planetary collapse.
(Edited to remove accidental sentence fragment)
Take a look at this page talking about the demography of that population, specifically the second chart labeled "The Demography of the World Population from 1950 to 2100". In 1950, there were way more children than old people. Each decade since then, the ratio of old people to children has shifted, with an expectation of the proportion of people in each decade of their life being nearly even by 2100.
In its own right, this is a good thing. If we can get environmental things under control we may well have a chance of staying within the carrying capacity of the planet and hit a stable population.
The challenge is the degree to which the global economy depends on an inexpensive and continually replenished labor pool. For every person in their 60s or 70s who wants to stop working, we needs someone to replace them, and also to provide them services. So the ratio of consumers to producers is expected to continue to shift. If we as a species can continue to advance technology to increase the productivity of labor and the fruits of that efficiency are evenly spread so as to take care of everyone, it won't be a problem. We could have our fully automated luxury space communism.
But our current economic structure has some problems with the looming future in which labor is rarer and more expensive than ever before.
Problem is that population shrinking and growth are happening unevenly. Ideally, all countries would gradually shrink.
The arrival of affordable, secure food supplies and basic medicine in high-fertility societies has resulted in their populations exploding: this is socially destabilizing. These countries don't have the capacity to educate and absorb all these young people into their economy, resulting in social unrest.
Low-fertility societies are experiencing different social unrest: the lack of replacement workers in their aging societies makes it difficult to support retirees, and accepting too many foreign workers can be socially and culturally destabilizing in itself.
As the pushback here shows, I don't think it's all that widely accepted in general. It's something some countries care about enough to change their policies, but that's a national perspective, not necessarily a global one.
It's enough of a trend that multiple countries care about it. I don't think it's much of a concern in the US, though?
We go back and forth between talking about the problems of too much growth and not enough. That's true of both population and economic growth.
I don't consider it to be a problem I need to spend time on for any practical reasons, but I'm interested in a lot of things I have no stake in. It's just interesting to discuss what's going on in the world.
I'm kind of bristling at the notion of status being the focal point. But if I allow a softer use of language: higher fertility happens when the entire family receives not just vain status, but
Respect, dignity, safety, security, wellbeing
I think that many of the strange arguments apply quite well if we modify them towards these more positive traits. We don't want to bring innocent children into a world where they are in danger, where their future is bleak, and where overall children are thought of as labour and consumers. We can all observe medical care of children being cut, schools being cut, teachers salary being cut etc: we can see for ourselves that our society hates children but yet is eager to exploit them. No thanks.
The example of Georgia is great. It isn't just celebrity bragging rights. Afterall, if the Patriarch is Godfather to tens of thousands of kids, what bragging rights is there over literally every parent at your kid's school? It isn't about status in the shallow, competitive and the boastful sense - it's status as in honour, dignity, and respect. They have an authority figure with resources and influence demonstrating that they care for your child, and showing a commitment not just during pregnancy and the first year, but an eternal commitment to your child's wellbeing. Even for non Church attending parents, being in a society where the powerful show commitment to your child's wellbeing confers dignity and respect and an expectation for a safe future.
We can see across the world that this is not true at all. People have more kids when safety and security are low. More kids means more hands for labor. More kids are a hedge against child mortality.
Even within the US, we see that wealthier households have fewer children.
Households that make >$200k have the fewest children despite having the most financial security and safety.
Interesting, Latino and Mormon Americans have the largest families because within their communities, having large families is seen as something to aspire to. People within these communities see their peers striving toward larger families and assimilate those goals as their own.
It would be interesting to dig into this further. My hunch is that it’s largely due to what it takes to achieve this income, which usually entails many years in school and/or the workforce and sometimes comes with piles of student loans.
Many people in this band don’t get to the point where they’re marking that much and have tuition paid off until they’re in their thirties, and some want to wait to start until they own a home which drags that timeline out even further. It’s easy to end up only being “ready” (which is something that educated couples are more likely to want) right around the age that reproductive health starts declining steeply.
It's also the problem that the metros with the highest wages usually have the worst housing supplies. My wife and I have seriously discussed adopting, but it would require moving to a bedroom suburb and driving much further to work. Urbanization negatively impacts fertility rates when there isn't space for children.
Having kids is very time and money expensive, specially if you want them to keep them in your social stratum. Families that are well off but not old-school wealthy probably work a lot themselves and might not be ok with the traditional ways of dealing with kids (shipping them to boarding school and / or having service workers deal with them).
Most monied people in my country that have more than a couple kids also belong to some kind of sect, which, religious doctrine expectations aside, also likely provide means to deal with the kids and lets them interact with other families in the same situation.
We had a few more babies after the great wars, though, didn't we? There's good stats on fertility and exposure to armed conflicts. Do you want to help me look up some research? I'm talking about, same group of people same culture same circumstances, before during after war fertility, not comparison between vastly different groups with different starting baseline of violence.
I feel like these are things where there's a bit of a U shape, where the ideal fertility rate is found where it is probably not a super cozy life, but too much hardship also cause a big drop. See North Korea fertility rate.
I'm not following the part about the great wars, but they don't represent security to me. At the time, given that two world wars had already happened in such a short time, I believe the feeling was that it could happen again. So not a whole lot of safety/security there.
Gaza's population has increased 13x in 75 years. I don't have any expertise here to fall back on, but it looks like all across the developed countries, where human rights is correlated, we're seeing declining birthrates. I think that at least gives pause to the idea that it's respect/safety/security that drives birth rates even if we can't separate out all the cultural differences. It doesn't discredit the idea of stress though. Countries with a focus on economics and human rights could also be correlated with stress (higher necessity to keep up with your peers). I don't know what the reason for declining fertility is, but I've never seen proof that it's a decrease in human dignity that does it, as sad as it is to say.
Edit: U shaped might be correct here, but then I'd argue the point where fertility is high is also not the pinnacle of respect/safety/security
I think that’s an interesting question: what explains Gaza’s high fertility rates? (Before the war.)
The fertility rate there peaked in the 1960s around 8.0, in the top 5, and declined steadily to 4.2 since the 1970s, outside the top 40. The USA’s has declined from around 3.23 to 1.88 over the same period. That’s a decline of -47.5% and -41.8% respectively.
List of Countries by Past Fertility Rates
To add on to that picture:
I’m not sure I understand where population density came from or why we would expect faster deceleration from a higher starting point?
And yeah, the birth rate in the US is higher for immigrant women than native born women and is also declining more quickly.
But are we talking about birth rate, fertility rate, population density, or population growth?
It felt like the comparison between the US and Gaza was meant to show the two had similar deceleration, so my bullet points were to show the differences that would impact that. It's impressive that Gaza only dropped their birth rate 47.5% versus the US's 41.8% when their population is like 15,000 people per square mile versus 90 people per square mile in the US.
No, it was to show that the fertility rates there “(Before the war.)” had been declining on average for 50 years and aren’t exceptionally high globally.
It’s aggregate, but TFR is similar to Kenya and Uzbekistan for example. And if you look at birth rate it’s similar to Somoa.
The intent was to show it wasn’t an outlier. The information about the US was included because it was interesting to me.
Is that more babies or just deferred babies? There are fewer babies mid-war when the men are off in another country fighting, the food is literally rationed, and there is FULL EMPLOYMENT to the point of women being pulled into the workforce in the 1940s. And if you're in Europe you might be bombed.
I haven't read the whole thing but I did stumble across a link to this paper from 1944 that may interest you.
Even if you accept the analysis that the low fertility rates can be explained by "status" I have a really hard time understanding why the proposals to fix the fertility rates don't adress the "status" issue. Instead the proposals focus on creating societies that undermines liberal values and liberties and assume that a consequence would be that fertility would therefore increase. Presumably the reason would be because women wouldn't have the option to raise their status through "success" (which according to the essay is at odds with fertility) and would instead do so through "virtue" and "dominance"?
Wouldn't a much more straight forward path be to just raise he status of parenthood in general? That could be done in a multitude of ways. The proposals just seem to attempt to frame liberal society as anathema to higher birth rates while note really presenting any evidence of this (quite to the contrary the Iran example seem to contradict it quite a bit). But alas, this is likely the intent of the author. They don't come across as interested in actually finding a solution to their perceived cause (low status of parenthood) of the issue (low fertility). Instead they just spout garbage conservative wet dreams... meh.
Yes, they are certainly pushing their agenda and it doesn’t follow; there are likely other ways. I wanted to focus on the part I quoted.
Dug a little bit into the fertility rates of different countries based on this Wikipedia article. Interestingly when comparing TFR in 2024 and looking at the change since 2022 (country by country), the thing that stood out to me was that the ones that had managed to increase their numbers by more than 0.1 points were Denmark, Estonia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden (might have missed some scrolling on the phone). Most others either had no or a very small change in TFR (below my arbitrary cutoff) OR they had a decrease in TFR. So at a minimum the above mentioned countries seem to be bucking the trend. Might be interesting to look at them to see if there are some commonalities between them...
UNPF and World Bank use slightly different methodologies.
Did you compare the 2024 and 2022 numbers on the wiki page or did you compare different years from a single source?
Just the numbers on the wiki page. So methodology might have some impact... I'd be surprised if the used methodologies would have an impact on the measurement for the Nordic countries. Sweden at least register each person born here and there's likely highly reliable official sources for the data.
Cold dark winters and/or poorer countries with conservative values? Aside from Kyrgyzstan, They're all above 50 degrees of latitude, at which point you're getting less than 8 hours of daylight a day in the middle of winter.
You'd expect to see this in at least a few other countries too then, i.e Canada, Norway, Russia.
I'm not really sure "cold dark winters" is the most salient similar feature among all those countries other than Kyrgyzstan when they all border the Baltic sea. Clearly the Baltic sea is boosting their fertility. Germany and Russia are exceptions just because they're bigger, and thus have more landmass that doesn't border the Baltic sea.
In all seriousness though, I don't think you can really draw conclusions from this "data" without doing a bunch of extremely bad not-even-statistics. It's just not robust enough and it's far too easy to find patterns in even random noise.
That's a great point. We need to start a "Bottle the Baltic" campaign to distribute this fertility-enhancing liquid across the world.
The conclusion/call for action is kind of insane, not just in its contents but the idea that these weird traditionalist compounds would even make a dent on the fertility rate of a 300m nation that is most inhabited by people that aren't weirdos who would want to live on these compounds?
IMO it's just about opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of having a child is fairly fixed, so although modern technology has made it easier, it's still one of the biggest trials mothers go through in their lives. Although not biological, it's a big commitment for (non-deadbeat) dads as well.
As people get richer, and have more things they can do, that's just going to seem a less and less attractive option. It is what it is.
I don't think it's necessarily cataclysmic like the author stipulates without evidence. You can't linearly project population numbers - South Korea isn't going to have negative people in 2100.
If you really want to alleviate it, I think you should try to reduce the risks of having children. The medical field is contributing to that all the time, and if laws would get out of the way of things like abortion access that would be helpful. Maybe a more robust orphanage system.
But in the end, it is what it is, most developed countries will probably have declining populations eventually. I don't think that's a deathspell for developed countries, or humanity as a whole. We'll figure it out.
The opportunity cost is a large component, but I’d suggest that for many it’s actually the combination of opportunity cost and financial risk.
Raising children is increasingly expensive, particularly for educated parents who want to try to situate their children as best as they possibly can (quality schooling, etc). So much so that a couple who on their own was doing well financially can suddenly find themselves walking a tightrope with the introduction of even a single child which they can easily be knocked off of by e.g. a string of unfortunate events.
In other words, for many becoming a family involves giving up whatever financial security they might’ve had, which is a tough sell on its own but becomes particularly unpalatable in addition to missing out on the opportunities that could’ve counteracted the decrease in financial security.
With that in mind, I believe that “simply” making sure that people don’t have to trade off their financial security to have kids will make a measurable positive impact.
I won't belabor the point since it's most pedantry, but opportunity cost includes, well, costs in addition to the implicit costs of not being able to pursue another opportunity. It's a strictly broader category. So opportunity cost includes the nominative financial costs of child rearing.
That being said, one thing to note is that in countries with much stronger support networks from the government, where the cost of child rearing is much lower in nominative costs, the fertility rate isn't all that much better (in fact, compared to the US, the fertility rate in Nordic countries is worse), so while from a logical point of view I doubt more social support for the financial costs of child rearing would hurt, it seems that as wealth and QoL scales up, the fertility rate does not.
There basically nowhere in the world where we observe a nation being able to have a increase in fertility by outspending it. Even in very special cases, where you have small and fabulously wealthy nations, or amazing government support, the fertility rate only goes down, on a population level, with wealth.
My opinion is that the implicit part of opportunity costs takes over in that circumstances to continue the correlation between wealth and a decreasing fertility rate.
Even if you don't need a private school, you have free daycare, you have more than enough paternity leave, you have explicit government subsidies - it still doesn't change the fact that you're committing 5-10 years of your life at minimum to have your life revolve around your child 24/7 (and it keeps going - it just gets less intense as the child ages).
It doesn't help that those years are also the prime years of a person's adult life. That's a lot to commit to. There's a lot about having children that just kind of sucks.
That's a good point. The Nordic countries offer ludicrously more parental and childcare support as well as labor protections than any other society. Nordic societies are among the most stable and safe.
Yet their fertility rates are still among the lowest.
Wealthy advanced societies have liberal cultures that celebrate and prize self-actualization and individual achievement: education, travel, sport, hobbies, etc. Even if the financial burden of raising a child were eliminated like you said, indeed the sheer time and physical and emotional labor in raising a child hinders the pursuit of these liberal values.
Acemoğlu or some other modern pop econ author had a section about birth rates in an early chapter of one of their books. And Freakonomics addressed it in 2011.
Children seem to be inferior goods, even if it might feel “wrong” to think of them that way, and they seem to have been inferior goods as far back as the 1820s.
[Edit] Consumption of inferior goods decreases as income increases. [/Edit]
This conversation isn’t new either. Harvey Leibenstein wrote about it in 1974 and 1975.
Gary Becker wrote about, most notably in 1969 and 1973:
The author’s proposals could make sense initially: make people poorer and they’ll “consume” more children. And by extension the obvious way to keep the birth rate up would be to keep people poor, which I suppose might be the ultimate goal: make and keep people poor.
And higher education isn’t a Giffen good.
Thanks for the links. There is clearly a strong correlation: families are smaller in richer countries. But maybe children aren’t always a Giffen good? Though he doesn’t use the term, the author claims that sufficiently well-off families do have more children.
Clarifying first: a country’s fertility decreases as a country’s GDP per capita increases.
Broadly speaking, from a demand perspective, children behave like an inferior good.
Yes, a consumer with a large budget may very well have more of a particular good than that same consumer with a lower budget? But that’s a shift from Macro-land to Micro-land where we’d want to talk about indifference curves, expansion paths, isoquants, etc..
Edit: I think consumer micro can feel more intuitive if you’re not already familiar with it, but in this context I might suggest starting on the producer side with something like Marginal Rate of Technical Substitution?
One that strikes me as odd in this article and similar ones is the use of the term fertility. I always thought that fertility represented the ability to have children, not the willingness. When was this term used interchangeably? Technology and medical advances such as IVF has helped actual fertility, but the willingness to have children due to a variety of social and economical reasons is what has decreased.
When used as a national statistic, fertility is simply the average number of children women have in the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate
The author is a weirdo, but the use of the term "fertility" isn't part of that.
Sperm counts do seem to be dropping as well though.
I think there are some interesting points made, though his suggestions to solve the problem are ridiculous, immoral, and likely ineffective, anyway. Still, like I said, he made a few interesting points. I can’t help but wonder if he stole them from somewhere since his suggestions seem silly despite an otherwise thoughtful analysis and the conclusions he draws are (probably) overly-colored by his political opinions. Then again, maybe that’s a hard thing to escape. I’m sure I might be biased, too.
A claim I see here is one I tend to consider a likely cause, too - that the core reason folks don’t want kids is due to our culture. Making it financially easier is a good thing and it helps, but it isn’t enough. It’s apparently not even a strictly “western” problem, since I’m not really sure I’d consider Iran (another country mentioned) “western”. Honestly, his ideas around status would still fit with that theory rather nicely.
…
But then this trend he suggests is adding extra political fluff that I’m not convinced the evidence supports. Could it be that plain modernity is the problem? Could it not be that children as an inferior “good” or as a detractor of economic productivity are valued less thanks to our economic system? If by “liberal” he means neoliberalism, then maybe I could understand. But I suspect he means leftists. I gotta say, I don’t blame leftists for this, I blame capitalists with zero social or legal protections from their incessant greed.
I'm not sure it's worth figuring out what they meant. Hopefully someone who knows something will provide a different perspective.
Having moved from Quebec (highest birth rate in Canada) to Ontario (middling birth rate), I have some anecdotal observations.
In Quebec women have children younger, and there’s been state-sponsored daycare for almost 30 years, and more generous parental leave (for both parents) than Ontario. The attitude towards having children in Quebec is, « if you want them, have them » whereas in Ontario it’s, « I have to create stability before I have kids ».
My friends in Quebec trust they’ll be able to find childcare, housing, and schooling for their kids. My friends in Ontario stress out about finding daycare, multi-bedroom housing, and being in good school districts.
Anecdotally it also feels like my friends in Ontario are having a much harder time trying to conceive in the first place. My wife and I also went through this - it took us over a year to conceive, and ultimately it came down to the fact that my wife was just stressed.
What do all these anecdotes mean? I feel like the society we have created (work-first, dopamine-driven, hyper-capitalist) has created an environment where it feels less psychologically safe to have kids.
I think it bears consideration that a high global population (whatever that means) is not some kind of intrinsic, inherently desirable good. What's the magic number? Is it 8 billion people? 12? 4? Is sustaining or increasing the current global population inherently desirable? To whom? For what purpose?
I find the argument that we need some kind of large number of working-age population to support their non-working elders specious. Sure, I want that to be the case when I get old so that I can enjoy comfort and ease during my old age. But self-interest is no basis for arguments over social welfare (in the broad sense of "wellbeing") policies.
The proposed policies are just on-shoring economic exploitation. In many ways, his policies are already being implemented on a global scale. Wealthier countries conspire to perpetuate poverty in poorer countries so as to ensure unfettered access to resources and minerals at deeply discounted prices, whereby they enjoy the benefits of the material goods without needing to supply the equitable capital or labor needed to produce them. These policies just propose that countries exploit their own citizens, rather than those of other countries.
Instead, we could just accept that the future will have fewer people than the present. The adjustment will not be without some discomfort for many, but in exchange, that smaller population will enjoy more freedoms with less competition and a more egalitarian distribution of mineral resources.
How will they manage the challenge of supporting a larger share of the aging population once the population pyramid flattens out? I don't know. But the challenge of sustaining a population of 3 billion can't be harder than the challenge of feeding 8. Maybe having less competition for resources will allow for a range of equitable approaches that would currently be either exploitative or exorbitantly expensive.
I don't know that slow declines in population will lead to more desireable living conditions, but again it bears asking, "Why are more people intrinsically better than fewer?"
Yes, growth isn’t always good. But promoting fertility is typically discussed in the context of national policy in a single country where population is declining. It’s not a contradiction to believe that fertility is still too high in some countries (say, in Africa) while being too low in others (typical examples are South Korea, Japan, and Italy.) They are different countries with opposite problems.
This suggests “gains from trade” - that is, immigration from countries with too many people to those with too few would benefit both countries. I’m in favor of immigration because I think both sides often do gain from it, but in practice, it’s not so simple.
A focus on world population growth implicitly assumes either that all countries should have similar policies, or that there should be a lot more immigration than there actually is.
I think you’re right that a decline in population isn’t always bad. However, the rate of change will make a difference in how disruptive it is; in some countries the decline seems pretty steep?
A particular pet peeve is talking about countries and then naming Africa. Especially while not doing the same on other continents.
I don't think the previous poster is unaware that this is discussed by country. Kurtz is nationalist and believes the nation is an inherent identity. But that still doesn't mean that birth rates must rise in any particular country. It is perhaps necessary to either reconsider the idea of our nations or to reconsider immigration for those reasons.
Kurtz however has particular anti-immigrant opinions, wanting government to "reverse immigration and diversity", feeling the migration has "hollowed out" Europe and that Europe is "on its way out, ethnically." And that immigrants are artificially propping up the American Catholic Church so that the message isn't being delivered to its "Native" population. (He does not mean Indigenous peoples.) His positive examples are homogenous communities that one commenter describes as being away from the liberal and multicultural cesspools. Kurtz doesn't disagree.
And thus his solutions are about increasing the number of (white) babies, reducing exposure to education and thus different ideas about the world, etc. As I noted elsewhere, he somehow managed to twist the Good Samaritan into a story about how you have to take care of your own people first. His Catholic worldview is an incredibly conservative, insular one and in my opinion, antithetical to actual Church teachings but certainly antithetical to a secular society. I don't think he'd disagree with that last bit. I find converts and reverts the most exhausting theologians most of the time.
I am aware you dislike having the opinions of the people you share mentioned instead of only reading (in this case only part of) the linked material, but once again you've linked to someone who espouses racist ideology, and one with <10k followers this time. I don't know if I've ever found a Catholic with quite this level of "in group" ideology before. And I get that Scott Alexander reposted him, but as established previously, he also supports an explicitly racist ideology. This tracks.
But I just don't see how to separate the ideas from the other, the concerns about the fertility rate are directly in line with fears of (white and Catholic) cultural collapse, he has an almost folkish insularity as his ideal, and he would see (all) women disenfranchised in the name of honoring them (white women) with the vocation of motherhood. Because you can't. The one underlies the other. I don't have the impression that he would separate them either. So I don't like trying to launder his ideas in the same of palatability. If he wanted to make them more palatable, he could.
He doesn't even seem like a real person, with the apparent pseudonym, zero real pictures of him (that profile pic is looks fake to me), no appearance on camera during podcasts, etc. Frankly he can go find his yellow light only homogenous enclave if it makes him happy, but I doubt it would since he's not, apparently, living there now.
A problem with discussing global issues is that to do it right, you need to know so much about so many different countries. I said “in Africa” out of laziness; I was vague because I didn’t trust my memory and didn’t want to do the search. But I was thinking of an article I posted a while back which is about coastal West Africa: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Lagos in Nigeria.
My knowledge of these countries is pretty shallow - not that much beyond a few articles. But I think it’s fair to say that they are growing rapidly and have very different problems than South Korea.
Entirely agreed that this author is very sketchy. I don’t like his “solutions” at all. But I think he came up with an interesting question, and I suggest we just take that and move on, reinterpreting it in our context, not his.
I agree that the laziness is a problem, not that it's too hard to talk about the different countries. The laziness being consistently directed at Africa specifically is a particular problem.
I don't agree with this conclusion. The "interesting question" is built on top of that problematic foundation. It's not like the layer of plastic on a new screen where you can peel it off the top and deal with it separately. It's like trying to separate layers of 7 layer bean dip. Once constructed, it's inseparable, and to use it, you mix it together further.
It absolutely has to be discussed within the context it's proposed, and if that makes it too distasteful, then that is a problem with the source, not with our not choosing to ignore parts of it. I point out the pattern of a racist ideologue posting and sharing other racist ideologues and then it being posted here with an active desire not to mention the racist part of the ideologue. I don't want us to wash these ideas.
If there's no one proposing these similar thoughts without that underlying racist ideology then there's a fundamental racism to the proposals.
I think we’re just going to have to disagree on that one. I don’t think that ideas can be tainted in that way.
They're not "tainted", that implies contamination. They are racist. If you mix the flour into the cake batter and bake it, there is no way to pull flour back out of the final product and the cake wouldn't be the same without it there.
Plenty of people talk about fertility rates and "solutions" without being racist. If you cannot come to this conclusion without being a racist ideologue to start, then the idea is born from racism.
I personally wish you'd stop posting the racist ideologues and giving them air, but I definitely won't silently wash their ideas pretending that there isn't racism (and misogyny and homophobia but I digress) baked in.
For my part, I agree with @DefinitelyNotAFae about this piece being objectionable, but I'm also glad you posted it. Normally, I wouldn't seek out this kind of opinion piece, so I don't come across these ideas much. I certainly don't go looking for and find a robust debate about them elsewhere. Finding it here provides me with a chance to learn about it and see a rich dialogue about it.
I work with a very chatty conservative Catholic colleague who would support many of these proposals. For all I know, he reads this stuff all the time. Accordingly, I'm glad to have the benefit of the disucssion here to provide alternative perspectives to these issues when he raises them.
I think solving the problematic parts of these issues will be impossible without an international governing body to harmonize rules for immigration. The claim that transnational issues like immigration can be resolved equitably with any patchwork of nationalist policies is currently being proven demonstrably wrong. The necessary authority of such an international governing body will naturally need to come from nation states that cede a part of their sovereignty. Even if this seems distant, I think it is an inevitable, desirable outcome for an increasingly global society.
NB: I am an admirer of you and @DefinitelyNotAFae both and very flattered to find this thread on my reply.
This is a fantastic piece, and I really enjoyed reading it. There's a well-defined premise—the author presents collapsing fertility rates as a socially exisential problem—and paints a clear story connecting this "status framework" to lower fertility rates. A note before diving into my thoughts: I consider a piece of writing good if it causes me to think about things in a different way; I disagree with a lot of what the author concludes, but it caused me to think quite a lot.
I think the status framework could be quite effective for analyzing socioeconomic issues. Our current society has quite different values than past societies. Society operates off of the decisions of well-educated, well-connected, and sometimes ruthless businesspeople and politicians (i.e., venture-starters), as opposed to religious figureheads or royalty. Far more people view the uncapped accumulation of resources, and thus, power and control, as commendable than in eras past. National elections garner far more attention than local elections, as people look to the most powerful people in the world to solve problems. Pre-communications, local politicians were on the hook for people's issues.
I agree with the author that modern society's value set is opposed to having children, except for the most elite. The parenting standards of the early 1900s would be deeply frowned upon today; children were additional labor. Today, they are expected to be in school until 18. I also agree with the author that a lot of the absurd suggestions he proposes would have the effect of increasing fertility.
However, I think this piece has the same fundamental issues as a lot of strong conservative arguments I read: they accept as axioms the wrong ideas. Even if you have a strong argument, if your premise can't hold up to scrutiny, then your conclusions also can't be accepted.
In the past, fertility rates were connected strongly to economic growth. In the future, this does not necessarily hold in my view. As we approach a point in history where we are maximally exploiting the world's resources, and the world's resources (and our ability to exploit them) are going to shrink due to climate change, too many people could be a burden on your society.
If you only have enough farmland, water, and energy to support 1/2 of your population, you'll have a civil war before the other 1/2 decide to lay down and die (and that war will cause further resource depletion). In the future, our ability to sustain our society will be far more important than growth; the groups that thrive will be those that aren't greedy for growth. Even if there are more old people than young people, our technology allows such efficient resource extraction that our limitation will be those resources, and not our access to labor.
I think the author notices that our current society's set of values is unsustainable; right now, we depend on continuous growth, which we simply won't get in the next fifty years, due to decreases in both labor and resource availability. We will need to shift our value set, but I'm not convinced increasing the fertility rate will be a solution, or even beneficial, to the problems we will face.
I suspect that there is hardly any society with an attitude towards children can be summed up as “opposed.” It seems more nuanced than that? Based on popular culture, at least, Japan seems pretty pro-children and yet population is declining. The fertility rate is low in Korea, but there are government programs to boost it and I assume they have some support?
Individuals sometimes express strong opinions, but for entire societies, the situation seems conflicted.
It’s not like, say, attitudes towards teen pregnancy in the US, where mainstream opinion is that it’s a problem to be minimized.
Compare with discussions about how difficult it is for women to “have it all” in the US. This is generally understood as making difficult tradeoffs - that is, both having a career and having children are important.
You’re absolutely right. I was making a comparison in my head, not an objective statement. A more precise statement might be: modern society has emphasized values that are opposed to having children, and simultaneously lessened the social stigma around not having children.
Looking at figures with attention (celebrities, businesspeople, etc.), there are substantially more divorces, remarriages, and generally public admissions that the traditional family structure didn’t work for them. This would’ve been unacceptable 150-200 years ago.
I think having children has always required sacrifices from the parents, there’s just more good options nowadays that don’t involve making those sacrifices. More social mobility, more hobbies and interests to invest time in, etc.
I think it’s true that many people would like to have kids, but I think today it’s much easier to fill in the statement “____ is more important to me than having kids.” and you get less social criticism for making that statement than ages past. That’s what I meant when I said our values are opposed to (i.e., adding pressure against) having kids.
I feel like with that push of people having hobbies/interests and the ease of accessing those things at all times along with the modern social acceptance you mentioned of not having the traditional family structure being a goal for many people and talked about pubicly contributes to people just not looking for relationships as well. This of course leads to them not having kids.
This may be anecdotal, but in my high school friend group (now turning 30) I'm the only who married with kids. The only other guy with kids got his girlfriend pregnant (twice now) but doesn't plan to get married and I'm not sure if they'll stay together long term. Out of the other 7 of them only 2 have girlfriends and they aren't interested in having kids. They all seem happy and I'm glad they enjoy their lives but I do wonder how much of the current culture influences them staying single. I feel like the only social criticism they would get at this stage is from their parents who would want grandkids but even then I'm not sure how much pressure that is.
Of course I'm not them and can only speculate about stuff like this. With my other friends I see a similar trend of guys just staying single or not wanting to have kids.
Yep, I agree. Thanks for clarifying.
I have to say that the article is quite interesting and I agree that most of the stuff we do is driven by status once the most basic needs are satisfied.
Even if sometimes we don't call it status but with other names...
Anyway, what i find quite strange are the proposed solution. I feel there is a dissonance there... He keeps on talking about status and how it plays a very important role in our life, so much so that i can help or disrupt the fertility rate. But his solutions don't align with this hypothesis, he seems to more interested to keep the enclosed, isolate communities doing their stuff. Something like "western civilisation is doomed so we need to preserve some niches where our culture is forbidden so they can have 7 children per family".
If status is so important and (inside this piece) we agree that we should leverage that to increase the fertility rate how come the solution is something like "less education" instead of something like "if you have a child you get an automatic promotion or a raise" / "when you have a child you have more power to drive the society so that only you can vote for some issues within the communities"? ...or stuff like that...?
...or am i missing something?
No I think this is why the argument falls apart and whole separating the "good parts" from the overarching beliefs, is a foolish task. Because the alleged good parts are either a) built on the foundation of those beliefs, or b) built to try to obfuscate the them. At a minimum it dishuised that he's writing from a very conservative Catholic stance which is useful information in why he supports certain things and for his worldview.
Without reading all of this work but skimming his Twitter and substack, he probably thinks the fact that women want status based on what men have is why we aren't having kids - degrees and jobs? - instead of reorienting society based on very conservative Catholic principles which do hold that being a mother is one of the highest vocations that one can have. (For women, one of 2-3 options. In fairness being a husband and father is also a vocation)
Other things this man argues:
Preferential treatment and partiality for one's "own" is morally correct and an ethical mandate.
Similarly, "You're called to love your neighbor not everyone" where he somehow twists the narrative of the Good Samaritan through some particularly bad theology to imply that your community is more important again.
Logically then that "The rich should leave their money to their children not charity". He really disliked the idea of financial charity (in contrast with charity as love)
That it is acceptable to hate, once again even moral to do so, the evil in our neighbors.
"Catholic support for migrants undermines the faith" he says in explicit response to the Pope saying the opposite. (If he's not a modern Sedevacantist I'd be shocked tbh)
He uses autistic as an insult a lot.
And that's about all I can handle from him.
I'd rather we see him baldly than avoid that. But I'm also not interested in reading his work further after this. He doesn't seem to exist outside of substack and Twitter, and is fairly minor on both. Coming across his work requires already being in that circle. He's not even mentioned on TradCath or Catholicism or the like.
While this suggestion isn't as horrific as his, it's still pretty awful when you look at it from any perspective other than encouraging people to have children at all costs. But in general I think that attempting to lower the status of people who don't have children relative to those who have children is a bad idea. It's obviously discriminatory against many queer people, for example, as well as people who can't have children for medical reasons. But for another, as someone who was raised as a woman in a conservative Christian environment, I'm well aware of what it looks like when singleness and childlessness are looked down upon, and I think it's fundamentally bad for society to try and spread those attitudes. The idea that someone is worth more or a better person because they have children simply isn't true, and fundamentally that's what the author wants to encourage culturally. Of course, the author of this article is a very conservative Catholic, so it's unsurprising that he believes the exact opposite.
It’s deeply ingrained in the culture in some parts of the US. I’m not a woman, but back in my semi-rural very church-y hometown, people (thankfully not my parents) were starting to ask if I was gay because I had reached the ripe old age of 22 without being married and at 1.5 kids. I left not too long after that.
At that age I was ill-equipped to be a well functioning adult, let alone to be married to someone and having children with them. If I had taken that route I’m confident it would’ve ended badly, given the change I’ve seen in myself in the decade and change since.
If I imagine that effect scaled up to the majority of young adults, well, that’d be quite the mess. Some would be able to make it work but for many it wouldn’t be pretty. Lots of broken homes and unnecessary trauma for the children involved, even more missed opportunities. So yes, it’s absolutely damaging to society, potentially in a way that spans generations.
I wasn't trying to suggest a solution to the problem... i just wanted to write down a couple of draft of examples that could tackle the issue using the "status" as their pillar.
...instead of something completely off rails like the original author :) but i digress.
I agree with you that the example wasn't ideal even if i was thinking something like "if you have children you have a better understanding on how kindergarden or school should be run..." or stuff like that and i really didn't think through how it could be unfair torwards some people if implemented. Because that was not the point i wanted to make.
Anyway I think that the author doesn't want to suggest that having children make someone worth more per sè but that in the society we live in:
So he suggests that maybe there is a way to increase the fertility rate making the role of parent "cool" for society, a status that people can crave to get.
But trying to answer you I am also asking to myself, though, if there is really a way to find a solution to the problem using the "status" in a non-zero sum game.
I mean... can we really rise the status of a group A without lowering the status of a group B? Just like economically we can't invest our money to solve a problem without slashing the budget on other issues.
Yeah, I think your last paragraph is pretty much what I was getting at. I think this is generally a fundamental problem with the idea of trying to raise the status of those who have kids, so even people like you trying to come up with more reasonable ideas will stumble into it because of what "status" really entails here.
We should just ignore all the solutions recommended. I see this article as raising an interesting question: what is the connection between fertility and status? It also points at some interesting evidence suggesting that it's important. But it doesn't prove the connection.
There's no reason that gay couples couldn't also be rewarded for raising families. The parenting is the important part. Ideally, both childless couples and couples with large families would be accepted as different ways of pursuing the good life, just as we don't expect everyone to have the same occupation.
Too often we see dumb stuff like the opening of Idiocracy, which raises fear and suspicion of getting "outbreeded" by people who have a lot of children because they are "the other" rather than doing something essential for continuing civilization. Often this is combined with other kinds of xenophobia.
I think we already got everything to be learned from this article and anyone interested in pursuing this should probably look elsewhere for other perspectives.
I think the evidence is pretty bad personally, but I also feel that if you're connecting fertility with status and talking about "plummeting birth rates", the natural next step is to try and raise the status of people who have kids relative to their peers who don't. I don't think you can give credence to the claims about status and the framing of plummeting birth rates as a problem without as t least pointing towards some sort of solution related to raising the status of those who give birth artificially -- even if you, like anyone who isn't a horrible person, don't agree with the author's unhinged suggestions for how to do so.
We currently live in a society in which, among most people, having kids or remaining childless are both seen as valid life choices. If anything, remaining childless is stigmatized relative to having kids. Any attempts to artificially raise the status of those who have kids will only amplify any existing stigma there. Infertility is already subject to stigma, and any attempt to make having kids more of a status symbol would only increase the suffering for people struggling with it.
Furthermore, while you say that it's the parenting that matters, that obviously is not the case if what you actually care about is fertility rates. I think the justification for giving people who have kids special treatment is weak, but the justification for giving that special treatment to non-biological parents is even weaker in that context. Why should gay couples who choose to become parents be given special treatment (which is inevitably the way we "raise status" here) over gay couples who don't choose to do so if, like you said, these are just two equally acceptable life choices? Especially given the amount of effort and expense it generally takes for gay couples to have kids in the first place relative to cis straight couples with no fertility issues.
I used the subtitle when I posted the link, but the actual title is “It’s embarrassing to be a stay-at-home mom.” Is that true? It seems like it might be true sometimes.
I think there’s plenty of status anxiety to go around. On the one hand, you’re right, having children or not are both accepted. But maybe people still feel defensive about the choice they made? Maybe they’re not sure society has their back. Feelings are not zero-sum; it’s theoretically possible for a party to be a mutual admiration society or for everyone to feel disrespected.
Maybe a rise in status doesn’t need to he at the expense of others?
I think the relative status of parents vs childless adults varies a lot by both culture and subculture. I think talking about stay-at-home moms is orthogonal to the fertility discussion -- unless you agree with the author's incredibly conservative views that oppose women in the workplace -- and that there are many people who absolutely would stay home with their kids (regardless of gender) if it weren't for economic factors. If the freedom to stay home and raise one's own kids is really the issue here, it is absolutely ridiculous to talk about status when the inability of a single income to support a family is ultimately the far bigger issue.
It’s hard to discuss this in abstract terms because people imagine different people in different living situations. Any claim we make will be true sometimes.
You talk about an inability to have children on one income and sometimes that will be true. Other people make it work. I know people who made it work. (In one case, taking advantage of the ability to work remotely to move somewhere with a lower cost of living.)
It’s not very clear to me how much a problem status is versus the economics of having children changing. Many people do point at the economics like you do, but I think alternative explanations aren’t ridiculous and are worth exploring.
That isn’t really the issue, though. It’s that people don’t intend to procreate. The rate at which people who do want to have children have children has never been higher thanks to technologies like IVF.
Not to mention that on a global level, many of the places with the highest fertility have the most plastic contamination…