[NYT] The Feminist Case for Spending Billions to Boost the Birthrate

They want the kids
but
they don't want the responsibility

i.e. Pro-Life but not Pro-living

Rocket River

 

This is quite an extreme case of arguing for larger government friend lol

On the "more on Sweden" part, you would think if social welfare could drive up fertility rates that there would be at least a some bump for these countries with significantly greater social programs (greatly reduced / free at point of service childcare, college, generous parental leave) but it does nothing.

The only developed country in the world with a fertility rate still above replacement is Israel, and I think it's likely due to the social culture engrained by their religion rather than a special economic advantage.



Continual decline from 1800's to a free fall during great depression, post ww2 bounce back, free fall after 1960, stable (but how much is southern border immigration carrying these numbers?), from 75 to 08 housing crash, currently in gradual decline ever since, despite the economy bouncing back by the point of before covid.

Is it economic or just the social reaction to economic events, a mix, I don't know.

I feel culturally an increasing number of younger people view children as an enormous burden and annoyance, not necessarily just having them either but also simply being around them (In restaurants, airplanes, movies). The tolerance of being inconvenienced and general patience levels don't seem to be very high right now. Being parents in the age of social media is also a hell of a thing, where does one find the time required for kids with constant distractions, a lot of people have focused on the social media effect on kids, but those kids have grown up to now be social media addicted parents which seems worse.


As a personal antidote, my wife and I had a lot of kids young, and we received remarks from multiple family members disapproving, some mildly concerned, some incredibly angry and harsh. Unless you are a well off married couple in your 30's, having kids is viewed by many as a catastrophe.

 

At this point
I'm ready to check our food and pharmaceuticals more than any social issue

Rocket River
C-O-N-Spiracy

 

The optimal age for a successful pregnancy, and the highest fertility is going to be from late teens to 25.

The average age for a womans first child in the US is now over 27, and for a man is over 30.

Obesity and environmental factors are probably playing a real role in lower fertility rates, but we are also, by choice, having kids so late that we are aging ourselves out of fertility.

 

You're close to the problem.

Having kids is a lagging indicator of personal prosperity.

People aren't having families because they are financially insecure.

So, however you want to tackle the problem, the root of the problem is economic.

It's a sad state of affairs how we little we value family growth amongst our western democratic peers.

 

If we want women to have more kids, we need to make more guys women want to have kids with. That means this incel/bro stuff has to end and we need more men who want to have relationships with women and not just girls. We need to put a renewed emphasis on public education and stop climate change. It would also help if we had solid health care initiatives that prioritized women's health care needs instead of some insane anti-vaxx nonsense and wacky religious policies.

 

Then why is the fertility rate substantially higher in Mississippi than Massachusetts?

 

Putting the birth rate problem on one gender's shoulders is not the right call.

It's the same problem with saying that feminism and women's lib caused all this.

The data is clear. The strongest corollary for fertility is economic stability.

Men who cannot find economic footing are more likely to become incels. Women who can't find a mate (read: non-incel) are more likely to become cat ladies.

This is an Ouroboros problem, cyclical, with no beginning and no end. What affects one side inevitably affects the other.

 

Just because you're not wealthy doesn't mean you're economically insecure.

Wealth disparity plays an equally important role.

In places where everyone is equally poor, birth rates don't suffer as much.

 

Is the argument that people in Mississippi are on average more financially secure than their counterparts in Massachusetts

 

If your wealth (or lack thereof) is more or less in line with the rest of your community, you're not going to see as much of a negative affect on the birth rate.

And yes, sex ed and cultural attitudes towards sex have something to do with it. But also average age.

 

So it's not actually an economic thing but a social reaction to relative economics instead you think?

 

No, wealth inequality is very much an economic thing. The disappearance of the middle class has coincided super similarly with the dropping birth rate.

Also, I should have caveated this by saying this applies to wedded births/family formation. Mississippi's birthrate disparity over Mass looks like it can be explained almost entirely by teen pregnancy.

 

It's Mississippi, what else you gonna do besides ****?

 

So you think wealth inequality is greater in Massachusetts than Mississippi ?

So not prosperity

 

No. It's a multi variable problem. On average you will find that financial insecurity is the strongest factor in determining birthrate, and wealth inequality is one of the strongest causes of financial insecurity (the jist of which being that cost of living is outstripping people's earnings).

Like I said, I'm talking about family formation. Those planned births are affected far more by economics than unwedded/teen births.

Because, of course, people who unintentionally get pregnant aren't thinking about economics as much. They're just ****ing to ****.

 

The “feeling” of financial insecurity might be effecting birth rates, but the question is when is that feeling ever going to satisfied and realized at? All data shows the more money, the less kids. It’s pretty much the opposite of your assumption.

The OP article makes a more logical case by saying the more you earn, the more income a woman is losing by having kids, and are hence increasingly de-incentivized.

By the time most people are “wealthy enough” to finally have kids they are too old. It’s the exact scheme of idiocracy lol

The culture around what it takes to be “ok” with having a kid feels problematic. If a declining population is a problem. I honestly don’t know, but I do take note about my kids growing up in a world with increasingly less economic focus geared towards youth.

 

Communist!

 

I probably made a mess of this by using "birthrate" and "family formation" interchangeably when they really aren't.

For most purposes, I think when people talk about the falling birthrate with concern, they are talking about family formation. Not always, but most of the time.

I don't think most folks want increased unwedded/unplanned/teen pregnancies, etc. So any discussion I approach from the angle that we're trying to increased wanted and planned births, particularly to married couples in stable relationships.

To that end, yeah there may be an inverse relationship (or my better guess is a "U" shaped distribution) with income and family size, but that point doesn't contradict my early posts when you consider the left side of that pregnancy bell curve is likely far more of the unplanned/teen variety.

If all we care about is people fartin' out kids willie nillie it's a completely different discussion vs. if you're trying to encourage stable family formation.

You can have a society with that "U" shaped distribution (x axis income vs. Y axis # of children) and be OK, as long as the bottom of that "U" represents the vast majority of your population (meaning that you have a large 'middle class'... which we don't and are losing ever more of every day).