Looks like this is mostly caused by fertility dropping in lower wealth segments and by more people getting advanced degrees. That is, this isn't an uptick. The poor and uneducated are just catching up to the rich and educated.
I’ve always found it weird, amusing, and jarring how many aspirational cultural norms have this lag in lower wealth segments.
I feel like having a choice makes it easier to cater to changes. Your wealthy friends want this totally modified behavior pattern thats deemed more productive and collaborative. While you can always just go get the traditional regressive thing whenever you want, from people that value that, until you get tired of paying for all the meals for example.
Smack dab in the middle, upper middle for the area. But that was in an overleveraged mortgage, no budget for college tuition, kind of way. Always playing around in both worlds then.
Mostly upper middle now, with a few starving artists around for the serotonin.
This touted research flies in the face of lots of our learned experience about fertility. Namely that Asian countries like Japan and South Korea have been paying for and accommodating things like childcare and even high cash payments for births without an increase in fertility to show for the extra spending.
I think the correlation with the perceived uptick (couldn't find the study so I can't see how significant it actually was) may just be a correlation. The countries listed have had excellent maternity leave and childcare benefits for decades so why only see a change now?
My hunch, and it's very much just a huge grain of salt hunch, is that people choose to have kids when they feel the sacrifice is worth it. Having kids is a sacrifice no matter how much the govt pays for stuff and no matter how much "dads do laundry" or anything like that. Dads also can desire not to have kids if it means extra work for them.
I think the focus on demography, on a shrinking / aging population and the dire forewarnings about this have started to resonate with more people.
I also think current events might shape people's views on having kids. With Israel/Palestine fighting a war largely because the democracy of Israel refuses to consider extending voting rights to a larger population than its preferred population, it makes people think about how having kids gives you an anchor and a say in future generations, esp. in democratic countries with high immigration (something Japan and South Korea, who spend tons on encouraging fertility largely for naught) don't have.
I'm not trying to place any value judgments on anyone these are just the things I think motivate having kids. They are harder to study though because people don't honestly say these things. It's rare to hear someone say they want kids so they have a say in the future, but it's true and most of us know that to be true.
My anecdotal experience is that the wealthy are more likely to have either 0 or >= 3 kids and the middle class more likely to have 1 or 2. The middle class stops due to time/money resource constraints.
The poor historically have had more children because it was cheap labor (and a lack of birth control options). Much of that labor is no longer as valuable to people for various complex reasons, and contraceptives are more widely available.
I think this is overall a positive trend, as it is likely to lead to a reduction in children being born into situations where they are not adequately cared for. If at some point we see a need to create more incentives for people to reproduce, that sounds fime to me.
> If at some point we see a need to create more incentives for people to reproduce, that sounds fime to me
Population is declining in about half of the world countries, see that table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fer... Among them are very developed and rich countries: South Korea, Japan, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Australia.
In most of these countries, governments realized long ago that rapid population decline is bad for the economy. In some of them like Japan, governments started implementing various incentives decades ago. As you see from the numbers in that table, these incentives didn’t work.
> If at some point we see a need to create more incentives for people to reproduce, that sounds fime to me.
But lots of evidence shows this doesn't work because no amount of incentives changes the fact that having a kid is a sacrifice. People need a reason to make such a sacrifice. And the decline of religion, nationalism, etc. with the rise in isolation, individualism, cosmopolitanism, etc. gives people few reasons to sacrifice for the future in the form of bearing children. Not that any of those things are bad or good, but they are the declining and rising trends in the world.
In fact, I'd argue as nationalism rises in the rich European countries this study profiled, so too do you see birth rates slightly rise
> no amount of incentives changes the fact that having a kid is a sacrifice
My thought here is that the types of incentive(s) matter more than the amount.
> I'd argue as nationalism rises in the rich European countries this study profiled, so too do you see birth rates slightly rise
This to me simply describes another type of incentive (albeit an incredibly challenging one to implement intentionally or well). It may be more abstract/fuzzy/undefinable but that's still what it is.
This example brings to mind concepts of culture, community, a stronger sense of social trust, and an expectation of support/assistance more aligned with the parents' values in raising a child. Now, all we have to do is come up with a form of 'nationalism' which works nearly anywhere but has fewer downsides... which is, of course, a difficult and unsolved problem.
Insofar as one's beliefs about sacrificing for the greater good being an incentive, yes, it's all about aligning incentives.
But having a child isn't seen as a responsibility one has to one's own parents, who sacrificed to have them, or a responsibility to one's people, culture, or religion anymore.
That's the ultimate root of all these problems. People now get to choose whether or not to have a kid, and not everything people choose is good for society.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 44.7 ms ] threadI feel like having a choice makes it easier to cater to changes. Your wealthy friends want this totally modified behavior pattern thats deemed more productive and collaborative. While you can always just go get the traditional regressive thing whenever you want, from people that value that, until you get tired of paying for all the meals for example.
Mostly upper middle now, with a few starving artists around for the serotonin.
I think the correlation with the perceived uptick (couldn't find the study so I can't see how significant it actually was) may just be a correlation. The countries listed have had excellent maternity leave and childcare benefits for decades so why only see a change now?
My hunch, and it's very much just a huge grain of salt hunch, is that people choose to have kids when they feel the sacrifice is worth it. Having kids is a sacrifice no matter how much the govt pays for stuff and no matter how much "dads do laundry" or anything like that. Dads also can desire not to have kids if it means extra work for them.
I think the focus on demography, on a shrinking / aging population and the dire forewarnings about this have started to resonate with more people.
I also think current events might shape people's views on having kids. With Israel/Palestine fighting a war largely because the democracy of Israel refuses to consider extending voting rights to a larger population than its preferred population, it makes people think about how having kids gives you an anchor and a say in future generations, esp. in democratic countries with high immigration (something Japan and South Korea, who spend tons on encouraging fertility largely for naught) don't have.
I'm not trying to place any value judgments on anyone these are just the things I think motivate having kids. They are harder to study though because people don't honestly say these things. It's rare to hear someone say they want kids so they have a say in the future, but it's true and most of us know that to be true.
I think this is overall a positive trend, as it is likely to lead to a reduction in children being born into situations where they are not adequately cared for. If at some point we see a need to create more incentives for people to reproduce, that sounds fime to me.
Population is declining in about half of the world countries, see that table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fer... Among them are very developed and rich countries: South Korea, Japan, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Australia.
In most of these countries, governments realized long ago that rapid population decline is bad for the economy. In some of them like Japan, governments started implementing various incentives decades ago. As you see from the numbers in that table, these incentives didn’t work.
But lots of evidence shows this doesn't work because no amount of incentives changes the fact that having a kid is a sacrifice. People need a reason to make such a sacrifice. And the decline of religion, nationalism, etc. with the rise in isolation, individualism, cosmopolitanism, etc. gives people few reasons to sacrifice for the future in the form of bearing children. Not that any of those things are bad or good, but they are the declining and rising trends in the world.
In fact, I'd argue as nationalism rises in the rich European countries this study profiled, so too do you see birth rates slightly rise
My thought here is that the types of incentive(s) matter more than the amount.
> I'd argue as nationalism rises in the rich European countries this study profiled, so too do you see birth rates slightly rise
This to me simply describes another type of incentive (albeit an incredibly challenging one to implement intentionally or well). It may be more abstract/fuzzy/undefinable but that's still what it is.
This example brings to mind concepts of culture, community, a stronger sense of social trust, and an expectation of support/assistance more aligned with the parents' values in raising a child. Now, all we have to do is come up with a form of 'nationalism' which works nearly anywhere but has fewer downsides... which is, of course, a difficult and unsolved problem.
But having a child isn't seen as a responsibility one has to one's own parents, who sacrificed to have them, or a responsibility to one's people, culture, or religion anymore.
That's the ultimate root of all these problems. People now get to choose whether or not to have a kid, and not everything people choose is good for society.