Dropping birth rates

[CogitoMori]

Politicians wondering why the birth rate is dropping in the US are out of touch, willfully ignorant, and simply uneducated. Why do birth rates drop in nature? Because of a lack of resources. When the adults are starving they do not reproduce because they do not have the energy or resources to do so. Humans are not any different. When you constantly deprive working people of resources in order to make more profit, they are also deprived of the ability to provide for someone other than themselves, and the elites are therefore deprived of their precious birth rates that create more wage slaves for them. If you want a larger herd, you feed the herd.

 

[LostLily]

Considering how expensive everything , having children is a luxury.

Put aside the argument that when you have a child you are of burdening them with living in a messed up world and in a life of pain and worry.

 

[Hvergelmir]

I sympathize with the reasoning, but I don't think it matches observation.
Observation indicates the straight opposite. Birth rates are low in rich countries, and high in poor ones.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/birth-rate-by-country

I think it's a cultural thing. Children does not support the family or give much security in the modern world.
In the modern west particularly, children are a liability not giving anything back. In some parts of the world they are both free labor and a security for retirement.
(I'm intentionally painting extremes.)

The right and the left are both contributing to and trying to solve the problem, in various ways.
I don't think there's any unified agenda of the 'elites', on this.

 

[Alexei_Kirillov]

Birth rates are low even in the richest, happiest, healthiest countries. As @Hvergelmir mentioned, it's moreso a cultural thing.

My personal take is that having children has always been a pretty gnarly, disagreeable experience, especially for women, but in the past (and in impoverished countries today) people simply didn't have a choice, both due to biological (ie. sex drive) and social factors. We figured out the biological part a few decades ago with the advent of modern contraceptive methods, but the social aspect had a bit of a lag and took longer to catch up to the new reality. For example, in the 1980s it was still socially expected that pretty much everyone would have children, despite contraception being widely available.

Now, our social mores have finally caught up to the technology, and we are realizing that there isn't actually a very strong case to be made for having children, at least from an individual perspective. As such, reproduction is being left to only those who genuinely value childrearing, which is only a minority (or perhaps a plurality) of the population -- which is probably for the best.

 

[Pluto]

 

[EvisceratedJester]

I sympathize with the reasoning, but I don't think it matches observation.
Observation indicates the straight opposite. Birth rates are low in rich countries, and high in poor ones.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/birth-rate-by-country

You do realize that people in poorer countries generally lack access to sex-ed and contraceptives, right? In no way does this disprove the OP's points. Most people in wealthier nations aren't having children due to things, such as the cost of living going up and longer working hours. Being child-free is something that is generally much easier to accomplish in wealthier nations compared to many poorer ones, due to differences in access to contraceptives, sex-ed, education and job opportunities for women, rights, etc.

 

[Hvergelmir]

In no way does this disprove the OP's points.

I proved a correlation between high GDP and low birth rates.
I'm then assuming a correlation between low GDP and low average personal wealth.

If you agree with that assumption, OPs implied claim; that low wealth leads to low birth rates is disproven, at least as an absolute.
Instead I claim that what correlation can be seen, is the inverse of that.

The Scandinavian countries have excellent child care benefits, with paid time off work for parents and free education, among many other things. The birth rates are not significantly better there than in the U.S.

contraceptives, sex-ed, education and job opportunities for women, rights, etc.

All those things are also correlated with high wealth.
I think my point is still valid, but I'm not disagreeing with the other factors presented.

I perceived things from an economic perspective. Alexei did an excellent job of adding a more socionomic one.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

I proved a correlation between high GDP and low birth rates.
I'm then assuming a correlation between low GDP and low average personal wealth.

If you agree with that assumption, OPs implied claim; that low wealth leads to low birth rates is disproven, at least as an absolute.
Instead I claim that what correlation can be seen, is the inverse of that.

The Scandinavian countries have excellent child care benefits, with paid time off work for parents and free education, among many other things. The birth rates are not significantly better there than in the U.S.

Correlation doesn't equate to causation and in no way does this disprove the OP's points. As I've stated before, being child-free is something that is easier to accomplish in most developed nations compared to less developed nations. Along with that, Scandinavian countries also have issues with high cost of living that would still make having a child something that is undesirable, even with things like child care benefits.

 

[Hvergelmir]

Correlation doesn't equate to causation

I never used a correlation to support a causation, but if the hypothesized causation predicts the inverse of what's observed, it's either not a deciding factor, or it's wrong.

OP states that humans stop procreating when faced with scarcity, and specifically starvation.
The implied hypothesis is that starvation cause decreased birth rates.
This causation simply isn't supported by data. There are however plenty of correlations all indicating that the opposite might be true.

Not everyone likes data, but I do. I think it's an important tool to understand the world. If anyone have data correlating scarcity with decreased birth rates, feel free to share it.

Until then,
Hvergel, out

 

[CogitoMori]

I proved a correlation between high GDP and low birth rates.
I'm then assuming a correlation between low GDP and low average personal wealth.

If you agree with that assumption, OPs implied claim; that low wealth leads to low birth rates is disproven, at least as an absolute.
Instead I claim that what correlation can be seen, is the inverse of that.

The Scandinavian countries have excellent child care benefits, with paid time off work for parents and free education, among many other things. The birth rates are not significantly better there than in the U.S.

All those things are also correlated with high wealth.
I think my point is still valid, but I'm not disagreeing with the other factors presented.

I perceived things from an economic perspective. Alexei did an excellent job of adding a more socionomic one.

I was specifically talking about the US in my original post, so I suppose the original point was that poor people in wealthy nations are incapable of providing for children and thus having fewer. In impoverished nations though, you will still see the fact that poor people are incapable of providing for their children through child mortality rates. Their birth rates may be higher, but the lack of resources to provide for the children birthed is still evident.
You both bring up excellent points btw. I liked reading this discussion.

 

[BlackEyedDog]

It is a mix of choice, though conservatives would like to see women have less of it and religious fanatics are pretty much always conservatives. And it is also due to economic worry. With absurd levels of income inequality, people can't afford to have children. Conservatives prefer people worry about their livelihoods, being pro-business and all. Like Abbott and DeSantis outlawing water breaks for workers working in the deadly heat-touting how pro-business they are as the reason. The liberals have played their part, stopped fighting for working people. But this failed system, late stage capitalism is unsustainable and there is greater awareness of it. People have not been paid living wages, their labor and lives have been exploited. And some amount also cite climate concerns.

 

[Hvergelmir]

I was specifically talking about the US in my original post, so I suppose the original point was that poor people in wealthy nations are incapable of providing for children and thus having fewer.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/

I wish you were right. I think the world would have been a better place then.

 

[CogitoMori]

https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/

I wish you were right. I think the world would have been a better place then.

They are having fewer. It's gone from 14 per 1000 people to 11 per 1000 people from the 90s to the present

 

[untothedepths]

id like to say that while richer countries do have low birthrates, some, especially in the US, have extreme economic disparity when compared to all the rich fucks out there. i think its cultural, but mostly the shitty parts of unfettered bastardized capitalism. everything is a cost. not to mention the treatment of women, anti-abortion rights where even willing mothers die on the operation table because the procedure to save her life was an abortion. then conservatives wonder why so many babies are found in dumpsters. when you take that right and safety from a women, they will not risk having children. you'll then see those same assholes lobby to get rid of contraceptives. all to have more children, no matter the cost. even a rapist impregnating a child. they dont care. prolife might as well mean "capital at any expense".

men especially have been done no favors culturally either. andrew tate readily tells men how inferior they are, and how to change themselves in a way that they either become abusive towards women or repel them even more. the pain some men face is notable, but instead of having good role models to look up to for strong, compassionate, caring men, they have those assholes.

lets talk about war now. global politics. i think this is understated. look over at gaza. look at all those families and communities destroyed. that could be anyone. i wouldnt want to bring a child into the world just to be blown up to smithereens or them. the world doesn't deserve children until sick fucks stop responding to every problem they have with bombs and ammunition. i know that's an incredibly idealistic way of looking at it, but its a serious issue.

 

[Hvergelmir]

andrew tate [...] treatment of women, anti-abortion rights [...] gaza [...] bombs and ammunition

I couldn't help myself but asking: Can I see Andew Tates influence on the birth rate? (That would be crazy!)


US birth rate
It might be a bit early to dismiss the idea, but the data so far does not support that Tate or recent anti-abortion laws have affected the birth rate.

What would birth rates look like if the U.S was less capitalist? There's no data on that, but we could look at other countries.

Cuban birth rate - Lower than U.S.; same trend

Chinese birth rate - Higher than U.S.; same trend

I also failed to see any correlation between war and birth rate, but war and scarcity could very well be counteracting factors, cancelling themselves out.

As a curious side note. If economy is affecting birth rates that probably go both ways. We ought to be able to see a spike in birth rate during economic turmoil.

Greece did have briefly increased birth rate during the government-debt crisis, 2007-2008.
It's a single data point, but an interesting one.

The truth is in the data, not anecdotes about unfairness and suffering. Please, test your hypotheses against the data, when it's easily available.
Dislike unfairness and suffering, because it is what it is, but try to not project that onto unrelated issues.