I mean why are birth rates always the highest in the poorest regions? Makes you think that money likely has little to do with reproductive rates, and more along the lines of women gaining education and having access to family planning methods.
Which means that women are more likely to stay at home taking care of the kids. And if they do work, they do so part time. Which still leaves time to take care of the kids.
The regions with low birthrates usually have women working full time. And full time means 8h+.
I bet people would be having more kids if people that can work from home, worked from home. And if full time meant 6h instead of 8h+.
That way, instead of working husband + stay at home mom, we could have commuting parent and WFH parent.
With the added benefit of commuting parent having a shorter commute since there would be a lot less people commuting.
Nordic countries have lower overall working hours, and don’t see increased birthrates. And make higher salaries. It’s almost like when women become educated and have access to family planning methods, they don’t have as many children.
This perception is largely overblown though, there is some difference but the poor in western civilisation still do not produce enough children on average to get to a sustainable population number.
What might be a part of it is that globally the poorest region there is a lot of internal solidarity and community building.
Helping each other out becomes second nature if it means that the neighbourhood will have your back during worst times. Forming the village to raise a child.
Add other factors like normalised child labor and indeed no access to contraception or general healthcare (including normalised child death, my European great grand parents have also mentioned the concept of basically “backup” children and normalised loss of siblings)
Some people migrating from such cultures may take some of it with them. People who raised around big families may want to replicate their image of a family but this seems to rapidly decline with each following generation.
The west has a long history of living from exploitation. we build a culture around “civilized /s” families having wealth and became financially competitive. When things go bad there is rarely ever someone to help because either “i don’t have this problem so it must be your own fault” or “no one helped me when i was in that position”
I don’t remember my latest source on this and i spend to long typing this to go look but the statistics i saw that showed that immigration is not the answer to declining population because they don’t produce enough kids either for sustainability was recent data from this year.
A lot of what people miss is the importance of safety and security. People don’t have kids when they reach a certain income level. They have kids when they are reasonably confident they can give their children a decent living.
A subsistence farmer in Subsaharan Africa can have a much more secure existence than the working poor of countries like the US. People are poor, but they live on land they own or at least have assured access to through shared community rights. They may not have much money, but they have security. They can have kids, and at the very least, the kids can always take over the farm from their parents. The parents probably want the kids to go get an education and be more successful than themselves, but at the very least, the kids will have no worse a life than the parents do.
Compare that to developed countries. You pay monthly for rent that can skyrocket at any time, paid for with a job that can disappear at any time. And I would say raising kids in a rural African village is probably feels a lot more reasonable than trying to raise kids in a studio apartment built in a car-dependent American suburb.
Might be less that the subsistence farmer is so secure and more that they need the kids as a retirement plan. Most of the countries with falling birthrates have some sort of national pension for old people.
American? Would explain why you haven’t heard of national pensions. Though I thought even Americans had Social Security.
Or you mean the other thing? Dude that’s exactly what we did here 150+ years ago. If you have a bunch of kids, they’ll provide your upkeep in old age. Some will tend to the farm, others may help in other ways (get a job in a city or even abroad, send money back home).
People have kids when they can reasonably assume that their kids will have the same level of lifestyle they do. People judge wealth relatively. They feel ready to have children when they can provide their children with a similar level of resources and opportunities they had. What barometer do people have other than their own childhood?
That’s not hard to guarantee as a subsistence farmer, as long as they own or otherwise have secure rights to the land. It’s a secure but impoverished existence. Sure you’re not immune from the weather, but that’s true for both parents and children. “Let’s have kids. Sure we don’t live in a big fancy city, but if it’s good enough for us, at worst it can be good enough for them.”
Compare that to wealthy people in developed countries. If you’re a middle class person now and want your kids to have the same lifestyle you do, better be prepared to help them with the down payment on a house.
The poorest may reproduce the most because they are going to be poor either way, and they might also not have as much means to avoid it. But it is definitely a consideration for middle class people in developed nations who may have reasonably comfortable lives if they don’t reproduce but will put themselves into hardship if they do.
I think there’s actually a bath tub curve with reproduction.
Also, poorer nations tend to have less protections for children/youth in the labor sector, so having more children can be beneficial in that you can send all of them out to earn money.
This is also happening with reproduction
“Don’t reproduce if you can’t afford it”
But also
“Why are fertility rates falling into the abyss?”
I mean why are birth rates always the highest in the poorest regions? Makes you think that money likely has little to do with reproductive rates, and more along the lines of women gaining education and having access to family planning methods.
Turns out it was the men that wanted the children the whole time. Which definitely tracks with my experience. Men want women to sacrifice for them.
Usually they have lots of kids so they have kids to help with the farm plus most of these countries are very conservative
Poorer regions usually are more conservative too.
Which means that women are more likely to stay at home taking care of the kids. And if they do work, they do so part time. Which still leaves time to take care of the kids.
The regions with low birthrates usually have women working full time. And full time means 8h+.
I bet people would be having more kids if people that can work from home, worked from home. And if full time meant 6h instead of 8h+.
That way, instead of working husband + stay at home mom, we could have commuting parent and WFH parent.
With the added benefit of commuting parent having a shorter commute since there would be a lot less people commuting.
Nordic countries have lower overall working hours, and don’t see increased birthrates. And make higher salaries. It’s almost like when women become educated and have access to family planning methods, they don’t have as many children.
This perception is largely overblown though, there is some difference but the poor in western civilisation still do not produce enough children on average to get to a sustainable population number.
What might be a part of it is that globally the poorest region there is a lot of internal solidarity and community building.
Helping each other out becomes second nature if it means that the neighbourhood will have your back during worst times. Forming the village to raise a child.
Add other factors like normalised child labor and indeed no access to contraception or general healthcare (including normalised child death, my European great grand parents have also mentioned the concept of basically “backup” children and normalised loss of siblings)
Some people migrating from such cultures may take some of it with them. People who raised around big families may want to replicate their image of a family but this seems to rapidly decline with each following generation.
The west has a long history of living from exploitation. we build a culture around “civilized /s” families having wealth and became financially competitive. When things go bad there is rarely ever someone to help because either “i don’t have this problem so it must be your own fault” or “no one helped me when i was in that position”
I don’t remember my latest source on this and i spend to long typing this to go look but the statistics i saw that showed that immigration is not the answer to declining population because they don’t produce enough kids either for sustainability was recent data from this year.
Or its causal and having kids makes you poor.
A lot of what people miss is the importance of safety and security. People don’t have kids when they reach a certain income level. They have kids when they are reasonably confident they can give their children a decent living.
A subsistence farmer in Subsaharan Africa can have a much more secure existence than the working poor of countries like the US. People are poor, but they live on land they own or at least have assured access to through shared community rights. They may not have much money, but they have security. They can have kids, and at the very least, the kids can always take over the farm from their parents. The parents probably want the kids to go get an education and be more successful than themselves, but at the very least, the kids will have no worse a life than the parents do.
Compare that to developed countries. You pay monthly for rent that can skyrocket at any time, paid for with a job that can disappear at any time. And I would say raising kids in a rural African village is probably feels a lot more reasonable than trying to raise kids in a studio apartment built in a car-dependent American suburb.
Might be less that the subsistence farmer is so secure and more that they need the kids as a retirement plan. Most of the countries with falling birthrates have some sort of national pension for old people.
Sure, you could just make some shit up. That also works.
American? Would explain why you haven’t heard of national pensions. Though I thought even Americans had Social Security.
Or you mean the other thing? Dude that’s exactly what we did here 150+ years ago. If you have a bunch of kids, they’ll provide your upkeep in old age. Some will tend to the farm, others may help in other ways (get a job in a city or even abroad, send money back home).
The periphery is of course the past.
Dude, that’s a very dumb take…
Only if you confuse security with income.
People have kids when they can reasonably assume that their kids will have the same level of lifestyle they do. People judge wealth relatively. They feel ready to have children when they can provide their children with a similar level of resources and opportunities they had. What barometer do people have other than their own childhood?
That’s not hard to guarantee as a subsistence farmer, as long as they own or otherwise have secure rights to the land. It’s a secure but impoverished existence. Sure you’re not immune from the weather, but that’s true for both parents and children. “Let’s have kids. Sure we don’t live in a big fancy city, but if it’s good enough for us, at worst it can be good enough for them.”
Compare that to wealthy people in developed countries. If you’re a middle class person now and want your kids to have the same lifestyle you do, better be prepared to help them with the down payment on a house.
Nice analysis. Thank you for posting.
The poorest may reproduce the most because they are going to be poor either way, and they might also not have as much means to avoid it. But it is definitely a consideration for middle class people in developed nations who may have reasonably comfortable lives if they don’t reproduce but will put themselves into hardship if they do.
I think there’s actually a bath tub curve with reproduction.
Also, poorer nations tend to have less protections for children/youth in the labor sector, so having more children can be beneficial in that you can send all of them out to earn money.
Send? Don’t they yearn for the mines?