It’s contraceptives. It started dropping as soon as they became widely available, starting in the West, and never stopped. (The norms around family rearing certainly changed as well, in response)
People really like sex. Kids get a more mixed reception.
Contraceptives and easy access to them are definitely a big part of it. The largest factor in birth rates is access to education for women. Higher levels of schooling lead to delayed marriage, later childbearing, and fewer total children.
Yep, and that’s probably through better access to and knowledge of contraception and other kinds of family planning. In really patriarchal societies men don’t have to worry as much about the difficulty of raising a high number children. Or giving birth to them.
Although, at that point it’s speculation, there’s no hard data backing that I’m aware of.
I think it’s because we’ve “solved boredom”. Sometimes with heavy, hectic, stressful events that come one after the other, sometimes with passive media, or algorithmically generated media, or doomscrolling: shows, clips, or posts designed to engage or entertain, other times with little clicker, distraction-style games; all of it seems to just drain every last drop of dopamine anyone can muster until there’s no room for anyone to have volition of their own. It tends to put a damper on the amount of time and energy one has for more longer meaningful interactions, and you end up almost, but not quite, completely content to microdose human interaction with single-serving friends by making comments on posts like this one (or the various parasocial interactions with internet micro-celebrities, or much worse, hallucinating a meaningful conversation with a statistically probable paragraph generator like the ones in the post).
Yeah I am aware of this fact too. The effect of sentiments about life and economic level are I think interleaved in someways. Sentiments about life might have a bigger effect when you are in a certain economically comfortable zone that you can really start to think about how the future of the world will effect your life. In fucked up places, people just live day to day and are in survival mode. I believe I have once read something that goes along the lines of “poorer demographics generally have tendency to make more children because they think that more children is the most sure way to secure their near future for when they get older”. Another possibility is that in a certain comfortable economic zone you have more time and opportunity to receive knowledge about what is going on in the world at large and therefore get psychologically affected by it more. In survival mode you don’t have much other chance than really just thinking about day to day businesses.
In fucked up places, people just live day to day and are in survival mode. I believe I have once read something that goes along the lines of “poorer demographics generally have tendency to make more children because they think that more children is the most sure way to secure their near future for when they get older”
I think it’s simpler than that. Nothing to do when you’re poor and overworked so you just fuck. Oh, and less caring about the consequences.
I don’t think this tracks.
The countries with the highest fertility rates are some of the poorest, most fucked up, with the worst conditions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fertility_rate
Evolution of societal norms for all sorts of reasons seems to be a much bigger factor.
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It’s contraceptives. It started dropping as soon as they became widely available, starting in the West, and never stopped. (The norms around family rearing certainly changed as well, in response)
People really like sex. Kids get a more mixed reception.
Contraceptives and easy access to them are definitely a big part of it. The largest factor in birth rates is access to education for women. Higher levels of schooling lead to delayed marriage, later childbearing, and fewer total children.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3449224/
https://wol.iza.org/articles/female-education-and-its-impact-on-fertility/long
Yep, and that’s probably through better access to and knowledge of contraception and other kinds of family planning. In really patriarchal societies men don’t have to worry as much about the difficulty of raising a high number children. Or giving birth to them.
Although, at that point it’s speculation, there’s no hard data backing that I’m aware of.
I think it’s because we’ve “solved boredom”. Sometimes with heavy, hectic, stressful events that come one after the other, sometimes with passive media, or algorithmically generated media, or doomscrolling: shows, clips, or posts designed to engage or entertain, other times with little clicker, distraction-style games; all of it seems to just drain every last drop of dopamine anyone can muster until there’s no room for anyone to have volition of their own. It tends to put a damper on the amount of time and energy one has for more longer meaningful interactions, and you end up almost, but not quite, completely content to microdose human interaction with single-serving friends by making comments on posts like this one (or the various parasocial interactions with internet micro-celebrities, or much worse, hallucinating a meaningful conversation with a statistically probable paragraph generator like the ones in the post).
I have the answer: https://www.nber.org/papers/w35310
Yeah I am aware of this fact too. The effect of sentiments about life and economic level are I think interleaved in someways. Sentiments about life might have a bigger effect when you are in a certain economically comfortable zone that you can really start to think about how the future of the world will effect your life. In fucked up places, people just live day to day and are in survival mode. I believe I have once read something that goes along the lines of “poorer demographics generally have tendency to make more children because they think that more children is the most sure way to secure their near future for when they get older”. Another possibility is that in a certain comfortable economic zone you have more time and opportunity to receive knowledge about what is going on in the world at large and therefore get psychologically affected by it more. In survival mode you don’t have much other chance than really just thinking about day to day businesses.
I think it’s simpler than that. Nothing to do when you’re poor and overworked so you just fuck. Oh, and less caring about the consequences.