One function of social science is to sell cope: to tell societies what they want to hear on challenging topics. I wish it weren’t so, but it is just a response to demand, in a market where the truth has no immediate payoff. Once, women had more children than they wanted. Many women died in childbirth, and children often died young too. Over time the birth rate came down, first in Europe and then elsewhere as societies developed. But it did not stop coming down when women had as many children as they wanted. Instead, now in most advanced societies they have fewer children than they want, and fewer than the replacement rate, so the native-born population is shrinking.
Kids are expensive. Actually birthing the child is expensive in many places, feeding and clothing (and diapering) is expensive, etc. At a certain point where having children is more of a choice (in the world of easy birth control, easy divorce, more gender equality in work, etc.), being able to pay for it is going to be a big part of the decision.
In particular, childcare is expensive. I wonder if there's any way to compare numbers on societal groups or countries or whatever where it's more or less common for a relative (eg grandmother) to look after kids so both parents can work (this might explain why descendants of some immigrant groups continue to have more kids).
So if I read this right, the explanations that have been proposed for the continuing decline of fertility are:
- the progressive package: divorce law, welfare states, contraception, working women, feminism. also: state pensions
- hyper-individualism (Van de Kaa)
- declining religiosity
- older fears of overpopulation
- gender equity theory, saying that it's the result of an mismatched partial transition to true gender equity
Is this an exhaustive list? I'm not super well read on social sciences, but I think I've seen other possible factors mentioned, that might also be relevant, such as:
- rising standards of living, which could be the underlying cause of both progressivism and individualism (in that we can now afford them), but also have direct effects on the family
- changes in domestic economy: kids used to be helping hands in a traditional farming or herding environment, now they're a net economic drain until the late teens at least; also as material things get cheaper, professional human attention gets comparativily more expensive, so the health care and education needed to raise a kid become larger as a share of family expenses
- a rising sense that civilization on Earth is globally threatened - by nukes since the mid 20th century, plus now by climate change and a whole assortment of eco crises - "is this the kind of word you'd want your kids to grow in"?
- possibly a feeling of saturation from high levels of interconnected population - a sense of overwhelming creative and economic competition of all-against-all
But if were to improvise a speculative narrative right here, I'd add: the traditional religious injunctions to breed and multiply *were themselves already a major cope*. Because the sex drive came much before, and in pre-modern times, that means lots of breeding. So it's more like giving a post-hoc blessing to something that was already happening, to nudge it in socially helpful directions maybe, but not to make it happen altogether.
The big change, to put in very general terms, is that we now have individual control. By an large, a kid happens only when both parents want it to. Ironically, now that we control the process, religious or cultural injunctions to breed can actually be effective, because there is more of a decision that can be influenced.
Finally, I don't give much credence to people saying "I'd prefer to have more children, but". I rather think people are basically expressing their preferences with their actions, but then projecting the reasons outward to because it feels more comfortable to do so.
Kids are expensive. Actually birthing the child is expensive in many places, feeding and clothing (and diapering) is expensive, etc. At a certain point where having children is more of a choice (in the world of easy birth control, easy divorce, more gender equality in work, etc.), being able to pay for it is going to be a big part of the decision.
In particular, childcare is expensive. I wonder if there's any way to compare numbers on societal groups or countries or whatever where it's more or less common for a relative (eg grandmother) to look after kids so both parents can work (this might explain why descendants of some immigrant groups continue to have more kids).
So if I read this right, the explanations that have been proposed for the continuing decline of fertility are:
- the progressive package: divorce law, welfare states, contraception, working women, feminism. also: state pensions
- hyper-individualism (Van de Kaa)
- declining religiosity
- older fears of overpopulation
- gender equity theory, saying that it's the result of an mismatched partial transition to true gender equity
Is this an exhaustive list? I'm not super well read on social sciences, but I think I've seen other possible factors mentioned, that might also be relevant, such as:
- rising standards of living, which could be the underlying cause of both progressivism and individualism (in that we can now afford them), but also have direct effects on the family
- changes in domestic economy: kids used to be helping hands in a traditional farming or herding environment, now they're a net economic drain until the late teens at least; also as material things get cheaper, professional human attention gets comparativily more expensive, so the health care and education needed to raise a kid become larger as a share of family expenses
- a rising sense that civilization on Earth is globally threatened - by nukes since the mid 20th century, plus now by climate change and a whole assortment of eco crises - "is this the kind of word you'd want your kids to grow in"?
- possibly a feeling of saturation from high levels of interconnected population - a sense of overwhelming creative and economic competition of all-against-all
But if were to improvise a speculative narrative right here, I'd add: the traditional religious injunctions to breed and multiply *were themselves already a major cope*. Because the sex drive came much before, and in pre-modern times, that means lots of breeding. So it's more like giving a post-hoc blessing to something that was already happening, to nudge it in socially helpful directions maybe, but not to make it happen altogether.
The big change, to put in very general terms, is that we now have individual control. By an large, a kid happens only when both parents want it to. Ironically, now that we control the process, religious or cultural injunctions to breed can actually be effective, because there is more of a decision that can be influenced.
Finally, I don't give much credence to people saying "I'd prefer to have more children, but". I rather think people are basically expressing their preferences with their actions, but then projecting the reasons outward to because it feels more comfortable to do so.
You missed urbanisation in your analysis. Seems the primary reason for dropping fertility rates