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Wow that's well below replacement fertility. Also dysgenic since intelligent and responsible people are more likely to follow the moral fad. For me it demonstra

Wow that's well below replacement fertility. Also dysgenic since intelligent and responsible people are more likely to follow the moral fad. For me it demonstrates the importance of obeying my conscience and not caring what neighbours and other people might say. It's easier for me to do that nowadays since I'm not dependent on a local network of reciprocal favours in order to survive. But still I wonder how many neighbouring families both secretly wanted another child but were each afraid what the other might think.

ImSkeptical 9y ago
It's not a moral fad at all. Women, including highly educated women, typically prefer having more children than they have [1]. 60% of women in the EU say they have less than the ideal number children. Women all over the world want more children than the replacement rate (makes sense) and in the developed world they have fewer children than this. The reason women have fewer children nowadays is because of women's liberation - specifically in terms of education and professions. Working and studying requires time and dedication, and that conflicts with having and raising a child. I don't really know how to solve this problem other than force women to choose between careers and children as they currently do. The best thing I can think of is subsidizing child care, trying to get more jobs that can support a family (so one parent can work and one can child raise), better maternity and paternity leave, and maybe making it more common to take a year or two off around 18 to 20. 1 - http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/11/birth-rates-lag-in-europe-and-the-u-s-but-the-desire-for-kids-does-not/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/11/birth-rates-...
- erasemus 9y ago
  The 'moral fad' I was referring to was what took place in protestant Slovakia beginning in the 1800s, not about human fertility/fecundity today. From the article: >In XIX. century the trend of having a single child took hold among protestants of the historical regions of Novohrad, Hont, Malohont and Gemer. >it seems that if you had multiple kids back then you've got criticized and laughed at by your friends and neighbors.
- slv77 9y ago
  >The best thing I can think of is subsidizing child care... Since most childcare providers are women and programs with high adult to child ratios are preferred doesn’t this lead to the strange situation where a large parts of the workforce are taking care of other people’s young children? This story reminds me of two similar stories. One was a fad in England where middle class wet nurses were employed by the wealthy. The middle class then passed their children down to the lower class and the lower class to the lowest class. The result was the lowest class mothers wet nursing a half dozen children. The second story was that in communist Russia the early leadership was obsessed with economic efficiency. The thought of mother’s raising their children was considered a waste of resources and so the idea was that the state would take over raising and caring for children. Professionals would be better equipped and trained and, more importantly, more efficient! The result was a nearly feral generation of children that almost collapsed the country. Raising young children is just very labor and resource intensive. Forgoing having children frees up a tremendous amount of economic resources and can temporarily boost consumption. In economics this is known as the one time “generational dividend” that if squandered leaves society poorer and not richer.
  - ImSkeptical 9y ago
    Yeah, I agree that's a problem too. The problem seems to come from when women entered the work force, society neglected to take a roughly equal amount of men from the work force. This resulted in a surplus of labor and therefore diminished costs of labor, and therefore families needed to have two people working, and now they don't have the time and resources for children. I'm a believer in the idea that we should be using productivity to ease the obligations of labor. Ideally we could get back to one person per household working, or even better, both parents doing part time work (though I believe this plan requires socialized medicine). This would give plenty of time for child raising and wage earning, and distribute the burdens evenly among parents. In recent years women have faced a declining happiness according to self reported results. We also have dwindling populations in the developed world and exploding populations in the under developed world where ideally that would be reversed and we could send the developing world doctors, engineers, teachers, etc. I see these problems as connected by the fact that women are structurally limited by society from pursuing their biological drive towards children whereas men, who don't face declining happiness, live in a society that encourages their biological drive (sex).
- amazingman 9y ago
  In the context of the parent comment it very much was a moral fad.
- vilmosi 9y ago
  >>> Working and studying requires time and dedication, and that conflicts with having and raising a child. In a hypothetical world, this decision should not be a woman's decision only. Why don't we have this problem with men? >>> I don't really know how to solve this problem other than force women to choose between careers and children as they currently do. Force men to make the same decision?! Why only women have to choose?
xr4ti 9y ago
I have a problem with the term "dysgenic" -- mainly because the term is applying a value judgement to things (phenotypic traits) whose value is entirely contextual. The main idea I'm getting at is that the world is dynamic and unpredictable. Today's advantage might be tomorrow's disadvantage and vice versa.
- erasemus 9y ago
  Problem acknowledged, though revealed preferences show that humans do value phenotypic traits, and those preferences may be controlled by objective ideas. Actually my main reservation about the word 'dysgenic' would be that 'responsibility' refers to something highly emergent which could be entirely passed down by parenting traditions and not at all by DNA. So, 'dyscivic', then? Yet regardless this inheritance would also be disproportionately selected against. Another objection to my phrasing is that people who take their morality entirely from the social environment can't be wholly responsible people. 'Otherwise responsible' would have been better.

ImSkeptical 9y ago

It's not a moral fad at all. Women, including highly educated women, typically prefer having more children than they have [1]. 60% of women in the EU say they have less than the ideal number children. Women all over the world want more children than the replacement rate (makes sense) and in the developed world they have fewer children than this. The reason women have fewer children nowadays is because of women's liberation - specifically in terms of education and professions. Working and studying requires time and dedication, and that conflicts with having and raising a child. I don't really know how to solve this problem other than force women to choose between careers and children as they currently do. The best thing I can think of is subsidizing child care, trying to get more jobs that can support a family (so one parent can work and one can child raise), better maternity and paternity leave, and maybe making it more common to take a year or two off around 18 to 20. 1 - http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/11/birth-rates-lag-in-europe-and-the-u-s-but-the-desire-for-kids-does-not/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/11/birth-rates-...

erasemus 9y ago
The 'moral fad' I was referring to was what took place in protestant Slovakia beginning in the 1800s, not about human fertility/fecundity today. From the article: >In XIX. century the trend of having a single child took hold among protestants of the historical regions of Novohrad, Hont, Malohont and Gemer. >it seems that if you had multiple kids back then you've got criticized and laughed at by your friends and neighbors.
slv77 9y ago
>The best thing I can think of is subsidizing child care... Since most childcare providers are women and programs with high adult to child ratios are preferred doesn’t this lead to the strange situation where a large parts of the workforce are taking care of other people’s young children? This story reminds me of two similar stories. One was a fad in England where middle class wet nurses were employed by the wealthy. The middle class then passed their children down to the lower class and the lower class to the lowest class. The result was the lowest class mothers wet nursing a half dozen children. The second story was that in communist Russia the early leadership was obsessed with economic efficiency. The thought of mother’s raising their children was considered a waste of resources and so the idea was that the state would take over raising and caring for children. Professionals would be better equipped and trained and, more importantly, more efficient! The result was a nearly feral generation of children that almost collapsed the country. Raising young children is just very labor and resource intensive. Forgoing having children frees up a tremendous amount of economic resources and can temporarily boost consumption. In economics this is known as the one time “generational dividend” that if squandered leaves society poorer and not richer.
- ImSkeptical 9y ago
  Yeah, I agree that's a problem too. The problem seems to come from when women entered the work force, society neglected to take a roughly equal amount of men from the work force. This resulted in a surplus of labor and therefore diminished costs of labor, and therefore families needed to have two people working, and now they don't have the time and resources for children. I'm a believer in the idea that we should be using productivity to ease the obligations of labor. Ideally we could get back to one person per household working, or even better, both parents doing part time work (though I believe this plan requires socialized medicine). This would give plenty of time for child raising and wage earning, and distribute the burdens evenly among parents. In recent years women have faced a declining happiness according to self reported results. We also have dwindling populations in the developed world and exploding populations in the under developed world where ideally that would be reversed and we could send the developing world doctors, engineers, teachers, etc. I see these problems as connected by the fact that women are structurally limited by society from pursuing their biological drive towards children whereas men, who don't face declining happiness, live in a society that encourages their biological drive (sex).
amazingman 9y ago
In the context of the parent comment it very much was a moral fad.
vilmosi 9y ago
>>> Working and studying requires time and dedication, and that conflicts with having and raising a child. In a hypothetical world, this decision should not be a woman's decision only. Why don't we have this problem with men? >>> I don't really know how to solve this problem other than force women to choose between careers and children as they currently do. Force men to make the same decision?! Why only women have to choose?

xr4ti 9y ago

I have a problem with the term "dysgenic" -- mainly because the term is applying a value judgement to things (phenotypic traits) whose value is entirely contextual. The main idea I'm getting at is that the world is dynamic and unpredictable. Today's advantage might be tomorrow's disadvantage and vice versa.

erasemus 9y ago
Problem acknowledged, though revealed preferences show that humans do value phenotypic traits, and those preferences may be controlled by objective ideas. Actually my main reservation about the word 'dysgenic' would be that 'responsibility' refers to something highly emergent which could be entirely passed down by parenting traditions and not at all by DNA. So, 'dyscivic', then? Yet regardless this inheritance would also be disproportionately selected against. Another objection to my phrasing is that people who take their morality entirely from the social environment can't be wholly responsible people. 'Otherwise responsible' would have been better.