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How is it not true in East Asia? The rich countries (Japan, South Korea) have super low fertility rates; the poor ones have higher (North Korea). Can you point

How is it not true in East Asia? The rich countries (Japan, South Korea) have super low fertility rates; the poor ones have higher (North Korea). Can you point out some clear violators? The inverse relationship is obvious in South Korea: https://tradingeconomics.com/south-korea/gdp-per-capita https://tradingeconomics.com/south-korea/gdp-per-capita https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPDYNTFRTINKOR https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPDYNTFRTINKOR Before the 1930s, every country was "developing" my modern definitions. (US real GDP/capita was ~$9k in 1929 just before the recession). Also, other factors are necessary for this to happen (e.g. women empowerment)

deialtrous2 8y ago
You can't just take two data points, see that they moved in the right direction and assume causation. That doesn't even get you to correlation. You need multiple data points, and the changes have to be consistent between those points. They are not. Right now 50% of US workers earn less than $30k per year. If birth rates were correlated to income then they should be having more children, but they are not. Graph GDP per capita and graph birth rates. They both move in opposite directions, but they do not follow each other like they should if one caused the other. On the other hand, sperm counts have fallen 50% since the 50s. 1 in 7 couples has trouble conceiving. These are not social changes, they are physiological changes, almost certainly caused by the massive amount of xenoestrogens we've put into our environments. We didn't lower our birth rates as a response to wealth, we were poisoned. This makes things far more ethically questionable, as now the "we'll fix developing nation's birth rates the way we did in developed nations" idea means intentionally poisoning a few billion people to reduce their fertility.

deialtrous2 8y ago

You can't just take two data points, see that they moved in the right direction and assume causation. That doesn't even get you to correlation. You need multiple data points, and the changes have to be consistent between those points. They are not. Right now 50% of US workers earn less than $30k per year. If birth rates were correlated to income then they should be having more children, but they are not. Graph GDP per capita and graph birth rates. They both move in opposite directions, but they do not follow each other like they should if one caused the other. On the other hand, sperm counts have fallen 50% since the 50s. 1 in 7 couples has trouble conceiving. These are not social changes, they are physiological changes, almost certainly caused by the massive amount of xenoestrogens we've put into our environments. We didn't lower our birth rates as a response to wealth, we were poisoned. This makes things far more ethically questionable, as now the "we'll fix developing nation's birth rates the way we did in developed nations" idea means intentionally poisoning a few billion people to reduce their fertility.