4 ms·

That's because it has to do with the death rate of children. On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of

by pasta 8y ago

That's because it has to do with the death rate of children. On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). The combination of enough food, education and good health care are why less babies are born. So if you live in a country with good education but lack of food most women will still have more babies than two.

watwut 8y ago
> On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). Citation needed, especially since we are talking about much different cultures.
- epakai 8y ago
  It's fairly independent of culture, and where culture matters it eventually changes because women become enfranchised. Use slider at the bottom to vary time. https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2018;&marker$axis_y$which=children_per_woman_total_fertility&domainMin:null&domainMax:null&zoomedMin:null&zoomedMax:null&spaceRef:null;;;&chart-type=bubbles https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2018;&mar...
  - watwut 8y ago
    You said "women want" and it sounded general statement. Not same as women decide to have nor actually have. Had the price (not just monetary) of having child be different, the decisions quite easily can be different.
SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
> On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). I don't believe that's true across cultures. Even in North America you've got social groups and organizations that are continuing to make babies like crazy.
- pasta 8y ago
  Yes there are exceptions, but I was talking about the average. The number 2 comes from the current world wide trend. In developed countries the fertility rate tumbles down but stops at around 2. So it is believed this is the average bottom. Maybe you like this talk from Hans Rosling: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies
- urbanslug 8y ago
  The commenter is talking about averages and you're talking about the tails of the graph.
- dmitriid 8y ago
  Cultures have nothing to do with it. See Hans Rosling's talk on this [1] or see it yourself in data [2]. As soon as education, medicine, economic situation improves, you get a drop to ~2 children per woman across all cultures. [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies [2] https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=b&strail=false&nselm=s&met_x=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_x=lin&ind_x=false&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&met_s=sp_pop_totl&scale_s=lin&ind_s=false&dimp_c=country:region&ifdim=country&iconSize=0.5&uniSize=0.035 https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    While I see that there is a definite trend, if culture had nothing to do with it, why would the Israel and Faroe Islands outliers exist with many more children? And I see a ton of groups there that have the highest life expectancy and < 2 children, all Asian countries. That seems to indicate that 2 is not in fact a magic number at all.
    - pixl97 8y ago
      >why would the Israel and Faroe Islands outliers exist with many more children? Most likely answer, religion. Successful religions grow one of two ways, and generally have encodings for both. That is they tend to have means to convert the non-religious, and secondly, and importantly in this case, have 'strong' rules on having kids. For example, in the old testament Onan was killed for 'spilling his seed' and not impregnating his dead brothers wife. That said, even in ancient times it appeared that birthrates did go down, as in Greces case, their city state succeeded. This left them open from attack and cultural take over by outside nations and ideals with higher birthrates. In the modern world we are coming to the point where human labor is not as necessary and has been supplanted by machine labor. Also machine protection, in our weapons of war. This could allow a nation/culture to shrink dramatically while still being able to defend against outside threats. If such a shrinking culture were one that 'grew' by spreading its message to other cultures it may succede to grow and shrink the entire worlds population at the same time. These ideas of disappearing utopia cultures are often touched by science fiction.
Nasrudith 8y ago
I think part of it is also social security of sorts - as a mechanism. One successful child can provide for you in old age better than eight struggling to get by. A robust pension or welfare scheme makes it less mandatory. Some might want to go with six kids, others are content with zero or or one or two just to carry on a family line in at least a token way.

by pasta 8y ago

watwut 8y ago

> On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). Citation needed, especially since we are talking about much different cultures.

epakai 8y ago
It's fairly independent of culture, and where culture matters it eventually changes because women become enfranchised. Use slider at the bottom to vary time. https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2018;&marker$axis_y$which=children_per_woman_total_fertility&domainMin:null&domainMax:null&zoomedMin:null&zoomedMax:null&spaceRef:null;;;&chart-type=bubbles https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2018;&mar...
- watwut 8y ago
  You said "women want" and it sounded general statement. Not same as women decide to have nor actually have. Had the price (not just monetary) of having child be different, the decisions quite easily can be different.

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago

> On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800). I don't believe that's true across cultures. Even in North America you've got social groups and organizations that are continuing to make babies like crazy.

pasta 8y ago
Yes there are exceptions, but I was talking about the average. The number 2 comes from the current world wide trend. In developed countries the fertility rate tumbles down but stops at around 2. So it is believed this is the average bottom. Maybe you like this talk from Hans Rosling: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies
urbanslug 8y ago
The commenter is talking about averages and you're talking about the tails of the graph.
dmitriid 8y ago
Cultures have nothing to do with it. See Hans Rosling's talk on this [1] or see it yourself in data [2]. As soon as education, medicine, economic situation improves, you get a drop to ~2 children per woman across all cultures. [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies [2] https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=b&strail=false&nselm=s&met_x=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_x=lin&ind_x=false&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&met_s=sp_pop_totl&scale_s=lin&ind_s=false&dimp_c=country:region&ifdim=country&iconSize=0.5&uniSize=0.035 https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  While I see that there is a definite trend, if culture had nothing to do with it, why would the Israel and Faroe Islands outliers exist with many more children? And I see a ton of groups there that have the highest life expectancy and < 2 children, all Asian countries. That seems to indicate that 2 is not in fact a magic number at all.
  - pixl97 8y ago
    >why would the Israel and Faroe Islands outliers exist with many more children? Most likely answer, religion. Successful religions grow one of two ways, and generally have encodings for both. That is they tend to have means to convert the non-religious, and secondly, and importantly in this case, have 'strong' rules on having kids. For example, in the old testament Onan was killed for 'spilling his seed' and not impregnating his dead brothers wife. That said, even in ancient times it appeared that birthrates did go down, as in Greces case, their city state succeeded. This left them open from attack and cultural take over by outside nations and ideals with higher birthrates. In the modern world we are coming to the point where human labor is not as necessary and has been supplanted by machine labor. Also machine protection, in our weapons of war. This could allow a nation/culture to shrink dramatically while still being able to defend against outside threats. If such a shrinking culture were one that 'grew' by spreading its message to other cultures it may succede to grow and shrink the entire worlds population at the same time. These ideas of disappearing utopia cultures are often touched by science fiction.

Nasrudith 8y ago

I think part of it is also social security of sorts - as a mechanism. One successful child can provide for you in old age better than eight struggling to get by. A robust pension or welfare scheme makes it less mandatory. Some might want to go with six kids, others are content with zero or or one or two just to carry on a family line in at least a token way.