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It's probably too much of a broad trend for that to be the case. As entire countries get wealthier, their birth rates drop: it's true in the US, Japan, Germany,

It's probably too much of a broad trend for that to be the case. As entire countries get wealthier, their birth rates drop: it's true in the US, Japan, Germany, Sweden, wherever. If you see a GDP per capita line going up, you will also see a birth rate line going down in nearly all cases. I suspect it's more likely something else: for example, access to and usage of birth control, access to other family planning controls, abortion, etc. Edit: or even just access to entertainment that isn't "having sex." I remember a conversation with a (very) old woman who'd had many, many children; she said that... well, there wasn't much else to do back then...

lotsofpulp 5y ago
And the old woman did not have access to IUDs. Nowadays, you can have sex with zero risk of pregnancy.
- giantg2 5y ago
  No, no, no. There's a low risk. The risk is not "zero".
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    The point is it is so low, that combined with access to abortion, sex and having children are effectively decoupled.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Yet that is not what was stated. The risk of pregnancy is not zero. If we really want to get into it, abortions are not 100% effective either. So yeah, extremely unlikely, but still a possibility that one has a child.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        You are technically correct, the best kind of correct. The context of the conversation, however, was that people had children as a non intentional byproduct of having sex, which presumably people had more of due to lack of other entertainment options. To which I thought it was noteworthy to point out that children are effectively no longer a byproduct of just having sex, especially for the demographics in which birthrates are declining. Hence, regardless of the amount of sex people are having, I would expect the birthrate to still decline.
        giantg2 5y ago
        That does make sense. It's just dangerous to say the chance of getting pregnant is zero, since that could influence someone's decision/understanding and lead to an undesired shock of an outcome.
deleted 5y ago
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lotsofpulp 5y ago

And the old woman did not have access to IUDs. Nowadays, you can have sex with zero risk of pregnancy.

giantg2 5y ago
No, no, no. There's a low risk. The risk is not "zero".
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  The point is it is so low, that combined with access to abortion, sex and having children are effectively decoupled.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Yet that is not what was stated. The risk of pregnancy is not zero. If we really want to get into it, abortions are not 100% effective either. So yeah, extremely unlikely, but still a possibility that one has a child.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      You are technically correct, the best kind of correct. The context of the conversation, however, was that people had children as a non intentional byproduct of having sex, which presumably people had more of due to lack of other entertainment options. To which I thought it was noteworthy to point out that children are effectively no longer a byproduct of just having sex, especially for the demographics in which birthrates are declining. Hence, regardless of the amount of sex people are having, I would expect the birthrate to still decline.
      - giantg2 5y ago
        That does make sense. It's just dangerous to say the chance of getting pregnant is zero, since that could influence someone's decision/understanding and lead to an undesired shock of an outcome.

deleted 5y ago

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