I might be misunderstanding your point since I don’t know how familiar you are with China. But there are still a lot of people in “old style living” in rural Ch

I might be misunderstanding your point since I don’t know how familiar you are with China. But there are still a lot of people in “old style living” in rural China who are very keen on moving out of that environment. Or are you saying that if economic opportunities had not lured the rural population out of agriculture, then they would have fewer descendants and thus their living descendants would be happier? That seems highly counterintuitive. In an agricultural economy, your retirement plan is your children, so you have many of them. In a modern economy, people have much fewer children. China for example is currently trying to reverse its impending population decline.