7 ms·

Is liberalism digging its own demographic grave? (2022)

23 points by neverminder 3y ago

PaulHoule 3y ago
Note that the first step of human reproduction is you feel lonely, then you seek out a lover, next you have more people. When it is too crowded people don’t have the instinct to make more people. Places like the UK and Japan are way too crowded and of course people don’t want to have kids, it is entirely exacerbated by the problems with housing. The problem will take care of itself if the population drops enough, if you want to be proactive the important thing is to reduce the perception of crowding which could be some combination of (a) dispersion (just tax people 200% of the median income if they want to dogpile into London or Tokyo and if rich folk complain there are no service workers they’re going to have to pay them more), (b) better housing and (c) psychological tricks that reduce the perception of crowding.
- dukeyukey 3y ago
  > When it is too crowded people don’t have the instinct to make more people I don't think this is true, least not in the way you're saying it. Countries with low population densities (e.g. Canada, the US, Russia, Australia, Brazil) have equally low fertility as the denser countries like the UK and Denmark. Often a good bit lower - Canada has both lower fertility and an older median age than the UK, despite being massively bigger, with more immigration and comparable house prices (all while having way bigger houses).
- galangalalgol 3y ago
  That is an interesting hypothesis. Zeihan wrote that it is/was the industrialization of agriculture combined with child labor laws that shifted children from assets to liabilities resulting in fewer births. The book presents fairly compelling data to support the correlation, but population density could be a confounding factor. I grew up in a (very) rural area and the people I knew even from the nearest town had far fewer children than my great grandparents did. Tractors became cheaper than 12 kids. And I guess even without child labor laws, there aren't a lot of modern jobs kids could do I think.
- throwaway22032 3y ago
  Cost doesn't prevent people from subjecting themselves to density. There are many people living in single bedrooms in former family homes in London and paying half of their wage in order to do so. I couldn't do it, but they do.
bell-cot 3y ago
Perhaps 's/liberalism/modern capitalism/g'? Outside of a few ultra-religious niches, family sizes for modern conservatives are also plunging. Today's all-noses-to-the-grindstones short term economic "maximization" is squeezing ~every voluntary but not-quickly-monetized human activity out of existence. And it has long since figured out that a couple having one kid - whose "normal" birth runs up $100,000+ in medical expenses, and whose college education will cost $500,000+ - is a far better outcome for Wall Street than anyone being able to dream of having 4 or 5 kids in a fairly sane 1950's-style society and economy.
- bufferoverflow 3y ago
  These numbers are ridiculous. Birth doesn't cost $100K on average, not even close. College education doesn't cost $500K on average, and not to the parents anyway (unless they want to pay for it).
- _yb2s 3y ago
  No idea how people have more than one kid... at least in the bay area. I have one kid and the cheapest decent childcare I've found costs about $30k/year, and is only approx. half time. It ends at ~2pm, and is closed all summer and about one week per month on average. It's been a huge struggle to keep a career going under these circumstances. Even at prices and hours like this, there are year long wait lists for spots in these. I've several times had to take my kid out of childcare (kicked out, or they went out of business) and had to hire a nanny full time for 6 mo to 1 year before I could find another childcare spot. At the time I was paying 110% of my take home income to have a nanny despite having a PhD in a high demand field, burning through my savings with hopes of finding another childcare spot without ending my career. Not sure how anyone else does this. As of now, I WFH while watching my son alone about half of the hours, which is really hard. I feel like I am not giving him the attention he deserves, and it's really hard to focus.
  - zen_1 3y ago
    > No idea how people have more than one kid... Looking at the families I know, the mother (or grandparents if they're local, willing, and able) make child-rearing their top priority. Either that or they live in a country with dirt-cheap childcare due to cheap labor.
hunglee2 3y ago
"A clear pattern is emerging; liberal societies are not reproducing themselves" Probably not to do with liberalism as illiberal societies are also suffering from the same phenomenon. The issue can be isolated to economic development, which itself is a result of female education and subsequent participation in the formal labour market. Turns out being a wage earner / consumer is in tension with being a parent, especially a mother. Interestingly, remote work seems to have an effect of increasing birth rate, we might be able to solve this by redesigning work around family making, rather than treating workers as atomic individuals with no social relations outside of the market
- retrac 3y ago
  > lliberal societies are also suffering from the same phenomenon There's one major historical outlier from the whole industrialized societies not having children trend -- the Soviet Union. Like everywhere else industrialized, the fertility rate in the 50s and 60s fell from traditional pre-industrial levels (4 - 5 per woman) down to about 2.5 (just above replacement). It then stayed there until the collapse of the USSR, at which point it plummeted well below replacement in most of the successor states, and has never recovered. (Similar story in East Germany and the rest of the Bloc.) The USSR had many problems, but employment security and time off, a basic roof and food security for young families, was not among them; it was cheap and practical to have kids.
  - formerly_proven 3y ago
    People in the GDR were pressured a lot to have kids and to leave them with state institutions very early. Wouldn't be surprised if the USSR was the same.
    - gumby 3y ago
      The DDR also had softcore movies late at night in the hope of increasing the birth rate. I haven't heard that the USSR had gone to that length. The state institutions were indeed revolutionary, especially compared to the BRD which was (& is) much more regressive when it came to equality (e.g. half school days weds and sat meant women couldn't hold down full time jobs). Unfortunately, as they were indeed also propaganda vehicles, that system was tossed out along with everything else. Not everything in the DDR was a terrible idea, only almost everything. I can't really criticise the way unification was achieved (it was a big rush that hadn't been planned for) but it's OK to look back and consider what could still be learnt.
shp0ngle 3y ago
The problem solves itself; the societies that are pro-natal will survive and the ones thay are not will die out.
- llambda 3y ago
  Well, no. That assumes that offspring follow their parents' ideology directly. While many may, some will not. What we've seen over time is a defection from e.g. religious right upbringing, especially as offspring move into denser urban areas.
  - ed25519FUUU 3y ago
    Yes there’s departures, revivals, and reversions to the mean. But two parents who feel strongly about something having children will produce children with a certain biological proclivity. It’s a lot to bet that people will deny their own biology.
    - pjc50 3y ago
      There isn't a biological proclivity to liberalism!
      - tivert 3y ago
        > There isn't a biological proclivity to liberalism! Yes, but aren't there biological proclivities to certain personality traits, and then proclivities of people to certain personality traits to political ideology? So if liberals don't reproduce, it could start selection against the "openness to experience" personality trait.
  - gaoshan 3y ago
    A small, anecdotal example of this... there is a family in my community that is part of the conservative christian organization called "Quiverfull" that believes in having very large families. The one in our community has 12 children. They see it as creating members for their religion but I would be surprised if more than a couple of these kids end up following along (based on who the kids are turning out to be).
api 3y ago
Illiberal societies like Russia, Iran, and China also have low birth rates, and falling. The correlation is with economic development and education, which suppresses birth rates across all cultures and systems of governance. The only places in the world with very high birth rates are poor with high levels of illiteracy. As they develop their birth rates are starting to fall too. It’s funny… I remember the overpopulation panic. If we’d kept reproducing like that we may well be facing a “Soylent Green” future, but it didn’t happen. Instead of celebrating the fact that humans seem able to self regulate our birth rates to avoid Malthusian catastrophes we are now panicking about that instead.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  > The only places in the world with very high birth rates are poor with high levels of illiteracy Specifically, rates tied to female education and illiteracy. And access to birth control.
anovikov 3y ago
It has nothing to do with liberalism, birth rates are plummeting everywhere and especially hard in places like China which are anything but liberal. Don't look for scapegoats: people are not having children because they can. They never wished to procreate enough to sustain population, they only did because they had no way around it. It's incredibly stupid to portray achievement of progress as some kind of curse or even moral failure.
- hed 3y ago
  I don't believe this is true. Women who are polled about "how many children they want" arrive at a number far above a 2.1 (replacement) societal average. Then they just don't have that many. That suggests that they did want to procreate enough to sustain population and there are other causes preventing them from doing it.
  - anovikov 3y ago
    That's right, because it always comes into conflict with other priorities, which is natural. It always did. It's just that women couldn't control how many kids they had. I mean, it's not cultural: it happens across all cultures and religions. Atheists aren't even in the forefront: Czechia and Denmark have relatively decent fertility rates. It's not political: happens both in authoritarian and liberal countries, even worse in authoritarian, both pro-Western (Singapore) and anti-Western (China). Only thing it seems to depend upon, is level of development, the richer the country is/becomes, the lower birthrate is. It's simply that people get the actual ability to choose, nothing else.
dash2 3y ago
Damn, that's not just some random substacker - that's Paul Morland who wrote Tomorrow's People. TBH that book was rather bland and milquetoast. The same argument he makes here is made at book length by Eric Kaufmann in "Shall The Religious Inherit The Earth", which is very good.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
It's as simple as inequality - fix that and all this goes away We've seen this over and over and it's blatantly obvious what the problem is - too few people control the wealth of the world and that wealth is used to buy control and power in ways that continue to erode the power and comfort of the working class. President Teddy Roosevelt, who died a socialist who wanted to live like his porters [1], led America at the turn of the century by attacking the robber barons, breaking the trusts, and generally crushing unethical business across the nation, leading the way for a revitalized society (he wasn't perfect but we're looking at the issue of oligarchies here). I'm not sure that's possible anymore like that, and I think peaceful revolution inside the system is possible. We do it by building mutual voluntary employee owned cooperatives that create products and services and DENY the capital class the ability to continue to accrete wealth and power. [1]https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/03/10/east-african-kingdom-theodore-roosevelt-00085962 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/03/10/east-afric...
- dash2 3y ago
  You did not quote any evidence that inequality is linked to low birth rates. Not surprising, because as far as I know, there is none. There are many theories of why we have "lowest-low" fertility: * The gender transition has left women juggling jobs and family ("gender equity theory") [1] * Elite norms changed, originally among population planners, who pushed societies to lower their birth rate; [2] * Increasing individualism (the "second demographic transition") [3] Inequality is not one of them. [1] e.g. McDonald, P., 2000. Gender equity, social institutions and the future of fertility. Journal of population Research, pp.1-16. [2] Caldwell, J.C., 2006. The globalization of fertility behavior. Demographic Transition Theory, pp.249-271. [3] Van de Kaa, D.J., 1987. Europe's second demographic transition. Population bulletin, 42(1), pp.1-59.
cmh89 3y ago
The author was struggling along to make a point and then dropped 'wokeness' to completely lose credibility. The author seemed to completely miss the point that, regardless of liberal or illiberal, when women have access to birth control, birth rates go down.
- Dig1t 3y ago
  I think the 'wokeness' mention actually added credibility, most normal people have observed the woke phenomenon in their everyday life. But aside from that he makes a valid point. If you actually live in a very liberal area, like San Francisco, for a while you will meet a disproportionate number of people who believe that having kids is bad for the planet or have any number of other anti-natalist ideas.
  - cmh89 3y ago
    >I think the 'wokeness' mention actually added credibility, most normal people have observed the woke phenomenon in their everyday life. "wokeness" is a defintion-less abstract tool that exists to be applied to ideas that conservatives don't like. "woke culture" doesn't actually exist. >But aside from that he makes a valid point. If you actually live in a very liberal area, like San Francisco, for a while you will meet a disproportionate number of people who believe that having kids is bad for the planet or have any number of other anti-natalist ideas. Which is a great anecdote! Is it supported by literally any data? Do college-educated women in San Francisco have a significantly different birth rate than college-educated women in Chicago? Atlanta? The idea that a women who otherwise would have had three kids will have zero because they were exposed 'anti-natalist' ideas is on its face stupid. The characteristics of someone who chooses to live in a place where it's expensive to raise a family like San Francisco are almost assuredly going to lean toward one/no children. Birth rates are falling everywhere women have access to birth control. The whole article is crap, the 'woke' comment was just the icing on the drivel cake.
    - Dig1t 3y ago
      >"woke culture" doesn't actually exist. Well woke culture does seem to exist since so many people talk about it, and it has its own term in our lexicon. I could give you a million examples of it, but I think you already know what it is. >great anecdote You are right, all I have are anecdotes. I'm just a normal person with regular every-day experiences; my opinions are formed after living there for many years. But I will tell you, that I have had a lot of conversations with people that have these ideas in the Bay. Like, the majority of my friends in the Bay have this opinion that the future is too bleak, the planet is doomed, having a kid is bad for the planet, blah blah. It seems significant to me because these are people who can definitely afford to have kids, but choose not to because of their ideas about our horrible doomed future.
deleted 3y ago
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mbfg 3y ago
People largely worry about being able to afford children. Most people especially without children, don't care if the society in the future survives. I don't see how this is hard to understand. If there are people who care about civilization surviving into the the future, making it economically advantageous to have children would be a good plan.
- ed25519FUUU 3y ago
  It's not just hard to understand, it's actually wrong. By income, the lowest TFR group in America are Whites that make between $200-$250k[1]. The poorest Americans have the same amount of children as the uber rich Americans. 1. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyYwPsBXoAEK1ur?format=png https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyYwPsBXoAEK1ur?format=png
Georgelemental 3y ago
Israel is the one shining example of a country with a TFR well above replacement (around 3.0, and stable) despite being economically modern. They have lessons to teach us
Georgelemental 3y ago
Israel is the one shining example of a country with a TFR well above replacement (around 3.0, and stable) despite being economically modern. They have lessons to teach the rest of us.
- golergka 3y ago
  Israel is being slowly overtaken by ultra-orthodox. I really hope other countries don't repeat this, as country becomes less and less democratic as a result.
- debacle 3y ago
  Teach your kids from a young age that they should have a lot of kids, and then financially incentivize them to get married and have kids? How...patriarchal.
  - blitz_skull 3y ago
    Despite the evident disdain in the last sentence, can you explain how this is inherently negative?
    - piva00 3y ago
      Population growth with our current technology has kinda proven that it's not sustainable, even less if each generation has social mobility to increase their wealth since wealth is directly correlated to environmental impact. When our societies are not reliant on fossil fuels, environmental destruction (farmlands, etc.), and other forms of mass pollution we might want to reconsider population growth, as we're right now and for the foreseeable future that's one of the worst things we can do for future generations.
      - JasserInicide 3y ago
        Population growth with our current technology has kinda proven that it's not sustainable Then who's going to be the one to tell people that having kids is unsustainable because your ancestors didn't care to implement sustainable energy solutions?
JasserInicide 3y ago
One thing the article doesn't mention: how education levels impact this. Those with more education have fewer kids. I'm always reminded of the opening Idiocracy skit where the smart couple is worried about the financials of having a kid, and the white trash family just does it with reckless abandon.
gaoshan 3y ago
Isn't human population already too high for the planet (or at least headed that way)? I would think that a trend in the other direction is good, on the whole and over the long run.
photochemsyn 3y ago
The thesis that liberal societies are not replacing themselves seems incorrect. UK population was 60 million in 2000, and is 67.5 million today. The demographics are somewhat interesting in that 'white native British' has dropped from 99% or so of the population in the 1950s to about 82% today. In comparison the USA population is also steadily rising from ~280 million in 2000 to ~330 million in 2020. Now if the concern is that the relative ratios of different race-ethnic-religious groups is changing, why is that an issue? Children tend to adopt the societal norms they're surrounded by, even if this upsets their traditional-minded parents. That's certainly been the case in the USA, it's an assimilative process. As far as birth rate data, as women acquire more rights and wealth they tend to choose to have fewer children later in life, and as medical care and knowledge improves, those children tend to survive to adulthood at rates unheard of a few centuries ago. Thus, while birth rates may indeed be falling, the population is stable or even growing due to the other factor the author seems to ignore, i.e. lower childhood death rates.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  Hmm. Taking just the UK, if "white native British" dropped from 99% to 82%, that would imply a lot of immigration between 1950 and 2023. How much of that was between 2000 and 2023? Does it account for all of the population growth? Some of it? Looking at https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06077/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06..., I would eyeball net immigration at around 200K/year from 2020 to 2023. That would amount to 4.6 million people. That's over half of the 7.5 million change in population, but not all of it. Anyone with better numbers, step right up...
- tivert 3y ago
  > The thesis that liberal societies are not replacing themselves seems incorrect. UK population was 60 million in 2000, and is 67.5 million today. The demographics are somewhat interesting in that 'white native British' has dropped from 99% or so of the population in the 1950s to about 82% today. That's not a society that's replacing itself. It's one that isn't but has managed to kick the can down the road because it's in a position to exploit external sources of population. Those ex > Now if the concern is that the relative ratios of different race-ethnic-religious groups is changing, why is that an issue? Children tend to adopt the societal norms they're surrounded by, even if this upsets their traditional-minded parents. That's certainly been the case in the USA, it's an assimilative process. Assimilation is rarely that complete. And, as the OP notes, the birth rate problem reproduces itself in those who assimilate into contemporary liberalism, and doesn't in those who do not assimilate. It's worth noting that, over the course of history, many cultures have been destroyed while leaving small cultural echos in the new replacing population. The OP stated: "On the current trajectory, there will at some point in the coming centuries be no Italians..." It would be cold-comfort to an Italian that cared about Italian culture to have it "live" on in a form akin to an Olive Garden restaurant franchise. > As far as birth rate data, as women acquire more rights and wealth they tend to choose to have fewer children later in life, and as medical care and knowledge improves, those children tend to survive to adulthood at rates unheard of a few centuries ago. Thus, while birth rates may indeed be falling, the population is stable or even growing due to the other factor the author seems to ignore, i.e. lower childhood death rates. No. IIRC, many places are falling below replacement rate reproduction. That means that lower infant mortality isn't fully compensating for the other changes.
incomingpain 3y ago
Please read the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Population_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Population_Fund They have for many decades been working toward reducing the world population. Many policies are intentionally designed around reducing world population. This has been working effectively on the former 1st world countries. What was discovered was the conservatives/republicans/whatever realized what was happening and decided on a unique strategy never normally used in politics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Give_'em_enough_rope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Give_'em_enough_rope Left wing politicians feel unopposed, and without opposition they roll ahead with terrible decisions. Often feeling enabled to implement policies which are going to hang themselves. Absolutely what's happening and they don't realize it.
twic 3y ago
The phenomenon of fertility falling as societies get more advanced is called "demographic transition". But societies don't keep getting more advanced! Once a society has become a modern post-industrial, "liberal" society, the demographic transition effect stops. After that, other factors continue to act on fertility. And there is evidence that fertility is heritable, and positively selected for (almost by definition, i think). So we might expect to see fertility slowly rise after demographic transitions are complete. If that is the case, the current situation of declining and ageing populations is only a transient state. I read some stuff on this a while ago, didn't save the links, and now can't find it. But digging around now, i think these papers are relevant: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.2561 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.256... https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2015.0157 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2015.015...
- anovikov 3y ago
  While you are certainly right, question is though, how far may it grow? It might be that the growth will still be insufficient for replacement. I believe key factor here is nation size. A sufficiently big corporation in a sufficiently small (but not necessarily tiny) nation may find it profitable to solve demography directly, i.e. by hiring women to have babies and paying them salaries. Simply to have more consumers for its products in the next generation. Maybe corporations can even pool their resources towards this goal.
ed25519FUUU 3y ago
I think this[1] is an interesting graph: income level vs children. The group with the lowest TFR? White couples who make between $200k and $250k. Clearly it's not just about income because the uber poor and uber rich have about the same amount of children. 1. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyYwPsBXoAEK1ur?format=png https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyYwPsBXoAEK1ur?format=png

23 points by neverminder 3y ago

Note that the first step of human reproduction is you feel lonely, then you seek out a lover, next you have more people. When it is too crowded people don’t have the instinct to make more people. Places like the UK and Japan are way too crowded and of course people don’t want to have kids, it is entirely exacerbated by the problems with housing. The problem will take care of itself if the population drops enough, if you want to be proactive the important thing is to reduce the perception of crowding which could be some combination of (a) dispersion (just tax people 200% of the median income if they want to dogpile into London or Tokyo and if rich folk complain there are no service workers they’re going to have to pay them more), (b) better housing and (c) psychological tricks that reduce the perception of crowding.

dukeyukey 3y ago
> When it is too crowded people don’t have the instinct to make more people I don't think this is true, least not in the way you're saying it. Countries with low population densities (e.g. Canada, the US, Russia, Australia, Brazil) have equally low fertility as the denser countries like the UK and Denmark. Often a good bit lower - Canada has both lower fertility and an older median age than the UK, despite being massively bigger, with more immigration and comparable house prices (all while having way bigger houses).
galangalalgol 3y ago
That is an interesting hypothesis. Zeihan wrote that it is/was the industrialization of agriculture combined with child labor laws that shifted children from assets to liabilities resulting in fewer births. The book presents fairly compelling data to support the correlation, but population density could be a confounding factor. I grew up in a (very) rural area and the people I knew even from the nearest town had far fewer children than my great grandparents did. Tractors became cheaper than 12 kids. And I guess even without child labor laws, there aren't a lot of modern jobs kids could do I think.
throwaway22032 3y ago
Cost doesn't prevent people from subjecting themselves to density. There are many people living in single bedrooms in former family homes in London and paying half of their wage in order to do so. I couldn't do it, but they do.

bell-cot 3y ago

Perhaps 's/liberalism/modern capitalism/g'? Outside of a few ultra-religious niches, family sizes for modern conservatives are also plunging. Today's all-noses-to-the-grindstones short term economic "maximization" is squeezing ~every voluntary but not-quickly-monetized human activity out of existence. And it has long since figured out that a couple having one kid - whose "normal" birth runs up $100,000+ in medical expenses, and whose college education will cost $500,000+ - is a far better outcome for Wall Street than anyone being able to dream of having 4 or 5 kids in a fairly sane 1950's-style society and economy.

bufferoverflow 3y ago
These numbers are ridiculous. Birth doesn't cost $100K on average, not even close. College education doesn't cost $500K on average, and not to the parents anyway (unless they want to pay for it).
_yb2s 3y ago
No idea how people have more than one kid... at least in the bay area. I have one kid and the cheapest decent childcare I've found costs about $30k/year, and is only approx. half time. It ends at ~2pm, and is closed all summer and about one week per month on average. It's been a huge struggle to keep a career going under these circumstances. Even at prices and hours like this, there are year long wait lists for spots in these. I've several times had to take my kid out of childcare (kicked out, or they went out of business) and had to hire a nanny full time for 6 mo to 1 year before I could find another childcare spot. At the time I was paying 110% of my take home income to have a nanny despite having a PhD in a high demand field, burning through my savings with hopes of finding another childcare spot without ending my career. Not sure how anyone else does this. As of now, I WFH while watching my son alone about half of the hours, which is really hard. I feel like I am not giving him the attention he deserves, and it's really hard to focus.
- zen_1 3y ago
  > No idea how people have more than one kid... Looking at the families I know, the mother (or grandparents if they're local, willing, and able) make child-rearing their top priority. Either that or they live in a country with dirt-cheap childcare due to cheap labor.

hunglee2 3y ago

"A clear pattern is emerging; liberal societies are not reproducing themselves" Probably not to do with liberalism as illiberal societies are also suffering from the same phenomenon. The issue can be isolated to economic development, which itself is a result of female education and subsequent participation in the formal labour market. Turns out being a wage earner / consumer is in tension with being a parent, especially a mother. Interestingly, remote work seems to have an effect of increasing birth rate, we might be able to solve this by redesigning work around family making, rather than treating workers as atomic individuals with no social relations outside of the market

retrac 3y ago
> lliberal societies are also suffering from the same phenomenon There's one major historical outlier from the whole industrialized societies not having children trend -- the Soviet Union. Like everywhere else industrialized, the fertility rate in the 50s and 60s fell from traditional pre-industrial levels (4 - 5 per woman) down to about 2.5 (just above replacement). It then stayed there until the collapse of the USSR, at which point it plummeted well below replacement in most of the successor states, and has never recovered. (Similar story in East Germany and the rest of the Bloc.) The USSR had many problems, but employment security and time off, a basic roof and food security for young families, was not among them; it was cheap and practical to have kids.
- formerly_proven 3y ago
  People in the GDR were pressured a lot to have kids and to leave them with state institutions very early. Wouldn't be surprised if the USSR was the same.
  - gumby 3y ago
    The DDR also had softcore movies late at night in the hope of increasing the birth rate. I haven't heard that the USSR had gone to that length. The state institutions were indeed revolutionary, especially compared to the BRD which was (& is) much more regressive when it came to equality (e.g. half school days weds and sat meant women couldn't hold down full time jobs). Unfortunately, as they were indeed also propaganda vehicles, that system was tossed out along with everything else. Not everything in the DDR was a terrible idea, only almost everything. I can't really criticise the way unification was achieved (it was a big rush that hadn't been planned for) but it's OK to look back and consider what could still be learnt.

shp0ngle 3y ago

The problem solves itself; the societies that are pro-natal will survive and the ones thay are not will die out.

llambda 3y ago
Well, no. That assumes that offspring follow their parents' ideology directly. While many may, some will not. What we've seen over time is a defection from e.g. religious right upbringing, especially as offspring move into denser urban areas.
- ed25519FUUU 3y ago
  Yes there’s departures, revivals, and reversions to the mean. But two parents who feel strongly about something having children will produce children with a certain biological proclivity. It’s a lot to bet that people will deny their own biology.
  - pjc50 3y ago
    There isn't a biological proclivity to liberalism!
    - tivert 3y ago
      > There isn't a biological proclivity to liberalism! Yes, but aren't there biological proclivities to certain personality traits, and then proclivities of people to certain personality traits to political ideology? So if liberals don't reproduce, it could start selection against the "openness to experience" personality trait.
- gaoshan 3y ago
  A small, anecdotal example of this... there is a family in my community that is part of the conservative christian organization called "Quiverfull" that believes in having very large families. The one in our community has 12 children. They see it as creating members for their religion but I would be surprised if more than a couple of these kids end up following along (based on who the kids are turning out to be).

api 3y ago

Illiberal societies like Russia, Iran, and China also have low birth rates, and falling. The correlation is with economic development and education, which suppresses birth rates across all cultures and systems of governance. The only places in the world with very high birth rates are poor with high levels of illiteracy. As they develop their birth rates are starting to fall too. It’s funny… I remember the overpopulation panic. If we’d kept reproducing like that we may well be facing a “Soylent Green” future, but it didn’t happen. Instead of celebrating the fact that humans seem able to self regulate our birth rates to avoid Malthusian catastrophes we are now panicking about that instead.

red-iron-pine 3y ago
> The only places in the world with very high birth rates are poor with high levels of illiteracy Specifically, rates tied to female education and illiteracy. And access to birth control.

anovikov 3y ago

It has nothing to do with liberalism, birth rates are plummeting everywhere and especially hard in places like China which are anything but liberal. Don't look for scapegoats: people are not having children because they can. They never wished to procreate enough to sustain population, they only did because they had no way around it. It's incredibly stupid to portray achievement of progress as some kind of curse or even moral failure.

hed 3y ago
I don't believe this is true. Women who are polled about "how many children they want" arrive at a number far above a 2.1 (replacement) societal average. Then they just don't have that many. That suggests that they did want to procreate enough to sustain population and there are other causes preventing them from doing it.
- anovikov 3y ago
  That's right, because it always comes into conflict with other priorities, which is natural. It always did. It's just that women couldn't control how many kids they had. I mean, it's not cultural: it happens across all cultures and religions. Atheists aren't even in the forefront: Czechia and Denmark have relatively decent fertility rates. It's not political: happens both in authoritarian and liberal countries, even worse in authoritarian, both pro-Western (Singapore) and anti-Western (China). Only thing it seems to depend upon, is level of development, the richer the country is/becomes, the lower birthrate is. It's simply that people get the actual ability to choose, nothing else.

dash2 3y ago

Damn, that's not just some random substacker - that's Paul Morland who wrote Tomorrow's People. TBH that book was rather bland and milquetoast. The same argument he makes here is made at book length by Eric Kaufmann in "Shall The Religious Inherit The Earth", which is very good.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

It's as simple as inequality - fix that and all this goes away We've seen this over and over and it's blatantly obvious what the problem is - too few people control the wealth of the world and that wealth is used to buy control and power in ways that continue to erode the power and comfort of the working class. President Teddy Roosevelt, who died a socialist who wanted to live like his porters [1], led America at the turn of the century by attacking the robber barons, breaking the trusts, and generally crushing unethical business across the nation, leading the way for a revitalized society (he wasn't perfect but we're looking at the issue of oligarchies here). I'm not sure that's possible anymore like that, and I think peaceful revolution inside the system is possible. We do it by building mutual voluntary employee owned cooperatives that create products and services and DENY the capital class the ability to continue to accrete wealth and power. [1]https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/03/10/east-african-kingdom-theodore-roosevelt-00085962 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/03/10/east-afric...

dash2 3y ago
You did not quote any evidence that inequality is linked to low birth rates. Not surprising, because as far as I know, there is none. There are many theories of why we have "lowest-low" fertility: * The gender transition has left women juggling jobs and family ("gender equity theory") [1] * Elite norms changed, originally among population planners, who pushed societies to lower their birth rate; [2] * Increasing individualism (the "second demographic transition") [3] Inequality is not one of them. [1] e.g. McDonald, P., 2000. Gender equity, social institutions and the future of fertility. Journal of population Research, pp.1-16. [2] Caldwell, J.C., 2006. The globalization of fertility behavior. Demographic Transition Theory, pp.249-271. [3] Van de Kaa, D.J., 1987. Europe's second demographic transition. Population bulletin, 42(1), pp.1-59.

cmh89 3y ago

The author was struggling along to make a point and then dropped 'wokeness' to completely lose credibility. The author seemed to completely miss the point that, regardless of liberal or illiberal, when women have access to birth control, birth rates go down.

Dig1t 3y ago
I think the 'wokeness' mention actually added credibility, most normal people have observed the woke phenomenon in their everyday life. But aside from that he makes a valid point. If you actually live in a very liberal area, like San Francisco, for a while you will meet a disproportionate number of people who believe that having kids is bad for the planet or have any number of other anti-natalist ideas.
- cmh89 3y ago
  >I think the 'wokeness' mention actually added credibility, most normal people have observed the woke phenomenon in their everyday life. "wokeness" is a defintion-less abstract tool that exists to be applied to ideas that conservatives don't like. "woke culture" doesn't actually exist. >But aside from that he makes a valid point. If you actually live in a very liberal area, like San Francisco, for a while you will meet a disproportionate number of people who believe that having kids is bad for the planet or have any number of other anti-natalist ideas. Which is a great anecdote! Is it supported by literally any data? Do college-educated women in San Francisco have a significantly different birth rate than college-educated women in Chicago? Atlanta? The idea that a women who otherwise would have had three kids will have zero because they were exposed 'anti-natalist' ideas is on its face stupid. The characteristics of someone who chooses to live in a place where it's expensive to raise a family like San Francisco are almost assuredly going to lean toward one/no children. Birth rates are falling everywhere women have access to birth control. The whole article is crap, the 'woke' comment was just the icing on the drivel cake.
  - Dig1t 3y ago
    >"woke culture" doesn't actually exist. Well woke culture does seem to exist since so many people talk about it, and it has its own term in our lexicon. I could give you a million examples of it, but I think you already know what it is. >great anecdote You are right, all I have are anecdotes. I'm just a normal person with regular every-day experiences; my opinions are formed after living there for many years. But I will tell you, that I have had a lot of conversations with people that have these ideas in the Bay. Like, the majority of my friends in the Bay have this opinion that the future is too bleak, the planet is doomed, having a kid is bad for the planet, blah blah. It seems significant to me because these are people who can definitely afford to have kids, but choose not to because of their ideas about our horrible doomed future.

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mbfg 3y ago

People largely worry about being able to afford children. Most people especially without children, don't care if the society in the future survives. I don't see how this is hard to understand. If there are people who care about civilization surviving into the the future, making it economically advantageous to have children would be a good plan.

ed25519FUUU 3y ago
It's not just hard to understand, it's actually wrong. By income, the lowest TFR group in America are Whites that make between $200-$250k[1]. The poorest Americans have the same amount of children as the uber rich Americans. 1. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyYwPsBXoAEK1ur?format=png https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyYwPsBXoAEK1ur?format=png

Georgelemental 3y ago

Israel is the one shining example of a country with a TFR well above replacement (around 3.0, and stable) despite being economically modern. They have lessons to teach us

Georgelemental 3y ago

Israel is the one shining example of a country with a TFR well above replacement (around 3.0, and stable) despite being economically modern. They have lessons to teach the rest of us.

golergka 3y ago
Israel is being slowly overtaken by ultra-orthodox. I really hope other countries don't repeat this, as country becomes less and less democratic as a result.
debacle 3y ago
Teach your kids from a young age that they should have a lot of kids, and then financially incentivize them to get married and have kids? How...patriarchal.
- blitz_skull 3y ago
  Despite the evident disdain in the last sentence, can you explain how this is inherently negative?
  - piva00 3y ago
    Population growth with our current technology has kinda proven that it's not sustainable, even less if each generation has social mobility to increase their wealth since wealth is directly correlated to environmental impact. When our societies are not reliant on fossil fuels, environmental destruction (farmlands, etc.), and other forms of mass pollution we might want to reconsider population growth, as we're right now and for the foreseeable future that's one of the worst things we can do for future generations.
    - JasserInicide 3y ago
      Population growth with our current technology has kinda proven that it's not sustainable Then who's going to be the one to tell people that having kids is unsustainable because your ancestors didn't care to implement sustainable energy solutions?

JasserInicide 3y ago

One thing the article doesn't mention: how education levels impact this. Those with more education have fewer kids. I'm always reminded of the opening Idiocracy skit where the smart couple is worried about the financials of having a kid, and the white trash family just does it with reckless abandon.

gaoshan 3y ago

Isn't human population already too high for the planet (or at least headed that way)? I would think that a trend in the other direction is good, on the whole and over the long run.

photochemsyn 3y ago

The thesis that liberal societies are not replacing themselves seems incorrect. UK population was 60 million in 2000, and is 67.5 million today. The demographics are somewhat interesting in that 'white native British' has dropped from 99% or so of the population in the 1950s to about 82% today. In comparison the USA population is also steadily rising from ~280 million in 2000 to ~330 million in 2020. Now if the concern is that the relative ratios of different race-ethnic-religious groups is changing, why is that an issue? Children tend to adopt the societal norms they're surrounded by, even if this upsets their traditional-minded parents. That's certainly been the case in the USA, it's an assimilative process. As far as birth rate data, as women acquire more rights and wealth they tend to choose to have fewer children later in life, and as medical care and knowledge improves, those children tend to survive to adulthood at rates unheard of a few centuries ago. Thus, while birth rates may indeed be falling, the population is stable or even growing due to the other factor the author seems to ignore, i.e. lower childhood death rates.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
Hmm. Taking just the UK, if "white native British" dropped from 99% to 82%, that would imply a lot of immigration between 1950 and 2023. How much of that was between 2000 and 2023? Does it account for all of the population growth? Some of it? Looking at https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06077/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06..., I would eyeball net immigration at around 200K/year from 2020 to 2023. That would amount to 4.6 million people. That's over half of the 7.5 million change in population, but not all of it. Anyone with better numbers, step right up...
tivert 3y ago
> The thesis that liberal societies are not replacing themselves seems incorrect. UK population was 60 million in 2000, and is 67.5 million today. The demographics are somewhat interesting in that 'white native British' has dropped from 99% or so of the population in the 1950s to about 82% today. That's not a society that's replacing itself. It's one that isn't but has managed to kick the can down the road because it's in a position to exploit external sources of population. Those ex > Now if the concern is that the relative ratios of different race-ethnic-religious groups is changing, why is that an issue? Children tend to adopt the societal norms they're surrounded by, even if this upsets their traditional-minded parents. That's certainly been the case in the USA, it's an assimilative process. Assimilation is rarely that complete. And, as the OP notes, the birth rate problem reproduces itself in those who assimilate into contemporary liberalism, and doesn't in those who do not assimilate. It's worth noting that, over the course of history, many cultures have been destroyed while leaving small cultural echos in the new replacing population. The OP stated: "On the current trajectory, there will at some point in the coming centuries be no Italians..." It would be cold-comfort to an Italian that cared about Italian culture to have it "live" on in a form akin to an Olive Garden restaurant franchise. > As far as birth rate data, as women acquire more rights and wealth they tend to choose to have fewer children later in life, and as medical care and knowledge improves, those children tend to survive to adulthood at rates unheard of a few centuries ago. Thus, while birth rates may indeed be falling, the population is stable or even growing due to the other factor the author seems to ignore, i.e. lower childhood death rates. No. IIRC, many places are falling below replacement rate reproduction. That means that lower infant mortality isn't fully compensating for the other changes.

incomingpain 3y ago

Please read the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Population_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Population_Fund They have for many decades been working toward reducing the world population. Many policies are intentionally designed around reducing world population. This has been working effectively on the former 1st world countries. What was discovered was the conservatives/republicans/whatever realized what was happening and decided on a unique strategy never normally used in politics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Give_'em_enough_rope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Give_'em_enough_rope Left wing politicians feel unopposed, and without opposition they roll ahead with terrible decisions. Often feeling enabled to implement policies which are going to hang themselves. Absolutely what's happening and they don't realize it.

twic 3y ago

The phenomenon of fertility falling as societies get more advanced is called "demographic transition". But societies don't keep getting more advanced! Once a society has become a modern post-industrial, "liberal" society, the demographic transition effect stops. After that, other factors continue to act on fertility. And there is evidence that fertility is heritable, and positively selected for (almost by definition, i think). So we might expect to see fertility slowly rise after demographic transitions are complete. If that is the case, the current situation of declining and ageing populations is only a transient state. I read some stuff on this a while ago, didn't save the links, and now can't find it. But digging around now, i think these papers are relevant: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.2561 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.256... https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2015.0157 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2015.015...

anovikov 3y ago
While you are certainly right, question is though, how far may it grow? It might be that the growth will still be insufficient for replacement. I believe key factor here is nation size. A sufficiently big corporation in a sufficiently small (but not necessarily tiny) nation may find it profitable to solve demography directly, i.e. by hiring women to have babies and paying them salaries. Simply to have more consumers for its products in the next generation. Maybe corporations can even pool their resources towards this goal.

ed25519FUUU 3y ago

I think this[1] is an interesting graph: income level vs children. The group with the lowest TFR? White couples who make between $200k and $250k. Clearly it's not just about income because the uber poor and uber rich have about the same amount of children. 1. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyYwPsBXoAEK1ur?format=png https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyYwPsBXoAEK1ur?format=png