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How do you tell young families (women in particular) to have more children to avoid population collapse? This is a very real problem in a number of wealthy coun

How do you tell young families (women in particular) to have more children to avoid population collapse? This is a very real problem in a number of wealthy countries. I am not aware of government policies that have managed to coerce educated women to be wanting to have more (or any) children.

stephc_int13 3y ago
To be clear, I don't think this is the business of governments and nobody should be coerced to have or not to have children. I believe that in case of population collapse, the solution will naturally appear to large enough number of people, evolution shaped us to reproduce, I don't think this instinct is likely to disappear, even if we might not fully understand it and why girls and women tend to have less children in some conditions (it happened before, in antiquity, and was considered to be a problem by Roman politicians, many of the current traditions around marriages were first created as laws...)
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  Evolution wasn’t aware of birth control.
- Qem 3y ago
  > the solution will naturally appear to large enough number of people, evolution shaped us to reproduce. The solution evolution found was to make us really like having sex. But then we invented hormonal birth control, and sex became uncoupled from reproduction. Evolution can't help us here, it works slowly over thousands of years, and can't uninvent birth control.
  - foob 3y ago
    > it works slowly over thousands of years This isn't always the case; evolution can happen relatively quickly in response to rapid changes in the environment [1]. There are plenty of people alive today who have particularly strong urges to have children, and the widespread introduction of birth control creates a major selective pressure towards any heritable genes that produce or enhance those urges. The effects of this could be very significant over even a relatively small number of generations. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
  - testval123 3y ago
    People will just start really like the idea of having children and will consciously do so
- tuatoru 3y ago
  It absolutely is the business of governments. Unavoidably so. Housing policy, tax policy, education policy, healthcare policy, family law - governments are influencing population massively.
wes-k 3y ago
Is it a real problem in some countries? I’ve only seen articles about negative economic impacts and nothing like “Japan will have zero humans by 2200”. Economic problems are real and worth addressing and I hope we can find ways other than “we need more babies”.
thsksbd 3y ago
You don't tell them to have lots of babies. You stop stigmatizing large families, stop glorifying small families.
quickthrower2 3y ago
$10k baby bonus and $5k towards childcare a year. Other incentives like this. Build better suburbs (more like walkable small towns)
- jbombadil 3y ago
  In the Seattle area 5k towards childcare will get you about 1.5 to 2 months of childcare.

stephc_int13 3y ago

To be clear, I don't think this is the business of governments and nobody should be coerced to have or not to have children. I believe that in case of population collapse, the solution will naturally appear to large enough number of people, evolution shaped us to reproduce, I don't think this instinct is likely to disappear, even if we might not fully understand it and why girls and women tend to have less children in some conditions (it happened before, in antiquity, and was considered to be a problem by Roman politicians, many of the current traditions around marriages were first created as laws...)

mensetmanusman 3y ago
Evolution wasn’t aware of birth control.
Qem 3y ago
> the solution will naturally appear to large enough number of people, evolution shaped us to reproduce. The solution evolution found was to make us really like having sex. But then we invented hormonal birth control, and sex became uncoupled from reproduction. Evolution can't help us here, it works slowly over thousands of years, and can't uninvent birth control.
- foob 3y ago
  > it works slowly over thousands of years This isn't always the case; evolution can happen relatively quickly in response to rapid changes in the environment [1]. There are plenty of people alive today who have particularly strong urges to have children, and the widespread introduction of birth control creates a major selective pressure towards any heritable genes that produce or enhance those urges. The effects of this could be very significant over even a relatively small number of generations. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
- testval123 3y ago
  People will just start really like the idea of having children and will consciously do so
tuatoru 3y ago
It absolutely is the business of governments. Unavoidably so. Housing policy, tax policy, education policy, healthcare policy, family law - governments are influencing population massively.

wes-k 3y ago

Is it a real problem in some countries? I’ve only seen articles about negative economic impacts and nothing like “Japan will have zero humans by 2200”. Economic problems are real and worth addressing and I hope we can find ways other than “we need more babies”.

thsksbd 3y ago

You don't tell them to have lots of babies. You stop stigmatizing large families, stop glorifying small families.

quickthrower2 3y ago

$10k baby bonus and $5k towards childcare a year. Other incentives like this. Build better suburbs (more like walkable small towns)

jbombadil 3y ago
In the Seattle area 5k towards childcare will get you about 1.5 to 2 months of childcare.