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The word "fertility" strikes me as a odd word to use for the average number children women in a population have. "Fertility" relates to how capable something i
by kypro 3y ago
The word "fertility" strikes me as a odd word to use for the average number children women in a population have.
"Fertility" relates to how capable something is of reproduction, not its willingness. It's not that human fertility is dropping (as this article implies with the use of the word), it's specifically that our desire to reproduce is dropping and our ability to prevent unwanted reproduction has greatly increased.
"Declining reproduction rates continues" seems like a far more accurate description here than "declining fertility continues".
- rfrey 3y agoFrom Merriam-Webster: 1: the quality or state of being fertile 2: the birth rate of a population
- kypro 3y agoThanks for correcting me.
- tuatoru 3y agoAdding to rfrey's comment, in demography "reproduction rate" is the number of daughters per woman. I think it's from a more general population biology definition, the number of female descendants per female. Yes, for the long run reproduction rate matters more. Demographers mostly assume fixed sex ratios at birth, making the point moot. But "fixed sex ratios" is no longer necessarily true, now that the sex of unborn fetuses can be determined and semen can be sex-selected.