3 ms·

Beliefs That Kill Birth Rates

20 points by barry-cotter 3y ago

082349872349872 3y ago
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory (compare "The Sow & The Lioness") It is much easier to argue that H sapiens is a K-selected species, than that we ought be an r-selected species.
- slowmovintarget 3y ago
  In H. sapiens this has less to do with speciation and more to do with economic drivers. That is, we adapt to societal circumstance more than other species do. Examining populations in the 18th century, you needed to have a higher number of children, because half of them were likely to not make it to adulthood. In modern Western society, this is no longer true, but that's a new wrinkle that has arrived in the last fifty years. That family behaviors didn't change to a noticeable degree until roughly twenty years ago, tells you there's something more going on than "the species is just like that."
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    Humans are altricial, not precocial; that's not something that's changed in the last fifty thousand years, let alone last fifty.
moffkalast 3y ago
I would be really surprised if it's just one core issue to point at, there's a ludicrously long list of perfectly reasonable factors that all do their part. These graphs barely show any correlation at all, much less any causation.
jjjjj55555 3y ago
[flagged]
pyrale 3y ago
Looks like some people are still looking for a root cause.
jpm_sd 3y ago
Children used to be the inevitable outcome of sexual relationships, now they are expensive luxury items. </father of 3>
throwaway167 3y ago
I was disappointed that the author hadn't done a literature review, even a basic one. Perhaps they're an expert and didn't see the need, but they didn't cite anything or provide any further reading. And it's not like this subject isn't researched. There's so much [1] [2] that a literature review might be a really good place to start. [1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=birthrate&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=birt... [2] https://ideas.repec.org/cgi-bin/htsearch?form=extended&wm=wrd&dt=range&ul=&q=birthrate&cmd=Search%21&wf=4BFF&s=R&db=&de= https://ideas.repec.org/cgi-bin/htsearch?form=extended&wm=wr... A further article, without using data to demonstrate normative hypotheses but also with visualisations, is this: [3] https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate?source=content_type%3Areact%7Cfirst_level_url%3Aarticle%7Csection%3Amain_content%7Cbutton%3Abody_link https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate?source=content_typ...
johnea 3y ago
Whatever it is, I hope it keeps on working. There is no rational argument that the current human population shouldn't be reduced.
- spacebanana7 3y ago
  As well as reducing population, negative birth rates have the side effect of ageing the population. A population where most people are over 65 is one where ever more resources get spent on healthcare & pensions, paid for by the ever fewer number of working age people. There’s also various toxic political effects ageing electorates can have on democracy.
- Ferret7446 3y ago
  I agree, as long as it's the people I don't like and the people I perceive to be problematic that get reduced, and the people like me that don't. That's the problem, in case the sardonicism is not obvious.
- snapplebobapple 3y ago
  There is a very rational argument for the population being expanded: we need the population pressure to push us to invest in launch cost reduction, space mining and colonization so it becomes feasible to move heavy industry and eventually the population into space to leave earth to recover. I would rather see earth become a pristine zoo than a tomb and reducing population only cuts a small subset of the risks of becoming a tomb and exacerbates others.
friend_and_foe 3y ago
From the comments of the article: > A possible link would be that more progressive countries have more immigrants from places with higher fertility rates, and these immigrants are the ones pushing the TFR up. Seems to me that this factor, when you can bring yourself to ignore the controversy of implied adjacent ideas, is one that can't be ignored if we want to understand the dynamics of culture, economics and fertility. To say that a liberal culture has a higher fertility rate is to ignore that liberal cultures often import populations from very conservative cultures. It's possible that the cultural differences between the European populations are negligible that if immigrant fertility were taken into account the line of best fit in these graphs would be flat. Or they could be inverse, or similar, we just don't know. But to ignore the possible effect is to not seriously strive to understand this dynamic.

20 points by barry-cotter 3y ago

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory (compare "The Sow & The Lioness") It is much easier to argue that H sapiens is a K-selected species, than that we ought be an r-selected species.

slowmovintarget 3y ago
In H. sapiens this has less to do with speciation and more to do with economic drivers. That is, we adapt to societal circumstance more than other species do. Examining populations in the 18th century, you needed to have a higher number of children, because half of them were likely to not make it to adulthood. In modern Western society, this is no longer true, but that's a new wrinkle that has arrived in the last fifty years. That family behaviors didn't change to a noticeable degree until roughly twenty years ago, tells you there's something more going on than "the species is just like that."
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  Humans are altricial, not precocial; that's not something that's changed in the last fifty thousand years, let alone last fifty.

moffkalast 3y ago

I would be really surprised if it's just one core issue to point at, there's a ludicrously long list of perfectly reasonable factors that all do their part. These graphs barely show any correlation at all, much less any causation.

jjjjj55555 3y ago

[flagged]

pyrale 3y ago

Looks like some people are still looking for a root cause.

jpm_sd 3y ago

Children used to be the inevitable outcome of sexual relationships, now they are expensive luxury items. </father of 3>

throwaway167 3y ago

I was disappointed that the author hadn't done a literature review, even a basic one. Perhaps they're an expert and didn't see the need, but they didn't cite anything or provide any further reading. And it's not like this subject isn't researched. There's so much [1] [2] that a literature review might be a really good place to start. [1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=birthrate&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=birt... [2] https://ideas.repec.org/cgi-bin/htsearch?form=extended&wm=wrd&dt=range&ul=&q=birthrate&cmd=Search%21&wf=4BFF&s=R&db=&de= https://ideas.repec.org/cgi-bin/htsearch?form=extended&wm=wr... A further article, without using data to demonstrate normative hypotheses but also with visualisations, is this: [3] https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate?source=content_type%3Areact%7Cfirst_level_url%3Aarticle%7Csection%3Amain_content%7Cbutton%3Abody_link https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate?source=content_typ...

johnea 3y ago

Whatever it is, I hope it keeps on working. There is no rational argument that the current human population shouldn't be reduced.

spacebanana7 3y ago
As well as reducing population, negative birth rates have the side effect of ageing the population. A population where most people are over 65 is one where ever more resources get spent on healthcare & pensions, paid for by the ever fewer number of working age people. There’s also various toxic political effects ageing electorates can have on democracy.
Ferret7446 3y ago
I agree, as long as it's the people I don't like and the people I perceive to be problematic that get reduced, and the people like me that don't. That's the problem, in case the sardonicism is not obvious.
snapplebobapple 3y ago
There is a very rational argument for the population being expanded: we need the population pressure to push us to invest in launch cost reduction, space mining and colonization so it becomes feasible to move heavy industry and eventually the population into space to leave earth to recover. I would rather see earth become a pristine zoo than a tomb and reducing population only cuts a small subset of the risks of becoming a tomb and exacerbates others.

friend_and_foe 3y ago

From the comments of the article: > A possible link would be that more progressive countries have more immigrants from places with higher fertility rates, and these immigrants are the ones pushing the TFR up. Seems to me that this factor, when you can bring yourself to ignore the controversy of implied adjacent ideas, is one that can't be ignored if we want to understand the dynamics of culture, economics and fertility. To say that a liberal culture has a higher fertility rate is to ignore that liberal cultures often import populations from very conservative cultures. It's possible that the cultural differences between the European populations are negligible that if immigrant fertility were taken into account the line of best fit in these graphs would be flat. Or they could be inverse, or similar, we just don't know. But to ignore the possible effect is to not seriously strive to understand this dynamic.