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Any culture where women choose to pursue careers is a culture that will not exist in 200 years, including South Korea. Motherhood is a full time job. This is o

Any culture where women choose to pursue careers is a culture that will not exist in 200 years, including South Korea. Motherhood is a full time job. This is obvious.

crazydoggers 3y ago
That’s a very sexist take, and not supported at all by the data. There are plenty of very successful women raising families. I have a relative where both the father and mother are very successful engineers working full time. Their two girls are doing amazing and going to top schools. Raising children is full time, but both parents can and should be a part of it.
- geraldwhen 3y ago
  Two girls. 2.1 is replacement rate. Some do manage to have 2-3 kids! But many do not. And the cultures that do not push women into careers are more able to grow their population. Is there any country on earth with a neutral or positive population growth where women are encouraged to pursue careers? As far as I know, not a single country that has a significant female career participation rate has a 2.1+ child rate per family outside of immigration.
  - crazydoggers 3y ago
    Okay, well I did a little googling and came across this data.. it does seem having 3 or more children equates with negative effects on women being able to have a career. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-three-children_n_895517/amp https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-three-children_n_895517... But it seems to me the issue is not that women are choosing to have careers, but that the work/career culture is not supporting women choosing to have children. So things like better maternity and paternity leave, allowing women to take years off, or part time without consequence to career, etc. So takeaway should be, support our population by better supporting working mothers.
    - flextheruler 3y ago
      I’d love to live in a world where I can take years off from work without consequences to my career. Let me know if you find one.
    - Rapzid 3y ago
      That's a very sexist take. We should support working fathers allow them to take years off work with no consequences.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      > But it seems to me the issue is not that women are choosing to have careers, but that the work/career culture is not supporting women choosing to have children. So things like better maternity and paternity leave, allowing women to take years off, or part time without consequence to career, etc. Countries that did all of those things as much as possible still fall below replacement rates, so no that isn't a sexist take that is just reality. I'm not saying we should force women to not have careers, just that the women who have careers will eventually go extinct, which is their choice and I fully support that. I don't see a reason to force people to spread their genes. Instead of forcing career women to be unhappy at home with children, the women who are happy at home with children will eventually replace them.
    - giantg2 3y ago
      "So things like better maternity and paternity leave, allowing women to take years off, or part time without consequence to career, etc." A lot of these have been implemented in some European countries. They don't seem to be that effective on fertility rate given they are still below replacement.
- llm_trw 3y ago
  There is no industrialized society at replacement fertility. So far the west is getting by on immigrants from countries it has destroyed. What happens when all of Africa falls below replacement rates in the next 15 years? Keep in mind that _you_ will need doctors and nurses to keep you alive once you're past 60. At this point soylent green is the only retirement policy people with less than 10 million in the bank can expect.
- SunlitCat 3y ago
  Although it is pretty sexist by itself, that statement contains interesting points to talk about. Motherhood by itself can be a full time job, if the partner and the society doesn't help. Like enough (and affordable) daycare centers, kindgartens, schools that take care of children after school hours, i.e. offer all-day care or activities. And as you said "very successful engineers". What's about not so successful people, making good money but not being able to afford the options around them? Yeah! So you are totally right, that statement was pretty sexist, but to really help couples raising children there is still a lot of work do to.
  - geraldwhen 3y ago
    Countries with better support for working women have even lower birth rates. It is my belief that you are fundamentally misunderstand the issue.
    - SunlitCat 3y ago
      Fair point, I was talking about the statement that "Motherhood is a full time job" not the other point you made about women choosing careers over motherhood. You are right that there are studies showing that especially in Northern European countries where women receive more support in raising children have lower birth rates. But there was no statement as to why this is so (at least that was the last time I was interested in the topic, maybe there is something new?). So yeah, I didn't feel confident enough to tackle that point of yours, sorry.
      - geraldwhen 3y ago
        There is no passing the buck. Raising children is a full time job, mother or father aside. And it is a rewarding job, unlike many middle management paper pushing “bullshit” jobs talked about here frequently. Someone has to raise children. I believe a loving, caring parent would want to do that themselves and or with their immediate family structure. I would not want strangers raising my children.
- AdrianB1 3y ago
  I have seen a few cases of successful women at work. But what surprised me was to find out that most of them took a break of 10-15 years to raise the kids, then returned to the workforce with full focus. I have a friend that did that after 14 years and found that Project Management is the same as before she left, so ramping up to full speed was very easy. She was promoted (again) less than 1 year after her return to work.
silverquiet 3y ago
> Motherhood is a full time job. I assume one with no pay or health insurance/benefits. Bills must be paid, and they never seem to get any cheaper.
- dottjt 3y ago
  Correct, but you're describing the problem.
- geraldwhen 3y ago
  A naive analysis. Health insurance and “pay” comes from the husband, naturally. Whether you like this or not is irrelevant. It is the only future that will exist.
  - silverquiet 3y ago
    Makes you quite vulnerable to a layoff if an entire family is riding on one person's employer. No thanks to that.
    - Hamuko 3y ago
      And obviously vulnerable to your husband if he controls your entire financial future.
      - Jensson 3y ago
        Basically every first world country already fixed that by forcing ex husbands to pay after the divorce in some way.
        AdrianB1 3y ago
        And the result is a huge drop in marriage rates. The problem did exist for millennia, but the modern laws destroyed marriage without bringing a net positive outcome.
llm_trw 3y ago
Not really, it just means that the majority of women will be dead ends and the few who are happy (and able) to have 12 kids will the be the ones who populate the future. The genetic effects of this are going to be interesting because until the 1970s a woman had a much better chance than a man of having some average number of children survive.
- giantg2 3y ago
  "The genetic effects" I've also wondered similar things. For example, fertility rate is higher with lower wealth. Lower wealth is also correlated to many things. Similar wealth and education levels have been shown to be a large mate selection factor as well. Will that lead to implicitly selectively breeding for those traits over generations?
  - llm_trw 3y ago
    Also higher wealth. It's the poor and the rich that are having children. The middle class has decided to have a hysterectomy for some odd reason. At any rate, I just need to outlive the people not having children today, not too hard since they won't have a family safety net or enough to retire on, and I'll stop hearing these arguments since the people who believed them will be dead and the people who didn't listen to them are the only ones who will be around to talk.
    - giantg2 3y ago
      The data I see does not support that. https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...
      - llm_trw 3y ago
        That data is far too granular. It stops at middle class as though $200k is something impressive in this day and age.
giantg2 3y ago
"This is obvious." Not really. For example, one could outsource childcare to varying degrees depending on wealth. There may be other reasons, perhaps even correlated ones, but I don't see any obvious link between women pursuing careers completely killing cultures.
- geraldwhen 3y ago
  Show me a nation where women participation in the workforce is significant and population is growing outside of immigration.
  - Hamuko 3y ago
    Iceland.
    - CrazyStat 3y ago
      Total fertility rate of 1.59 in 2022 [1], well below replacement. [1] https://www.statice.is/publications/news-archive/inhabitants/births-2022/ https://www.statice.is/publications/news-archive/inhabitants...
      - Hamuko 3y ago
        Still a positive natural population growth (2022 Revision of World Population Prospects). Meanwhile Iran, where women make up about 17% of the total labor force, has only a slightly higher natural population growth and a fertility rate of 1.69.
        CrazyStat 3y ago
        You can temporarily maintain natural population growth with a fertility rate below replacement, e.g. due to past baby booms. In the long run (50-100 years) it means the population is shrinking.
    - geraldwhen 3y ago
kredd 3y ago
“Choose” is a strong word, as we simply don’t value parenthood (monetarily or culturally) as much as previous generations. And I can’t blame women in this scenario - rationally speaking, why would you sacrifice multiple years of your life, then go back to the work force to be inferior because of those missed years, and lose out on your youth at the same time? The usual answer of “because having children is eternal happiness” just doesn’t hold water anymore, because the opportunity loss of having a child has grown dramatically. Fortunately, you can have a fairly fulfilling life without having children as of today. And as the time goes, more childless people grow up which somewhat paves the way to the younger people without children. So, the spiral of low fertility continues, because again, we say we care about having a society full of children, but in reality, we don’t.
- Thorrez 3y ago
  >The usual answer of “because having children is eternal happiness” just doesn’t hold water anymore, because the opportunity loss of having a child has grown dramatically. This sentence doesn't make sense to me. How can the opportunity loss outweigh eternal happiness?
  - jrflowers 3y ago
    This is a good question; if somebody tells you that something promises eternal happiness, how could you (or any person) compel yourself to not do that thing? The sheer amount of willpower it must take to overcome the unassailable truth of a statement phrased in that way boggles the mind of a low brow such as myself
    - kredd 3y ago
      Very easy when you subscribe to “if it’s too good to be true it probably is” belief.
      - jrflowers 3y ago
        I’ve never heard of this phrase and I find it confusing. How could someone arrive at such a negative outlook when faced with infinite and undeniable proof of eternal happiness everywhere in the world?
mycologos 3y ago
At first I wasn't sure about your claim, but then you said it's obvious, and my doubts went away!
IIAOPSW 3y ago
Nah, the culture where 90% of people are gay work-aholics and 10% of people are employed as full time breeders is optimal. The final stage of capitalism is a human ant colony. This is obvious.

Any culture where women choose to pursue careers is a culture that will not exist in 200 years, including South Korea. Motherhood is a full time job. This is obvious.

crazydoggers 3y ago

That’s a very sexist take, and not supported at all by the data. There are plenty of very successful women raising families. I have a relative where both the father and mother are very successful engineers working full time. Their two girls are doing amazing and going to top schools. Raising children is full time, but both parents can and should be a part of it.

geraldwhen 3y ago
Two girls. 2.1 is replacement rate. Some do manage to have 2-3 kids! But many do not. And the cultures that do not push women into careers are more able to grow their population. Is there any country on earth with a neutral or positive population growth where women are encouraged to pursue careers? As far as I know, not a single country that has a significant female career participation rate has a 2.1+ child rate per family outside of immigration.
- crazydoggers 3y ago
  Okay, well I did a little googling and came across this data.. it does seem having 3 or more children equates with negative effects on women being able to have a career. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-three-children_n_895517/amp https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-three-children_n_895517... But it seems to me the issue is not that women are choosing to have careers, but that the work/career culture is not supporting women choosing to have children. So things like better maternity and paternity leave, allowing women to take years off, or part time without consequence to career, etc. So takeaway should be, support our population by better supporting working mothers.
  - flextheruler 3y ago
    I’d love to live in a world where I can take years off from work without consequences to my career. Let me know if you find one.
  - Rapzid 3y ago
    That's a very sexist take. We should support working fathers allow them to take years off work with no consequences.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    > But it seems to me the issue is not that women are choosing to have careers, but that the work/career culture is not supporting women choosing to have children. So things like better maternity and paternity leave, allowing women to take years off, or part time without consequence to career, etc. Countries that did all of those things as much as possible still fall below replacement rates, so no that isn't a sexist take that is just reality. I'm not saying we should force women to not have careers, just that the women who have careers will eventually go extinct, which is their choice and I fully support that. I don't see a reason to force people to spread their genes. Instead of forcing career women to be unhappy at home with children, the women who are happy at home with children will eventually replace them.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    "So things like better maternity and paternity leave, allowing women to take years off, or part time without consequence to career, etc." A lot of these have been implemented in some European countries. They don't seem to be that effective on fertility rate given they are still below replacement.
llm_trw 3y ago
There is no industrialized society at replacement fertility. So far the west is getting by on immigrants from countries it has destroyed. What happens when all of Africa falls below replacement rates in the next 15 years? Keep in mind that _you_ will need doctors and nurses to keep you alive once you're past 60. At this point soylent green is the only retirement policy people with less than 10 million in the bank can expect.
SunlitCat 3y ago
Although it is pretty sexist by itself, that statement contains interesting points to talk about. Motherhood by itself can be a full time job, if the partner and the society doesn't help. Like enough (and affordable) daycare centers, kindgartens, schools that take care of children after school hours, i.e. offer all-day care or activities. And as you said "very successful engineers". What's about not so successful people, making good money but not being able to afford the options around them? Yeah! So you are totally right, that statement was pretty sexist, but to really help couples raising children there is still a lot of work do to.
- geraldwhen 3y ago
  Countries with better support for working women have even lower birth rates. It is my belief that you are fundamentally misunderstand the issue.
  - SunlitCat 3y ago
    Fair point, I was talking about the statement that "Motherhood is a full time job" not the other point you made about women choosing careers over motherhood. You are right that there are studies showing that especially in Northern European countries where women receive more support in raising children have lower birth rates. But there was no statement as to why this is so (at least that was the last time I was interested in the topic, maybe there is something new?). So yeah, I didn't feel confident enough to tackle that point of yours, sorry.
    - geraldwhen 3y ago
      There is no passing the buck. Raising children is a full time job, mother or father aside. And it is a rewarding job, unlike many middle management paper pushing “bullshit” jobs talked about here frequently. Someone has to raise children. I believe a loving, caring parent would want to do that themselves and or with their immediate family structure. I would not want strangers raising my children.
AdrianB1 3y ago
I have seen a few cases of successful women at work. But what surprised me was to find out that most of them took a break of 10-15 years to raise the kids, then returned to the workforce with full focus. I have a friend that did that after 14 years and found that Project Management is the same as before she left, so ramping up to full speed was very easy. She was promoted (again) less than 1 year after her return to work.

silverquiet 3y ago

> Motherhood is a full time job. I assume one with no pay or health insurance/benefits. Bills must be paid, and they never seem to get any cheaper.

dottjt 3y ago
Correct, but you're describing the problem.
geraldwhen 3y ago
A naive analysis. Health insurance and “pay” comes from the husband, naturally. Whether you like this or not is irrelevant. It is the only future that will exist.
- silverquiet 3y ago
  Makes you quite vulnerable to a layoff if an entire family is riding on one person's employer. No thanks to that.
  - Hamuko 3y ago
    And obviously vulnerable to your husband if he controls your entire financial future.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      Basically every first world country already fixed that by forcing ex husbands to pay after the divorce in some way.
      - AdrianB1 3y ago
        And the result is a huge drop in marriage rates. The problem did exist for millennia, but the modern laws destroyed marriage without bringing a net positive outcome.

llm_trw 3y ago

Not really, it just means that the majority of women will be dead ends and the few who are happy (and able) to have 12 kids will the be the ones who populate the future. The genetic effects of this are going to be interesting because until the 1970s a woman had a much better chance than a man of having some average number of children survive.

giantg2 3y ago
"The genetic effects" I've also wondered similar things. For example, fertility rate is higher with lower wealth. Lower wealth is also correlated to many things. Similar wealth and education levels have been shown to be a large mate selection factor as well. Will that lead to implicitly selectively breeding for those traits over generations?
- llm_trw 3y ago
  Also higher wealth. It's the poor and the rich that are having children. The middle class has decided to have a hysterectomy for some odd reason. At any rate, I just need to outlive the people not having children today, not too hard since they won't have a family safety net or enough to retire on, and I'll stop hearing these arguments since the people who believed them will be dead and the people who didn't listen to them are the only ones who will be around to talk.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    The data I see does not support that. https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...
    - llm_trw 3y ago
      That data is far too granular. It stops at middle class as though $200k is something impressive in this day and age.

giantg2 3y ago

"This is obvious." Not really. For example, one could outsource childcare to varying degrees depending on wealth. There may be other reasons, perhaps even correlated ones, but I don't see any obvious link between women pursuing careers completely killing cultures.

geraldwhen 3y ago
Show me a nation where women participation in the workforce is significant and population is growing outside of immigration.
- Hamuko 3y ago
  Iceland.
  - CrazyStat 3y ago
    Total fertility rate of 1.59 in 2022 [1], well below replacement. [1] https://www.statice.is/publications/news-archive/inhabitants/births-2022/ https://www.statice.is/publications/news-archive/inhabitants...
    - Hamuko 3y ago
      Still a positive natural population growth (2022 Revision of World Population Prospects). Meanwhile Iran, where women make up about 17% of the total labor force, has only a slightly higher natural population growth and a fertility rate of 1.69.
      - CrazyStat 3y ago
        You can temporarily maintain natural population growth with a fertility rate below replacement, e.g. due to past baby booms. In the long run (50-100 years) it means the population is shrinking.
  - geraldwhen 3y ago

kredd 3y ago

“Choose” is a strong word, as we simply don’t value parenthood (monetarily or culturally) as much as previous generations. And I can’t blame women in this scenario - rationally speaking, why would you sacrifice multiple years of your life, then go back to the work force to be inferior because of those missed years, and lose out on your youth at the same time? The usual answer of “because having children is eternal happiness” just doesn’t hold water anymore, because the opportunity loss of having a child has grown dramatically. Fortunately, you can have a fairly fulfilling life without having children as of today. And as the time goes, more childless people grow up which somewhat paves the way to the younger people without children. So, the spiral of low fertility continues, because again, we say we care about having a society full of children, but in reality, we don’t.

Thorrez 3y ago
>The usual answer of “because having children is eternal happiness” just doesn’t hold water anymore, because the opportunity loss of having a child has grown dramatically. This sentence doesn't make sense to me. How can the opportunity loss outweigh eternal happiness?
- jrflowers 3y ago
  This is a good question; if somebody tells you that something promises eternal happiness, how could you (or any person) compel yourself to not do that thing? The sheer amount of willpower it must take to overcome the unassailable truth of a statement phrased in that way boggles the mind of a low brow such as myself
  - kredd 3y ago
    Very easy when you subscribe to “if it’s too good to be true it probably is” belief.
    - jrflowers 3y ago
      I’ve never heard of this phrase and I find it confusing. How could someone arrive at such a negative outlook when faced with infinite and undeniable proof of eternal happiness everywhere in the world?

mycologos 3y ago

At first I wasn't sure about your claim, but then you said it's obvious, and my doubts went away!

IIAOPSW 3y ago

Nah, the culture where 90% of people are gay work-aholics and 10% of people are employed as full time breeders is optimal. The final stage of capitalism is a human ant colony. This is obvious.