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The dates on that graph track pretty closely to the availability / legalisation of effective birth control for those countries. Surely it isn’t that simple?

imoverclocked 3y ago
That is one factor and the article did touch on it a couple of times.
kredd 3y ago
In the past, more people wanted to have children. Every year, that percentage seems to be decreasing [1]. Birth control mostly decreases chances of unwanted pregnancies, and that is good, in my opinion. How do we make people want to have children? Well, that's the hard problem that every developed country seems to be facing, and nobody has found substantial success so far. To be fair, I am a part of the problem as well. The opportunity loss for people in their late 20s to have a child is huge. It's even bigger for women, so I really can't blame anyone. And that's all on top of the usual "gloom and doom" thoughts when you think what your child could be facing in today's world. [1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/19/growing-share-of-childless-adults-in-u-s-dont-expect-to-ever-have-children/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/19/growing-s...
remarkEon 3y ago
Birth control also coincided with a very deliberate push to get women in the work force at scale. In retrospect, it was obvious that doing this would cause fertility rates to decrease regardless of the popularity of birth control. My wife would absolutely love to quit her job and stay at home full time, but it's hard (note quite impossible, but very very hard) to actually do this today. All her friends with kids want to do it too. Obviously I wasn't around back in the mid-1900s, but I do wonder from time to time if people actually understood that this was the trade off we were all making in changing the culture like we did.
- andrewjl 3y ago
  > Obviously I wasn't around back in the mid-1900s, but I do wonder from time to time if people actually understood that this was the trade off we were all making in changing the culture like we did. If you're talking about the 1950s a non-trivial percentage of married American women at that time routinely took stimulants and barbiturates.

imoverclocked 3y ago

That is one factor and the article did touch on it a couple of times.

kredd 3y ago

In the past, more people wanted to have children. Every year, that percentage seems to be decreasing [1]. Birth control mostly decreases chances of unwanted pregnancies, and that is good, in my opinion. How do we make people want to have children? Well, that's the hard problem that every developed country seems to be facing, and nobody has found substantial success so far. To be fair, I am a part of the problem as well. The opportunity loss for people in their late 20s to have a child is huge. It's even bigger for women, so I really can't blame anyone. And that's all on top of the usual "gloom and doom" thoughts when you think what your child could be facing in today's world. [1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/19/growing-share-of-childless-adults-in-u-s-dont-expect-to-ever-have-children/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/19/growing-s...

remarkEon 3y ago

Birth control also coincided with a very deliberate push to get women in the work force at scale. In retrospect, it was obvious that doing this would cause fertility rates to decrease regardless of the popularity of birth control. My wife would absolutely love to quit her job and stay at home full time, but it's hard (note quite impossible, but very very hard) to actually do this today. All her friends with kids want to do it too. Obviously I wasn't around back in the mid-1900s, but I do wonder from time to time if people actually understood that this was the trade off we were all making in changing the culture like we did.

andrewjl 3y ago
> Obviously I wasn't around back in the mid-1900s, but I do wonder from time to time if people actually understood that this was the trade off we were all making in changing the culture like we did. If you're talking about the 1950s a non-trivial percentage of married American women at that time routinely took stimulants and barbiturates.