3 ms·

Wow. So much discussion, and so little of it actually about the content of the article. Everyone's hung up on discussing whether they should or shouldn't have

Wow. So much discussion, and so little of it actually about the content of the article. Everyone's hung up on discussing whether they should or shouldn't have kids, and that's not the point at all. The argument of the article is that there is pressure to finish your education before you have kids. The longer your education lasts, the later you wait to have kids. That's all right for males, but female fertility runs out sooner. So particularly, the more education females get, the later they wait to have kids, and so the fewer kids they have. The claim is, this mechanism is enough to explain why education cuts fertility. Would anyone care to discuss that?

shaftway 2y ago
I'll throw my hat in the ring. I don't think that this is truly the primary mechanism. Maybe a contributing one, but definitely not the predominant cause. Let's say that the average woman wants to have children every 3 years. This is probably a gross oversimplification, but it feels about right; most people I know who have multiple kids or siblings have a 2-4 year age gap. In the days of yore (for some definition of "yore") women would typically have children from the age of 19-20 until 40-ish. That gives you about 20 years to have kids, resulting in families with ~7 children. Again, this feels about right; go back a few generations in my family tree and you see families of 6-8 kids. If spending time at school is the dominant mechanism then women would typically have 5-6 fewer years in which to conceive, and you'd expect families to have ~2 fewer children, making the average ~5. But it's, what, 2.3 children and dropping? A quick google search for fertility rate showed that the last significant peak in the US was in 1957 (after a slump around the world wars and great depression). A second quick google search for "what happened with women in the 60s" immediately starts discussing the women's liberation movement, with increased rates of women employment and education. A third google search for "when did birth control come out" gave the year 1960 for the use of Enovid as a birth control mechanism, but an actual release date of 1957 for cramps. If I was going to point fingers at an "obvious" reason for a decline in fertility, it would be that women finally had the choice as to whether or not they would have kids, and they had the means to effect that choice.
jfengel 2y ago
It's certainly a compelling thesis. You'll also want to put your education to use immediately. You want to take advantage of the pipelines for fresh graduates, and to be perceived as a youth when competing for entry-level jobs. It's hard enough to get that first job when you're fresh out. It could be even harder when you've spent the ages of 22-30 getting your kids born and ready to spend their days in school, so you're trying to score your first job in your late 20s or early 30s. It may be that the education mechanism by itself suffices to explain it, even without that factor. I wish it were possible to factor out that youth bias. We present women with such a terrible choice: their prime years for preparing for work are the same as their prime years for starting their family.

shaftway 2y ago

I'll throw my hat in the ring. I don't think that this is truly the primary mechanism. Maybe a contributing one, but definitely not the predominant cause. Let's say that the average woman wants to have children every 3 years. This is probably a gross oversimplification, but it feels about right; most people I know who have multiple kids or siblings have a 2-4 year age gap. In the days of yore (for some definition of "yore") women would typically have children from the age of 19-20 until 40-ish. That gives you about 20 years to have kids, resulting in families with ~7 children. Again, this feels about right; go back a few generations in my family tree and you see families of 6-8 kids. If spending time at school is the dominant mechanism then women would typically have 5-6 fewer years in which to conceive, and you'd expect families to have ~2 fewer children, making the average ~5. But it's, what, 2.3 children and dropping? A quick google search for fertility rate showed that the last significant peak in the US was in 1957 (after a slump around the world wars and great depression). A second quick google search for "what happened with women in the 60s" immediately starts discussing the women's liberation movement, with increased rates of women employment and education. A third google search for "when did birth control come out" gave the year 1960 for the use of Enovid as a birth control mechanism, but an actual release date of 1957 for cramps. If I was going to point fingers at an "obvious" reason for a decline in fertility, it would be that women finally had the choice as to whether or not they would have kids, and they had the means to effect that choice.

jfengel 2y ago

It's certainly a compelling thesis. You'll also want to put your education to use immediately. You want to take advantage of the pipelines for fresh graduates, and to be perceived as a youth when competing for entry-level jobs. It's hard enough to get that first job when you're fresh out. It could be even harder when you've spent the ages of 22-30 getting your kids born and ready to spend their days in school, so you're trying to score your first job in your late 20s or early 30s. It may be that the education mechanism by itself suffices to explain it, even without that factor. I wish it were possible to factor out that youth bias. We present women with such a terrible choice: their prime years for preparing for work are the same as their prime years for starting their family.