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I’ve seen somewhere an uncomfortable chart which shows that fertility rate is almost perfectly inversely correlated with a single number: average years of women

I’ve seen somewhere an uncomfortable chart which shows that fertility rate is almost perfectly inversely correlated with a single number: average years of women education. Also what’s interesting, allegedly, reducing the average woman education seems to be the only reliable way of growing diminished TFR. Please don’t kill the messenger, I’d love to be shown it’s false. Couldn’t find any details about this on a quick skim of this paper on my phone. Also, I think, to many people it’s becoming obvious that increasing birth rates cannot be achieved with measures that make people feel good, unfortunately. It will likely be a tough choice between bad and worse.

bflesch 1y ago
Correlation != Causation If you keep humans as sex slaves obviously there will be more kids. With education, women can more realistically assess costs and risks of children, and will hesistate to have children until these risks are addressed (housing, childcare, income, opportunity costs, stable partner).
- nlitened 1y ago
  > Correlation != Causation I agree 100%, and I also like to frame it more productively: strongly correlated A and B mean: 1. either B is caused by A, 2. or A is caused by B, 3. or both A and B are caused by some other common thing C. ↑ this gives more food for thought. > With education, women can more realistically assess costs and risks of children I don't remember any of my mostly-technical university's classes touching these topics at all. What kind of education are you talking about, and what does it teach?
  - bflesch 1y ago
    Edit: I missed part of your sentence, but will keep my reply You're missing option (4) which is A is caused by C and B is caused by D but C and D are different things..
- cubefox 1y ago
  It's the opposite. The more women earn and the higher their career prospects, the higher the opportunity cost of becoming a mother: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost Which explains why fertility is inversely correlated with educational attainment.
- missedthecue 1y ago
  You just described the way that education causes TFRs to drop, while saying it's not causal.
missedthecue 1y ago
This is true, but fiercely denied due to the unpleasant implications. The UN itself used to officially advise that the best way to lower TFRs, out of fear of overpopulation, was through increasing the education of young women.

bflesch 1y ago

Correlation != Causation If you keep humans as sex slaves obviously there will be more kids. With education, women can more realistically assess costs and risks of children, and will hesistate to have children until these risks are addressed (housing, childcare, income, opportunity costs, stable partner).

nlitened 1y ago
> Correlation != Causation I agree 100%, and I also like to frame it more productively: strongly correlated A and B mean: 1. either B is caused by A, 2. or A is caused by B, 3. or both A and B are caused by some other common thing C. ↑ this gives more food for thought. > With education, women can more realistically assess costs and risks of children I don't remember any of my mostly-technical university's classes touching these topics at all. What kind of education are you talking about, and what does it teach?
- bflesch 1y ago
  Edit: I missed part of your sentence, but will keep my reply You're missing option (4) which is A is caused by C and B is caused by D but C and D are different things..
cubefox 1y ago
It's the opposite. The more women earn and the higher their career prospects, the higher the opportunity cost of becoming a mother: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost Which explains why fertility is inversely correlated with educational attainment.
missedthecue 1y ago
You just described the way that education causes TFRs to drop, while saying it's not causal.

missedthecue 1y ago

This is true, but fiercely denied due to the unpleasant implications. The UN itself used to officially advise that the best way to lower TFRs, out of fear of overpopulation, was through increasing the education of young women.