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The mid-century Baby Boom occurred after a surge in affordable home keeping technologies (vacuum cleaners, washing machines, refrigerators, etc). I think a rebo

The mid-century Baby Boom occurred after a surge in affordable home keeping technologies (vacuum cleaners, washing machines, refrigerators, etc). I think a rebound in fertility will have to come from technology. Specifically, robots to help with child care and new fertility treatments to allow women to have children later in their lives.

seydor 1y ago
if we have all those robots doing everything for us, why do we need children?
- coldtea 1y ago
  If we have all those robots doing everything we are we needed? We could just kill ourselves, since we don't seem to care much for life, reproduction, and all that.
ch4s3 1y ago
The mid-century Baby Boom came after WWII, and probably had very little to do with technology. The upswing started some time in late 1944 to mid 1945 as combat was winding down in Europe and a lot of young men were returning home. Otherwise fertility has been declining steadily since 1800 in western countries.
- Analemma_ 1y ago
  No, this is exactly the opposite of true: you need to do more reading about the baby boom. It happened across many countries, including ones which had little involvement in WWII, and in almost all cases it began in the 1930s, even with the Great Depression underway. It got supercharged by the end of the war because that's when the economic doldrums finally ended, but upward trend in fertility predated even the beginning of the war, never mind the end.
  - chrisco255 1y ago
    https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033027/fertility-rate-us-1800-2020/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033027/fertility-rate-u... The above shows the boom started in the 40s in the U.S. after 140 years of gradual decline.
  - ch4s3 1y ago
    The technological explanation wouldn’t really account for any increase in places where 1930s and 40s technology hadn’t been deployed. I’d need a little more than hand waving to evaluate or engage with your argument.
- baron816 1y ago
  See https://www.derekthompson.org/p/what-caused-the-baby-boom-what-would https://www.derekthompson.org/p/what-caused-the-baby-boom-wh...
  - ch4s3 1y ago
    I don’t agree with Thompson, his start date is the place where fertility hit a local minimum, not the year where the rate really took off which was 1946. A lot of the technological innovations actually predated his arguable start date by 5-10 years and several happened well into the boom. I think his explanation fits the thesis of his recent book, which I actually like, but it seem a bit off here.
lynx97 1y ago
Late child birth is not about fertility but about risks for the child. The only woman I know (yeah, anecdotes) who attempted to delay getting a child until after her 40th birthday got a baby with down syndrome. I know what living with a disability in our world means, from personal experience. And given that experience, I have a hard time giving these women some slack. I think they are risking the well being of their children just for their own selfish reasons. We are humans, and there are limits to what we can do. We need to accept them, or we will make other people suffer.
- bombcar 1y ago
  Late first child seems to have some substantial risks, though (what they call) geriatric pregnancies in general may not be as risky. But even starting in your 30s gives you a big disadvantage, toddlers are fast (the fastest land mammal is a toddler who’s just been asked what he has in his mouth!).
  - xp84 1y ago
    Became a parent mid-30s and I cannot agree more. I didn’t feel old right away, but my first child is somewhat special-needs and it feels like parenting him has aged me 20 years in the past 7. This is a special case, but even with a ‘normal’ kid it’s still true. The #1 thing I would tell any young person who would listen is that if you want them, finish having children by like 27. I know for most people, that represents a gamble (that you’ll be able to achieve financial stability in the future), but it’s a safer bet than betting that ‘future you’ will be better equipped in all of the non-money ways. Spoiler: older you is worse equipped in most ways. You might have more wisdom to impart, but the children won’t listen to you anyway so that’s moot.
    - ponector 1y ago
      >> The #1 thing I would tell any young person who would listen is that if you want them, finish having children by like 27 Unless one is from a wealthy family, following this advice basically means to give up a career. Being a mom without a career is being insecure, it could end up in abusive relationship.
adriand 1y ago
My concern is the intersection of rightwing natalism with Silicon Valley ideology leading to technological “solutions” involving, essentially, test tube babies. Take women out of the picture entirely. I can especially see a dystopian dynamic involving the “we have to compete with China” or “they’re doing it / about to do it in China” narratives.
- chrisco255 1y ago
  A "test tube baby" is simply an IVF pregnancy. What is the problem with parents using IVF to conceive?
  - adriand 1y ago
    That’s a colloquial term for IVF pregnancies but that’s not what I mean. I mean artificial wombs, and all the other technologies downstream from a push to “scale up” procreation: like robots that can raise children.
  - nradov 1y ago
    IVF isn't a problem per se, and it's great that we have those option for prospective parents who want it. But it's unreliable, expensive, and simply not a scalable solution to anything.
- pfdietz 1y ago
  Nah, the right wing solution would be replacing prison with compulsory pregnancy. Sufficient numbers of convicts can be created by appropriate laws.
  - xp84 1y ago
    This really shows what a bogeyman the “right wing” is to you! Cartoon villains, basically.
- suslik 1y ago
  I’d say artificial womb is a technocratic center-left solution. A right-wing solution would be a proverbial “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” for all women. I, for one, would bet my firstborn that a solution to the demographic question such that fulfills modern sensibilities is to ever be found.
pfdietz 1y ago
For a technological solution, I've previously suggested changing the male/female ratio of new births. Filter out most of the Y bearing sperm cells. In this new imbalanced society, a TFR well below 2 will still allow a stable, or even growing, population.
- WalterBright 1y ago
  Who is going to fix things, then?
  - pfdietz 1y ago
    Not sure what you question is there.
- xp84 1y ago
  While I think such a society would end in a lot of bloodshed, it sounds like it would make for an entertaining sci-fi or anime. I assume the elites would try to condition most or all of these women to be lesbians, to keep them believing that this is about women’s empowerment and not develop ideas of women being unvalued concubines and entertainment for the few Y-chromosome-bearers that survive (who I imagine couldn’t help but develop enormous egos and senses of entitlement).
WalterBright 1y ago
Baby booms normally happen after a big war. After all the death, people have a primal urge to procreate. I read that people were copulating in the streets of London the day of the Armistice.
- tartoran 1y ago
  Im not sure it's got to do with death. Maybe all the would be parents were holding off having kids during war for obvious reasons. Once the war stops they can just continue with their prior plans. It's also the return of the men from war seeing their girlfriends/wives after a long while.
xp84 1y ago
While I wouldn’t like to place all my faith in that happening, that would certainly be a great development.
mindslight 1y ago
> robots to help with child care Tell me you don't have kids without telling me you don't have kids. From an "efficiency" perspective, one can already eliminate 90% of the work of childcare by putting your kid in a sturdy playpen with a secure hard top and wearing noise canceling headphones. People don't really want to do this, for the most part. The interactive learning is the entire point of childcare. Having machines raise your kids will make it so you end up with kids that were raised by machines. Is that what you want? It seems like this is basically already a thing, with the varying amounts of screen time that parents will allow kids.
- Klaster_1 1y ago
  What if robots were to assist with other tasks while the parent was preoccupied with the child? Like cooking, cleaning up, laundry, shopping.
  - mindslight 1y ago
    Sure, but those are incremental gains rather than some sea change. And for the most part that market already exists. The problem is those things have no easy answers. From the list the only thing I can see is some sort of decluttering robot that picked up and put away all the scattered toys, so robot vacuuming could be done. Maybe some kind of integrated laundry machine that did washing and drying in the same space, then a conveyor that sorted/folded/stacked clothes? Those would be helpful, but would ultimately just end up as another "buy this expensive gizmo also, to make your life slightly easier"

seydor 1y ago

if we have all those robots doing everything for us, why do we need children?

coldtea 1y ago
If we have all those robots doing everything we are we needed? We could just kill ourselves, since we don't seem to care much for life, reproduction, and all that.

ch4s3 1y ago

The mid-century Baby Boom came after WWII, and probably had very little to do with technology. The upswing started some time in late 1944 to mid 1945 as combat was winding down in Europe and a lot of young men were returning home. Otherwise fertility has been declining steadily since 1800 in western countries.

Analemma_ 1y ago
No, this is exactly the opposite of true: you need to do more reading about the baby boom. It happened across many countries, including ones which had little involvement in WWII, and in almost all cases it began in the 1930s, even with the Great Depression underway. It got supercharged by the end of the war because that's when the economic doldrums finally ended, but upward trend in fertility predated even the beginning of the war, never mind the end.
- chrisco255 1y ago
  https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033027/fertility-rate-us-1800-2020/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033027/fertility-rate-u... The above shows the boom started in the 40s in the U.S. after 140 years of gradual decline.
- ch4s3 1y ago
  The technological explanation wouldn’t really account for any increase in places where 1930s and 40s technology hadn’t been deployed. I’d need a little more than hand waving to evaluate or engage with your argument.
baron816 1y ago
See https://www.derekthompson.org/p/what-caused-the-baby-boom-what-would https://www.derekthompson.org/p/what-caused-the-baby-boom-wh...
- ch4s3 1y ago
  I don’t agree with Thompson, his start date is the place where fertility hit a local minimum, not the year where the rate really took off which was 1946. A lot of the technological innovations actually predated his arguable start date by 5-10 years and several happened well into the boom. I think his explanation fits the thesis of his recent book, which I actually like, but it seem a bit off here.

lynx97 1y ago

Late child birth is not about fertility but about risks for the child. The only woman I know (yeah, anecdotes) who attempted to delay getting a child until after her 40th birthday got a baby with down syndrome. I know what living with a disability in our world means, from personal experience. And given that experience, I have a hard time giving these women some slack. I think they are risking the well being of their children just for their own selfish reasons. We are humans, and there are limits to what we can do. We need to accept them, or we will make other people suffer.

bombcar 1y ago
Late first child seems to have some substantial risks, though (what they call) geriatric pregnancies in general may not be as risky. But even starting in your 30s gives you a big disadvantage, toddlers are fast (the fastest land mammal is a toddler who’s just been asked what he has in his mouth!).
- xp84 1y ago
  Became a parent mid-30s and I cannot agree more. I didn’t feel old right away, but my first child is somewhat special-needs and it feels like parenting him has aged me 20 years in the past 7. This is a special case, but even with a ‘normal’ kid it’s still true. The #1 thing I would tell any young person who would listen is that if you want them, finish having children by like 27. I know for most people, that represents a gamble (that you’ll be able to achieve financial stability in the future), but it’s a safer bet than betting that ‘future you’ will be better equipped in all of the non-money ways. Spoiler: older you is worse equipped in most ways. You might have more wisdom to impart, but the children won’t listen to you anyway so that’s moot.
  - ponector 1y ago
    >> The #1 thing I would tell any young person who would listen is that if you want them, finish having children by like 27 Unless one is from a wealthy family, following this advice basically means to give up a career. Being a mom without a career is being insecure, it could end up in abusive relationship.

adriand 1y ago

My concern is the intersection of rightwing natalism with Silicon Valley ideology leading to technological “solutions” involving, essentially, test tube babies. Take women out of the picture entirely. I can especially see a dystopian dynamic involving the “we have to compete with China” or “they’re doing it / about to do it in China” narratives.

chrisco255 1y ago
A "test tube baby" is simply an IVF pregnancy. What is the problem with parents using IVF to conceive?
- adriand 1y ago
  That’s a colloquial term for IVF pregnancies but that’s not what I mean. I mean artificial wombs, and all the other technologies downstream from a push to “scale up” procreation: like robots that can raise children.
- nradov 1y ago
  IVF isn't a problem per se, and it's great that we have those option for prospective parents who want it. But it's unreliable, expensive, and simply not a scalable solution to anything.
pfdietz 1y ago
Nah, the right wing solution would be replacing prison with compulsory pregnancy. Sufficient numbers of convicts can be created by appropriate laws.
- xp84 1y ago
  This really shows what a bogeyman the “right wing” is to you! Cartoon villains, basically.
suslik 1y ago
I’d say artificial womb is a technocratic center-left solution. A right-wing solution would be a proverbial “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” for all women. I, for one, would bet my firstborn that a solution to the demographic question such that fulfills modern sensibilities is to ever be found.

pfdietz 1y ago

For a technological solution, I've previously suggested changing the male/female ratio of new births. Filter out most of the Y bearing sperm cells. In this new imbalanced society, a TFR well below 2 will still allow a stable, or even growing, population.

WalterBright 1y ago
Who is going to fix things, then?
- pfdietz 1y ago
  Not sure what you question is there.
xp84 1y ago
While I think such a society would end in a lot of bloodshed, it sounds like it would make for an entertaining sci-fi or anime. I assume the elites would try to condition most or all of these women to be lesbians, to keep them believing that this is about women’s empowerment and not develop ideas of women being unvalued concubines and entertainment for the few Y-chromosome-bearers that survive (who I imagine couldn’t help but develop enormous egos and senses of entitlement).

WalterBright 1y ago

Baby booms normally happen after a big war. After all the death, people have a primal urge to procreate. I read that people were copulating in the streets of London the day of the Armistice.

tartoran 1y ago
Im not sure it's got to do with death. Maybe all the would be parents were holding off having kids during war for obvious reasons. Once the war stops they can just continue with their prior plans. It's also the return of the men from war seeing their girlfriends/wives after a long while.

xp84 1y ago

While I wouldn’t like to place all my faith in that happening, that would certainly be a great development.

mindslight 1y ago

> robots to help with child care Tell me you don't have kids without telling me you don't have kids. From an "efficiency" perspective, one can already eliminate 90% of the work of childcare by putting your kid in a sturdy playpen with a secure hard top and wearing noise canceling headphones. People don't really want to do this, for the most part. The interactive learning is the entire point of childcare. Having machines raise your kids will make it so you end up with kids that were raised by machines. Is that what you want? It seems like this is basically already a thing, with the varying amounts of screen time that parents will allow kids.

Klaster_1 1y ago
What if robots were to assist with other tasks while the parent was preoccupied with the child? Like cooking, cleaning up, laundry, shopping.
- mindslight 1y ago
  Sure, but those are incremental gains rather than some sea change. And for the most part that market already exists. The problem is those things have no easy answers. From the list the only thing I can see is some sort of decluttering robot that picked up and put away all the scattered toys, so robot vacuuming could be done. Maybe some kind of integrated laundry machine that did washing and drying in the same space, then a conveyor that sorted/folded/stacked clothes? Those would be helpful, but would ultimately just end up as another "buy this expensive gizmo also, to make your life slightly easier"