5 ms·

Is there any evidence that the fall in birth rates is caused by humans having produced reality TV shows? I’d say there is better evidence to suggest the fall i

Is there any evidence that the fall in birth rates is caused by humans having produced reality TV shows? I’d say there is better evidence to suggest the fall in birth rates is predominantly caused by telling women they should prioritise education and career over children, and enabling the invention of the single mother who survives on government largesse. Separating church and state appears to be contributing at least to some extent. Single mothers, and women having their first child in their late 20’s or 30’s, appear to be maladaptive.

KPGv2 10mo ago
> I’d say there is better evidence to suggest the fall in birth rates is predominantly caused by telling women they should prioritise education and career over children I'd say the evidence is inconclusive and could just as easily be explained by not telling men they needed to take on their share of the burden at home now that their women were no longer trapped at home doing unpaid, manual labor all day. Instead, we're letting people say "gay sex includes giving a woman an orgasm instead of a pregnancy" (an actual thing I've heard a right-wing influencer say right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH6uydPCX8Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH6uydPCX8Q ) and encouraging men to be more selfish and anti-woman. Also who cares about a fall in birth rates? We need a fall in birth rates. Above replacement rate is mathematically unstable in the long term. When people complain bout "a fall in birth rates," they're a mix of capitalists who need their profits to ever increase, and white supremacists who mean WHITE people need to have more babies because society is too BROWN now. We're about to have hella unemployment from too many people for too few jobs. We need fewer people.
- mlrtime 10mo ago
  Your post, youtube link and quote is quite ironic given the title of this thread. You link to a youtube podcast of kids stating things as if they are facts, its just a podcast. I've never heard these things actually said anywhere. It means nothing. Then your quote is taken out of context and a new culture war is created, well done.
- seba_dos1 10mo ago
  It's interesting how common the theme of "a man being into women is gay" is among the right-wing circles, though usually it's hidden in the subtext and not just spelled out in clear like this.
tw04 10mo ago
> predominantly caused by telling women they should prioritise education and career over children Who is “telling them that”? Society by allowing them to open a checking account? Women’s suffrage? The reality is that other than the most privileged, a modern family can’t afford to function without both parents working. I assume you’re for raising the minimum wage to allow a family to run on a single income with multiple children? Or your solution is to send us back to the dark ages and remove womens rights? > enabling the invention of the single mother who survives on government largesse. There’s literally nobody who has kids as a single mother with the goal of raising them on welfare, that might be the single most ridiculous statement in this thread. > Separating church and state appears to be contributing at least to some extent. The Russian Orthodox Church is government sponsored. How’s their birth rate going?
- singpolyma3 10mo ago
  It's definitely not true that both parents need to work. I know many families where only one parent has an income, and it is a very low income (one works as a mover for example) and they manage to eat and live etc. Do they live upper middle class on this income? No. But they do live and have multiple children.
  - tw04 10mo ago
    And I can guarantee they’re on government assistance because I know what a “mover” makes, and I know what diapers and formula cost, and they aren’t paying for multiple children on that salary alone.
    - singpolyma3 10mo ago
      I can promise you they are not. One of the families in question doesn't even get their tax credits because they are too far behind on filing. It's just the mover income. They have to make it work and since they must, they do They don't buy formula obviously and they cloth diaper with used stuff from marketplace. To cover the two examples you gave
coldtea 10mo ago
>Is there any evidence that the fall in birth rates is caused by humans having produced reality TV shows? No, but there's is evidence that the fall in birth rates is affected by all the content slop people spend their times consuming instead of talking to one another and fucking one another... and the ideas that slop puts into their heads are even worse...
- Supermancho 10mo ago
  What evidence? The demographic timelines dont add up.
  - coldtea 10mo ago
    Doesn't it? TV got mass adoption midpoint around 1955 - around which time when the fertility trends start sloping down (and incidentaly around the time Putnam puts the start of the decline in social capital in the US in the seminal "Bowling Alone"). It then stabilizes around 1980 and starts a second downward slop around 2010 - the time of smartphones and social media. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-have-us-fertility-and-birth-rates-changed-over-time/ https://usafacts.org/articles/how-have-us-fertility-and-birt...
    - Supermancho 10mo ago
      I appreciate that the generalization and time windowing will be sufficient explanation for some. I don't believe this is an accurate accounting.
amanaplanacanal 10mo ago
Caused by allowing women the same choices that men have. Would you rather they not have the choice?
toss1 10mo ago
Maybe think for a second from the perspective of a couple or woman who WANT to have children. The problems they face in today's economy where both people need to work full-time just to survive are huge, and it seems even crazier to add the time and money costs of a child, let alone several. The way to change all of that has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with economic and labor policy Society decided it was OK to have the top 1% control 27% or all wealth and the top 10% control 60%, and allow companies to pay wages so low that a person working full-time cannot even get out of poverty, so 25%+ of the workers at the largest employer qualify for food benefits (and the employer even gives employees seminars how to get benefits), while the leaders/owners of those companies rake in more billions every year. Society decided it was OK to make sure health care is expensive, incomplete, and bankrupting for any unexpected event. Society decided it was the mothers who are responsible for all childcare and provide only minimum assistance for critical needs like prenatal care, and day-care. You want more babies? Make just a few changes Change requirements so corporations are required to compensate their employees merely the way the original US minimum wage was specified (including in the 1956 Republican Party Platform): So a single person working full-time will earn enough to support a household of four including housing (mortgage/rent), food, healthcare, and education. Recognize that the companies trying to exploit their workers by paying less so their full-time employees need govt benefits to feed themselves are the ones exploiting welfare, and do not have a viable business model, they have an exploitation model. Add making healthcare sufficient and affordable for all, including children and support for daycare and the time and effort to raise children. Change those things, and instead of a couple looking at making an already hugely insecure future even more insecure by having children, they would see an opportunity to confidently embark on building a family without feeling like one misfortune or layoff could put them all in the street.
- SoftTalker 10mo ago
  Do you have a citation that the US federal minimium wage ever had the objective that "a single person working full-time will earn enough to support a household of four" because I can't find it in the Wikipedia entry[1] or other top level search results. I also don't see this idea in the 1956 Republican Party platform[2]. At best from reading a few other sources it looks like at its peak in the late 1960s it would have been enough to keep a family of three above the poverty line (though that hardly implies they could afford a mortgage and higher education). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States [2] https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1956
intended 10mo ago
Why not choose GDP? Or meat consumption? You could choose any pair of correlated variables. Using “The invention of the single mother” is a poor way of explaining away Bad Marriages and relationships. Also, there was a UN report which came out that showed that a major factor behind people choosing not to have children, globally, is money.
- brabel 10mo ago
  Money has been shown convincingly to not be an important factor. Please read about it for a while and you will quickly see that it’s a discredited argument, not least because poor people everywhere have always had more children. Also, fertility rates are falling everywhere, especially in countries that are becoming wealthier.
  - toss1 10mo ago
    Perhaps money alone is not a reliable factor, and there are certainly confounding variables, such as poor people having low access to healthcare including contraception and education about options and how to use it. More important than money is economic security, the ability to expect a reasonable long-term access to a sound source of income. Having to worry whether you'll be laid off next week and not be able to get new work, and have that worry be constant over a decade is a real discouragement to having children. Having a stable situation in life is vastly underrated, and not easily measured by current net worth or income.
  - intended 10mo ago
    Eh? > Money not infertility, UN report says: Why birth rates are plummeting > Roughly 40 percent of respondents cited economic barriers – such as the costs of raising children, job insecurity and expensive housing – as the main reason for having fewer children than they would like > https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/10/money-not-infertility-un-report-says-why-birth-rates-are-plummeting https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/10/money-not-infertili...
    - brabel 10mo ago

KPGv2 10mo ago

> I’d say there is better evidence to suggest the fall in birth rates is predominantly caused by telling women they should prioritise education and career over children I'd say the evidence is inconclusive and could just as easily be explained by not telling men they needed to take on their share of the burden at home now that their women were no longer trapped at home doing unpaid, manual labor all day. Instead, we're letting people say "gay sex includes giving a woman an orgasm instead of a pregnancy" (an actual thing I've heard a right-wing influencer say right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH6uydPCX8Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH6uydPCX8Q ) and encouraging men to be more selfish and anti-woman. Also who cares about a fall in birth rates? We need a fall in birth rates. Above replacement rate is mathematically unstable in the long term. When people complain bout "a fall in birth rates," they're a mix of capitalists who need their profits to ever increase, and white supremacists who mean WHITE people need to have more babies because society is too BROWN now. We're about to have hella unemployment from too many people for too few jobs. We need fewer people.

mlrtime 10mo ago
Your post, youtube link and quote is quite ironic given the title of this thread. You link to a youtube podcast of kids stating things as if they are facts, its just a podcast. I've never heard these things actually said anywhere. It means nothing. Then your quote is taken out of context and a new culture war is created, well done.
seba_dos1 10mo ago
It's interesting how common the theme of "a man being into women is gay" is among the right-wing circles, though usually it's hidden in the subtext and not just spelled out in clear like this.

tw04 10mo ago

> predominantly caused by telling women they should prioritise education and career over children Who is “telling them that”? Society by allowing them to open a checking account? Women’s suffrage? The reality is that other than the most privileged, a modern family can’t afford to function without both parents working. I assume you’re for raising the minimum wage to allow a family to run on a single income with multiple children? Or your solution is to send us back to the dark ages and remove womens rights? > enabling the invention of the single mother who survives on government largesse. There’s literally nobody who has kids as a single mother with the goal of raising them on welfare, that might be the single most ridiculous statement in this thread. > Separating church and state appears to be contributing at least to some extent. The Russian Orthodox Church is government sponsored. How’s their birth rate going?

singpolyma3 10mo ago
It's definitely not true that both parents need to work. I know many families where only one parent has an income, and it is a very low income (one works as a mover for example) and they manage to eat and live etc. Do they live upper middle class on this income? No. But they do live and have multiple children.
- tw04 10mo ago
  And I can guarantee they’re on government assistance because I know what a “mover” makes, and I know what diapers and formula cost, and they aren’t paying for multiple children on that salary alone.
  - singpolyma3 10mo ago
    I can promise you they are not. One of the families in question doesn't even get their tax credits because they are too far behind on filing. It's just the mover income. They have to make it work and since they must, they do They don't buy formula obviously and they cloth diaper with used stuff from marketplace. To cover the two examples you gave

coldtea 10mo ago

>Is there any evidence that the fall in birth rates is caused by humans having produced reality TV shows? No, but there's is evidence that the fall in birth rates is affected by all the content slop people spend their times consuming instead of talking to one another and fucking one another... and the ideas that slop puts into their heads are even worse...

Supermancho 10mo ago
What evidence? The demographic timelines dont add up.
- coldtea 10mo ago
  Doesn't it? TV got mass adoption midpoint around 1955 - around which time when the fertility trends start sloping down (and incidentaly around the time Putnam puts the start of the decline in social capital in the US in the seminal "Bowling Alone"). It then stabilizes around 1980 and starts a second downward slop around 2010 - the time of smartphones and social media. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-have-us-fertility-and-birth-rates-changed-over-time/ https://usafacts.org/articles/how-have-us-fertility-and-birt...
  - Supermancho 10mo ago
    I appreciate that the generalization and time windowing will be sufficient explanation for some. I don't believe this is an accurate accounting.

amanaplanacanal 10mo ago

Caused by allowing women the same choices that men have. Would you rather they not have the choice?

toss1 10mo ago

Maybe think for a second from the perspective of a couple or woman who WANT to have children. The problems they face in today's economy where both people need to work full-time just to survive are huge, and it seems even crazier to add the time and money costs of a child, let alone several. The way to change all of that has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with economic and labor policy Society decided it was OK to have the top 1% control 27% or all wealth and the top 10% control 60%, and allow companies to pay wages so low that a person working full-time cannot even get out of poverty, so 25%+ of the workers at the largest employer qualify for food benefits (and the employer even gives employees seminars how to get benefits), while the leaders/owners of those companies rake in more billions every year. Society decided it was OK to make sure health care is expensive, incomplete, and bankrupting for any unexpected event. Society decided it was the mothers who are responsible for all childcare and provide only minimum assistance for critical needs like prenatal care, and day-care. You want more babies? Make just a few changes Change requirements so corporations are required to compensate their employees merely the way the original US minimum wage was specified (including in the 1956 Republican Party Platform): So a single person working full-time will earn enough to support a household of four including housing (mortgage/rent), food, healthcare, and education. Recognize that the companies trying to exploit their workers by paying less so their full-time employees need govt benefits to feed themselves are the ones exploiting welfare, and do not have a viable business model, they have an exploitation model. Add making healthcare sufficient and affordable for all, including children and support for daycare and the time and effort to raise children. Change those things, and instead of a couple looking at making an already hugely insecure future even more insecure by having children, they would see an opportunity to confidently embark on building a family without feeling like one misfortune or layoff could put them all in the street.

SoftTalker 10mo ago
Do you have a citation that the US federal minimium wage ever had the objective that "a single person working full-time will earn enough to support a household of four" because I can't find it in the Wikipedia entry[1] or other top level search results. I also don't see this idea in the 1956 Republican Party platform[2]. At best from reading a few other sources it looks like at its peak in the late 1960s it would have been enough to keep a family of three above the poverty line (though that hardly implies they could afford a mortgage and higher education). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States [2] https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1956

intended 10mo ago

Why not choose GDP? Or meat consumption? You could choose any pair of correlated variables. Using “The invention of the single mother” is a poor way of explaining away Bad Marriages and relationships. Also, there was a UN report which came out that showed that a major factor behind people choosing not to have children, globally, is money.

brabel 10mo ago
Money has been shown convincingly to not be an important factor. Please read about it for a while and you will quickly see that it’s a discredited argument, not least because poor people everywhere have always had more children. Also, fertility rates are falling everywhere, especially in countries that are becoming wealthier.
- toss1 10mo ago
  Perhaps money alone is not a reliable factor, and there are certainly confounding variables, such as poor people having low access to healthcare including contraception and education about options and how to use it. More important than money is economic security, the ability to expect a reasonable long-term access to a sound source of income. Having to worry whether you'll be laid off next week and not be able to get new work, and have that worry be constant over a decade is a real discouragement to having children. Having a stable situation in life is vastly underrated, and not easily measured by current net worth or income.
- intended 10mo ago
  Eh? > Money not infertility, UN report says: Why birth rates are plummeting > Roughly 40 percent of respondents cited economic barriers – such as the costs of raising children, job insecurity and expensive housing – as the main reason for having fewer children than they would like > https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/10/money-not-infertility-un-report-says-why-birth-rates-are-plummeting https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/10/money-not-infertili...
  - brabel 10mo ago