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I think that birth rates also drop when girls and women are educated. I would like to see such education AND lotsa child support programs and credits. I.e. I t

by slwvx 5mo ago

I think that birth rates also drop when girls and women are educated. I would like to see such education AND lotsa child support programs and credits. I.e. I think a stable fertility rate AND educated girls are simultaneously possible all around the world

Take8435 5mo ago
Birth rates would also improve when boys and men are educated. Both genders need education and child support programs. Men/Boys need to understand what responsibilities they have, if they choose to have a child. They also need to understand the effects that having a child has on a woman's body. Governments around the world would benefit their society by investing in family planning, family support (esp. child care) to enable parents to work and provide for their family. An educated and healthy populace (from infant to old age) benefits everyone.
- jazz9k 5mo ago
  "Men/Boys need to understand what responsibilities they have, if they choose to have a child. They also need to understand the effects that having a child has on a woman's body." This will only reduce birth rates. I have two kids and it's hard. I would still have them if I knew just how hard it would be (especially during winter, when everyone is sick). There are also many men that just don't care if they have a child, what it does to a woman's body. This won't change with more education.
  - Take8435 5mo ago
    So, the solution is to... not provide education? The logic doesn't make sense. You say this yourself: "I would still have them if I knew just how hard it would be" If it reduces birth rates, that's not due to education alone. That's due to a lack of investment by governments to support those families. You should know this with two kids. Any help is better than no help. Women want to work. Women want to go to school. That's what this topic is about.
    - giantg2 5mo ago
      "That's due to a lack of investment by governments to support those families." Please show the evidence for this being true. Birthrates are low even in countries that provide a lot of support.
      - acdha 5mo ago
        No country provides a lot of support. Some countries provide more but inevitably if you poll people they’ll mention that they mention significant financial deterrents, not to mention things like climate change, all of which are valid. People only need one of them to be true to decide to have fewer children, while society needs to help address all of them. For example, if your government provides housing and childcare support—and say that’s the unicorn where those are consistently available, high quality, and cover the full cost—but still culturally tends to mommy-track careers into dead ends, despite doing those other things well you are going to have a lot of women decide not to risk multiple decades of lifetime earnings.
        giantg2 5mo ago
        "No country provides a lot of support." The evidence suggests this is not true. The rest of your comment points to non-financial issues. https://www.newsweek.com/norway-birth-rate-fertility-rate-parental-leave-childcare-2080996 https://www.newsweek.com/norway-birth-rate-fertility-rate-pa...
        acdha 5mo ago
        Yes, support does not have to be financial. If you read the entire article you posted note the experts quoted made the same point: opportunity cost is real. Career impact is real. The shift to getting educated and established in a career is real. Societies have to address many different sources of no because the only reason rates used to be higher in the past was women not having a choice.
    - traderj0e 5mo ago
      You'd be surprised how much people "want" to do something has to do with what they're told or pressured to do growing up. Ask kids why they're going to college and you'll see.
- bhagyeshsp 5mo ago
  This is almost the opposite of what happens. The more educated/developed a nation, the lesser their birth rate is going to be. I understand the "shoulds" but that's not what the data suggests. In essence, we can't have the pie and at the same time eat it. The most useful thing education does for children is reduce child-mortality rate.[1] Sources: https://raphael-godefroy.github.io/pdfs/mali_final.pdf https://raphael-godefroy.github.io/pdfs/mali_final.pdf [1] https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED503923 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED503923
  - Take8435 5mo ago
    This is misleading. Education is not the panacea. I am saying it's a "whole of family" approach. Governments need to also provide more support to families. This is clear to any parent.
    - bhagyeshsp 5mo ago
      Let us take your previous comment as the basis > Birth rates would also improve when boys and men are educated. There is no evidence of this being true. This is certainly a narrative peddled by many ideologues. > Both genders need education and child support programs. Poorest of poor and illiterate people happen to have more children than the rest. > Men/Boys need to understand what responsibilities they have, if they choose to have a child. If men are educated on responsibilities of alimony and child support, with almost no rights, they would neither marry nor have legitimate children. > They also need to understand the effects that having a child has on a woman's body. This maybe your personal dream and that's fine. But this has nothing to do with the topic at hand. > Governments around the world would benefit their society by investing in family planning, family support (esp. child care) to enable parents to work and provide for their family. Family-planning is euphemism for reducing children per woman. There's no benefit of having less children -> leading to less economic activity in the future. The family support you keep touting about is moot point. Government does not have their own money. People pay taxes which are used by government. > An educated and healthy populace (from infant to old age) benefits everyone. Agreed on this point. The definition of benefits are subjective but overall, it is agreed that it is a net positive.
- AdrianB1 5mo ago
  > They also need to understand the effects that having a child has on a woman's body. I thought they were built for that. For tens of thousands of years women had on average 7 children or more, it looks like the process is very reliable. These days birth-giving mortality is very close to zero, also post-birth care is quite good, so we are in a better place than ever and still concerned?
  - Qem 5mo ago
    > These days birth-giving mortality is very close to zero, also post-birth care is quite good Also reliable and affordable DNA testing makes much easier collecting pensions from fathers that before would just vanish, or outright deny paternity. An underrated breakthrough in women and children rights enforcement.
  - stackskipton 5mo ago
    Historically, women started having children around 16-18 years old so that 7 was much easier. Societally, almost everyone would argue we shouldn't encourage women to have kids that young.
    - habinero 5mo ago
      That doesn't seem to be broadly true. For example, in Tudor England, women generally got married in their early 20s and men on their late 20s. People absolutely knew pregnancy was dangerous for girls who weren't full grown.
      - stackskipton 5mo ago
        It's varied throughout history obviously but if you look at average marriage age now, it's still in low 20s in many places.
  - lotsofpulp 5mo ago
    Read this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/1t6akt4/idk_where_the_girl_is_with_the_list_but_my_baby/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/1t6akt4/id... Just because women used to birth 7 kids with high morbidity and mortality rates does not mean they wanted to.
- traderj0e 5mo ago
  More educated men have fewer children on average, but it's less of a difference than with women. It could even just be because they're marrying educated women.
- neofrog 5mo ago
  If men/boys truly understand the current situation, they wouldn't want to marry nor have children at all. Legal system is essentially rigged against them. Paternal scams, alimony/divorce laws all are essentially designed to protect women at all times with no regard to the concerns of males.
  - watwut 5mo ago
    Men do financially better off after divorce. They report higher loneliness, but then tend to find new partner sooner. Women get poorer in divorce. They report higher hapiness after divorce and tend to stay single longer. And also, women file for divorce more often.
    - aetherspawn 5mo ago
      Yeah that’s just because there are more narcissist men than women. Maybe maternal instinct slightly offsets narcissism or something. The narcissist partner never wants to leave, but the victim wants out as soon as they can afford to do it. How do you tackle narcissism as a problem when virtually everything (internet, social media, celebrities, politics) prolifically promotes a narcissistic way of life as a successful one?
      - Take8435 5mo ago
        > How do you tackle narcissism as a problem when virtually everything (internet, social media, celebrities, politics) prolifically promotes a narcissistic way of life as a successful one? This is what a government and/or society need to figure out. But no one really wants to ask or deal with those hard questions which is why the proverbial can keeps getting kicked down the road.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
- lelanthran 5mo ago
  > Birth rates would also improve when boys and men are educated. Both genders need education and child support programs. Men/Boys need to understand what responsibilities they have, if they choose to have a child. How are you defining "improve"? Is it "increase" or "decrease"? I feel that informing males beforehand about the responsibilities of fatherhood would decrease the birth rate. Maybe you consider that an improvement? Many people in this thread consider increasing the birth rate an improvement.
  - Take8435 5mo ago
    I want to know, "I feel that informing males beforehand about the responsibilities of fatherhood would decrease the birth rate", why do you feel this way? Increased responsibilities should only fall on the mother? Please explain your rationale. If I misunderstand, please explain.
    - y-curious 5mo ago
      Not the person you’re writing to, but a lot of our birth rate was propped up by unplanned, unmarried pregnancies pre-2000. There is a large subsection of men that simply never want to have children, but will step up and father them due to societal pressure. It’s like the military draft: many people that don’t want to be soldiers end up being adequate soldiers when the rubber meets the road.
    - lelanthran 5mo ago
      > I want to know, "I feel that informing males beforehand about the responsibilities of fatherhood would decrease the birth rate", why do you feel this way? Because telling someone "$FOO comes with all these responsbilities which you did not know about" can only decrease their desire for $FOO, whether $FOO is "becoming a father" or "becoming a beekeeper". > Increased responsibilities should only fall on the mother? Which part of my post addressed allocation of responsibilities? My post deals with awareness of responsibilities, not with the actual allocation of responsibilities. And it's not just with pregnancies, or with men; it's with everything and both sexes - giving people mandatory obligations for anything is going to reduce their desire for that thing.
- saltyoldman 5mo ago
  Does this increase in birth rate happen before or after the various classes teach you to switch genders? I imagine maybe when you get into your phd level classes, it starts going up again, but definitely a big dip in highschool and undergrad college.
y-curious 5mo ago
I’m very passionate about birth rates and I think they’re worth improving. Unfortunately, child support programs don’t move the needle, it’s thoroughly researched. Nordic countries have tried them in various ways, and the birth rate is still extremely low. Ultimately, the benefits of female education AND lowered child mortality AND access to contraception feel inextricably linked to lower birth rates. I wish I had a solution. As an educated woman, why should I spend time developing an employable skill just to raise >2.3 children and not thrive in my career? Most research indicates that child support programs tend to just support people that already planned to have children. As someone about to be a first time parent, I would love more support in the US. But it’s hard to imagine a world where you take on a lifelong responsibility for, say, an extra $2k (or even $20k) being handed to you by the government.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
  > why should I spend time developing an employable skill just to raise >2.3 children and not thrive in my career? This contains the answer: we aren’t paying enough. Kids used to confer private, excludable benefit through their labour. Without child labour, their economic value is no longer exclusive to their parents. This transforms children, economically, from a private good to a common resource. Our low birth rates are a tragedy of a commons. A known problem with a known solution. If we want a higher birth rate, we should have a massive child tax credit. One that can rival the rising cost and opportunity cost of childrearing.
  - lotsofpulp 5mo ago
    A better, cleaner solution is to remove old age benefits (Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid). A tax credit sufficient to incentivize attaining TFR would probably blow up the budget, and it would be hard to pin down the exact number, subject to tons of politics.
    - nathan_compton 5mo ago
      A better, cleaner, solution that literally no civilization on earth would ever vote for or want to deal with. "Support families to raise kids" sells way better than "let old people die if they don't have kids to support them."
s_dev 5mo ago
Can you point to any examples of this: >I think a stable fertility rate AND educated girls are simultaneously possible all around the world i.e countries with a very high education attainment rate or high ranking in the human development index coupled with a high fertility rate? There was HackerNews discussion a while back that alluded to the fact the more developed a country becomes the lower the fertility rate. Because its suggested that solutions like affordable housing, more free time, child care may help in a few situations but largely don't bump the fertility rates. Developed countries are currently getting by on their immigration rates but as the rest of the world becomes more developed this isn't a lasting solution.
pjc50 5mo ago
This subthread has people using "improve" to mean "increase" and "improve" to mean "decrease". Maybe you guys should stop talking past each other and converge on replacement rate? Up until very recently, and especially in Africa, huge amounts of effort went into reducing birth rate to avoid locally-Malthusian situations with high child death rates and occasional famines.
giantg2 5mo ago
Birthrates at or below replacement rate are ultimately a good thing as we improve automation and AI. Infinite population growth is not a realistic model. We can't even prove the current population level is sustainable.
- bcjdjsndon 5mo ago
  > We can't even prove the current population level is sustainable. Everyday we prove it slightly more. To exhaust the nutrients in all the mud in the world would take a lot more farming, but we thought that ip4 addresses would never run out either, so maybe it will happen.
  - noitpmeder 5mo ago
    If anything every day we prove the current setup is NOT sustainable
kelvinjps10 5mo ago
Yeah but in poor/developing countries raising birth rates are not something they're looking for but the opposite, (the most important thing is reducing teenage pregnancy). I lived in Colombia and they had programs where they have free antibcoceptives, free antibcoceptives implants that last a few years, like a lot of effort is spent in preventing birth rates, since a lot of people without the resources have a lot of kids. I don't think the problem of birth rates is related to financial reasons when in poor countries you see people with multiple kids without being able to afford It. I know personally people that have 10kids.
- quickwebs-agent 5mo ago
  [dead]
tialaramex 5mo ago
What if you're wrong? What if, all else being as it is but with "lotsa child support programs and credits" and education, on average people who could give birth decide they're not keen and we do not hit replacement reproduction rates? Because humans are so numerous even if we hit 1.0 rates (ie population halves each generation) we've got a long time before that's a pressing issue.
- AdrianB1 5mo ago
  If the population halves each generation the biggest problem is total societal collapse. The children and the elder cannot be sustained by a small number of people of working age and the infrastructure cannot be maintained by a dramatically dropping population: even with AI and robots, roads don't fix themselves and train tracks don't get fixed by robots. We will not even have enough doctors and nurses to care for the seniors and no economy to make retirement possible (money will be worth their value in paper as there will be no people to provide services and goods for it). If someone things the population on the planet is too big, then plan for a reduction that is manageable and change the pay-as-you-go pension system that exists in most of the world, that is based on working age people paying the pension for retirees. Even at replacement rate the pension systems will collapse, they were built in a time when the average number of children per woman was around 7 and the age of retirement was higher than average life expectation.
  - tialaramex 5mo ago
    > The children and the elder cannot be sustained by a small number of people of working age No, the children are fine in this scenario, there are even proportionally fewer than now and so there are any number of available carers. The elderly are screwed. But, that seems OK? > If someone things the population on the planet is too big, This isn't a centrally planned thing, it's just an exaggeration of the observable reality. On the whole humans who could carry a baby to term but understand exactly what's involved are not keen and if they're willing to do it once or twice draw the line there. The assumption that we're just not compensating them financially enough to reproduce more is let's say, not well supported by available evidence. I think we should choose to be entirely OK with that until there's risk of a real population bottleneck, e.g. 1000x fewer people -- in the expectation that conditions change and it might sort itself out without action.
traderj0e 5mo ago
They've tried this in several countries, and it's never resulted in birth rate near replacement. And it'd be even lower if they didn't have immigrants from more family-oriented countries.
neofrog 5mo ago
Care to give some examples where women's "empowerment" led to stable birth rates? Pushing people too far away from their biological baseline is wreaking havoc in almost all developed countries. And nobody seems to be happy with their new found freedoms as indicated by mental health indicators.
- MSFT_Edging 5mo ago
  > wreaking havoc in almost all developed countries. This isn't a given. This is due to the continuous growth cycle without effort made towards long term stability. A pyramid scheme will fall apart if they can no longer scam new members to join. A system where you need to increase those at the bottom for the top to succeed is a pyramid scheme. Invest now in elderly care training. Reallocate resources from wasteful corn subsidies into healthcare, edible crops, and renewable energy. This will soften the blow from the inverted pyramid and society will be able to work through it over a period of 20 years. Or, continue investing in war, divest from education, ensure wealth trickles up, and cry about the problem we all caused. It's not the woman's duty to keep this meat grinder going.
  - neofrog 5mo ago
    Ultimate purpose of any biological entity is to survive and reproduce. I don't see the logic in exempting humans from this reality. People with these luxury beliefs will get culled by nature in couple generations anyways, so at least nature will sort this out over time. People who prioritize continuity will inherit the future.
    - MSFT_Edging 5mo ago
      > Ultimate purpose of any biological entity is to survive and reproduce. Yes, but not to infinitely grow. Any animal population with unchecked growth will eventually be culled by their own outgrown presence if their environment cannot support them. Humans have deemed current society cannot support their children in the ways they deem important. Thus we've culled ourselves, not by over-grazing, but by using our own reasoning. In this case, Humans are capable of supporting as large or small population as we'd like. The planet would support it. What the greater challenge is, is resource allocation. We've collectively decided society-by-combat is the most efficient way to allocate resources and because of that, some people have checked out and used what power they have to not continue that game. The people deciding not to have children will be the same that suffer in their old age. That is their vote.

by slwvx 5mo ago

Take8435 5mo ago

Birth rates would also improve when boys and men are educated. Both genders need education and child support programs. Men/Boys need to understand what responsibilities they have, if they choose to have a child. They also need to understand the effects that having a child has on a woman's body. Governments around the world would benefit their society by investing in family planning, family support (esp. child care) to enable parents to work and provide for their family. An educated and healthy populace (from infant to old age) benefits everyone.

jazz9k 5mo ago
"Men/Boys need to understand what responsibilities they have, if they choose to have a child. They also need to understand the effects that having a child has on a woman's body." This will only reduce birth rates. I have two kids and it's hard. I would still have them if I knew just how hard it would be (especially during winter, when everyone is sick). There are also many men that just don't care if they have a child, what it does to a woman's body. This won't change with more education.
- Take8435 5mo ago
  So, the solution is to... not provide education? The logic doesn't make sense. You say this yourself: "I would still have them if I knew just how hard it would be" If it reduces birth rates, that's not due to education alone. That's due to a lack of investment by governments to support those families. You should know this with two kids. Any help is better than no help. Women want to work. Women want to go to school. That's what this topic is about.
  - giantg2 5mo ago
    "That's due to a lack of investment by governments to support those families." Please show the evidence for this being true. Birthrates are low even in countries that provide a lot of support.
    - acdha 5mo ago
      No country provides a lot of support. Some countries provide more but inevitably if you poll people they’ll mention that they mention significant financial deterrents, not to mention things like climate change, all of which are valid. People only need one of them to be true to decide to have fewer children, while society needs to help address all of them. For example, if your government provides housing and childcare support—and say that’s the unicorn where those are consistently available, high quality, and cover the full cost—but still culturally tends to mommy-track careers into dead ends, despite doing those other things well you are going to have a lot of women decide not to risk multiple decades of lifetime earnings.
      - giantg2 5mo ago
        "No country provides a lot of support." The evidence suggests this is not true. The rest of your comment points to non-financial issues. https://www.newsweek.com/norway-birth-rate-fertility-rate-parental-leave-childcare-2080996 https://www.newsweek.com/norway-birth-rate-fertility-rate-pa...
        acdha 5mo ago
        Yes, support does not have to be financial. If you read the entire article you posted note the experts quoted made the same point: opportunity cost is real. Career impact is real. The shift to getting educated and established in a career is real. Societies have to address many different sources of no because the only reason rates used to be higher in the past was women not having a choice.
  - traderj0e 5mo ago
    You'd be surprised how much people "want" to do something has to do with what they're told or pressured to do growing up. Ask kids why they're going to college and you'll see.
bhagyeshsp 5mo ago
This is almost the opposite of what happens. The more educated/developed a nation, the lesser their birth rate is going to be. I understand the "shoulds" but that's not what the data suggests. In essence, we can't have the pie and at the same time eat it. The most useful thing education does for children is reduce child-mortality rate.[1] Sources: https://raphael-godefroy.github.io/pdfs/mali_final.pdf https://raphael-godefroy.github.io/pdfs/mali_final.pdf [1] https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED503923 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED503923
- Take8435 5mo ago
  This is misleading. Education is not the panacea. I am saying it's a "whole of family" approach. Governments need to also provide more support to families. This is clear to any parent.
  - bhagyeshsp 5mo ago
    Let us take your previous comment as the basis > Birth rates would also improve when boys and men are educated. There is no evidence of this being true. This is certainly a narrative peddled by many ideologues. > Both genders need education and child support programs. Poorest of poor and illiterate people happen to have more children than the rest. > Men/Boys need to understand what responsibilities they have, if they choose to have a child. If men are educated on responsibilities of alimony and child support, with almost no rights, they would neither marry nor have legitimate children. > They also need to understand the effects that having a child has on a woman's body. This maybe your personal dream and that's fine. But this has nothing to do with the topic at hand. > Governments around the world would benefit their society by investing in family planning, family support (esp. child care) to enable parents to work and provide for their family. Family-planning is euphemism for reducing children per woman. There's no benefit of having less children -> leading to less economic activity in the future. The family support you keep touting about is moot point. Government does not have their own money. People pay taxes which are used by government. > An educated and healthy populace (from infant to old age) benefits everyone. Agreed on this point. The definition of benefits are subjective but overall, it is agreed that it is a net positive.
AdrianB1 5mo ago
> They also need to understand the effects that having a child has on a woman's body. I thought they were built for that. For tens of thousands of years women had on average 7 children or more, it looks like the process is very reliable. These days birth-giving mortality is very close to zero, also post-birth care is quite good, so we are in a better place than ever and still concerned?
- Qem 5mo ago
  > These days birth-giving mortality is very close to zero, also post-birth care is quite good Also reliable and affordable DNA testing makes much easier collecting pensions from fathers that before would just vanish, or outright deny paternity. An underrated breakthrough in women and children rights enforcement.
- stackskipton 5mo ago
  Historically, women started having children around 16-18 years old so that 7 was much easier. Societally, almost everyone would argue we shouldn't encourage women to have kids that young.
  - habinero 5mo ago
    That doesn't seem to be broadly true. For example, in Tudor England, women generally got married in their early 20s and men on their late 20s. People absolutely knew pregnancy was dangerous for girls who weren't full grown.
    - stackskipton 5mo ago
      It's varied throughout history obviously but if you look at average marriage age now, it's still in low 20s in many places.
- lotsofpulp 5mo ago
  Read this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/1t6akt4/idk_where_the_girl_is_with_the_list_but_my_baby/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/1t6akt4/id... Just because women used to birth 7 kids with high morbidity and mortality rates does not mean they wanted to.
traderj0e 5mo ago
More educated men have fewer children on average, but it's less of a difference than with women. It could even just be because they're marrying educated women.
neofrog 5mo ago
If men/boys truly understand the current situation, they wouldn't want to marry nor have children at all. Legal system is essentially rigged against them. Paternal scams, alimony/divorce laws all are essentially designed to protect women at all times with no regard to the concerns of males.
- watwut 5mo ago
  Men do financially better off after divorce. They report higher loneliness, but then tend to find new partner sooner. Women get poorer in divorce. They report higher hapiness after divorce and tend to stay single longer. And also, women file for divorce more often.
  - aetherspawn 5mo ago
    Yeah that’s just because there are more narcissist men than women. Maybe maternal instinct slightly offsets narcissism or something. The narcissist partner never wants to leave, but the victim wants out as soon as they can afford to do it. How do you tackle narcissism as a problem when virtually everything (internet, social media, celebrities, politics) prolifically promotes a narcissistic way of life as a successful one?
    - Take8435 5mo ago
      > How do you tackle narcissism as a problem when virtually everything (internet, social media, celebrities, politics) prolifically promotes a narcissistic way of life as a successful one? This is what a government and/or society need to figure out. But no one really wants to ask or deal with those hard questions which is why the proverbial can keeps getting kicked down the road.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
lelanthran 5mo ago
> Birth rates would also improve when boys and men are educated. Both genders need education and child support programs. Men/Boys need to understand what responsibilities they have, if they choose to have a child. How are you defining "improve"? Is it "increase" or "decrease"? I feel that informing males beforehand about the responsibilities of fatherhood would decrease the birth rate. Maybe you consider that an improvement? Many people in this thread consider increasing the birth rate an improvement.
- Take8435 5mo ago
  I want to know, "I feel that informing males beforehand about the responsibilities of fatherhood would decrease the birth rate", why do you feel this way? Increased responsibilities should only fall on the mother? Please explain your rationale. If I misunderstand, please explain.
  - y-curious 5mo ago
    Not the person you’re writing to, but a lot of our birth rate was propped up by unplanned, unmarried pregnancies pre-2000. There is a large subsection of men that simply never want to have children, but will step up and father them due to societal pressure. It’s like the military draft: many people that don’t want to be soldiers end up being adequate soldiers when the rubber meets the road.
  - lelanthran 5mo ago
    > I want to know, "I feel that informing males beforehand about the responsibilities of fatherhood would decrease the birth rate", why do you feel this way? Because telling someone "$FOO comes with all these responsbilities which you did not know about" can only decrease their desire for $FOO, whether $FOO is "becoming a father" or "becoming a beekeeper". > Increased responsibilities should only fall on the mother? Which part of my post addressed allocation of responsibilities? My post deals with awareness of responsibilities, not with the actual allocation of responsibilities. And it's not just with pregnancies, or with men; it's with everything and both sexes - giving people mandatory obligations for anything is going to reduce their desire for that thing.
saltyoldman 5mo ago
Does this increase in birth rate happen before or after the various classes teach you to switch genders? I imagine maybe when you get into your phd level classes, it starts going up again, but definitely a big dip in highschool and undergrad college.

y-curious 5mo ago

I’m very passionate about birth rates and I think they’re worth improving. Unfortunately, child support programs don’t move the needle, it’s thoroughly researched. Nordic countries have tried them in various ways, and the birth rate is still extremely low. Ultimately, the benefits of female education AND lowered child mortality AND access to contraception feel inextricably linked to lower birth rates. I wish I had a solution. As an educated woman, why should I spend time developing an employable skill just to raise >2.3 children and not thrive in my career? Most research indicates that child support programs tend to just support people that already planned to have children. As someone about to be a first time parent, I would love more support in the US. But it’s hard to imagine a world where you take on a lifelong responsibility for, say, an extra $2k (or even $20k) being handed to you by the government.

JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
> why should I spend time developing an employable skill just to raise >2.3 children and not thrive in my career? This contains the answer: we aren’t paying enough. Kids used to confer private, excludable benefit through their labour. Without child labour, their economic value is no longer exclusive to their parents. This transforms children, economically, from a private good to a common resource. Our low birth rates are a tragedy of a commons. A known problem with a known solution. If we want a higher birth rate, we should have a massive child tax credit. One that can rival the rising cost and opportunity cost of childrearing.
- lotsofpulp 5mo ago
  A better, cleaner solution is to remove old age benefits (Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid). A tax credit sufficient to incentivize attaining TFR would probably blow up the budget, and it would be hard to pin down the exact number, subject to tons of politics.
  - nathan_compton 5mo ago
    A better, cleaner, solution that literally no civilization on earth would ever vote for or want to deal with. "Support families to raise kids" sells way better than "let old people die if they don't have kids to support them."

s_dev 5mo ago

Can you point to any examples of this: >I think a stable fertility rate AND educated girls are simultaneously possible all around the world i.e countries with a very high education attainment rate or high ranking in the human development index coupled with a high fertility rate? There was HackerNews discussion a while back that alluded to the fact the more developed a country becomes the lower the fertility rate. Because its suggested that solutions like affordable housing, more free time, child care may help in a few situations but largely don't bump the fertility rates. Developed countries are currently getting by on their immigration rates but as the rest of the world becomes more developed this isn't a lasting solution.

pjc50 5mo ago

This subthread has people using "improve" to mean "increase" and "improve" to mean "decrease". Maybe you guys should stop talking past each other and converge on replacement rate? Up until very recently, and especially in Africa, huge amounts of effort went into reducing birth rate to avoid locally-Malthusian situations with high child death rates and occasional famines.

giantg2 5mo ago

Birthrates at or below replacement rate are ultimately a good thing as we improve automation and AI. Infinite population growth is not a realistic model. We can't even prove the current population level is sustainable.

bcjdjsndon 5mo ago
> We can't even prove the current population level is sustainable. Everyday we prove it slightly more. To exhaust the nutrients in all the mud in the world would take a lot more farming, but we thought that ip4 addresses would never run out either, so maybe it will happen.
- noitpmeder 5mo ago
  If anything every day we prove the current setup is NOT sustainable

kelvinjps10 5mo ago

Yeah but in poor/developing countries raising birth rates are not something they're looking for but the opposite, (the most important thing is reducing teenage pregnancy). I lived in Colombia and they had programs where they have free antibcoceptives, free antibcoceptives implants that last a few years, like a lot of effort is spent in preventing birth rates, since a lot of people without the resources have a lot of kids. I don't think the problem of birth rates is related to financial reasons when in poor countries you see people with multiple kids without being able to afford It. I know personally people that have 10kids.

quickwebs-agent 5mo ago
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tialaramex 5mo ago

What if you're wrong? What if, all else being as it is but with "lotsa child support programs and credits" and education, on average people who could give birth decide they're not keen and we do not hit replacement reproduction rates? Because humans are so numerous even if we hit 1.0 rates (ie population halves each generation) we've got a long time before that's a pressing issue.

AdrianB1 5mo ago
If the population halves each generation the biggest problem is total societal collapse. The children and the elder cannot be sustained by a small number of people of working age and the infrastructure cannot be maintained by a dramatically dropping population: even with AI and robots, roads don't fix themselves and train tracks don't get fixed by robots. We will not even have enough doctors and nurses to care for the seniors and no economy to make retirement possible (money will be worth their value in paper as there will be no people to provide services and goods for it). If someone things the population on the planet is too big, then plan for a reduction that is manageable and change the pay-as-you-go pension system that exists in most of the world, that is based on working age people paying the pension for retirees. Even at replacement rate the pension systems will collapse, they were built in a time when the average number of children per woman was around 7 and the age of retirement was higher than average life expectation.
- tialaramex 5mo ago
  > The children and the elder cannot be sustained by a small number of people of working age No, the children are fine in this scenario, there are even proportionally fewer than now and so there are any number of available carers. The elderly are screwed. But, that seems OK? > If someone things the population on the planet is too big, This isn't a centrally planned thing, it's just an exaggeration of the observable reality. On the whole humans who could carry a baby to term but understand exactly what's involved are not keen and if they're willing to do it once or twice draw the line there. The assumption that we're just not compensating them financially enough to reproduce more is let's say, not well supported by available evidence. I think we should choose to be entirely OK with that until there's risk of a real population bottleneck, e.g. 1000x fewer people -- in the expectation that conditions change and it might sort itself out without action.

traderj0e 5mo ago

They've tried this in several countries, and it's never resulted in birth rate near replacement. And it'd be even lower if they didn't have immigrants from more family-oriented countries.

neofrog 5mo ago

Care to give some examples where women's "empowerment" led to stable birth rates? Pushing people too far away from their biological baseline is wreaking havoc in almost all developed countries. And nobody seems to be happy with their new found freedoms as indicated by mental health indicators.

MSFT_Edging 5mo ago
> wreaking havoc in almost all developed countries. This isn't a given. This is due to the continuous growth cycle without effort made towards long term stability. A pyramid scheme will fall apart if they can no longer scam new members to join. A system where you need to increase those at the bottom for the top to succeed is a pyramid scheme. Invest now in elderly care training. Reallocate resources from wasteful corn subsidies into healthcare, edible crops, and renewable energy. This will soften the blow from the inverted pyramid and society will be able to work through it over a period of 20 years. Or, continue investing in war, divest from education, ensure wealth trickles up, and cry about the problem we all caused. It's not the woman's duty to keep this meat grinder going.
- neofrog 5mo ago
  Ultimate purpose of any biological entity is to survive and reproduce. I don't see the logic in exempting humans from this reality. People with these luxury beliefs will get culled by nature in couple generations anyways, so at least nature will sort this out over time. People who prioritize continuity will inherit the future.
  - MSFT_Edging 5mo ago
    > Ultimate purpose of any biological entity is to survive and reproduce. Yes, but not to infinitely grow. Any animal population with unchecked growth will eventually be culled by their own outgrown presence if their environment cannot support them. Humans have deemed current society cannot support their children in the ways they deem important. Thus we've culled ourselves, not by over-grazing, but by using our own reasoning. In this case, Humans are capable of supporting as large or small population as we'd like. The planet would support it. What the greater challenge is, is resource allocation. We've collectively decided society-by-combat is the most efficient way to allocate resources and because of that, some people have checked out and used what power they have to not continue that game. The people deciding not to have children will be the same that suffer in their old age. That is their vote.