Yep. Birth control made it so women can choose how many times they get pregnant. Pregnancy is not exactly a walk in the park, so it’s no surprise it’s decreasing as birth control increases.

To override this, society needs to make having kids be “cool.” It’s that “simple,” but there’s no real way to coordinate that in society from the top down without being authoritarian.

So it’s a problem that can only be solved by individual change and convincing others one on one that it’s desirable. And people don’t like that.

I totally agree, and my argument with the original post was that the author made it sound so simple.

Has any society successfully done this yet?

Basically, the only prosperous first world groups I see with fertility rates above replacement rate are religious subcultures (like the Mormons, Evangelicals, and Modern Orthodox Jews in the US). I simply don't see any other examples of being able to pull this off.

> but there’s no real way to coordinate that in society from the top down without being authoritarian.

PR comes to mind. They managed to convince millions of people that smoking is 'cool', we just need another Bernays to do the same for having kids.

>without being authoritarian.

Too late. We already have the eyes/muscle and nascent legal justifications; leadership will eventually force the issue.