| ▲ | cowlevel 2 hours ago |
| And you best control the birth rate by royally messing up the economy. Do you know how bad things have to be, for a mammal to voluntarily decide not to reproduce? |
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| ▲ | epihelix an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| I've got it pretty good, and I've voluntarily decided to not reproduce. And just in case you wanted data rather than anecdote: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-fertil... Your world view is somewhat upside down! |
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| ▲ | pixl97 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Then why have birthrates fallen across almost the entire world as the economy has gotten better? |
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| ▲ | christophilus an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I suspect it's a curve. If you're raised in a vibrant economy, and it falls apart, you put off having a family because of uncertainty and fears. If you're raised in poverty, and get a good education and better prospects, you have fewer kids. I think the latter is because you no longer need kids as an economic safeguard and fallback, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure anyone is really sure, to be honest. | |
| ▲ | drybjed 23 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Perhaps the previous birth rate was artificially increased due to inequality imposed by part of the population. More equality and opportunity for everyone means more choices and less pressure to reproduce. What's the base birth rate for human species? | |
| ▲ | an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | malfist an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | More billionaires does not mean the economy has gotten better for the median person | | |
| ▲ | Jtarii an hour ago | parent [-] | | Do you think the economy is worse for the average person than it was in 1900? | | |
| ▲ | bubblemoth an hour ago | parent [-] | | No, but is it worse than it was in 1950? 1960? 1990? | | |
| ▲ | pixl97 37 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I mean 50-60 was the post war baby boom, so not really sure if that's a good example for the US in particular. |
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| ▲ | lenerdenator an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Define "as the economy has gotten better". Economic output has increased, but the value being delivered to the people doing the actual work has decreased. There's less durability of employment. People are more geographically mobile. All of these generally make the idea of strapping yourself into taking care of a small human sound like a less enticing prospect. To a lot of people, a BC pill sounds a lot easier. Well, less risky, at least. | | |
| ▲ | pessimizer 41 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > Define "as the economy has gotten better". People who live in huts and shit in the forest have more children than people who live in shacks and shit in the fields. This is not a discussion about the top 10% of the population of the planet, although as a part of the conversation, they predictably have the fewest children. The fact is that the more people have to worry about supporting themselves, the higher infant mortality, the closer they live to each other, and the less access they have to education and birth control, the more kids they have. If anything the top 10% are bucking the trend by having fewer children as they get poorer, as you say. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that they're alienated from their families and live alone, can barely afford to take care of themselves with precarious jobs (or non-job piecework), have access to basic education and extensive birth control, having children will cost them $20K each just for the birth, and they don't have very good (or often any) insurance. They're more like domesticated farm animals than the typical poverty stricken person. Domesticated farm animals reproduce when the farmer wants them to. |
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| ▲ | kingleopold an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Real world fact is opposite tho, not some "bad things", in poor parts of Africa they produce more, only in hedonism lover places they stopped producing, its people thinking for themselves, not a bad thing. It's not about economy. All poor people everywhere have more kids even today. |
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| ▲ | jansan an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > Do you know how bad things have to be, for a mammal to voluntarily decide not to reproduce? Actually, the famous 'Mouse Utopia' experiment (Universe 25) arguably showed the exact opposite. The population collapsed despite abundance of food and water without any economic hardship. |
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