You should read these two links posted by Scott Alexander in his recent Link Post!
They both proposit that the fertility drop is mostly about status, which is very convincing to me. I have also heard talk about fertility being mimetic, which is basically the same as status.
The solutions that particularily the second blog provides are unworkable, pretty much for the reasons you outline, the solution is not to take womens rights away or reduce their education, despite that clearly working.
But the status thought unravels the entire problem, having kids before 25 is obviously low status in the West, and if you think of why, it is because having kids at that age makes it harder to chase degrees, and degrees are the most effective way to gain status in the West. This is all downstream of academia as the current most important thing in the West, and solution attempts have to be either aimed at making non-academic professions higher in status, or allowing it to effectively chase a degree while having kids at the same time.
Population explosion is still ongoing in SS Africa with only a modest slow down. There will probably be 4 billion Africans by 2100.
The desire to have children might be genetic. Once those who don't want children die out the population will consist of people who want children and fertility will rebound. This may be why Israel has such high fertility as jews have went through this process earlier than other nations.
Minor typo: "The theory went, )exactly as Malthus once predicted),"
Regardless, fantastic article at summarizing the issue at hand. It's such a strange one, too, in that it feels extremely difficult to solve. To me, the only logical solution would be to give everyone less work...as South Korea's abysmal birth rate suggests that the decline in birth rate is at least somewhat tied to hours spent working. But if that's the case, then why do poorer nations have such high birth rates? And if that is the solution...how the hell do you enforce "working less" on a wide scale?!
If I had to put my finger on it, I think the actual reason that overpopulation flipped was the shift from woman often being stay-at-home parents, to being in the workplace. And that's a great change for woman, and society as a whole! But I think it might have inadvertently led to rapid decline in birthrate since the 1970's.
As you said, it will be a century-long problem, and likely will need a clever solution. We'll have to wait and see, I suppose.
Glad to see you posting here - thanks for putting this together. I still think this abstracts the particulars (the discussion we've previously had) although I appreciate the write up. Look forward to reading more from you
https://nonzionism.com/p/why-is-israel-fertile
https://becomingnoble.substack.com/p/its-embarrassing-to-be-a-stay-at
You should read these two links posted by Scott Alexander in his recent Link Post!
They both proposit that the fertility drop is mostly about status, which is very convincing to me. I have also heard talk about fertility being mimetic, which is basically the same as status.
The solutions that particularily the second blog provides are unworkable, pretty much for the reasons you outline, the solution is not to take womens rights away or reduce their education, despite that clearly working.
But the status thought unravels the entire problem, having kids before 25 is obviously low status in the West, and if you think of why, it is because having kids at that age makes it harder to chase degrees, and degrees are the most effective way to gain status in the West. This is all downstream of academia as the current most important thing in the West, and solution attempts have to be either aimed at making non-academic professions higher in status, or allowing it to effectively chase a degree while having kids at the same time.
I wish I was able to write posts as good as this...
Great post. You were able to organize thoughts that I've had in my mind for months very well.
Population explosion is still ongoing in SS Africa with only a modest slow down. There will probably be 4 billion Africans by 2100.
The desire to have children might be genetic. Once those who don't want children die out the population will consist of people who want children and fertility will rebound. This may be why Israel has such high fertility as jews have went through this process earlier than other nations.
If it was genetic, why wouldn't selection have already taken care of this....a billion years ago?
Because it selected for a strong sex drive which led to procreation. Now the 2 are separate due to contraceptives.
Minor typo: "The theory went, )exactly as Malthus once predicted),"
Regardless, fantastic article at summarizing the issue at hand. It's such a strange one, too, in that it feels extremely difficult to solve. To me, the only logical solution would be to give everyone less work...as South Korea's abysmal birth rate suggests that the decline in birth rate is at least somewhat tied to hours spent working. But if that's the case, then why do poorer nations have such high birth rates? And if that is the solution...how the hell do you enforce "working less" on a wide scale?!
If I had to put my finger on it, I think the actual reason that overpopulation flipped was the shift from woman often being stay-at-home parents, to being in the workplace. And that's a great change for woman, and society as a whole! But I think it might have inadvertently led to rapid decline in birthrate since the 1970's.
As you said, it will be a century-long problem, and likely will need a clever solution. We'll have to wait and see, I suppose.
Thank you.
Glad to see you posting here - thanks for putting this together. I still think this abstracts the particulars (the discussion we've previously had) although I appreciate the write up. Look forward to reading more from you
:)