Comment on if the total fertility rate drops and stays below global replacement rate, will humans disappear?

<- View Parent
LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

I like how we phrase this as “better education” and “better career opportunities for women”. While technically true relative to poor countries, these explain nothing about why fertility rates are so low. But they are related, but framing them differently will help us understand.

Why do people have fewer kids? Because economic life in most developed countries is relatively unstable, and to ensure economic stability, we require people to develop years of education and work experience to receive a comfortable salary. In many places we now require two such incomes. This mean women really don’t have a choice but to pursue advanced education and work, whether they want to or not. And we are not willing to accommodate children during education or work. This means women (and increasingly men too) are severely penalized economically for having children, and so of course people will have far fewer on average.

If you look at the very wealthy,

In developing countries, children often mean free labor and form the basis of your retirement through elder care, so while the economic conditions are of course worse overall, the opposite incentives exist.

source
Sort:hotnewtop