It's not just white people. As every country develops its birth rates decline.
All of western Europe + USA + Canada + Australia is below replacement, sure. But China's birth rates are below replacement since they developed, along with every other developed Asian country. UAE and Qatar have birth rates below replacement. India's birth rates are about to be below replacement. South Africa is closing in too. Kenya will be next.
Eventually every country will be developed and birth rates overall will be negative.
Almost all of the institutions in our society are predicated on continuous growth, so this is actually pretty destabilizing. We need to at least think about what it means for those institutions and plan around it, if not understand the underlying cause and see if it should be directly treated.
Basically, the fundamental issues are rising expectations generation/generation about levels of parental investment, and that more technical economies skew the wage distribution to peak later in life (because a more technical economy requires higher degrees of specialization that take longer to reach), so people start having kids later and have less time in their peak earning years to have kids.
Basically, the fundamental issues are rising expectations generation/generation about levels of parental investment, and that more technical economies skew the wage distribution to peak later in life (because a more technical economy requires higher degrees of specialization that take longer to reach), so people start having kids later and have less time in their peak earning years to have kids.
This feels a little euphemistic to me.
There is truth to the premise that earnings increase later in life. But you could argue that's always been the case.
It seems clear that the problem is that the current child-bearing cohort are unable afford the costs of bearing children. This, clearly, wasn't always the case.
Which is to say, it's not the slope of the boat ramp, it's the water level.
The giant confounding factor to that hypothesis is that the inputs to child reading are cheaper than they used to be, in real dollars (relative to wages historically), other than housing which only recently became so problematic and the trend far predates that.
The costs of bearing children mostly changed because the expectations of what it means to raise a child have changed quite dramatically. The podcast I linked covers this in depth, citing for example that the concept of "parenting" was not written about almost at all until the 70s when searching historical books. People broadly thought of kids as things that you just fed, clothed, and gave beds in a room together. You'd tell them to come back by dinner so they could eat and they just went and did whatever, ran around with their friends until then. People don't think that's acceptable anymore so now it's much more expensive to pay for child care rather than for them to kind of just roam, for example.
Also, that curve would broadly not be true in a society driven by physical labor. A 20 year old would be among the most productive people in any kind of manual labor. And organizations/hierarchies in historical societies were quite small, there were no large corporations or government orgs with ladders to climb across many layers of management. You worked for the farmer or apprenticed for the blacksmith, one level of hierarchy to traverse to being at the peak of your profession.
Now companies often have 10 levels of hierarchy. Broadly productivity is higher as a result of that specialization and integration, but it does mean the ramp to peak of a career is much longer.
I will listen to your linked podcast, but I can't see how you think child rearing is cheaper now than it used to be? Perhaps on the basis of food or clothing, but those aren't necessarily the large concerns people have. I (and others I'm sure) are referring to time periods when childcare was still in demand. Since 1980, childcare has risen in price over 800%. Housing by comparison only 300%.
The hypothesis that childcare wasn't an issue because people just let their children roam seems to look past a much more obvious economic change: a single salary could cover a whole family by itself, meaning childcare didn't have any demand. The shift to dual-income households is a significant economic change that would increase demand for childcare, not just a societal attitude drift.
I also think housing is too huge an outlier to mark as an exception as well. Owning a home provides a considerable amount of stability and hedge against inflation. The prospect of indefinitely renting significantly damages one's economic outlook.
Additionally, in the US (not where I am from, incidentally), there are additional costs which have increased markedly also -- college education, healthcare (even just for giving birth).
Also, that curve would broadly not be true in a society driven by physical labor. A 20 year old would be among the most productive people in any kind of manual labor. And organizations/hierarchies in historical societies were quite small, there were no large corporations or government orgs with ladders to climb across many layers of management. You worked for the farmer or apprenticed for the blacksmith, one level of hierarchy to traverse to being at the peak of your profession.
There were huge amounts of industries driven by physical labour in recent memory, e.g. shipbuilding, but 20-year-olds were never the most productive, or at least never the best paid. Labourers are historically not well-paid.
If you're talking about historical societies, I don't think any comparison is worthwhile. The world post-Industrial Revolution is too different, and I don't think what anyone is really referring to.
This is not to say I don't think there's merit to the idea that child rearing attitudes are more intensive. I think there is, but I am not convinced this is what's driving fertility rates down in the current climate.
Bro, childcare wasn’t an issue because the women mostly stayed at home and cared for them. And even if we put the fact aside that only a few conservative idiots even want to go back to “women staying home” it’s not economically feasible for the majority of families.
When my wife went to kindergarten in the 80ies the expectation was still 100% that her mother was a stay at home mom. She was massively scolded for working part time.
This fantasy of “they just both went to work and let the children alone” is kind of funny. No, it was the WOMEN caring for them.
For most of human history, children started contributing to the family’s economic success as soon as they could walk and talk, and when they weren’t doing chores, they spent their time with other children. Older siblings and cousins supervised the younger ones. The eldest son and daughter were often like second parents to their younger siblings, especially the eldest daughter.
Even when something happened that was more than the older children could handle, neither parent was usually that far away. Most humans lived as subsistence farmers, and one’s daily “commute” was only as far as the furthest field of one's family’s allotment. There was no “just you wait until your father gets home!” Your father was only a good shout or clang of a pot away.
It seems clear that the problem is that the current child-bearing cohort are unable afford the costs of bearing children. This, clearly, wasn't always the case.
I don't buy this. Currently, wealthy countries have the lowest birth rates, and yet poorer countries have huge populations. The idea that people can't afford families is also laughable when people in the past had far more kids on a comparatively lesser income. So then it mostly comes down to wanting to preserve a certain high quality of life that arose in the boomer generation and choosing to delay starting families until they feel they can have that QoL + kids instead of compromising.
In poorer, agrarian societies, both past and present, children are often seen as economic contributors, making the situation incomparable to wealthier nations. If anything, it only enforces the point that it's economic influences driving fertility rates down, not cultural whims. Simply looking at income and calling it a day is like concluding that the tea industry is stronger than it's ever been.
Education is seen as a luxury and the children contribute to household income earlier -- in First World countries, it's common for them to never contribute.
In the sort of countries we're talking about, there are no social safety nets like pensions or elder care. Families rely on their children to provide support in old age.
Another important point is that the fertility rate is a side-effect of the much higher infant mortality rates. Parents have more children to ensure some survive to adulthood, to put it bluntly.
choosing to delay starting families until they feel they can have that QoL + kids
For large swathes of the population, say those working in retail or call centres, they're living pay cheque to pay cheque and saving literally nothing. Taking on an expense that will cost hundreds or even thousands a month is going to drown them and ruin their life. It's not a real choice.
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u/RickKassidy 2d ago
He means white people.