"... the biggest change is among the youngest women, who are the least ready to have children."
Headline at the NYT.
I get the "good thing" interpretation, but it's also a bad thing, isn't it? The older women, with their greater emotional maturity and economic independence, are not only more able to care for children, they are also more able to think through the whole enterprise of child bearing and child care, to weigh the pros and cons and forgo it altogether. Isn't that what is happening?
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82 comments:
The political class is the main reason the birth rate is plunging.
Social progress with liberal license, adoption of the Pro-Choice religion, and redistributive change schemes have consequences. Keep women reusable, affordable, available, and taxable (RAAT)? #MeToo, Two, "="
Basically, if you want to keep your country the native population needs to have 2.1 kids per woman. So, how you get to that is less important then getting there. Want to have 2.1 kids at 30 fine. Want it at 20 fine. Just get there.
Today, it probably makes more sense to have your kids around 30 as opposed to the old days when it was more like 25 or even 20. At 30, you've gotten college out of the way, you've settled into your career and you and your husand are probably making enough $$ and are mature enough to take care of kids.
I’m predicting a baby bump. For several months What to Expect When You’re Expecting has been in the top 100 books sold on Amazon. According to Grok the new numbers don’t come out till April.
There's an old joke in project management regarding resource allocation - "nine women can't have a baby in a month."
Without even considering biological difficulties, it is simply easier for people to have more children in total the earlier they start having kids.
I've subjected you all to my screed about how colleges should make it easier for students to marry and have kids again, like they did after WW2 with the Quonset huts and such. So I won't repeat the whole thing. But in executive summary: Your time is more flexible in college than it ever was before or will be again. The school could build one fewer climbing wall and put up family housing and daycare instead. It could have a legacy-like admissions assist for spouses, so the two of you can go to the same college. It could cut down on the free condom budget and devote that money to student prenatal care. Etc. Religiously-affiliated schools could lead the way. CC, JSM
The prevailing culture has devalued child-bearing, child-rearing, and large families oriented around those activities. It's all about self-fulfillment. Of course many people still care about these things, but not enough to offset those who have other priorities.
If the Ivies announced a spousal-admissions assist, you'd have a marriage spike among high school seniors, especially in places like Manattan and the DC area. The biggest nerd in school would suddenly become a hot commodity. CC, JSM
I have been saying this for years but I'll repeat myself. Mother Nature knew what she was doing when she combined our most fertile years with our most ignorant/"invincible" teenage years. We reproduced in a hormone haze, our brains addled by feel good biochemistry. Once past that phase, there is less stupid horniness and more logic. Of course many humans forgo children once that sets in. AND I wish this would shut up the dumbass Reddit feminists suck on the Handmaid's Tale view of society. How the hell is society "forcing birth" when birth rates are dropping?
RCOCEAN II said...
At 30, you've gotten college out of the way, you've settled into your career and you and your husand are probably making enough $$ and are mature enough to take care of kids.
As john mosby and ALP note, this is backwards. By the time you are out of college, possibly including a professional designation, and have a foothold on a career you are in the worst position possible to voluntarily derail it by stepping on to the 'parent track'. We should be encouraging young people to marry and have kids early with provisions to return to the workforce once the kids need less supervision.
But in executive summary: Your time is more flexible in college than it ever was before or will be again.
Agreed. When my first child was born I was working the night shift to take care of him during the day (only for about four months, thankfully - the sleep deprivation was brutal). My third child was born on a Friday after I was a working lawyer, I was back in the office that Monday. My middle child was born while I was full-time in law school, and that was the only one I could really spend time with in a meaningful way.
Christopher B: my prediction is that once humanity reaches an average lifespan of 100 - first, career later will be a more common thing.
At 30, you've gotten college out of the way, you've settled into your career and you and your husand are probably making enough $$ and are mature enough to take care of kids.
True, but by then you've created a lifestyle for yourself and many woman want to keep all the "stuff" (house, vacations, cars, dining out, etc.) along with the kid, or they'll choose to forgo the kid as "too expensive".
Kids are an investment with a longer-term payoff, but are treated in the culture as an immediate consumption good -- one that competes with all other goods for your discretionary income.
"The older women, with their greater emotional maturity..."
Let me stop you right there.
Going to college makes you worse at being a mother.
Working makes you worse at being a mother.
That is just the way it is.
The Supreme Court just deregulated childhood, returning power of parenthood to mom and dad.
"they are also more able to think through the whole enterprise of child bearing and child care, to weigh the pros and cons and forgo it altogether."
Lots of cats out there needing homes, you know.
The older women, with their greater emotional maturity and economic independence, are not only more able to care for children, they are also more able to think through the whole enterprise of child bearing and child care, to weigh the pros and cons and forgo it altogether. Isn't that what is happening?
No.
Being a harem girl and getting your girl boss on for 10 years has clearly demonstrated to have bad outcomes for children in every metric.
Women who have had more than 3 sexual partners have far more divorces and/or more children out of wedlock.
Children raised by people other than their biological parents fare so much worse than children from intact families that any other choice is purely for the selfish interests of the person asking for divorce.
We got too dependent upon the pyramid style of financing things. Social Security and a few other big programs absolutely depend upon that structure. If we could resolve ourselves to put off fewer of our bills and obligations "for later", we'd have little need for a growing populace.
If you talk to young people, they have internalized all the negative bs about the future of the planet. It’s incredible how pessimistic they are about the future. You want more babies? Become an optimist. No sharing stories of global warming, ecological disaster, AI taking over , etc., etc., etc. And stop this crap about all this being women’s fault. They’re the ones you want birthing babies, remember?
Be a long time, be a long time
Be a long, lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely time… later in their lives
I’m struck by the comments section, and the somewhat imperative language used that is directed towards women.
The correct answer is to help and reward parents, especially mothers. What they do shapes the future. The rest of us can only help.
“The older women, with their greater emotional maturity...", she said, without evidence.
The biggest reason to have the birthrate higher is without it we will lose our western culture. Muzzie birthrates are at much level, with the goal of being a majority, especially in specific areas. And that's also why we need to show them the door.
“I’m struck by…”
TBH, I was disappointed not to see “a Greyhound bus” follow that.
Alas, I've had great ambition for my younger female relatives. They all are intelligent, hardworking and financially savvy women. And they all chose to marry young and have babies. I still mourn their lost opportunities but must acknowledge that even with divorce and money problems, they have had, are having, rich meaningful lives. And all those wonderful babies!
We may have to go thru a period of polygamy wherein several women compete for the same man. That part IS womens’ fault because they cannot get over their hardwired hypergamy.
Imagine if the drop in birth rates was due to climate change.
Axlotl tanks. CC, JSM
Encourage marriage, ban birth control and abortion, ditch age of consent laws
Go forth and multiply
Thus spake Char Char Binks, Esq
We are still dealing with the devastation caused by Paul Erhlich.
Gerda Sprinchorn said...
“Imagine if the drop in birth rates was due to climate change.”
So Climate Change isn’t happening in Africa and Muslim households. Got it.
The best time for a woman to get married and have kids is in her mid 20s. I have woman relatives that put it off and ran smack into the fertility curve, then had to devote inordinate time, attention, and money into having a kid, even worse by the second one. I have other family, Europeans, that are turning 30 and still unserious, unsuccessful at forming a long-term relationship. But gosh, they're having so much fun.
Life has become too easy in this modern age of medical technology. It used to be that one's prospects for survival mandated early childbearing. Now it's just a case of managing the vending process.
Once you get to about 4, the costs of adding each additional kid become less. Hand me down clothes, for one. Plus, the older siblings help out with the younger ones. As the youngest of 7, I was almost raised as much by my siblings as my parents.
The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in the US declined from 7 in 1800 to 2 in 1940. It then bumped up to 3.5 in 1959. The TFR in the US declined to below the 2.1 replacement rate in 1973 (also the year the income growth for the bottom 90% went flat after increasing from 1950). It was 1.8 in 1976. It hovered just at/below the 2.1 until 2008 when it started its current decline passing 1.6 as the last of the Boomer women aged out of the calculation at age 44.
And yes the decline is in births to young mothers. 72% from 1970-2022 for mothers age 15-19. And 49% for mothers 20-24. Mothers age 30-34 picked up, numerically, the decline of the 20-24 yr old mothers.
Of course, older mothers may struggle to have more than two children. In addition, the modern society, with the very low child mortality (before age 5) rate encourages having fewer children but investing more into them, such as higher education and higher consumer standard of living.
So really, this is not a "sudden" problem. Boomer women, Gen X women, Millennial women and Gen X women all had fewer children. Plus 2026 is the year the largest birth cohort younger than 44 passes age 35. Every year from now on, there will be fewer women to bear children. Even if the TFR is raised above 2.1, the population will continue to decline.
This is why it's smart to increase immigration.
The Dems imported Somalis and they average about 5.4 kids per woman. Since college educated liberal white women aren't having children, a new class had to be imported.
Has anyone mentioned grandparents yet? Have grandma in the house (either as a widow or with grandpa) to help out was utterly ordinary until recently.
Young women are never ever "ready." That's why they receive mating encouragement from their elders: "He's a catch." Strike while the iron is hot." They follow the leader and nothing more.
When surrounded by pro-child mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and peers, women very easily and often happily enter motherhood. It's clear as day when watching young women around babies and toddlers -- the baby instantly gets 5 mommies if 5 women are nearby.
Young women are indeed powerfully driven by reproductive hormones, and these became perpetually juiced and distorted from cartoonish movies (e.g., Rudolph Valentino, romance films) and boy bands (e.g., The Beatles, the Monkeys, and all that followed).
The key here is to have a functional multi-generational social system that values women for reproduction. Both the deep social networks and the perceived value of babies have declined for 100 years. Social media is now badly breaking female brains (see Jonathan Haidt's work).
On the other hand, women can be pushed toward Elon Musk's harem and prostitution, as follows from ancient temples and brothels. I can't say from history whether a monogamy or wealthy harems and concubines work better, as they are both effective. Outside the aristocracy, most do better one-on-one.
No one reproduces well in social isolation, nor in a society that values abortion above children. See Korea's 4B NO NO women.
I don’t care for the conflation of the problem of the pols supporting their Ponzi schemes they disguise as retirement and healthcare programs. They have the option of reducing spending but never take it. Neither side…
…the population wax and wane isn’t really the problem the panicked make it out to be. While wailing about the youngin’s not having enough kids my nieces and their friends are doing just fine in the human production dept thank you very much…
You know, as a writer, now that I think about it, novelists and poets and other inventors should probably wait until they're older and less emotional and more settled (and maybe more cynical) before they write their poems and novels and invent stuff.
it worked for a long time, then the incentives monetary as well as psychological dried up,
the Club of Rome, the skydragon fantasy as well as other eugenic schemes,
And, you know, songwriters.
i spent MOST of my life, listening to The Powers That Be;
explain, in detail, how OVERPOPULATION was The Worst Thing..
EVER!
and that we ALL needed to NEVER have ANY CHILDREN..
Then, i found out; that:
a) they just meant that for White People
b) colored people could (and should (and WOULD) have children
c) because of the lack of new white people..
d) we NEED to allow ALL the colored people in the world in the USA
e) because.. reasons
It reminds me of the preamble of the film Idiocracy, where the so-called smart people explain why they don't have kids.
I had my first two kids at 20 and 23. Twenty years later i had kids three and four with wife number 2. Forty years later I’m still working to stay young in mind and body and enjoying both wives, four children, five grandchildren and five great grandchildren. I guess I can now also take satisfacton that I have done my part.
Two pieces of multi-generational Marshall lore: (1) Children are for the young. But also: (2) Children should be buried when they turn eleven, and not dug back up until they turn twenty one.
Ordinarily I'd be quite willing to believe that "older women, with their greater emotional maturity and economic independence, are not only more able to care for children, they are also more able to think through the whole enterprise of child bearing and child care"-- but I've got to say that the increase in the quality of the kids which this theory seems to predict has not been much in evidence.
It is entirely possible, even today, for the husband to work and the wife be a full time housewife and mother. A couple doing that will likely not have two new cars all the time. We certainly didn't.
When to have them? If you're a male- after you have a job and are making enough money to afford them. Which is a highly variable amount. From my perspective over the years- 19 year old E3s shouldn't be married with 2 (or more) children... Historically according to what I see doing ancestry research, 23-25 seems to be the best age for starting to have children. I have several not so distant relatives who married at 18- or younger- in the 1970s. With children who have police records or died of drug overdose. Far less frequent in families that started out in their low to mid 20s. Only have 2 close relatives I know of with female first birth 30 or older- my daughter and one daughter-in-law. Both required medical assistance to get pregnant. Generally not needed when in the low to mid 20s. Or in the 40s if you've already had a few. My wife was 41 for #5.
For women- waiting too long is a real thing. For men- it isn't. AT 70 I could still father a child. At 40- actually several years younger then that- most women cannot unless they already have a few. The female body really does shut down reproduce capacity for women if it's not used.
What's more important for society- women having children or women having careers? A number frequently put forth- and put forth above- an average of 2.1 per woman. So if half the women choose careers over children- they're burdening the remainder with an average of 4.2 each. My family has done our part with 5 children for us, and so far 10 grandchildren. One child has 5 of them, the last is looking for someone to marry.
Historically in families with many children one of the females never got married. As the parents got older she took care of them and became the good aunt to all her nieces and nephews. That is not a dead tradition, though it may be dying. One sister-in-law qualifies for the position, and I have a 6th cousin I trade information with on a regular basis who posts on Facebook about the trips she takes her nieces on. She has a very successful career, no husband.
"Rocco said...
Once you get to about 4, the costs of adding each additional kid become less. Hand me down clothes, for one.""
That shit doesn't happen in the demographic we need.
Leftists who have adopted and proselytized the Pro-Choice religion are striving to rationalize, justify their advocacy of planned parenthood, the wicked solution, transhumane policies, performing human rites for social, clinical, criminal, political, and climate progress. Aborting, sequestering "burdens" of evidence, and advancing the pedo leg of the liberal triad. Keep women reusable, affordable, available, and taxable (RAAT). #NoJudgment #NoLabels #MeToo, Two, "="
I'm sure I have written this before here, but it still sticks in mind. I went to Austin for the Texas Film Festival and the big Texas book festival was going on at the same time.
Samantha Power, Obama's UN ambassador, was there selling her book. Power is a hardcore Leftist and her book was about all the doom and gloom that we were in store for. A beautiful - and I mean beautiful - red headed undergrad from the University of Texas asked the Wise and Powerful Samantha Power how could she bring children into this world given all the disasters were are experiencing. And this was before Trump.
Power danced around and gave this undergrad permission to have babies, but I was furious that this poor young woman had been duped by the regular liberal claptrap.
AI told me I saw her on October 26, 2019 and she was pimping her book titled, "The Education of an Idealist."
She's the standard Yale, Harvard Ivy Leaguer and hence, smarter, wiser and better than all of us.
I'm happy that leftists are not having children. We normal conservatives will have more than enough kids to replace them, and eradicate their insane, inhumane ideology.
I asked Power why she spied on public officials without a warrant. See below. She denied it. I caller her a liar to her face.
Allegations: In 2017, reports emerged that Power had allegedly made hundreds of unmasking requests during the 2016 election cycle and transition period. Some Republicans, including Congressman Trey Gowdy, characterized her as one of the "largest unmaskers" in history, suggesting the practice was used for political spying on the incoming Trump administration.
Power's Defense: During her 2017 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, Power denied making most of these requests herself. She stated that other officials had frequently submitted unmasking requests using her name.
I’m predicting a baby bump. For several months What to Expect When You’re Expecting has been in the top 100 books sold on Amazon.
I think that qualifies as a "Trump Bump".
Power danced around and gave this undergrad permission to have babies
At least she didn't take affirmative action to discourage her. That would be a dysfunctional decision she can live without. Life can be a risky proposition, but is generally a once in a lifetime experience to be shared.
Jordan Peterson said a few year ago, that we're only recently figuring out what would happen with expanding roles of women in the (out of family) workforce.
Well, we're getting a message.
"Rocco said...
Once you get to about 4, the costs of adding each additional kid become less. Hand me down clothes, for one.""
That shit doesn't happen in the demographic we need.
I am not sure the demographic you are thinking of is really what we need.
"The older women, with their greater emotional maturity "
Wait. Did you actually post this? WTH?
Lololol Joe Bar
Good night and thank you for the laugh...
Ann never had an aging menopausal mother!! Lol
The idea for older WEALTHY mothers is to pay for daycare to stay emotionally stable...
Lol
Can I be honest, ann?
I am starting to know women in that potential mother age group... they cannot find decent men and will not settle.
Women want kids. The problem is with the potential fathers and this generation know it will take two incomes and two people's time/lives to raise a decent (God fearing, upright, moral) child to adulthood today...
You know how plenty did not pass down the teachings to cook so a good skillset from the older better generations (mostly of women, but men with the real grill skills too) was lost? Good team parenting, as well as courting, is like that too. Often lost because the boys , not men, did not absorb it from the culture and no one was there to teach them. They didn't experience family life so much as consumer life.
People used to just fumble into parenthood, but not so much anymore because society wants to prevent those types -- young, poor -- from having babies, and we are.
"the youngest women who are the least ready to have children"
Er, no. The youngest women (assuming they are through puberty) are the MOST ready to have children. Physically their fertility is the highest it's ever going to be, and their energy level ditto, and their distraction from child rearing by the demands of their important job as the HR manager of the Topeka branch of Megabucks Health Insurance Corp is at its lowest. They also benefit from having a youngish Mom to show them the ropes. The key ingredient of course is a stick around husband, which tends to be put on the backburner these days, though finding one as an 18 year old never used to be tricky.
The important point in re population collapse is not that lotsa women don't want to breed, but that those women who do want to breed don't breed enough. Which requires starting early and popping out six or seven. Not dribbling out a single perfect Prudence or Joachim in your thirties.
The best combo is a young mom and an older man, the least decent of modern relationships. In passing, I note that the world had a lot fewer people when most of this commentariat joined it - 2.85 Billion when I showed up in 1957. It was a fine place. Now we are over 8 billion. Unless your happiness requires everlasting population growth, it can be asked “are all these people necessary?”
The fact that young girls are taught to hate and fear boys doesn't exactly help the birth rate.
Not as badly as young girls and boys taught to hate their own body and sexual organs.
@Oso Negro on the recent global population boom.
A huge percentage of that population is in India, South Asia, and Africa. The northern people slowed their reproduction rates quite a while ago --- Japan, China, Russia, Europe, and North America.
The South Koreans illustrate what happens when a simple rural culture (of WW2) transforms into a maximum technology culture in just a couple generations. They were hardcore "Internet Cafe" and online gamers 20 years ago. Eventually the 4B anti-mating, anti-reproduction trend hit.
See the urban-tech population crash here:
https://www.populationpyramid.net/republic-of-korea/2026/
South Korea's birthrate crashed even harder than Japan and China. Japan in particular slowly eased into technology after 1868, and their birth rate started to slow at the end of WW2.
A shift in child-bearing from the 20s to the 30s reduces the birth rate in the short run but not necessarily the long run.
I would suggest that, in terms of pros and cons, the biggest disincentive to middle class women having children at a young age is fear of the deadbeat dad. Why risk a life of poverty?
Leland, youve got it backwards with the trans issue out of ignorance and fear. You're in good company with the aging folk here where both are regularly reinforced. Some salon.
Feminism has cured young men of any desire to get married and have children. There is no upside to marriage for men.
The Trump effect creates an illusion of prolificacy. He has 5 children, seemingly above the replacement rate, but with 3 women, a fertility rate of 1.67, below the replacement rate.
I'm not too fussed about declining populations (though a little fussed about where most of the future population will be coming from), but we do need to reorder society.
We can't continue with our current model where a large number of workers support a small number of elderly. Musk says don't worry, be happy because technology will solve all of our problems, and I agree that robotics and AI can solve a lot of the elder-care issues, but only if the advanced societies continue to advance. That may not happen if those advanced societies keep themselves populated by importing vast numbers of 3rd-world immigrants (which is where the future surplus population is coming from).
Rustygrommet said...Feminism has cured young men of any desire to get married and have children. There is no upside to marriage for men.
Social media has mis-informed you. There are plenty of good women to keep good men happy. Any man who can’t find a good woman needs to become a better man first.
What does Pete Buttigieg think about child rearing?
Another problem can be seen from reading the comments here. A lot of grandfathers and great-uncles of a certain generation are very down on marriage and have been influencing the young men in their families not to get married and have children.
We’ll see if that carries over to the next generations. It may not.
The fact that young girls are taught to hate and fear boys doesn't exactly help the birth rate.
Good. Young and old girls are being taught to choose well. They are taught to hate bad boys and the ones with neurologically impaired brains, these men cause a lot of harm in any relationship but especially in relationships that happen behind the closed doors. We are staying away from men with deficiencies, be it of the neurological kind or a personality pathology.
"Any man who can’t find a good woman needs to become a better man first."
Well, you never really know what's in the pretty box until you take it home and open it up.
I always bought the idea that couples should wait until they had children when they were more "settled," "mature," whatever. One of the main things one needs in raising children is physical energy, but that is now underrated. Also, much of the day-to-day is wearing in all senses, but most of it is not complicated. Difficult, but simple. (We raised five, plus foster children.) Children don't know that they are poor, only that they are fed and warm and loved.
It's just the rat utopia as applied to humans. People who want for nothing stop having kids. The white ones anyways.
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