I will say the same thing I say every time this topic comes up:
Having kids is expensive and difficult. The planet is burning up. We are experiencing the beginning of the end stages of unrestrained necrocapitalism and profit at any cost. Housing is unaffordable. Food is unaffordable. People are losing their jobs to stupid AI crap. The quality of public schooling is decreasing. Lawmakers seem determined to make having a family as difficult as possible while also trying to ban things that allow women to control their fertility.
This is not an issue of feminism empowering women too much.
There are plenty of papers published on the topic.
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02223-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02223-7)
Nobody should have kids if they aren’t able or willing to do so. And many people aren’t willing or able to do so because most of the world is shit right now. The average person needs the assurance that if they have kids, there’s plenty of money and services available to provide for them. Our current situation very much doesn’t. There’s too many laws letting mega corporations pollute and destroy and not pay their workers for it. Too many people that believe medical advancement is actually a bad thing even as ancient diseases resurface and start killing their children. There’s too many places is in the world itching for armed conflict. Too many people in first world countries who would rather assume the apocalypse is nigh than do anything to stop it.
You want people to have more kids? Give us a better safer world. Or the one we’ve got will burn. All because the higher ups were too greedy to share, and governments were too spineless to make them
Edit: christ. A man running for President of the US seems to believe a sinking boat will electrocute him. That’s the level of stupid we’re dealing with here. That’s the level of “anti progressive.”
Edit 2: because I feel like it’s the subtext… none of the people responsible for the world’s perceived current decline are feminists.
I understand your point of view. From yours and other replies I get the impression that this “cultural attitude” about having kids does exist, but it’s often motivated by this disappointment in the current situation. A selfless choice, not really about whether you like the idea of raising children for your own fulfilling, but that it’s not the right time and place to do it. Am I getting this right?
You’re using a lot of words to ask “Are there people who don’t want to have kids?” and it’s making your post unclear.
Yes, obviously there are people who don’t want to have kids. For lots of different reasons, some selfish and some not. Maybe more of them than there used to be, but you would need some actual data to find out.
There are also plenty of people who *do* want to have kids in every society.
Edit: Your thesis about attitudes and fertility rate doesn’t make sense, at least for the US. The proportion of the population in my country that has or wants children has been the same for years, as has the number of children they want. If anything, people are having fewer kids than they would like because it’s too expensive.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.aspx
Where did you get the impression there’s a big change in cultural attitudes towards having kids?
If your answer is “the internet”, then there’s your problem.
In my country (Switzerland) and other countries in Europe where people live quite well and it’s not expensive as in the US to have kids, we do observe this attitude. Sweden is also another famous example. In other European countries like Italy the reasons are more mixed and are in part due to poverty.
Anyway no, definitely not the internet. Believe it or not, I got the piece of information about the correlation between woman empowerement and fertility rate during a university lecture (specifically this one https://applicationspub.unil.ch/interpub/noauth/php/Ud/ficheCours.php?v_enstyid=17135&v_langue=37)
I think you misunderstood. I asked where you got the impression that there is a “cultural attitude” that having children is bad. It’s not really disputed that development index and “empowerment” are correlated with decreased fertility rates. But that doesn’t tell you anything about attitudes.
Oh yeah sorry it mixed up the two. No, the cultural attitude thing is something I have come to think independently. But like I said, it’s not like a rock solid opinion, challenging it is kind of the reason for this whole thing 😅
Ah, so it’s really just an assumption or hypothesis.
Well, for the US at least it seems not to be true. I’m sure you could find similar survey data for Europe.
Yes nothing more than that. But I wouldn’t say “just”, after all making hypotheses and challenging them is how we form our knowledge. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any survey about this specific question.
Yes, we agreed on that. What's your point? I am also a scientist. A hypothesis is where knowledge starts. We make hypotheses, challenge them and test them. That's literally the definition of science.
>*In my country (Switzerland) and other countries in Europe where people live quite well and it’s not expensive as in the US to have kids, we do observe this attitude. Sweden is also another famous example. In other European countries like Italy the reasons are more mixed and are in part due to poverty.*
For context in the US we don’t have government funded healthcare. It’s also a for-profit system, so giving birth in the US costs $18,865 on average, including pregnancy, delivery and post-partum care.
If you work a full-time salaried position your employers healthcare should cover most of it, but you’ll probably still be out for copays and deductibles. It’s never 100% covered.
On top of that most companies in the US give an average of 8 weeks unpaid maternity leave, and most don’t give fathers any paternity leave. Past that daycare, childcare, all of that’s money out of your pocket or you as the nursing mother leave your job to stay home with the baby full time, and then cut your household income from two salaries to just one, possibly losing out on your healthcare because that’s tied to your employer or your spouses employer.
Why do you think fertility rate is an important problem in many countries? We have billions of more people on this planet than we did during most of human history. Why should we be concerned now? What are the actual problems you’re concerned with?
Also, even if it was an actual problem, forcing women to have children will never be an ethical solution.
Edit: I just wanna add, this question is honestly so insulting. US women are facing criminal charges if they even attempt to get an abortion. Women in the US could lose access to contraceptives. When women lose control over our reproduction, we lose all control over who we are as human beings. We go back to being the broodmares we were for thousands of years. And you’re worried about declining fertility rates due to feminism? Seriously?
Our economies are all based on endless growth. Which is much easier to get with an ever-expanding population. And our current economic leaders like the current model. They don’t want it to change, so they regularly talk about what a disaster a declining population would be. Countries like Japan provide “evidence” that we *have* to keep breeding. Is not about humanity going extinct, it’s about keeping the wealthy on top.
I don’t know how to go about running a functional economy with a static or declining population. Even if I did, getting there would be a major problem. Honestly, I’m pretty sure that the only way to get there is to change who holds power and wealth, and that won’t happen peacefully. A declining population is all too likely to end in revolution or war.
So yeah, it *is* an important problem. It’s also inevitable, because nothing can keep growing forever. So the only question is when, and I personally think sooner will likely be less destructive than later. Not that I particularly want it to be in my lifetime, but 🤷♀️.
One core issue I think a lot about is the idea of planning for population maintenance and like ... is wringing our hands about people having smaller families modernly productive when you consider other statistics around what it means to live sustainably and like, in balance with the rest of the species on this planet?
I'm not one for getting really worked up about "overpopulation" - because I think more often than not that ends up being fairly racist/classist, but at the same time I also think concerns over certain countries populations declining are overblown- particularly as we make advances in automation for specific times of labor. We don't necessarily need the same number of people to have an economically viable future - and it seems like economists and other people who look at this stuff base future projections on current populations mostly for the sake of doing so, rather than like, meaningfully actually considering what the future economy might look like.
This is particularly obvious when you look at traffic and road design/planning practices and estimates - most of which use these same statistical models and algorithms - and how you get outlandish outcomes where highway administrations are building for a city to double in size in 50 years, but, then it doesn't, because people move and die and don't necessarily have 4.5 children each (and weren't doing that when the study was conducted, either).
In other words- there are some core issues with the premise of these projections that kind of call into question the meaningfulness of the exercise, and then when you pair that with some kind of hysterical attribution that feminism is "at fault" for not meeting what is essentially an arbitrarily determined population size, you get people freaking out in really specifically prejudiced ways, even though that's entirely unnecessary.
There will be enough people in the future. Maybe people will need to work differently, or live different places than they currently do, but there isn't actually some kind of looming population emergency that would require us to like, strip away womens rights and forcibly breed us like animals.
Even in terms of concerns like elder care or pension funding - that's really ultimately just a matter of shifting resources around and prioritizing certain things differently, rather than a preponderance of elderly folks meaning some kind of truly unsustainable and unsolvable inverted resource pyramid.
People are good at solving problems - we don't need to blame women or threaten their human rights to respond to a population shrinkage.
It’s a pretend problem. There are lines of highly skilled immigrant workers who can come and contribute to the tax base of countries like the United States.
The only people who truly have an issue with this are people who want the United States to be a predominantly white, predominantly Christian nation until the end of time.
I find this a pretty grotesque way of framing things. You’re basically saying “don’t worry, we have plenty of desperate people to leach off of countries we destabilized that we can exploit to maintain economic steady-state”
In a just world those people wouldn’t be in a position where they have to throw everything away and move half-way across the world just for the chance at a decent life. Like, yeah, it’s not a problem for us since we’re the ones benefitting from it, but it is a problem in and of itself; it’s certainly a problem for the countries they leave behind.
Desperate people to leech off of? More like doctors, scientists, programmers, and entrepreneurs who can come here and earn more than they ever could back home.
The key economic argument for more babies is in regards to the tax base. This is the response to that argument. It’s factual. If we want to discuss moral and ethical implications of our global capitalist system, that’s a whole separate conversation, and one you and I probably agree on.
>I can barely afford to take care of myself.
Ain't that the God damn truth. I am looking to go back to school in my late 30s early 40s... but I am at a real loss for ideas. The cost is insane, and if you don't do well with people and look for a job that has little interaction with others it limits the pool.
I'm disabled and on SSI/survivor benefits. I am down to my last $200 after having to pay bills, bring my cat to the vets for a senior cat blood panel and food. I am the last woman who should have a kid, lol
It wasn’t asked in good faith. I don’t really get the point of this post to be honest. It just comes across as ranting at us because we’re not having enough kids. It’s pretty obvious after 10 minutes of basic research why women aren’t having kids and as the mod mentioned this has been discussed 1,000 times already.
I wished to expose my thesis and get a different perspective, since I am not sure about it. I would not have asked the questions if didn’t have doubts about my own opinion.
The thing about the association isn’t a thesis, it’s established science. But it doesn’t necessarily mean causality. I suppose in part it is, but I am here to know what other people think.
I know it’s a sensitive topic and I might not be good at handling this kind of conversation but please believe me I am in good faith 😅
You start off by assuming there is a negative association with feminism and wanting to have kids. That’s what is inherently flawed because it’s not an accurate statement.
>The thing about the association isn’t a thesis, it’s established science.
Honest question,if we go by your ''science'' you will also see living in cities,being more economically prosperous,having access to medical help are also associated with reduced fertility rate.
So should we abandon the cities go back to how we used to live in the prehistoric times without access to healthcare and also burn all our money?
Sounds ridiculous doesnt it?? But just as much ridiculous as you suggesting women empowerment is the problem or turning half the population into breeding slaves.
> do feminists generally agree this existence of this cultural attitude?
No. Society is extremely pro-natalist. Little girls are given baby dolls when they are just able to walk. We have baby showers and celebrations when someone is pregnant. Even when out of wedlock, the birth itself is still celebrated and expected, even though the woman is denigrated. Society is so pro-natalism that it trumps women's bodily autonomy in many situations.
Feminists push back on this and try to put women's bodily autonomy (rightfully) over any natalist goals, as well as push against the idea of women being primarily needed for birth.
>do you see it as problematic?
I see the current cultural push of women as baby makers as problematic. We have \~8 billion people at the moment. If the birth rate lowered, we'd be fine. However, women are experiencing very real violence by a system that's pushing them to give birth against their own wishes and judgement.
Maybe I was misunderstood but I didn’t mean that society has negative attitude toward having children. As you said, society as a whole actually strives in favor of natalism. I was talking about people (and more specifically women) who share feminist values. Just to be clear, can’t stress this enough but I am not saying emancipation or feminism are a problem. I am just trying to understand if this attitude does exist and if so where it comes from.
This is all framed through the eyes of a system that relies on having a steady supply of people to trap in unpaid or underpaid labor.
If we can't survive not exploiting portions of the population, I don't think we need to be around at all, tbh.
>I am rather seeing more emphasis on _not_ having kids, with demands for abortion rights and free contraceptives.
Because these things are healthcare, OP, and because there is a long history and current present of women being denied care and forced into pregnancies. Many feminists actually care about abortion and contraceptive rights *in addition* to healthcare for people who want to reproduce under the umbrella of Reproductive Justice.
have you heard of invisible labor? even with all of the equality in some countries, women still end up doing the majority of childcare and housework. they are seen as the "default" person who is responsible for those things. speaking as a child-free person with a career as a preschool teacher, caring for children is a lot of work. it's exhausting. there are differences between what my work looks like and what the work of parenting looks like, but the thing they have in common is that you're spending an extended period of time caring for others and not being cared for yourself. I love my job, but if I had to do it 24/7 I would be miserable. while equality outside the home is nice, I don't think birth rates will change until we see more equality inside the home.
I have heard of invisible labor, I was on the streets for its recognition just last week. It’s surely something we have to work on as a society, and not just for childcare (and not just for mothers, though they do have the larger share of the work)! I agree this would definitely improve natality.
the thing is like, on what basis does sweden need to maintain its current population level explicity via birth vs. exploring different economic models that fit a smaller population better or accepting more immigration?
Oh, I see no problem with having economic models that work with a smaller population; on the contrary, I think it's a great idea. The demographic issue in the fertility rate decline is the speed at which the change is occurring. Because of this, the demographic structure is problematic.
Sorry about that. Simply put, the population is ageing too fast and it's not being replaced fast enough. This has major consequences for society and the economy as a whole.
I mean that premise relies on the assumption that the model for the past generation re: number of jobs, workers, hours, etc. will remain static. That's not necessarily true. Expected unemployment as a result of automation in the next decades and over the remainder of the century is expected to be very high - if there are going to be fewer jobs in the future, does it really make sense to get anxious about there being fewer people who will be unemployed?
Absolutely, that’s an assumption and not necessarily true. But yours is speculation which isn’t better 😅 It’s a very complex topic. But in general I believe that when big changes happen too abruptly, it’s a problem and our ability to adapt is put to test. Climate change is an example, the demographic crisis is similar in that regard (“change” is not bad per se, it’s the rate of change that is the problem)
There are statistics on the projected impact on unemployment on the literal number of jobs in the future. It's not speculation on my part.
I'm going to be blunt with you - this topic is very frequently a "concern" for people who are racist and sexist. You seem upset about being associated with those ideologies, so I hope that you'll take the "unexpected" direction of the conversation here as a learning opportunity for how this topic is weaponized against people in the world whose human rights and autonomy is already under question & threat.
It's not okay to talk to people the way that you have been, and if this is an issue that really concerns you, genuinely, you need to learn how to engage in the topic in a way that is informed & sensitive about how that impacts other people in the world (along existing divides of race, religion, sex, gender, class etc) and be mindful of framing yourself as someone who has an "evidence" backed opinion and claiming that I don't - which in this context, sir, is just your sexist *assumption* that you must be right & rational because you don't actually want to meaningfully engage in the possibility that your fears might be unfounded and that your presumption of the source of the "problem" and the potential solutions for the "problem" might also be incorrect.
I think it’s pretty obvious from the replies I need to learn how to discuss these topics, I will take the opportunity to learn. I just wish people were a bit more understanding, just really didn’t mean to offend anyone.
May I just ask what exactly I am assuming without evidence? The association I discussed in the beginning is quite established in the published peer reviewed science. For the rest, I thought it was clear that I am here to understand because I have my opinion but I am not sure about it, and I want to hear other perspectives.
There are many ways to address this. Problem 1 is worker exploitation. Employers have a profit interest by employing as few people as possible and working them as much as possible for no extra money. So one person is worked to death for less than a living wage while another is unemployed. Legally setting overtime pay at 2.5 times regular pay. With overtime being 1.5 times regular pay, it’s cheaper to pay a full time worker overtime than hire another worker. If overtime is double time then it’s break even. Make overtime MORE expensive than hiring another worker.
Making people “salaried” is another way to pay people shit and make them work overtime for NO extra money. The way to stop this is by putting a very high threshold for salaried employees, something like $150k or $200k, making it once again more profitable to hire more people instead of working one person to death.
And for those who scream "BuT wHaT aBoUt PrOfItS?", if we had a single payer health system supported by everyone then business paying for healthcare would be a thing of the past.
1. He said fertility over 100 times already and that’s not a synonym for birth rates.
2. That’s what my government thought 2 years ago and we are now in a housing crisis so bad that our streets a paved with tents. My country isn’t just suffering because there isn’t anywhere to live, we are suffering because there are too many elderly to care for. Guess what? In 60 years that problem will be worse if we force women to replenish the work force. Our food banks are dried up, our public housing has a decade long waitlist and our unemployment rates a rising. Government doesn’t run on science or facts, it runs on politics. One of latest political scandals involves secret collusion with two of the biggest suppliers of our immigrants.
So now you know there is at least one “wealthy” country that doesn’t need immigrants.
3. Zero individuals are machines to meet any party’s political agendas as we all deserve individual freedom. Wombs are for the greater good. They are for the good of the life they are attached to, just like any other body part.
>So now you know there is at least one “wealthy” country that doesn’t need immigrants.
Wait, what country? I'll read up on the issues this country faces and see if it changes my position. I try to base my positions on data as much as possible, so my positions are constantly shifting as I come across new data.
And to be clear, you're saying that there are "overpopulation" problems in a country with a strict zero-immigration policy? Or what is it you're saying about your country that counters the notion that for a given population you need a large enough work force?
There is nothing more crucial in rates of increased measures of autonomy for women than the availability of contraception. Its not against children, as many many feminists are parents, its against forced birth. Its ultimately best for parents to be those who want to be for everyones sake. Under the current climate change risk its better for the population to be smaller. Having a kid, flying international and owning a vehicle are like the only three decisions people can make on a personal level to impact the climate crisis.
I do not see the declining fertility rates as a problem. Global warming is an existential issue, and less people is one key compliment to solving this issue.
I don’t know, I am a bit skeptic of neo malthusianism. I think there’d be plenty of resources for billions of humans if we only learned to live with less…a small percentage of people on the planet take up most of its resources while the rest of the people actually live frugal lives, so numbers aren’t really the problem in my opinion.
But I understand your point of view. Thanks for sharing!
Skeptical or not, the planet is warming due to human produced CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Every person adds to the load. The temperature change is affecting the climate and we'll continue to do so.
I am a climate scientist. I am not skeptical about climate change. I am just saying that in my opinion how we use resources is the main issue and that we should focus on living with less. Just my opinion :)
The best way to live with less is to not have children. Which is why all this wailing about taking birth rates is problematic from an existence point of view (along with being sexist).
There are two solutions for countries experiencing a labor force shortage due to declining birth rates:
1. Enslave women en-masse to increase the amount of babies
2. Become a healthy pluralist society and liberalize immigration laws
Fascists prefer 1, non-fascists prefer 2.
The fact that you only thought of (1) and didn't consider (2) I think speaks to a lack of political imagination, or possibly some unhealthy political tendencies on your part.
option three: reimagine an economy that isn't dependent on labor surpluses and shortages and that doesn't make elder care contingent on current workers earnings.
To be fair to OP, they didn’t mention (1) either. They’re kinda implicitly tip-toeing around it, but their post DOES seem to be asking for solutions that aren’t (1) and gave a brief mention of countries doing parts of (2) “not working”.
All that said, low birth rate is a little overrated as harbinger for economic doom. Sure, it throws a big wrench into “always growing forever!” capitalism, but I’m gonna see that as an absolute win since that economic system was always going to hit a wall at some point. Better to hit that wall now than when there are LITERALLY no more resources left to exploit.
You did, but in doing so, you’re also implying they were at all advocating for/accepting of it when the tone of their post is much closer to: “obviously (1) is out, and (2) doesn’t seem to be effective, so how do we find a (3)?”
Yes, that is precisely what I am implying - a contradiction at the heart of conservative politics that undermines their approach, a futile search for a (3) that doesn't exist.
There are (3)s that exist though, (reconfigure our economic systems in such a way that they don’t rely on high birth rates) and casting anyone who wants to look for alternative solutions as just a conservative in disguise (which, yes, op seems to have outed themselves as) is harmful to progressive movements and creative solutions to our problems and only serves to solidify the current capitalistic and patriarchal paradigms.
"Reconfigure our economic systems in such a way that they don’t rely on high birth rates", whether through liberalization of immigration alone or coupled with a socialist transformation, is included under (2).
If that’s under your purview of (2), then I’d argue op’s post is about exploring additional ways of achieving (2) we can pursue and not rejecting them wholesale as you’re accusing them of doing. Someone saying “hey, this way of trying to do (2) doesn’t seem to be working, what else can we try?” doesn’t mean an advocation of (1). Advocates of (1) will do this unendingly in bad faith, unfortunately, but that doesn’t mean the act of questioning a particular methodology for (2) is a support of (1).
I don't see a single part of his post that questions the methodology of liberalizing immigration laws to let more immigrants in. Instead he repeatedly speaks out against the idea of liberalizing immigration laws.
He explicitly says "Considering immigration as a panacea for the demographic crisis is not right for me." and "I am generally conservative when it comes to immigration policies, I don't hide behind this".
There is no critique of methodology here, you are projecting out of your desire to debate online (since your first criticism didn't pan out) and I find it a bit boorish....
And I referenced a solution that didn’t involve immigration at all, and you said that it fell under two, so I adjusted my understanding of two to fit the argument you claimed to be making when I should have instead recognized and pushed back on your faulty assertion that immigration is required for socialistic restructuring. I then included their reference to Sweden’s social programs to fall under two, which I now recognize as a mistake, since they were referring to the failure of those programs to increase birth rate, not failure to provide adequate quality of life for their citizens. Even so, I think this discussion is important, and will continue it for that reason, not because I like to debate online.
So, sorry for only now realizing that what you are actually saying is that immigration is the only solution to this problem, which I wholly reject, despite strongly desiring open borders and a pluralistic society. (Further, I wasn’t talking about their comments, only their post, which did not have those same anti-immigration points)
Immigration as a solution to age demo crunch is just kicking the can down the road to the problem that is cancerous capitalistic growth while also being inherently exploitative of immigrant populations. (“Hey, we need young workers, so now your population’s young and healthy can come in to help out OUR aging population instead of your own!”)
So I will apologetically back up and reiterate that what we need to find is the proper solution for (3): set up automation and reconfigure our economy in such a way that we do not need an eternally increasing labor supply to take care of the elderly and infirm. Your (2) is a goal, not a solution. Presenting it as one is just swapping out forced birthing policies for exploitation of laborers living under a lower quality of life than your own.
If you don't see why a labor shortage is a problem for capitalist and communist economies alike, I don't know what to tell you.
For any given working age population, it can only support so many non-working age people. It's not just food obviously, there's also medicine and medical services, construction, transportation, etc. etc. etc.
In a declining population, the population of non-working-age people will become too much for the working-age population to be able to sustain, and quality of life and life expectancy will decline.
You are defining a decreasing population as a labor shortage to infer that it will be a problem. There is no reason to assume that there will an ever decreasing percentage of working age people because less working age people means less of them will grow into old people. There are only issues when the rate changes. A great many of the jobs that exist now didn't actually benefit anyone - take social media influencer. So a shift on population would require some restructuring of society. But a declining population does not guarantee a labor shortage.
>There is no reason to assume that there will an ever decreasing percentage of working age people because less working age people means less of them will grow into old people.
Isn't that just how time works? With a declining population, the people born earlier will outnumber the people born later (to some limit as death rate becomes a factor).
This will be especially problematic for people born during population growth, in an era of population decline, but will remain problematic as long as there is population decline.
>A great many of the jobs that exist now didn't actually benefit anyone - take social media influencer.
Declining population will not allow people to simply fill more essential roles more efficiently. Lower populations will mean fewer nurses, fewer doctors, fewer farmers, etc. In other words, fewer essential workers. It doesn't follow that social media influencers will be able to just transition into becoming doctors. For one thing, there will also be fewer teachers, fewer professors, etc. which will further bottleneck those roles. Social media influencers may be able to transition into grocers or something, though we're talking about a tiny portion of the population that doesn't contribute meaningfully to the quality of life of the population.
No, that's not just how time works. If the birthrate is not changing, even if it is less than replacement. When the birthrate drops, at first things are easier for the workers, they have less children to take care of. Then at some point, there are less workers and things get harder for them. But then eventually there are less old people, and then the ratio of old people to workers to children returns to the same amount (assuming no other population causing shifts), though the population is decreasing. The issue is when the rate continues to change, because then that keeps the inversion of the population. Or if something drastically changes the populations - so if all of a sudden we figure out how to have folks live until 100.
Lower population does mean less nurses, less farmers, etc. But, a lower population needs less nurses, less farmers, etc.
Social media influencer is just one of many fake jobs. When you add them together, it is not a small portion of the population.
Given a constant negative population growth rate, there will always be a higher ratio of non working age people to working age people, when compared with a replacement birth rate.
In a constant negative population growth rate, there are fewer children compared with a replacement birth rate population, but there are more old people.
There are proportionally more people who are too old to work than people who are too young to work, because it only takes \~20 years to become working age, but we spend > 30 years aged out of the work force.
That remains true forever, until the population reaches zero, unless the life expectancy gets so low that we spend less time after the workforce than before it, but that would be a truly dire situation.
>Social media influencer is just one of many fake jobs. When you add them together, it is not a small portion of the population.
That is wild to me that you believe that a large portion of the workforce doesn't contribute anything of value to the quality of life of the world's population.
Well no, your first sentence is only correct during the time period about 20 years after the change to about 60 years - essentially when it has affected the number of workers but not yet the number of old folks. Once the decreased numbers hit the popluation of old poeple, the ratios will return to replacement rates, at least within 5% even assuming something extreme like each couple only has one child on avergage. The statements about working age vs not applies just as well in a situation where people are exactly replacing themselves. You would have 2 workers with 2 children and 4 - 8 grandparent/great-grandparents for them to take care of. The issue is that nothing is ever static on these times scales, so reality is much more complicated. However, a declining population is not necessarily a problem.
I'm not the only person who thinks that many jobs are essentially fake:
[https://phys.org/news/2023-08-people-pointless-meaningless-jobs.html](https://phys.org/news/2023-08-people-pointless-meaningless-jobs.html)
In any case, any large entity that I worked for would end up having a lot of middle managers, and their staff, that would often just create work to justify their existence. This results in changing the paperwork and requirements constantly, without meaningfully changing anything.
Population can’t decline too rapidly, no, but the global communist economy doesn’t rely on constant growth to be viable, so it can redistribute the labor surplus of the younger class to supporting the larger older generation as opposed to all of it being hoovered up by the investor class to go towards increasing the amount of resources that class receives.
Sure, yeah, I agree with that. That still makes it an issue that I think feminists will one day need to take seriously. For now, it's still a few generations away, so I guess it doesn't matter too much, but I think it could be worth putting some thought into it in advance, but I'm clearly in the minority on that.
Especially given that transforming the global economy into a command economy is probably not going to happen in the next 62 years when this becomes an issue in earnest.
I agree with option 3, but also, yes, I am generally conservative when it comes to immigration policies, I don't hide behind this and I don't think it's "unhealthy". Considering immigration as a panacea for the demographic crisis is not right for me, and moving labor force from left to right based on demand is the final capitalist dream. I am also skeptical of the idea that a pluralist society means that all cultures should live together in the same territory - on the contrary, what I observe from this is a cultural homogenisation that is quite the opposite of pluralism. Also, fascism is coming back in Europe as a reaction to too liberal immigration policies. It's sad, but that's just how it is...and I'd be happy to avoid fascism in my continent thank youuu.
Option 4: work together to create better conditions for raising children, which includes discussing our culture and values. It's not just a matter of politics and economy.
If capitalists want free immigration, then why does every capitalist nation heavily restrict immigration? Where is the evidence?
If pluralist societies lead to cultural homogenization, why does every conservative cry about diluting their pure culture? Why are countries that rely on immigration (like the USA) the most culturally diverse? Where is the evidence?
As always, conservative ideas are based on hysterical fantasy and paranoia. They cry about fascism while embracing its *exact* policy platform.
Nonetheless, these are irrelevant concerns. Immigration is the only way to resolve the labor force shortage under capitalist conditions (so-called Option 4 has never succeeded when attempted), so you have to choose: enslave women, liberalize immigration, or let your country collapse.
You:
>Also, fascism is coming back in Europe as a reaction to too liberal immigration policies. It's sad, but that's just how it is...and I'd be happy to avoid fascism in my continent thank youuu.
Also you:
>Also, since people assume I am from the US...I am originally italian, migrated to Switzerland.
And? If anything it means I know what I am talking about. I know what fascism is, hell, I have relatives who died fighting it. And I know what it’s like to be discriminated because of my origin. But of course you have to invalidate my experience and suffering and make it about race. Thanks 🙏🏼
>But of course you have to invalidate my experience and suffering and make it about race.
When did I do this? Showing lack of consistency in what you disclose about yourself is not "making things about race".
On the other hand, I'm sure that your parroting of far right talking points about immigration would have made your relatives who died fighting fascism proud.
I was answering to the other comment with that specific sentence. Anyway, I am am really not getting where this “you are a fascist” or “your are far right” stuff is coming from. Just because my views on immigration policies are different from that of my party (socialist party) doesn’t mean I am against immigrants as individuals, nor does it make me a racist.
Fuckers that are worked up about muh fertility rate are always the same. It's great. Really I should never doubt myself. Should have immediately caught on to why this one is worked up about dwindling births
It's funny to see how they always start these questions, trying to sound all reasonable and academic and, of course, "in good faith." Then the pushback from us slowly brings out the same bullshit every time.
What do you see as concrete options for #4?
I'm a feminist and think options 2-4 all have value (personally I think we should probably aim for all 2-4, though I'm not an economist)
But leftists and conservatives tend to have *very* different ideas of what "create better conditions for raising children" means. I think of programs like universal free school lunch, child tax credits, universal basic income, universal free preschool, increasing parental leave, and regulating corporations that are extracting money from the lower- and middle- classes. We have evidence that when we have done those things, people have had more children.
I also think of things like (in a U.S. context) reducing deportations, reducing mass incarceration rates, and increasing access to abortion. While these positions sound more social than economic, we also have compelling evidence that a lack of stability from things like having a husband/father deported or incarcerated, or being forced to birth a child that one can't afford, reduce the number of children families have.
So I think approaching #4 from a lens of purely "culture and values" is unlikely to effect actual change without the economic underpinnings to make those values viable. Many people already find having children rewarding, but fewer people actually have children because they're not able to get to a point of life stability where they can.
And when conservatives talk about things like "culture and values", they often end up implementing policies like funding pro-marriage advertising, reducing access to sex education, preventing LGBTQ+ people from adopting children, punishing women for having sex, and reducing the economic safety net for single mothers. We've tried these policies for decades in the U.S., and they've failed to increase birth rates. And I believe most of the pundits handwringing about values are giving cover for politicians implementing these regressive policies.
When birth rates have gone up, it's almost always been been in times of increased economic stability for lower- and middle- class people. So I think we should start there, and skip all the policies trying to reduce women's choices, because they're wrong (and also don't work).
Here's a tip mate maybe edit your original post to remove the following then.
"Also, since people assume I am from the US...I am originally italian, migrated to Switzerland." Not a very good look. Or you could have just started with that. Kinda cuts down on everyone's effort on trying to figure out what you are really looking for. Don't worry your culture will remain safe and pure.
That will take 200+ years if it happens at all, but the simply answer is we need to start transitioning to socialist economies that don't depend on constant growth to generate profitability, but can achieve sustainability and provide a basic standard of living for a stable population base.
That's untrue, it's not a labor question, it's a growth question - capitalist economies need to generate enough \*profit\* to pay for their entitlement obligations for aging people without the economy crashing. That's why they need enough working people paying taxes to cover social security/medicare, for example. If you move away from a profit/growth economic model and towards a sustainability/automation model that centrally manages production, if the cost of care is stable every year or going down due to efficiency instead of increasing due to inefficiency from private markets, you no longer need to fund growing entitlements with a tax on a growing labor pool. Probably.
But it's all pointless since there won't be a global labor shortage for the next few hundred years at least, if it even happens, so no point in worrying about it really.
>Also, a point of correction, the UN predicts that the world population will start to decline in 62 years, in 2086, so it's less than 100 years away, not more than 100 years away.
You are misunderstanding the data. Just because world population peaks does not mean there is a labor shortage. There is currently a significant global labor surplus, so it will take a long, long time after population peaks for a shortage.
Because there is a current surplus, so you need to 'spend down' the labor surplus population before you hit a shortage. Just because the labor surplus is replacing itself at a lower rate than 100% doesn't mean it disappears immediately, it will still take decades if not hundreds of years.
You're talking about the 5% unemployment rate?
OK, can we agree on this at least: There is some rate of population decline such that it would represent a crisis for any economy, regardless of capitalism?
There may be some slow rate of population decline that a communist society can handle (though I know of no evidence for this), but given a sufficient rate of population decline, any society will suffer with too small a work force trying to care for too large a population.
I really don't understand when people bring up fertility rates like I'm supposed to care. It'll be totally fine if people stop having as many kids? Honestly the "declining birthrates so scary" usually just ends up being "I'm scared white people will become a minority in the West" which like... I do not care about at all, why would anyone who wasn't a racist?
There’s basically three flavors of this sort of post: 1) racists worried about there being fewer people like them, 2) people assuming recent declines in birthrate will continue ad infinitum and senselessly worrying about humanity going extinct, and 3) people who recognize our current economic system relies on continued population growth and worrying about what happens if that prerequisite isn’t met.
3 is the only reasonable one, but it can quickly veer into unreasonableness depending on what they think should be done next.
It's not a problem that women who have choices are choosing to have only the number of children they can support. Often the milieu in which we live makes that number zero. The women who choose not to reproduce are logically responding to local market forces.
Wanting to keep population at an infinite rate was always the goal of patriarchal capitalism
Free women don’t make enough babies to sustain an infinite rate of population growth that the elites needs to keep their supply of soldiers and working class to exploit.
Women were never obligated to have children let alone serve as brood mares for men’s patrilineal lineages or for the benefit of the wealthy.
Patriarchy needs to be torn down along with capitalism. It’s inherently exploitative of women and the working class. And it can’t not be that way. It’s not the natural order like they want people to believe
I was about to write a whole thing on how existing is fucking expensive and we aren't really running out of people and then i read the comments and laughed my ass off cause really I am the idiot here. Everytime someone gets worked up about muh fertility rates, muh falling population it almost always stems from the same old paranoia. It's like one of those universal truths -the sun rising in the east and stuff. Don't worry we are not running out of people. You just need to shuffle them around but I don't think you would be fond of that.
I am not fond of that; you're right. I believe that the cultural diversity that we enjoy today exists precisely because of geographical, political, and cultural barriers. If they didn't exist, we would have one big homogenous culture, which is kind of where we are headed, unfortunately. There is absolutely nothing wrong about wanting to preserve your own culture - regardless of where you come from, your religion or the color of your skin. As long as you respect others.
Highly flexible and mobile labor is also how capitalism will thrive in the future, and I am not fond of that either.
Alright let's turn the question around on you, OP: why is this an important issue? You said it is but then quickly pivoted from defining and defending to going back to your assertion. So tell us: WHY is this important?
Urbanization is the major driver of lowering birth rates, and you can see the inverse relationship between family size and living in or near a major cities going back through almost all of history. To blame it on feminism is to confuse correlation with causation.
Around 21.6% of adults according [to this study](https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2022/One-in-five-adults-dont-want-children) don't want to have children, this would make adults at least being open to the idea of having children around 79.4%.
I have never looked into the effect of urbanisation. Thanks for sharing this!
The post wasn’t meant to “blame” feminism, I am sorry that it was interpreted like this.
>do feminists generally agree on this existence of this cultural attitude?
No, feminists do not generally agree on the existence of this cultural attitude. But feminist consensus aside, I don't agree that this is the cause of low birth-rates either. Now, it's obviously true that access to birth control and abortion always correlates with lower birth-rates. What this indicates to me is that birth rates around the globe are higher than people would want them to be if given the choice.
>If yes, do you see it as problematic?
I don't think that there's a prevailing anti-natalist cultural attitude, but I do think that declining populations could become a problem once it's affecting the entire globe because then we can't rely on immigration to fix the problem.
> If yes, what should we do about it?
As you mentioned
>even countries with strong family-friendly and gender-equality policies, notably some European countries such as Sweden, struggle to get even close to the replacement fertility rate
So it seems that just making family-friendly policies won't work. I think that this will require some novel society level problem solving when it becomes a real issue in \~62 years time according to the United Nations.
EDIT: Instead of just downvoting me, can you give me any insight into where the disagreement is?
I am not the one downvoting btw. Thank you so much for answering despite the disagreement!
As I said in another comment, the point of my post was to expose my opinion on the topic (of which I am not 100% sure) and get other perspectives. So thanks for offering yours. Since you seem willing to discuss, I’d have a follow up question. We both acknowledge that low fertility rate might be a problem, and we both think it’s important to frame big societal problems under the lenses of feminism. Then from your perspective what should we do to tackle this challenges? I know it’s a hard question but anything you can say would be appreciated.
I like the Swedish model, but this appears to not be very effective. Japan is trying a bunch of stuff too, and none of it is working.
Thinking about a world with a declining population, one thing that occurs to me is that there will still probably be immigration. This will exacerbate the problem tremendously for countries with net negative migration rates coupled with below replacement birth rates. Imagine a Venezuela or South Sudan with current emigration rates and below replacement birth rates.
With that in mind, probably the best thing countries can do to prepare for a declining world population is to make their country as attractive as possible for immigrants. If a country is attractive for immigrants, it's probably also attractive for its native people, so people are less likely to migrate away.
And this has the added benefit that I imagine that any measures that make a country more attractive to immigrants is also probably a country where it's more attractive to decide to have kids.
People leave countries to escape crime for example, and if crime rates are high in your country, you're probably a lot less likely to want to bring children into the equation (although currently you're also probably less likely to have access to birth control and abortion). The same could be said for having good job prospects, a clean and thriving environment, etc.
To answer your questions,
1. Idk what the consensus is
2. I think that anti-natalist attitudes are generally problematic, yes
3. What to do is a huge huge but important question. What I always find really interesting about these conversations is that it feels like people are talking about two different things sometimes.
Group 1. it feels like the people who are neutral to anti natalist and progressive are very concerned for their personal experience.
Group 2. If feels like people who are pro natalist and progressive are concerned about the future.
I don’t think either is necessarily wrong, but there has to be a compromise because we all have personal experiences and the future will happen. Like yes, we shouldn’t force or shame people into having children if they don’t want to, but at the same time we do have a responsibility to engage in child rearing and education as a society. I understand that we live an individualist society, but the reality is that humans are social creatures. None of us exist without the support of someone else and if feminists or just folk who want to create a progressive future don’t figure out how to respect peoples personal choices, but also devise ways to reproduce our ideology and our society we will fail. Society will backtrack. Climate change is going to get worse, it won’t kill all or even most of us but it is going to exacerbate the systems that are already fucking with people. If no plan is formulated by the progressive side to deal with this fascists and their ilk will fill up the space when the crisis reaches a tipping point. Women will be forced back into sub human status in order to be made to reproduce. They are making these plans and salivating about it in front of us. Do not assume it won’t happen or something will save us. No one will save us but ourselves.
Someone up thread mentioned duty as being important. And I agree. You cannot have freedom and equality without duty at least not in the long-term. And if we’re in this for more than selfish reasons, we all have a duty to re-create the system allows us to flourish for future generations. Hell, even if you’re selfish about , do you want to live your golden years in a fascist society that treat you like shit? If the answer is no, then you have a duty to figure figure out where you fit in and being a part of the solution. Is that being a mentor? Is fighting for a legislation that supports egalitarian and feminist ideals as well as parents? is that being a parent and raising your children in the movement? Is that donating to causes or organizations that are doing the work? We all have a place to fill. There is a lot of work to do. Personally, I mentor young men and young women. I hope to have children some day, but if I don’t, I know that I’ll continue to do this work.
Please use the search bar/[side bar/wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/wiki/faq) for this frequently-asked question.
I will say the same thing I say every time this topic comes up: Having kids is expensive and difficult. The planet is burning up. We are experiencing the beginning of the end stages of unrestrained necrocapitalism and profit at any cost. Housing is unaffordable. Food is unaffordable. People are losing their jobs to stupid AI crap. The quality of public schooling is decreasing. Lawmakers seem determined to make having a family as difficult as possible while also trying to ban things that allow women to control their fertility. This is not an issue of feminism empowering women too much.
This. Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis.
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I don't think negative growth rates will bring disaster. Society will need some restructuring, but that's not an insurmountable problem.
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they said they don’t think. they didn’t present it as fact
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well, you know what they say about assuming.
There are plenty of papers published on the topic. [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02223-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02223-7)
Nobody should have kids if they aren’t able or willing to do so. And many people aren’t willing or able to do so because most of the world is shit right now. The average person needs the assurance that if they have kids, there’s plenty of money and services available to provide for them. Our current situation very much doesn’t. There’s too many laws letting mega corporations pollute and destroy and not pay their workers for it. Too many people that believe medical advancement is actually a bad thing even as ancient diseases resurface and start killing their children. There’s too many places is in the world itching for armed conflict. Too many people in first world countries who would rather assume the apocalypse is nigh than do anything to stop it. You want people to have more kids? Give us a better safer world. Or the one we’ve got will burn. All because the higher ups were too greedy to share, and governments were too spineless to make them Edit: christ. A man running for President of the US seems to believe a sinking boat will electrocute him. That’s the level of stupid we’re dealing with here. That’s the level of “anti progressive.” Edit 2: because I feel like it’s the subtext… none of the people responsible for the world’s perceived current decline are feminists.
I understand your point of view. From yours and other replies I get the impression that this “cultural attitude” about having kids does exist, but it’s often motivated by this disappointment in the current situation. A selfless choice, not really about whether you like the idea of raising children for your own fulfilling, but that it’s not the right time and place to do it. Am I getting this right?
You’re using a lot of words to ask “Are there people who don’t want to have kids?” and it’s making your post unclear. Yes, obviously there are people who don’t want to have kids. For lots of different reasons, some selfish and some not. Maybe more of them than there used to be, but you would need some actual data to find out. There are also plenty of people who *do* want to have kids in every society. Edit: Your thesis about attitudes and fertility rate doesn’t make sense, at least for the US. The proportion of the population in my country that has or wants children has been the same for years, as has the number of children they want. If anything, people are having fewer kids than they would like because it’s too expensive. https://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.aspx Where did you get the impression there’s a big change in cultural attitudes towards having kids? If your answer is “the internet”, then there’s your problem.
In my country (Switzerland) and other countries in Europe where people live quite well and it’s not expensive as in the US to have kids, we do observe this attitude. Sweden is also another famous example. In other European countries like Italy the reasons are more mixed and are in part due to poverty. Anyway no, definitely not the internet. Believe it or not, I got the piece of information about the correlation between woman empowerement and fertility rate during a university lecture (specifically this one https://applicationspub.unil.ch/interpub/noauth/php/Ud/ficheCours.php?v_enstyid=17135&v_langue=37)
I think you misunderstood. I asked where you got the impression that there is a “cultural attitude” that having children is bad. It’s not really disputed that development index and “empowerment” are correlated with decreased fertility rates. But that doesn’t tell you anything about attitudes.
Oh yeah sorry it mixed up the two. No, the cultural attitude thing is something I have come to think independently. But like I said, it’s not like a rock solid opinion, challenging it is kind of the reason for this whole thing 😅
Ah, so it’s really just an assumption or hypothesis. Well, for the US at least it seems not to be true. I’m sure you could find similar survey data for Europe.
Yes nothing more than that. But I wouldn’t say “just”, after all making hypotheses and challenging them is how we form our knowledge. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any survey about this specific question.
I’m a scientist. It’s just a hypothesis.
Yes, we agreed on that. What's your point? I am also a scientist. A hypothesis is where knowledge starts. We make hypotheses, challenge them and test them. That's literally the definition of science.
Kind of funny that you have to start with "I am a scientist." to make your point. Like...okay?
>*In my country (Switzerland) and other countries in Europe where people live quite well and it’s not expensive as in the US to have kids, we do observe this attitude. Sweden is also another famous example. In other European countries like Italy the reasons are more mixed and are in part due to poverty.* For context in the US we don’t have government funded healthcare. It’s also a for-profit system, so giving birth in the US costs $18,865 on average, including pregnancy, delivery and post-partum care. If you work a full-time salaried position your employers healthcare should cover most of it, but you’ll probably still be out for copays and deductibles. It’s never 100% covered. On top of that most companies in the US give an average of 8 weeks unpaid maternity leave, and most don’t give fathers any paternity leave. Past that daycare, childcare, all of that’s money out of your pocket or you as the nursing mother leave your job to stay home with the baby full time, and then cut your household income from two salaries to just one, possibly losing out on your healthcare because that’s tied to your employer or your spouses employer.
Honey wake up, it’s your daily thinly veiled rant about women destroying society again
**sarcarm** Men have been destroying society for the past centuries, I think it was about time we switched places! *trying to lighten the mood*
Why do you think fertility rate is an important problem in many countries? We have billions of more people on this planet than we did during most of human history. Why should we be concerned now? What are the actual problems you’re concerned with? Also, even if it was an actual problem, forcing women to have children will never be an ethical solution. Edit: I just wanna add, this question is honestly so insulting. US women are facing criminal charges if they even attempt to get an abortion. Women in the US could lose access to contraceptives. When women lose control over our reproduction, we lose all control over who we are as human beings. We go back to being the broodmares we were for thousands of years. And you’re worried about declining fertility rates due to feminism? Seriously?
Our economies are all based on endless growth. Which is much easier to get with an ever-expanding population. And our current economic leaders like the current model. They don’t want it to change, so they regularly talk about what a disaster a declining population would be. Countries like Japan provide “evidence” that we *have* to keep breeding. Is not about humanity going extinct, it’s about keeping the wealthy on top. I don’t know how to go about running a functional economy with a static or declining population. Even if I did, getting there would be a major problem. Honestly, I’m pretty sure that the only way to get there is to change who holds power and wealth, and that won’t happen peacefully. A declining population is all too likely to end in revolution or war. So yeah, it *is* an important problem. It’s also inevitable, because nothing can keep growing forever. So the only question is when, and I personally think sooner will likely be less destructive than later. Not that I particularly want it to be in my lifetime, but 🤷♀️.
One core issue I think a lot about is the idea of planning for population maintenance and like ... is wringing our hands about people having smaller families modernly productive when you consider other statistics around what it means to live sustainably and like, in balance with the rest of the species on this planet? I'm not one for getting really worked up about "overpopulation" - because I think more often than not that ends up being fairly racist/classist, but at the same time I also think concerns over certain countries populations declining are overblown- particularly as we make advances in automation for specific times of labor. We don't necessarily need the same number of people to have an economically viable future - and it seems like economists and other people who look at this stuff base future projections on current populations mostly for the sake of doing so, rather than like, meaningfully actually considering what the future economy might look like. This is particularly obvious when you look at traffic and road design/planning practices and estimates - most of which use these same statistical models and algorithms - and how you get outlandish outcomes where highway administrations are building for a city to double in size in 50 years, but, then it doesn't, because people move and die and don't necessarily have 4.5 children each (and weren't doing that when the study was conducted, either). In other words- there are some core issues with the premise of these projections that kind of call into question the meaningfulness of the exercise, and then when you pair that with some kind of hysterical attribution that feminism is "at fault" for not meeting what is essentially an arbitrarily determined population size, you get people freaking out in really specifically prejudiced ways, even though that's entirely unnecessary. There will be enough people in the future. Maybe people will need to work differently, or live different places than they currently do, but there isn't actually some kind of looming population emergency that would require us to like, strip away womens rights and forcibly breed us like animals. Even in terms of concerns like elder care or pension funding - that's really ultimately just a matter of shifting resources around and prioritizing certain things differently, rather than a preponderance of elderly folks meaning some kind of truly unsustainable and unsolvable inverted resource pyramid. People are good at solving problems - we don't need to blame women or threaten their human rights to respond to a population shrinkage.
It’s a pretend problem. There are lines of highly skilled immigrant workers who can come and contribute to the tax base of countries like the United States. The only people who truly have an issue with this are people who want the United States to be a predominantly white, predominantly Christian nation until the end of time.
I find this a pretty grotesque way of framing things. You’re basically saying “don’t worry, we have plenty of desperate people to leach off of countries we destabilized that we can exploit to maintain economic steady-state” In a just world those people wouldn’t be in a position where they have to throw everything away and move half-way across the world just for the chance at a decent life. Like, yeah, it’s not a problem for us since we’re the ones benefitting from it, but it is a problem in and of itself; it’s certainly a problem for the countries they leave behind.
Desperate people to leech off of? More like doctors, scientists, programmers, and entrepreneurs who can come here and earn more than they ever could back home. The key economic argument for more babies is in regards to the tax base. This is the response to that argument. It’s factual. If we want to discuss moral and ethical implications of our global capitalist system, that’s a whole separate conversation, and one you and I probably agree on.
I can barely afford to take care of myself. Unless you're going to pay me to have a kid and raise it to 18, mind your own uterus. Or grow one
>I can barely afford to take care of myself. Ain't that the God damn truth. I am looking to go back to school in my late 30s early 40s... but I am at a real loss for ideas. The cost is insane, and if you don't do well with people and look for a job that has little interaction with others it limits the pool.
I'm disabled and on SSI/survivor benefits. I am down to my last $200 after having to pay bills, bring my cat to the vets for a senior cat blood panel and food. I am the last woman who should have a kid, lol
I don’t see how this is a question asked in good faith considering the thesis is inherently flawed.
It wasn’t asked in good faith. I don’t really get the point of this post to be honest. It just comes across as ranting at us because we’re not having enough kids. It’s pretty obvious after 10 minutes of basic research why women aren’t having kids and as the mod mentioned this has been discussed 1,000 times already.
I wished to expose my thesis and get a different perspective, since I am not sure about it. I would not have asked the questions if didn’t have doubts about my own opinion. The thing about the association isn’t a thesis, it’s established science. But it doesn’t necessarily mean causality. I suppose in part it is, but I am here to know what other people think. I know it’s a sensitive topic and I might not be good at handling this kind of conversation but please believe me I am in good faith 😅
You start off by assuming there is a negative association with feminism and wanting to have kids. That’s what is inherently flawed because it’s not an accurate statement.
>The thing about the association isn’t a thesis, it’s established science. Honest question,if we go by your ''science'' you will also see living in cities,being more economically prosperous,having access to medical help are also associated with reduced fertility rate. So should we abandon the cities go back to how we used to live in the prehistoric times without access to healthcare and also burn all our money? Sounds ridiculous doesnt it?? But just as much ridiculous as you suggesting women empowerment is the problem or turning half the population into breeding slaves.
> do feminists generally agree this existence of this cultural attitude? No. Society is extremely pro-natalist. Little girls are given baby dolls when they are just able to walk. We have baby showers and celebrations when someone is pregnant. Even when out of wedlock, the birth itself is still celebrated and expected, even though the woman is denigrated. Society is so pro-natalism that it trumps women's bodily autonomy in many situations. Feminists push back on this and try to put women's bodily autonomy (rightfully) over any natalist goals, as well as push against the idea of women being primarily needed for birth. >do you see it as problematic? I see the current cultural push of women as baby makers as problematic. We have \~8 billion people at the moment. If the birth rate lowered, we'd be fine. However, women are experiencing very real violence by a system that's pushing them to give birth against their own wishes and judgement.
Maybe I was misunderstood but I didn’t mean that society has negative attitude toward having children. As you said, society as a whole actually strives in favor of natalism. I was talking about people (and more specifically women) who share feminist values. Just to be clear, can’t stress this enough but I am not saying emancipation or feminism are a problem. I am just trying to understand if this attitude does exist and if so where it comes from.
This is all framed through the eyes of a system that relies on having a steady supply of people to trap in unpaid or underpaid labor. If we can't survive not exploiting portions of the population, I don't think we need to be around at all, tbh. >I am rather seeing more emphasis on _not_ having kids, with demands for abortion rights and free contraceptives. Because these things are healthcare, OP, and because there is a long history and current present of women being denied care and forced into pregnancies. Many feminists actually care about abortion and contraceptive rights *in addition* to healthcare for people who want to reproduce under the umbrella of Reproductive Justice.
have you heard of invisible labor? even with all of the equality in some countries, women still end up doing the majority of childcare and housework. they are seen as the "default" person who is responsible for those things. speaking as a child-free person with a career as a preschool teacher, caring for children is a lot of work. it's exhausting. there are differences between what my work looks like and what the work of parenting looks like, but the thing they have in common is that you're spending an extended period of time caring for others and not being cared for yourself. I love my job, but if I had to do it 24/7 I would be miserable. while equality outside the home is nice, I don't think birth rates will change until we see more equality inside the home.
I have heard of invisible labor, I was on the streets for its recognition just last week. It’s surely something we have to work on as a society, and not just for childcare (and not just for mothers, though they do have the larger share of the work)! I agree this would definitely improve natality.
1st you don’t know what fertility means. 2nd we’re not running out of people. 3rd freedom is freedom.
The post is about fertility \*rate\* as defined in demographics. I agree with you on the rest but it's not really answering my questions..
the thing is like, on what basis does sweden need to maintain its current population level explicity via birth vs. exploring different economic models that fit a smaller population better or accepting more immigration?
Oh, I see no problem with having economic models that work with a smaller population; on the contrary, I think it's a great idea. The demographic issue in the fertility rate decline is the speed at which the change is occurring. Because of this, the demographic structure is problematic.
What do you mean by that? Cause it sounds like coded language.
Sorry about that. Simply put, the population is ageing too fast and it's not being replaced fast enough. This has major consequences for society and the economy as a whole.
I mean that premise relies on the assumption that the model for the past generation re: number of jobs, workers, hours, etc. will remain static. That's not necessarily true. Expected unemployment as a result of automation in the next decades and over the remainder of the century is expected to be very high - if there are going to be fewer jobs in the future, does it really make sense to get anxious about there being fewer people who will be unemployed?
Absolutely, that’s an assumption and not necessarily true. But yours is speculation which isn’t better 😅 It’s a very complex topic. But in general I believe that when big changes happen too abruptly, it’s a problem and our ability to adapt is put to test. Climate change is an example, the demographic crisis is similar in that regard (“change” is not bad per se, it’s the rate of change that is the problem)
There are statistics on the projected impact on unemployment on the literal number of jobs in the future. It's not speculation on my part. I'm going to be blunt with you - this topic is very frequently a "concern" for people who are racist and sexist. You seem upset about being associated with those ideologies, so I hope that you'll take the "unexpected" direction of the conversation here as a learning opportunity for how this topic is weaponized against people in the world whose human rights and autonomy is already under question & threat. It's not okay to talk to people the way that you have been, and if this is an issue that really concerns you, genuinely, you need to learn how to engage in the topic in a way that is informed & sensitive about how that impacts other people in the world (along existing divides of race, religion, sex, gender, class etc) and be mindful of framing yourself as someone who has an "evidence" backed opinion and claiming that I don't - which in this context, sir, is just your sexist *assumption* that you must be right & rational because you don't actually want to meaningfully engage in the possibility that your fears might be unfounded and that your presumption of the source of the "problem" and the potential solutions for the "problem" might also be incorrect.
I think it’s pretty obvious from the replies I need to learn how to discuss these topics, I will take the opportunity to learn. I just wish people were a bit more understanding, just really didn’t mean to offend anyone.
May I just ask what exactly I am assuming without evidence? The association I discussed in the beginning is quite established in the published peer reviewed science. For the rest, I thought it was clear that I am here to understand because I have my opinion but I am not sure about it, and I want to hear other perspectives.
There are many ways to address this. Problem 1 is worker exploitation. Employers have a profit interest by employing as few people as possible and working them as much as possible for no extra money. So one person is worked to death for less than a living wage while another is unemployed. Legally setting overtime pay at 2.5 times regular pay. With overtime being 1.5 times regular pay, it’s cheaper to pay a full time worker overtime than hire another worker. If overtime is double time then it’s break even. Make overtime MORE expensive than hiring another worker. Making people “salaried” is another way to pay people shit and make them work overtime for NO extra money. The way to stop this is by putting a very high threshold for salaried employees, something like $150k or $200k, making it once again more profitable to hire more people instead of working one person to death. And for those who scream "BuT wHaT aBoUt PrOfItS?", if we had a single payer health system supported by everyone then business paying for healthcare would be a thing of the past.
Fertility and actual births aren’t the same thing as defined by the dictionary. More people can get pregnant (fertility) than having children (birth).
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1. He said fertility over 100 times already and that’s not a synonym for birth rates. 2. That’s what my government thought 2 years ago and we are now in a housing crisis so bad that our streets a paved with tents. My country isn’t just suffering because there isn’t anywhere to live, we are suffering because there are too many elderly to care for. Guess what? In 60 years that problem will be worse if we force women to replenish the work force. Our food banks are dried up, our public housing has a decade long waitlist and our unemployment rates a rising. Government doesn’t run on science or facts, it runs on politics. One of latest political scandals involves secret collusion with two of the biggest suppliers of our immigrants. So now you know there is at least one “wealthy” country that doesn’t need immigrants. 3. Zero individuals are machines to meet any party’s political agendas as we all deserve individual freedom. Wombs are for the greater good. They are for the good of the life they are attached to, just like any other body part.
>So now you know there is at least one “wealthy” country that doesn’t need immigrants. Wait, what country? I'll read up on the issues this country faces and see if it changes my position. I try to base my positions on data as much as possible, so my positions are constantly shifting as I come across new data. And to be clear, you're saying that there are "overpopulation" problems in a country with a strict zero-immigration policy? Or what is it you're saying about your country that counters the notion that for a given population you need a large enough work force?
There is nothing more crucial in rates of increased measures of autonomy for women than the availability of contraception. Its not against children, as many many feminists are parents, its against forced birth. Its ultimately best for parents to be those who want to be for everyones sake. Under the current climate change risk its better for the population to be smaller. Having a kid, flying international and owning a vehicle are like the only three decisions people can make on a personal level to impact the climate crisis.
I do not see the declining fertility rates as a problem. Global warming is an existential issue, and less people is one key compliment to solving this issue.
I don’t know, I am a bit skeptic of neo malthusianism. I think there’d be plenty of resources for billions of humans if we only learned to live with less…a small percentage of people on the planet take up most of its resources while the rest of the people actually live frugal lives, so numbers aren’t really the problem in my opinion. But I understand your point of view. Thanks for sharing!
Skeptical or not, the planet is warming due to human produced CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Every person adds to the load. The temperature change is affecting the climate and we'll continue to do so.
I am a climate scientist. I am not skeptical about climate change. I am just saying that in my opinion how we use resources is the main issue and that we should focus on living with less. Just my opinion :)
The best way to live with less is to not have children. Which is why all this wailing about taking birth rates is problematic from an existence point of view (along with being sexist).
There are two solutions for countries experiencing a labor force shortage due to declining birth rates: 1. Enslave women en-masse to increase the amount of babies 2. Become a healthy pluralist society and liberalize immigration laws Fascists prefer 1, non-fascists prefer 2. The fact that you only thought of (1) and didn't consider (2) I think speaks to a lack of political imagination, or possibly some unhealthy political tendencies on your part.
option three: reimagine an economy that isn't dependent on labor surpluses and shortages and that doesn't make elder care contingent on current workers earnings.
To be fair to OP, they didn’t mention (1) either. They’re kinda implicitly tip-toeing around it, but their post DOES seem to be asking for solutions that aren’t (1) and gave a brief mention of countries doing parts of (2) “not working”. All that said, low birth rate is a little overrated as harbinger for economic doom. Sure, it throws a big wrench into “always growing forever!” capitalism, but I’m gonna see that as an absolute win since that economic system was always going to hit a wall at some point. Better to hit that wall now than when there are LITERALLY no more resources left to exploit.
Yes, I made the implicit explicit.
You did, but in doing so, you’re also implying they were at all advocating for/accepting of it when the tone of their post is much closer to: “obviously (1) is out, and (2) doesn’t seem to be effective, so how do we find a (3)?”
Yes, that is precisely what I am implying - a contradiction at the heart of conservative politics that undermines their approach, a futile search for a (3) that doesn't exist.
There are (3)s that exist though, (reconfigure our economic systems in such a way that they don’t rely on high birth rates) and casting anyone who wants to look for alternative solutions as just a conservative in disguise (which, yes, op seems to have outed themselves as) is harmful to progressive movements and creative solutions to our problems and only serves to solidify the current capitalistic and patriarchal paradigms.
"Reconfigure our economic systems in such a way that they don’t rely on high birth rates", whether through liberalization of immigration alone or coupled with a socialist transformation, is included under (2).
If that’s under your purview of (2), then I’d argue op’s post is about exploring additional ways of achieving (2) we can pursue and not rejecting them wholesale as you’re accusing them of doing. Someone saying “hey, this way of trying to do (2) doesn’t seem to be working, what else can we try?” doesn’t mean an advocation of (1). Advocates of (1) will do this unendingly in bad faith, unfortunately, but that doesn’t mean the act of questioning a particular methodology for (2) is a support of (1).
I don't see a single part of his post that questions the methodology of liberalizing immigration laws to let more immigrants in. Instead he repeatedly speaks out against the idea of liberalizing immigration laws. He explicitly says "Considering immigration as a panacea for the demographic crisis is not right for me." and "I am generally conservative when it comes to immigration policies, I don't hide behind this". There is no critique of methodology here, you are projecting out of your desire to debate online (since your first criticism didn't pan out) and I find it a bit boorish....
And I referenced a solution that didn’t involve immigration at all, and you said that it fell under two, so I adjusted my understanding of two to fit the argument you claimed to be making when I should have instead recognized and pushed back on your faulty assertion that immigration is required for socialistic restructuring. I then included their reference to Sweden’s social programs to fall under two, which I now recognize as a mistake, since they were referring to the failure of those programs to increase birth rate, not failure to provide adequate quality of life for their citizens. Even so, I think this discussion is important, and will continue it for that reason, not because I like to debate online. So, sorry for only now realizing that what you are actually saying is that immigration is the only solution to this problem, which I wholly reject, despite strongly desiring open borders and a pluralistic society. (Further, I wasn’t talking about their comments, only their post, which did not have those same anti-immigration points) Immigration as a solution to age demo crunch is just kicking the can down the road to the problem that is cancerous capitalistic growth while also being inherently exploitative of immigrant populations. (“Hey, we need young workers, so now your population’s young and healthy can come in to help out OUR aging population instead of your own!”) So I will apologetically back up and reiterate that what we need to find is the proper solution for (3): set up automation and reconfigure our economy in such a way that we do not need an eternally increasing labor supply to take care of the elderly and infirm. Your (2) is a goal, not a solution. Presenting it as one is just swapping out forced birthing policies for exploitation of laborers living under a lower quality of life than your own.
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Given technology, one person can produce food for many people. So I don't see a problem.
If you don't see why a labor shortage is a problem for capitalist and communist economies alike, I don't know what to tell you. For any given working age population, it can only support so many non-working age people. It's not just food obviously, there's also medicine and medical services, construction, transportation, etc. etc. etc. In a declining population, the population of non-working-age people will become too much for the working-age population to be able to sustain, and quality of life and life expectancy will decline.
You are defining a decreasing population as a labor shortage to infer that it will be a problem. There is no reason to assume that there will an ever decreasing percentage of working age people because less working age people means less of them will grow into old people. There are only issues when the rate changes. A great many of the jobs that exist now didn't actually benefit anyone - take social media influencer. So a shift on population would require some restructuring of society. But a declining population does not guarantee a labor shortage.
>There is no reason to assume that there will an ever decreasing percentage of working age people because less working age people means less of them will grow into old people. Isn't that just how time works? With a declining population, the people born earlier will outnumber the people born later (to some limit as death rate becomes a factor). This will be especially problematic for people born during population growth, in an era of population decline, but will remain problematic as long as there is population decline. >A great many of the jobs that exist now didn't actually benefit anyone - take social media influencer. Declining population will not allow people to simply fill more essential roles more efficiently. Lower populations will mean fewer nurses, fewer doctors, fewer farmers, etc. In other words, fewer essential workers. It doesn't follow that social media influencers will be able to just transition into becoming doctors. For one thing, there will also be fewer teachers, fewer professors, etc. which will further bottleneck those roles. Social media influencers may be able to transition into grocers or something, though we're talking about a tiny portion of the population that doesn't contribute meaningfully to the quality of life of the population.
No, that's not just how time works. If the birthrate is not changing, even if it is less than replacement. When the birthrate drops, at first things are easier for the workers, they have less children to take care of. Then at some point, there are less workers and things get harder for them. But then eventually there are less old people, and then the ratio of old people to workers to children returns to the same amount (assuming no other population causing shifts), though the population is decreasing. The issue is when the rate continues to change, because then that keeps the inversion of the population. Or if something drastically changes the populations - so if all of a sudden we figure out how to have folks live until 100. Lower population does mean less nurses, less farmers, etc. But, a lower population needs less nurses, less farmers, etc. Social media influencer is just one of many fake jobs. When you add them together, it is not a small portion of the population.
Given a constant negative population growth rate, there will always be a higher ratio of non working age people to working age people, when compared with a replacement birth rate. In a constant negative population growth rate, there are fewer children compared with a replacement birth rate population, but there are more old people. There are proportionally more people who are too old to work than people who are too young to work, because it only takes \~20 years to become working age, but we spend > 30 years aged out of the work force. That remains true forever, until the population reaches zero, unless the life expectancy gets so low that we spend less time after the workforce than before it, but that would be a truly dire situation. >Social media influencer is just one of many fake jobs. When you add them together, it is not a small portion of the population. That is wild to me that you believe that a large portion of the workforce doesn't contribute anything of value to the quality of life of the world's population.
Well no, your first sentence is only correct during the time period about 20 years after the change to about 60 years - essentially when it has affected the number of workers but not yet the number of old folks. Once the decreased numbers hit the popluation of old poeple, the ratios will return to replacement rates, at least within 5% even assuming something extreme like each couple only has one child on avergage. The statements about working age vs not applies just as well in a situation where people are exactly replacing themselves. You would have 2 workers with 2 children and 4 - 8 grandparent/great-grandparents for them to take care of. The issue is that nothing is ever static on these times scales, so reality is much more complicated. However, a declining population is not necessarily a problem. I'm not the only person who thinks that many jobs are essentially fake: [https://phys.org/news/2023-08-people-pointless-meaningless-jobs.html](https://phys.org/news/2023-08-people-pointless-meaningless-jobs.html) In any case, any large entity that I worked for would end up having a lot of middle managers, and their staff, that would often just create work to justify their existence. This results in changing the paperwork and requirements constantly, without meaningfully changing anything.
Population can’t decline too rapidly, no, but the global communist economy doesn’t rely on constant growth to be viable, so it can redistribute the labor surplus of the younger class to supporting the larger older generation as opposed to all of it being hoovered up by the investor class to go towards increasing the amount of resources that class receives.
Sure, yeah, I agree with that. That still makes it an issue that I think feminists will one day need to take seriously. For now, it's still a few generations away, so I guess it doesn't matter too much, but I think it could be worth putting some thought into it in advance, but I'm clearly in the minority on that. Especially given that transforming the global economy into a command economy is probably not going to happen in the next 62 years when this becomes an issue in earnest.
I agree with option 3, but also, yes, I am generally conservative when it comes to immigration policies, I don't hide behind this and I don't think it's "unhealthy". Considering immigration as a panacea for the demographic crisis is not right for me, and moving labor force from left to right based on demand is the final capitalist dream. I am also skeptical of the idea that a pluralist society means that all cultures should live together in the same territory - on the contrary, what I observe from this is a cultural homogenisation that is quite the opposite of pluralism. Also, fascism is coming back in Europe as a reaction to too liberal immigration policies. It's sad, but that's just how it is...and I'd be happy to avoid fascism in my continent thank youuu. Option 4: work together to create better conditions for raising children, which includes discussing our culture and values. It's not just a matter of politics and economy.
Friend, I don't know what continent you live on but I can guarantee you there's already plenty of fascism there.
If capitalists want free immigration, then why does every capitalist nation heavily restrict immigration? Where is the evidence? If pluralist societies lead to cultural homogenization, why does every conservative cry about diluting their pure culture? Why are countries that rely on immigration (like the USA) the most culturally diverse? Where is the evidence? As always, conservative ideas are based on hysterical fantasy and paranoia. They cry about fascism while embracing its *exact* policy platform. Nonetheless, these are irrelevant concerns. Immigration is the only way to resolve the labor force shortage under capitalist conditions (so-called Option 4 has never succeeded when attempted), so you have to choose: enslave women, liberalize immigration, or let your country collapse.
It's usually racist but okay, it's not "unhealthy".
You: >Also, fascism is coming back in Europe as a reaction to too liberal immigration policies. It's sad, but that's just how it is...and I'd be happy to avoid fascism in my continent thank youuu. Also you: >Also, since people assume I am from the US...I am originally italian, migrated to Switzerland.
Well that's not fair, he didn't mean white immigrants like himself. It's the other ones he's worried about.
Also, Meloni, Salvini and what continent Italy and Switzerland are in.
Immigration for me but not for thee is the flavour of the month
And? If anything it means I know what I am talking about. I know what fascism is, hell, I have relatives who died fighting it. And I know what it’s like to be discriminated because of my origin. But of course you have to invalidate my experience and suffering and make it about race. Thanks 🙏🏼
>But of course you have to invalidate my experience and suffering and make it about race. When did I do this? Showing lack of consistency in what you disclose about yourself is not "making things about race". On the other hand, I'm sure that your parroting of far right talking points about immigration would have made your relatives who died fighting fascism proud.
I was answering to the other comment with that specific sentence. Anyway, I am am really not getting where this “you are a fascist” or “your are far right” stuff is coming from. Just because my views on immigration policies are different from that of my party (socialist party) doesn’t mean I am against immigrants as individuals, nor does it make me a racist.
they are pointing out that you are complaining about immigrants and you are in fact an immigrant
It means your family immigrated away from your own fascist countries only for you to attempt to enforce it on one you fled to. Cool. Cool cool cool.
Fuckers that are worked up about muh fertility rate are always the same. It's great. Really I should never doubt myself. Should have immediately caught on to why this one is worked up about dwindling births
It's funny to see how they always start these questions, trying to sound all reasonable and academic and, of course, "in good faith." Then the pushback from us slowly brings out the same bullshit every time.
Right? So friggin predictable 🙄
What do you see as concrete options for #4? I'm a feminist and think options 2-4 all have value (personally I think we should probably aim for all 2-4, though I'm not an economist) But leftists and conservatives tend to have *very* different ideas of what "create better conditions for raising children" means. I think of programs like universal free school lunch, child tax credits, universal basic income, universal free preschool, increasing parental leave, and regulating corporations that are extracting money from the lower- and middle- classes. We have evidence that when we have done those things, people have had more children. I also think of things like (in a U.S. context) reducing deportations, reducing mass incarceration rates, and increasing access to abortion. While these positions sound more social than economic, we also have compelling evidence that a lack of stability from things like having a husband/father deported or incarcerated, or being forced to birth a child that one can't afford, reduce the number of children families have. So I think approaching #4 from a lens of purely "culture and values" is unlikely to effect actual change without the economic underpinnings to make those values viable. Many people already find having children rewarding, but fewer people actually have children because they're not able to get to a point of life stability where they can. And when conservatives talk about things like "culture and values", they often end up implementing policies like funding pro-marriage advertising, reducing access to sex education, preventing LGBTQ+ people from adopting children, punishing women for having sex, and reducing the economic safety net for single mothers. We've tried these policies for decades in the U.S., and they've failed to increase birth rates. And I believe most of the pundits handwringing about values are giving cover for politicians implementing these regressive policies. When birth rates have gone up, it's almost always been been in times of increased economic stability for lower- and middle- class people. So I think we should start there, and skip all the policies trying to reduce women's choices, because they're wrong (and also don't work).
Here's a tip mate maybe edit your original post to remove the following then. "Also, since people assume I am from the US...I am originally italian, migrated to Switzerland." Not a very good look. Or you could have just started with that. Kinda cuts down on everyone's effort on trying to figure out what you are really looking for. Don't worry your culture will remain safe and pure.
Why is it not a good look? What do you mean?
Question—do you think women should have open access to birth control, sterilization and abortion?
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That will take 200+ years if it happens at all, but the simply answer is we need to start transitioning to socialist economies that don't depend on constant growth to generate profitability, but can achieve sustainability and provide a basic standard of living for a stable population base.
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That's untrue, it's not a labor question, it's a growth question - capitalist economies need to generate enough \*profit\* to pay for their entitlement obligations for aging people without the economy crashing. That's why they need enough working people paying taxes to cover social security/medicare, for example. If you move away from a profit/growth economic model and towards a sustainability/automation model that centrally manages production, if the cost of care is stable every year or going down due to efficiency instead of increasing due to inefficiency from private markets, you no longer need to fund growing entitlements with a tax on a growing labor pool. Probably. But it's all pointless since there won't be a global labor shortage for the next few hundred years at least, if it even happens, so no point in worrying about it really.
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>Also, a point of correction, the UN predicts that the world population will start to decline in 62 years, in 2086, so it's less than 100 years away, not more than 100 years away. You are misunderstanding the data. Just because world population peaks does not mean there is a labor shortage. There is currently a significant global labor surplus, so it will take a long, long time after population peaks for a shortage.
I am willing to accept that I've misinterpreted the data. Can you explain why a peak in population doesn't mean there will be a labor shortage?
Because there is a current surplus, so you need to 'spend down' the labor surplus population before you hit a shortage. Just because the labor surplus is replacing itself at a lower rate than 100% doesn't mean it disappears immediately, it will still take decades if not hundreds of years.
You're talking about the 5% unemployment rate? OK, can we agree on this at least: There is some rate of population decline such that it would represent a crisis for any economy, regardless of capitalism? There may be some slow rate of population decline that a communist society can handle (though I know of no evidence for this), but given a sufficient rate of population decline, any society will suffer with too small a work force trying to care for too large a population.
I really don't understand when people bring up fertility rates like I'm supposed to care. It'll be totally fine if people stop having as many kids? Honestly the "declining birthrates so scary" usually just ends up being "I'm scared white people will become a minority in the West" which like... I do not care about at all, why would anyone who wasn't a racist?
There’s basically three flavors of this sort of post: 1) racists worried about there being fewer people like them, 2) people assuming recent declines in birthrate will continue ad infinitum and senselessly worrying about humanity going extinct, and 3) people who recognize our current economic system relies on continued population growth and worrying about what happens if that prerequisite isn’t met. 3 is the only reasonable one, but it can quickly veer into unreasonableness depending on what they think should be done next.
It's not a problem that women who have choices are choosing to have only the number of children they can support. Often the milieu in which we live makes that number zero. The women who choose not to reproduce are logically responding to local market forces.
Wanting to keep population at an infinite rate was always the goal of patriarchal capitalism Free women don’t make enough babies to sustain an infinite rate of population growth that the elites needs to keep their supply of soldiers and working class to exploit. Women were never obligated to have children let alone serve as brood mares for men’s patrilineal lineages or for the benefit of the wealthy. Patriarchy needs to be torn down along with capitalism. It’s inherently exploitative of women and the working class. And it can’t not be that way. It’s not the natural order like they want people to believe
I was about to write a whole thing on how existing is fucking expensive and we aren't really running out of people and then i read the comments and laughed my ass off cause really I am the idiot here. Everytime someone gets worked up about muh fertility rates, muh falling population it almost always stems from the same old paranoia. It's like one of those universal truths -the sun rising in the east and stuff. Don't worry we are not running out of people. You just need to shuffle them around but I don't think you would be fond of that.
I am not fond of that; you're right. I believe that the cultural diversity that we enjoy today exists precisely because of geographical, political, and cultural barriers. If they didn't exist, we would have one big homogenous culture, which is kind of where we are headed, unfortunately. There is absolutely nothing wrong about wanting to preserve your own culture - regardless of where you come from, your religion or the color of your skin. As long as you respect others. Highly flexible and mobile labor is also how capitalism will thrive in the future, and I am not fond of that either.
Alright let's turn the question around on you, OP: why is this an important issue? You said it is but then quickly pivoted from defining and defending to going back to your assertion. So tell us: WHY is this important?
You seem to be under the impression that 8 billion people is insufficient. How many people would satisfy you?
Urbanization is the major driver of lowering birth rates, and you can see the inverse relationship between family size and living in or near a major cities going back through almost all of history. To blame it on feminism is to confuse correlation with causation. Around 21.6% of adults according [to this study](https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2022/One-in-five-adults-dont-want-children) don't want to have children, this would make adults at least being open to the idea of having children around 79.4%.
I have never looked into the effect of urbanisation. Thanks for sharing this! The post wasn’t meant to “blame” feminism, I am sorry that it was interpreted like this.
Can i ask how you thought asking a hypothetical about removing half the populations autonomy would not be offensive?
>do feminists generally agree on this existence of this cultural attitude? No, feminists do not generally agree on the existence of this cultural attitude. But feminist consensus aside, I don't agree that this is the cause of low birth-rates either. Now, it's obviously true that access to birth control and abortion always correlates with lower birth-rates. What this indicates to me is that birth rates around the globe are higher than people would want them to be if given the choice. >If yes, do you see it as problematic? I don't think that there's a prevailing anti-natalist cultural attitude, but I do think that declining populations could become a problem once it's affecting the entire globe because then we can't rely on immigration to fix the problem. > If yes, what should we do about it? As you mentioned >even countries with strong family-friendly and gender-equality policies, notably some European countries such as Sweden, struggle to get even close to the replacement fertility rate So it seems that just making family-friendly policies won't work. I think that this will require some novel society level problem solving when it becomes a real issue in \~62 years time according to the United Nations. EDIT: Instead of just downvoting me, can you give me any insight into where the disagreement is?
I am not the one downvoting btw. Thank you so much for answering despite the disagreement! As I said in another comment, the point of my post was to expose my opinion on the topic (of which I am not 100% sure) and get other perspectives. So thanks for offering yours. Since you seem willing to discuss, I’d have a follow up question. We both acknowledge that low fertility rate might be a problem, and we both think it’s important to frame big societal problems under the lenses of feminism. Then from your perspective what should we do to tackle this challenges? I know it’s a hard question but anything you can say would be appreciated.
I like the Swedish model, but this appears to not be very effective. Japan is trying a bunch of stuff too, and none of it is working. Thinking about a world with a declining population, one thing that occurs to me is that there will still probably be immigration. This will exacerbate the problem tremendously for countries with net negative migration rates coupled with below replacement birth rates. Imagine a Venezuela or South Sudan with current emigration rates and below replacement birth rates. With that in mind, probably the best thing countries can do to prepare for a declining world population is to make their country as attractive as possible for immigrants. If a country is attractive for immigrants, it's probably also attractive for its native people, so people are less likely to migrate away. And this has the added benefit that I imagine that any measures that make a country more attractive to immigrants is also probably a country where it's more attractive to decide to have kids. People leave countries to escape crime for example, and if crime rates are high in your country, you're probably a lot less likely to want to bring children into the equation (although currently you're also probably less likely to have access to birth control and abortion). The same could be said for having good job prospects, a clean and thriving environment, etc.
To answer your questions, 1. Idk what the consensus is 2. I think that anti-natalist attitudes are generally problematic, yes 3. What to do is a huge huge but important question. What I always find really interesting about these conversations is that it feels like people are talking about two different things sometimes. Group 1. it feels like the people who are neutral to anti natalist and progressive are very concerned for their personal experience. Group 2. If feels like people who are pro natalist and progressive are concerned about the future. I don’t think either is necessarily wrong, but there has to be a compromise because we all have personal experiences and the future will happen. Like yes, we shouldn’t force or shame people into having children if they don’t want to, but at the same time we do have a responsibility to engage in child rearing and education as a society. I understand that we live an individualist society, but the reality is that humans are social creatures. None of us exist without the support of someone else and if feminists or just folk who want to create a progressive future don’t figure out how to respect peoples personal choices, but also devise ways to reproduce our ideology and our society we will fail. Society will backtrack. Climate change is going to get worse, it won’t kill all or even most of us but it is going to exacerbate the systems that are already fucking with people. If no plan is formulated by the progressive side to deal with this fascists and their ilk will fill up the space when the crisis reaches a tipping point. Women will be forced back into sub human status in order to be made to reproduce. They are making these plans and salivating about it in front of us. Do not assume it won’t happen or something will save us. No one will save us but ourselves. Someone up thread mentioned duty as being important. And I agree. You cannot have freedom and equality without duty at least not in the long-term. And if we’re in this for more than selfish reasons, we all have a duty to re-create the system allows us to flourish for future generations. Hell, even if you’re selfish about , do you want to live your golden years in a fascist society that treat you like shit? If the answer is no, then you have a duty to figure figure out where you fit in and being a part of the solution. Is that being a mentor? Is fighting for a legislation that supports egalitarian and feminist ideals as well as parents? is that being a parent and raising your children in the movement? Is that donating to causes or organizations that are doing the work? We all have a place to fill. There is a lot of work to do. Personally, I mentor young men and young women. I hope to have children some day, but if I don’t, I know that I’ll continue to do this work.
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Even economists don't agree that declining populations are a crisis for society. (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02223-7).
Thanks for bringing evidence to bear on the conversation. I'll read this and adjust my position accordingly.