Women lose 90% of their eggs by the time they are 30, should we change our social standards? (statistics, school)
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We are going to have to place more emphasis on the importance of having children eventually.Childbearing will have to become recognized and compensated for what it is: social service performed by women which enables on the most basic level the continued functioning of the system.
Am I the only one that finds this creepy/scary? There's enough emphasis on having children as-is. And the last part sounds ALOT like what was happening with alot of women in Nazi Germany.
What of those of us that refuse to become baby-making machines? Hmm?
I've seen nothing to show that there's a looming crisis of not enough people-- and a crisis would be the only conceivable reason to go along with this cockamamie idea of moving civilization back a few thousand years to a time when biological adulthood somehow equated to societal adulthood. There's a reason why human children take a long time to mature into productive adults-- we live in an incredibly complicated society where we need to study for years just to learn basic language and math skills and acquire knowledge of how societies work. We gave up the hunter-gatherer thing quite a while back.
Now, if you want to have such a civilization in the context of a totally socialistic society, where "adults" of 12-15 got married, procreated, and the State supported them for the decade or so it would take for them to get up to speed and be productive citizens, then I stand corrected. That sounds like it would be consistent with the original proposal. But why do I think that that's not what the original poster had in mind?
Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong all have strongly negative population growth rates. In Taiwan, emphasis on education (the majority of the population holds postgraduate degrees) has led to a birth rate of approximately 1 child per woman in current generations.
The United States and European countries are in a similiar situation, but immigration--both legal and illegal--coupled with the tendency of new immigrants to have more children are keeping some country's populations stable or with positive growth rates. This is actually great for the world, since these immigrants--who would otherwise create 8+ children, and then their children would produce 8+ more children--come to a 1st world country and suddenly the 2nd generation has 1-2 children instead of 8. This is currently a very positive situation in terms of limiting the strain on the global environment so long as it is coupled with programs to reduce consumption in 1st-world countries so that 1-2 children do not consume the same resources as the 8-10 would.
However, in a few generations, the major positive-growth countries and immigrant sources (China, India, Cambodia, etc.) will reach 1st-world status and their population growth rates will decline and we will have a potential problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colddiamond102
What of those of us that refuse to become baby-making machines? Hmm?
You will probably not participate in whatever benefits package is offered to mothers to give them economic incentive to have 2 or more children before 35. (Or to reduce the economic disadvantage of having children at a younger age.)
Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong all have strongly negative population growth rates. In Taiwan, emphasis on education (the majority of the population holds postgraduate degrees) has led to a birth rate of approximately 1 child per woman in current generations.
That might be right around the corner for the US. My wife and I waited until our late-20s to have our first child. It was a financial decision to not have kids until we were financially prepared.
We are two college/post-graduate degreed individuals in good paying fields. Sure, we struggle with our student loans, but I can imagine that many people have it even harder than we do... and we had to wait until our late-20s.
With the rate at which cost of living is going up and the implicit student loan obligation that most next-generation students will have, I'd imagine that age at which a woman has her first child will only creep further up. At some point, we are going to start to see lower fertility rates or higher genetic defect rates that will ripple through society.
You will probably not participate in whatever benefits package is offered to mothers to give them economic incentive to have 2 or more children before 35. (Or to reduce the economic disadvantage of having children at a younger age.)
Oh darn. Gosh golly gee, another program by the Gubmint I'd have no interest in. Whatever shall I do?
Not much of a loss when no amount of money could convince me to pop a screaming load of something the size of a watermelon out of my nether regions.
Let the other population of women recieve this "benefits package" (Which is silly..the disdvantages of having kids FAR exceed any sort of benefits from having them)...
I'll be the free one who has actually LIVED my life and not saddled with snot-nosed brats, laughing as I pass by at those who jumped at the "benefits package".
I'll be the free one who has actually LIVED my life and not saddled with snot-nosed brats, laughing as I pass by at those who jumped at the "benefits package".
And the residual benefit. Twenty years from now, you won't be providing free day care for THEIR snot-nosed brats.
I don't think anyone is passing any judgements on individual's decisions whether or not to have kids. This is simply a discussion of the impact on society of low birth rates and delayed childbearing on a macroscopic scale. Your life choices are your own.
If it becomes typical that childbearing is delayed and reduced to the point where women are having one child in their lifetime (averaged across the entire population, and currently seen in some technologically advanced societies) we will see a greater-than-50% decline in the world's population in a single generation. Throughout all the wars, plagues, and other disasters the human race has endured, there has never been a die-off of human beings on such a massive scale in all of recorded history, and it is fairly likely that society would collapse within a generation or so due to the resulting massive economic contraction.
The economic incentives I have mentioned are already being implemented in countries like Japan in an attempt to deal with their shrinking population, but I doubt that they will be effective. As one poster mentioned, to opportunity cost of having children cannot be offset by some simple lump sum.
Most likely the response will evolve over a few decades and be a combination of free-market initiatives and government intervention based on each region's specific culture.
Oh darn. Gosh golly gee, another program by the Gubmint I'd have no interest in. Whatever shall I do?
Not much of a loss when no amount of money could convince me to pop a screaming load of something the size of a watermelon out of my nether regions.
Let the other population of women recieve this "benefits package" (Which is silly..the disdvantages of having kids FAR exceed any sort of benefits from having them)...
I'll be the free one who has actually LIVED my life and not saddled with snot-nosed brats, laughing as I pass by at those who jumped at the "benefits package".
Well, having raised 3 kids and still in my 40s (barely) I'm pretty free too. But I have a lot of joy with my freedom.
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