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The real ratio that matters here is across the child-rearing ages (including social acceptance) of perhaps 18-45. I can't find a convenient summary and I'll be arsed if I'll sit here and do a bunch of calculations, but yes, males have a predominance across that range.
I'll sit back down now.
That's true. I couldn't find that information either and that would be more telling. That's why I said in my post that it was just my speculation that maybe those baby boys (who were being born in higher numbers than baby girls) were just living into adulthood longer due to good medicine and a lack of wars.
The author found that decline in religiosity is the major cultural reason. That economics is a secondary inhibitor. He found there's not much we can do on a governmental policy level to reverse the cultural shift. If people only want to have one kid vs. five, we can't change that. But we can use policy to see to it that people have the kids they want to have. Economics does hurt people who want more kids but can't afford them.
We are in an interesting time right now in that the situation is forcing us to face the costs and benefits of our economy. The pandemic has proven without a doubt that our economic activity is responsible for climate change. When everyone sat in their houses, it was amazing how fast the Earth started becoming cleaner. Fewer humans would resolve climate change without needing any green new deal stuff. The earth can carry 50% fewer humans producing all those emissions, or we have to produce fewer emissions. The most humane way to reduce population is through attrition.
It appears that Thanos was right.
Last edited by redguard57; 05-20-2020 at 02:20 PM..
The economic consequence 21 years from now in 2041 will be severe. Every credible econometric model of the US economy shows population growth as a principle driver of future economic growth.
In many senses, this decline is associated with the incredibly strong economy we've enjoyed over the past several years - economic opportunity for women has resulted in their personal decisions to work and defer/decline to procreated.
More and more, it is clear the USA needs a policy of encouraging immigration of fertile women who are of childbearing age.
What good does it do to have a good economy when you are destroying the planet? You cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet. One issue that I agree with the global elites is that there are way too many people. I disagree with their evil ideas to fix it, but their overall premise is correct. United States birthrates falling is a good thing!
More and more, it is clear the USA needs a policy of encouraging immigration of fertile women who are of childbearing age.
That's not "clear" at all. That's one way to possibly tackle the problem. I can think of others, including some that not only don't import fertile immigrant women, but deport all illegal immigrants.
TThe author found that decline in religiosity is the major cultural reason.
Eh. I call selective bias.
I think the reason is simple and attributable to the one (1) factor that has actually changed in modern times. Wars come and go, prosperity comes and goes, religious influence comes and goes, welfare fathers come and go... wait, never mind that last.
Birth control. The advent of what is essentially cheap, universally available and effective birth control completely changed the population equation. It's taken fifty or so years for the full effect to start being seen, after the selective/tentative/church-opposed early days and the unbridled sexuality of the late 1960s into the mid-80s, but we are finally at a mature state in which no woman has to have a child unless she chooses to (very simplistically speaking, put away the soapbox) and it's generally accepted that women will have all the sex they want without childbearing being any part of it.
It seems old-hat and obvious, maybe moreso to anyone of an age to have no recollection of when birth control wasn't available from PP or another easy/free source in their teens. But fifty years is the blink of a cultural eye, and I can't think of any other factor that isn't pretty much as old as civilization.
And to bring this around, the lack of sex==kids is what eroded the need to follow religious strictures. So the author has it backwards.
That's not "clear" at all. That's one way to possibly tackle the problem.
I agree, and could get on a hobbyhorse here about dragging in a highly politicized issue. But I won't.
But there's no question, none at all, that the US has always welcomed and benefited from a steady inflow of immigrants and their children. Frantic, xenophobic, politicized policies based on nonsense about jobs "lost" to immigrants are the fever-dreams of old white men with tattered union cards.
And, as someone who's waist-deep in writing about industry and labor around the turn of the 1900s, it's the same old story, the same old song and dance. Nobody wanted them damn useless Irish for anything but scut labor, y'know.
Why immigration? Why not just have policies that encourage more children in US families?
I think we need immigration for several reasons. We already have illegal immigrants working in restaurants, meat packers, landscaping, food harvesters. I think we need to understand that we need them here. The fact that they tend to find employment, and often have families should deem them a stabilizing factor.
But, yeah, we need them here to produce children. There is some governmental support for children, through tax relief and food support for low income parents. I think more could be done, but I don’t have any good ideas. I do know that costs of childcare and schooling are higher than they used to be. Even in the public schools, it is costly for parents to provide supplies, lunch costs, and extracurricular enrichment programs. As it is, kids do receive reduced cost lunches if their families’ incomes are low enough.
I think the reason is simple and attributable to the one (1) factor that has actually changed in modern times. Wars come and go, prosperity comes and goes, religious influence comes and goes, welfare fathers come and go... wait, never mind that last.
Birth control. The advent of what is essentially cheap, universally available and effective birth control completely changed the population equation. It's taken fifty or so years for the full effect to start being seen, after the selective/tentative/church-opposed early days and the unbridled sexuality of the late 1960s into the mid-80s, but we are finally at a mature state in which no woman has to have a child unless she chooses to (very simplistically speaking, put away the soapbox) and it's generally accepted that women will have all the sex they want without childbearing being any part of it.
It seems old-hat and obvious, maybe moreso to anyone of an age to have no recollection of when birth control wasn't available from PP or another easy/free source in their teens. But fifty years is the blink of a cultural eye, and I can't think of any other factor that isn't pretty much as old as civilization.
And to bring this around, the lack of sex==kids is what eroded the need to follow religious strictures. So the author has it backwards.
The author is a National Review writer and a professed consersative Christian. In that community they have been wringing their hands about the decline of babies for a few decades now. Obviously churches need babies. Much of their reason for existence revolves around the traditional family. The pressure they put on couples to have them is a reason I stopped going.
Still, I think the pill, women in the workplace, etc, etc, does correlate with declining church attendance.
Still, I think the pill, women in the workplace, etc, etc, does correlate with declining church attendance.
Only in that the first leads to both of the others. Women going to work, per se, and all other freedom from maternal anchors, is a consequence, not an effect.
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