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Rapid economic growth will boost the population, one way or another.
This has not happened in S. Korea.
They have the most precipitous birth rates of just about anywhere in the world.
"..For some time now, South Korea has been a striking case study in the depopulation problem that hangs over the developed world. Almost all rich countries have seen their birthrates settle below replacement level, but usually that means somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 children per woman. For instance in 2021 the United States stood at 1.7, France at 1.8, Italy at 1.3 and Canada at 1.4.
But South Korea is distinctive in that it slipped into below-replacement territory in the 1980s but lately has been falling even more — dropping below one child per woman in 2018, to 0.8 after the pandemic, and now, in provisional data for both the second and third quarters of 2023, to just 0.7 births per woman..."
The author of that article, Ross Douthat, is a very conservative Catholic who has long been whining about the birth dearth.
On the NY Times page, if one can get in, the comments are usually quite good, here's an excerpt of one comment:
Quote:
...it's important to look at the real reasons South Koreans - and many young adults around the world - don't want to procreate:
1. A bleak job market that pays lousy
2. Unaffordable housing and high cost of living
3. Low levels of social mobility
4. The HUGE expense of raising children in a brutally competitive society.
5. A persistent patriarchal culture that forces women to shoulder much of the childcare and home care burden while enduring discrimination at work.
6. Winner-take-all capitalism that sweeps much of the world's profits to 0.1% pockets and tax havens that simultaneously guts the common good.
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Last edited by Mike from back east; 12-03-2023 at 01:23 PM..
“Persistent patriarchal culture”…..at least gets to the root of the argument. SOCIAL JUSTICE!
6 is a great social justice argument, too. I wonder how many people not in the 0.1% who happen to provide skills and services of value find it possible to raise children.
Reagan is a handy target and scapegoat, but that hardly explains why so many countries have a low fertility rate.
It's not an American problem. Personally, I believe population decline was always going to happen. It just had to wait until human society was successful enough to make it happen. As humans struggled they had 6 children or more. But now that the struggle is over, the need to have that many children is gone. It has almost nothing to do with the politics of any particular country.
We were in China not long after the one child policy was abolished. Our guides thought it was quite funny as they said there was no way they would have more than one child anyway.
The Chinese style of parenting is very intensive and even here I know quite a few women of Chinese heritage who choose to have only one child, despite having two still being the norm here.
There are plenty of reasons why thinking people would choose not to have kids, why it would seem like a losing proposition. How about we think about what reasons people might have for WANTING to have kids?
I think that people of a certain level of prosperity want to have kids so that they have someone to pass on their name, legacy and wealth to.
I think that when it comes to the greater numbers of relatively poor people, there have been a few mechanisms at play, some of which I've already talked about here. In previous times, children were a way to increase value for the family...they could work, and would be expected to from a somewhat young age, in one way or another. And I feel that somewhere in the wiring of some people in scarcity still resides the impulse to make babies and take in animals, because for only what...thousands of years of human evolution?...more people meant more laborers to cultivate resources and more animals meant more domestic livestock (resources.) Now of course it's not like that, both children and pets are huge resource-sinks. But a lot of poorer people for various reasons either make choices that do not really benefit them or else fail to adequately control their situations by taking responsible actions. Being in hardship actually alters the way that one's brain functions, so I'm not really shocked nor do I believe that they deserve severe consequences in life for this sort of thing.
But despite the constant finger wagging of, "if you couldn't afford to have kids, you should have blah blah blah" those same people actually really want the masses to breed laborers and general cannon fodder. As I said early on in here, you have political ideologies that want to try and promote the desired result with incentives/carrots...and those who want to promote an outcome by taking away options and freedoms, and just allowing a very harsh and punitive life result for those who wind up carrying out their mission for lack of other options (sticks.) You might think that the people would prefer, "you can thrive, but please reproduce" over "you will breed whether you like it or not, and you will suffer and so will your children, no one cares and it's just your fault anyways." But the second camp has made the promises of the first camp sound like pipe dreams and lies. Even though we HAD a brief period with the economic policies of the first camp in play, and it resulted in a "baby boom." Of course, then women got the pill and the boom stopped booming.
I've reached a point of cynicism where I don't believe that the powerful actually have any real religious morals or beliefs that they are promoting with stuff like the anti-gay and anti-abortion and anti-birth control positions. All they are truly pushing is for the herd to breed. Involuntarily if necessary. Anything that gets in the way of that, they would like to eliminate. At least the "stick" regimes. In related news, Putin's government has declared the LGBTQ+ community an extremist movement and they have been raiding clubs and putting people they found in them, on lists, photographing their identity documents and so forth.
Can't have these people promoting a lifestyle that is not centered on breeding more citizens, now can we...
EDIT -
I do think that the "stick" people should probably get real about what the end result of their policies looks like, though. Take getting rid of birth control. That will not result in "Leave it to Beaver." That will result in "Romanian orphanages."
There are plenty of reasons why thinking people would choose not to have kids, why it would seem like a losing proposition. How about we think about what reasons people might have for WANTING to have kids?
I think that people of a certain level of prosperity want to have kids so that they have someone to pass on their name, legacy and wealth to.
I think that when it comes to the greater numbers of relatively poor people, there have been a few mechanisms at play, some of which I've already talked about here. In previous times, children were a way to increase value for the family...they could work, and would be expected to from a somewhat young age, in one way or another. And I feel that somewhere in the wiring of some people in scarcity still resides the impulse to make babies and take in animals, because for only what...thousands of years of human evolution?...more people meant more laborers to cultivate resources and more animals meant more domestic livestock (resources.) Now of course it's not like that, both children and pets are huge resource-sinks. But a lot of poorer people for various reasons either make choices that do not really benefit them or else fail to adequately control their situations by taking responsible actions. Being in hardship actually alters the way that one's brain functions, so I'm not really shocked nor do I believe that they deserve severe consequences in life for this sort of thing.
But despite the constant finger wagging of, "if you couldn't afford to have kids, you should have blah blah blah" those same people actually really want the masses to breed laborers and general cannon fodder. As I said early on in here, you have political ideologies that want to try and promote the desired result with incentives/carrots...and those who want to promote an outcome by taking away options and freedoms, and just allowing a very harsh and punitive life result for those who wind up carrying out their mission for lack of other options (sticks.) You might think that the people would prefer, "you can thrive, but please reproduce" over "you will breed whether you like it or not, and you will suffer and so will your children, no one cares and it's just your fault anyways." But the second camp has made the promises of the first camp sound like pipe dreams and lies. Even though we HAD a brief period with the economic policies of the first camp in play, and it resulted in a "baby boom." Of course, then women got the pill and the boom stopped booming.
I've reached a point of cynicism where I don't believe that the powerful actually have any real religious morals or beliefs that they are promoting with stuff like the anti-gay and anti-abortion and anti-birth control positions. All they are truly pushing is for the herd to breed. Involuntarily if necessary. Anything that gets in the way of that, they would like to eliminate. At least the "stick" regimes. In related news, Putin's government has declared the LGBTQ+ community an extremist movement and they have been raiding clubs and putting people they found in them, on lists, photographing their identity documents and so forth.
Can't have these people promoting a lifestyle that is not centered on breeding more citizens, now can we...
EDIT -
I do think that the "stick" people should probably get real about what the end result of their policies looks like, though. Take getting rid of birth control. That will not result in "Leave it to Beaver." That will result in "Romanian orphanages."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
There are plenty of reasons why thinking people would choose not to have kids, why it would seem like a losing proposition. How about we think about what reasons people might have for WANTING to have kids?
That question can be answered with one word, 'love'. The love between a man and a woman, who decided to unite their love through marriage and show the growth of their love through the birth of their children. In spite of all of society changes, there will be those, but a few these days, will hold to the fundamental exchanges of love. (even though it's a lot of work to maintain)
I was raised by parents who were 20 years into the next generation. I noticed when growing up that the values between my peers parents and those of my parents, were as different as the day is long. We were a one car family. My father worked outside the home and my mother worked at raising us.
My sister thought it was unfair to our father that he ended up doing all the heavy lifting and our mother didn't work outside the home. Me? I knew it was the life 'they' had planned for themselves; if it wasn't it would be different. Our father wanted children our mother couldn't have on her own; they adopted the three of us, to share in their love for each other.
I'm the baby of the family and of the Boomer generation, our parents of the Silent generation. However, even in the 60s, it is apparent to me by my sister's comment, that our parents were holding on to the fundamental value of the past generations. As society moves forward, there will be those who will be liken to my parents, however, they may be fewer in number. But I doubt very seriously, financial will be their incentive, but the idea of love and what that means to them instead.
I say this because, my x-husband and I when we married had that some shared goal of marriage that both of our parents had ... even though the majority of society had changed, we held true to the fundamentals of life we were shown. (dancing to the beat of a different drummer is a lot of work, but a bit more fun)
The phenomenon of social changes that have brought about a baby bust, shrinking global population ... I thought of a paper I read once on Understanding Change. In the paper paradigm is discussed. imo, that is what we have here in circulation globally is a Paradigm Shift.
" ... It's necessary for a paradigm to be shared by a community. A single person can have a worldview, but a paradigm is shared by a community."
The paradigm concept illustrates the extent to which social change can hinge on the state of mind of individuals. In Global Mind Change, Willis Harman observes that "throughout history, the really fundamental changes in societies have come about not from the dictates of governments and the results of battles but through vast numbers of people changing their minds — sometimes only a little bit." Because of the way these changes of mind occur, the effects can appear sudden and spontaneous. We tend to think of cultural innovation as the work of small elites, or what Toynbee called "creative minorities" — leading philosophers, religious thinkers, scientists, and artists — who infuse society with new ideas. But, as Daniel Yankelovich points out in New Rules, "every now and then a new way of conceiving life and its meaning arises spontaneously from the great mass of the population.""[emphasis is mine]
If a teenager was interviewed 80 years ago, as to their expectation of their future, they may have talked about marriage and the joys of raising a family with a good woman/man. Today, though if a teen was interviewed, they would probably speak more about college and a career; family and a good woman/man would not be their priority --- because that is what is being shared by the community.
That question can be answered with one word, 'love'. The love between a man and a woman, who decided to unite their love through marriage and show the growth of their love through the birth of their children. In spite of all of society changes, there will be those, but a few these days, will hold to the fundamental exchanges of love. (even though it's a lot of work to maintain)
I was raised by parents who were 20 years into the next generation. I noticed when growing up that the values between my peers parents and those of my parents, were as different as the day is long. We were a one car family. My father worked outside the home and my mother worked at raising us.
My sister thought it was unfair to our father that he ended up doing all the heavy lifting and our mother didn't work outside the home. Me? I knew it was the life 'they' had planned for themselves; if it wasn't it would be different. Our father wanted children our mother couldn't have on her own; they adopted the three of us, to share in their love for each other.
I'm the baby of the family and of the Boomer generation, our parents of the Silent generation. However, even in the 60s, it is apparent to me by my sister's comment, that our parents were holding on to the fundamental value of the past generations. As society moves forward, there will be those who will be liken to my parents, however, they may be fewer in number. But I doubt very seriously, financial will be their incentive, but the idea of love and what that means to them instead.
I say this because, my x-husband and I when we married had that some shared goal of marriage that both of our parents had ... even though the majority of society had changed, we held true to the fundamentals of life we were shown. (dancing to the beat of a different drummer is a lot of work, but a bit more fun)
The phenomenon of social changes that have brought about a baby bust, shrinking global population ... I thought of a paper I read once on Understanding Change. In the paper paradigm is discussed. imo, that is what we have here in circulation globally is a Paradigm Shift.
" ... It's necessary for a paradigm to be shared by a community. A single person can have a worldview, but a paradigm is shared by a community."
The paradigm concept illustrates the extent to which social change can hinge on the state of mind of individuals. In Global Mind Change, Willis Harman observes that "throughout history, the really fundamental changes in societies have come about not from the dictates of governments and the results of battles but through vast numbers of people changing their minds — sometimes only a little bit." Because of the way these changes of mind occur, the effects can appear sudden and spontaneous. We tend to think of cultural innovation as the work of small elites, or what Toynbee called "creative minorities" — leading philosophers, religious thinkers, scientists, and artists — who infuse society with new ideas. But, as Daniel Yankelovich points out in New Rules, "every now and then a new way of conceiving life and its meaning arises spontaneously from the great mass of the population.""[emphasis is mine]
If a teenager was interviewed 80 years ago, as to their expectation of their future, they may have talked about marriage and the joys of raising a family with a good woman/man. Today, though if a teen was interviewed, they would probably speak more about college and a career; family and a good woman/man would not be their priority --- because that is what is being shared by the community.
I guess. The man I'm married to now, I think of him as the "love of my life" yet have no desire at all to raise children with him. Which is good since he never wanted a child. (He's 64, a Boomer, but never thought that having kids would be a good idea.)
To us, love is companionship, sharing experiences together, and being there for one another in various ways.
I do know some younger people (including my two Gen Z sons) who want to have kids. But it is just not financially feasible for either of them, neither of them has managed to get secure employment, their living situations are precarious at best. They would have no way to house and support a child. And I have made it very clear that I will NOT raise any grandbabies.
I guess. The man I'm married to now, I think of him as the "love of my life" yet have no desire at all to raise children with him. Which is good since he never wanted a child. (He's 64, a Boomer, but never thought that having kids would be a good idea.)
To us, love is companionship, sharing experiences together, and being there for one another in various ways.
I do know some younger people (including my two Gen Z sons) who want to have kids. But it is just not financially feasible for either of them, neither of them has managed to get secure employment, their living situations are precarious at best. They would have no way to house and support a child. And I have made it very clear that I will NOT raise any grandbabies.
You and your husband have a shared goal(s). Which is what helps to make a marriage work. A love shared by two people, whose goal is to not produce children is a love, that is no different from two people whose goal is to produce children. (a person though who says they are 'waiting for', is using that as an excuse not to do something)
The paradigm shift is a goal that has changed and is shared by a community. The shared values (global community) has shifted to that of an education and college, to produce greater opportunities for themselves rather than children over the past 80 years. Community values do not come from the dictates of government (China is an example of that, as change in policy yielded zero influence) but rather a vast number of people changing their minds. It arrived spontaneously from the masses of population.
The values that were shared by the community 80 years ago, where as a person might feel pressured to live their lives a certain way (family, friends, society) and follow in the footsteps of the previous generation, is almost none existent. However, I don't believe my folks felt pressured, but rather they embraced those values as a part of who they were.
My grandmother was one of nine children, my mother an only child and my father was one of twelve. Family taking care of family was ingrained into us growing up. However, that part never really did take, between my brother, my sister and me. We went out into the world and created our own way of life. Never once really thinking of the other in our endeavors. Or any other extended family member.
However, there are families that are tight, even with their extended family. If one falls, there's another to pick them up and help them along their way. But for the majority of folks, that part, too, has changed. Just as it has with my siblings, which has now spilled over to my three, one not thinking of the other and they have not spent even a holiday together since they were teens.
When I see though society as a whole and I hear what they say and I see their actions it's apparent to me, (paradigm shift) they changed their values and conceive life so much different, than that of the past generations. My parents being older than those of my peer's parents, I saw it too, when I was younger, the differences, rather than the likenesses of the community around me.
Today it's no more a difference, but a likeness that is shared, as a whole. It's not a right or wrong way societies have chosen for themselves, just a change in what's important to them, that's all.
You and your husband have a shared goal(s). Which is what helps to make a marriage work. A love shared by two people, whose goal is to not produce children is a love, that is no different from two people whose goal is to produce children. (a person though who says they are 'waiting for', is using that as an excuse not to do something)
The paradigm shift is a goal that has changed and is shared by a community. The shared values (global community) has shifted to that of an education and college, to produce greater opportunities for themselves rather than children over the past 80 years. Community values do not come from the dictates of government (China is an example of that, as change in policy yielded zero influence) but rather a vast number of people changing their minds. It arrived spontaneously from the masses of population.
The values that were shared by the community 80 years ago, where as a person might feel pressured to live their lives a certain way (family, friends, society) and follow in the footsteps of the previous generation, is almost none existent. However, I don't believe my folks felt pressured, but rather they embraced those values as a part of who they were.
My grandmother was one of nine children, my mother an only child and my father was one of twelve. Family taking care of family was ingrained into us growing up. However, that part never really did take, between my brother, my sister and me. We went out into the world and created our own way of life. Never once really thinking of the other in our endeavors. Or any other extended family member.
However, there are families that are tight, even with their extended family. If one falls, there's another to pick them up and help them along their way. But for the majority of folks, that part, too, has changed. Just as it has with my siblings, which has now spilled over to my three, one not thinking of the other and they have not spent even a holiday together since they were teens.
When I see though society as a whole and I hear what they say and I see their actions it's apparent to me, (paradigm shift) they changed their values and conceive life so much different, than that of the past generations. My parents being older than those of my peer's parents, I saw it too, when I was younger, the differences, rather than the likenesses of the community around me.
Today it's no more a difference, but a likeness that is shared, as a whole. It's not a right or wrong way societies have chosen for themselves, just a change in what's important to them, that's all.
One thing I can see driving some of this "paradigm shift"...
The family members I knew and knew of in previous generations, put up with a lot of hardship from one another. I have mentioned it before...the men in generations past in my family were all alcoholics. Some of them were violent. At least one molested girls in the family. It was all tolerated and swept under the rug by everyone. In the name of "family" and "this is the way it is." And it's not just the men behaving badly. The connections my Mom has had with various family members are all based on guilt and obligation and putting up with things from people because of "blood." She is constantly miserable that none of us, her kids, want to move ourselves or our families near to her so she can "be part of our lives" but she has so many times made the worst decisions and her life has been and always will be a mess. She takes advantage of others whenever she can, then spins it all into a tale of woe, of how badly everyone treats her.
Now I, at 44 years old, find myself utterly sick of people who make bad choices and expect me to pay for them, beyond any rational duty of care. I will not take care of my Mom, she never had the ability to take proper care of me, not even when I was a child. I don't want to be too close to the various alcoholics and addicts on my Dad's side of the family. I've worked to a point of leaving my messed up first husband and securing peace and happiness for myself, and I'm getting tired of supporting my mooching young adult sons, too. Modern people are either still stuck in and perpetuating various dysfunctions, or else if they are working to break free of them, they find themselves having to leave dysfunctional relatives behind. Those who are decent and not dysfunctional...still have those family bonds. My brother's wife comes from a good, loving family, and so they are close to those people and visit them often.
But I don't think that being isolated in little bubbles has to be the consequence of letting go unsavory bonds with messy people. I think that one can find "chosen family" who are closer to where one is at and where one wants to be. Some communities manage this pretty well, but I think that a lot of people are not willing to try. I guess I just believe that there is a LOT more bad behavior going on out there than many people are willing to admit, and always has been. And we used to cover for those folks but part of the "paradigm shift" is a matter of not doing that anymore.
- You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Sonic_Spork again.
- You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Ellis Bell again.
I see some of my family experiences in your various postings, which are much better writing than my own efforts and go a long way to make this forum so widely enjoyable.
I've written on here before that I grew up with some degree of poverty, a father who drank heavily and often abusive, his incapacitation from a stroke, job loss, near zero income, home foreclosed, frequent evictions, bill collectors at our door, Mom working seven days a week to try and make ends meet, people leaving bags of groceries on Mom's porch for us, pregnant sisters marrying drinkers, and a lot more; pretty much the whole poverty playbook. Poverty like that WILL scar you. I made it out of that scene about 50 years ago, but no matter how well we do financially, or how far west we move, I will always run from "it."
Part of my response to "it" is to never have kids, never risk having my back to a wall like my Mom, who, like a saint, soldiered her way through the hell of it all, fifteen years of hell, finally coming out the other side into stability. So, now, I donate to food banks, food drives and refuse to judge the victims caught up in the miasma of all the various shades and permutation of "it."
I deeply fault the axis of evil (religion, patriarchy and greed) for much of the mess mentioned in many postings. The despicable lies that keep feeding these beasts, lies like "that's just the way the world is" or "you just have to love the sinner" or "boys will be boys" and so many more lies. One of worst lies we've heard a lot is "it's a man's world." Religion feeds off that lie, relegating women to second class, powerless status. Lies made all the worse when no one ever FIXES the damned sinners or incarcerates them for raping pre-teen nieces or daughters or beating a wife black and blue in a drunken rage. Forty years ago I sat in meetings for Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) and heard one woman relate of watching her father shoot her mother and other people who also saw or suffered horrific things.
Even your family doctor could be a moron perpetuating lies. I read an article on Endometriosis and several of the responding women reported being told by doctors that the extreme pain of Endo was "just part of being a woman," but Endo is very treatable. More lies. Lies without end.
No way in hell was I going to bring kids into this FUBAR world. Many of the younger generation see through the lies and recognize just how FUBAR things are and want no part of it. Many won't work for crap wages, many now fight to unionize for a fair share of the pie, many won't get on the treadmill of owning a car, many won't live in distant, sterilized suburbia and opt for walkable in-city living.
Many people in the better-educated developed world apparently feel the same way. They note that the rapacious greed of a global economy, increasingly controlled by the obscenely wealthy, has made a stable life with a family an increasingly distant possibility. That understanding is reflected in lower birth rates.
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A New Set of Values Adopted as a Social Norm ...
