The social conservatives' idea that the recent US drop in fertility is the product of "liberalism" makes no sense. There was a far greater decline in the period 1962-67 (prior to the rise of feminism) and then a second one in 1971-76 (during first-wave feminism), but then the rate rebounded and stabilized during the period 1977-2007. The period of decline we're in begins with the Great Recession and reaches bottom during the pandemic. (I'm using CDC data.)
Only one of these drops could reasonably be attributed to social liberalism. The first marks the end of the anomalous Baby Boom and the first wave of easy access to contraception. (A comparably large earlier drop from 1910-1930 may reflect sharp drops in childhood mortality.) To account for the current drop we need to examine the very substantial social changes occurring from 2008 on, including economic uncertainty, rising expectations for parenting, and the spread of virtual culture, including the last's correlation social isolation and delays in dating, sex, and marriage (among many other factors).
The current drop is part of a global drop in fertility rates that includes countries like Russia, Hungary, Kenya, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc. (I'm relying on a site called Macrotrends.) It is clearly not generated by political or social ideology. The likely causes range from drops in childhood mortality together with more available contraception in less developed countries to rises in living standards and virtual culture in more developed ones.
I think the NYTimes piece is clearly superficial, as Ms. Henkel indicates, but the problem is real. From the US perspective, commenter Austin L's point is the key one. After 2030 the US is going to be entirely dependent on immigration to maintain (much less grow) its total population. Working-age population is tightly linked to economic output, and if we allow population to fall we are either betting on AI to replace people *without* causing chaotic social disruption or accepting a future far less opulent than our present (while US declines help buffer negative trends in other countries).
I have a hard time believing that the birth rate with any generation is ever going to equal what it was before the 2000s. That is why not having a net decrease in immigration is so important. It might not happen right away or for several generations, but if America closes its doors to the rest of the world, especially those places where young working-age men and women are immigrating from, it will surely suffer.
Lol NYT is what you get when a society glorifies being “bad at math” and then proudly taking high level jobs like in journalism, without any real math skills.
This isn't what happened at all, the demographer who helped with that article certainly isn't bad at math and wanted that chart to show the thing it showed because he thinks that's the important message.
The bigger error, to me, is to not recognize that for population level effects, the age when mothers have babies matters. Imagine the extremes. In one scenario, every woman still alive except , say, 5 percent that are infertile, has babies only at age 19 and age 21, and then those children have children at the same age, etc. Then imagine those same 95 percent of women have babies only at age 44 and age 45 (if they're still alive), and their children follow the same pattern. After any period of time, the first scenario will have a lot more people than the second. The doom scenarios of population shrinking can happen even if the vast majority of woman have replacement level fertility but they're all waiting until very late to have children. The timing actually does matter for population level trends.
The NYT article is quite misleading. Several of the charts seem to contradict each other, and it uses weasel words ("most women will eventually become mothers" – this implies a minimum TFR of 0.25, if 50.1% of women have one child) to avoid taking a stand, instead addressing nebulous "anxieties" around motherhood. What's the point of data journalism if you're just muddying the waters?
My biggest question that I feel this debate often ignores to me is why do we assume either trend will stay in perpetuity? As far as I can tell, in some ways we are returning to sort of pre-baby boom numbers. There were far fewer humans on the planet then.
It seems to me entirely possible that we had a few big generations and our species reacted collectively by having fewer kids. In a few generations, perhaps the kids of Gen Z, will have larger ones. It seems like people act like whatever trend is currently happening will happen forever and I don’t know why. It wasn’t true with population growth re the population bomb, so it seems a little absurd to assume the reverse will be true. “Just following the trend line” makes less sense when things don’t always happen on a trend line.
At some point, both sides have to acknowledge what the issue actually is though. Liberals and conservatives both miss the mark because both focus on college educated women when the data just keeps showing us over and over again that working class women are the ones with more dramatic drops including not having children at all. Probably because college educated women can afford more fertility treatments!
But conservatives hate that women are college educated and liberals are the college educated ones so both just miss the problem completely. Worth exploring what solutions look like if we actually focused on the problem!
The social conservatives' idea that the recent US drop in fertility is the product of "liberalism" makes no sense. There was a far greater decline in the period 1962-67 (prior to the rise of feminism) and then a second one in 1971-76 (during first-wave feminism), but then the rate rebounded and stabilized during the period 1977-2007. The period of decline we're in begins with the Great Recession and reaches bottom during the pandemic. (I'm using CDC data.)
Only one of these drops could reasonably be attributed to social liberalism. The first marks the end of the anomalous Baby Boom and the first wave of easy access to contraception. (A comparably large earlier drop from 1910-1930 may reflect sharp drops in childhood mortality.) To account for the current drop we need to examine the very substantial social changes occurring from 2008 on, including economic uncertainty, rising expectations for parenting, and the spread of virtual culture, including the last's correlation social isolation and delays in dating, sex, and marriage (among many other factors).
The current drop is part of a global drop in fertility rates that includes countries like Russia, Hungary, Kenya, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc. (I'm relying on a site called Macrotrends.) It is clearly not generated by political or social ideology. The likely causes range from drops in childhood mortality together with more available contraception in less developed countries to rises in living standards and virtual culture in more developed ones.
I think the NYTimes piece is clearly superficial, as Ms. Henkel indicates, but the problem is real. From the US perspective, commenter Austin L's point is the key one. After 2030 the US is going to be entirely dependent on immigration to maintain (much less grow) its total population. Working-age population is tightly linked to economic output, and if we allow population to fall we are either betting on AI to replace people *without* causing chaotic social disruption or accepting a future far less opulent than our present (while US declines help buffer negative trends in other countries).
Both liberals and conservatives should embrace greater access to assisted reproductive technologies to help close the desire-intention gap.
I have a hard time believing that the birth rate with any generation is ever going to equal what it was before the 2000s. That is why not having a net decrease in immigration is so important. It might not happen right away or for several generations, but if America closes its doors to the rest of the world, especially those places where young working-age men and women are immigrating from, it will surely suffer.
Lol NYT is what you get when a society glorifies being “bad at math” and then proudly taking high level jobs like in journalism, without any real math skills.
This isn't what happened at all, the demographer who helped with that article certainly isn't bad at math and wanted that chart to show the thing it showed because he thinks that's the important message.
I think that’s a naive read of naive people.
Is your claim that @familyunequal doesn't know the relevant math? Or that Cain Miller tricked him into presenting his data that way?
Lol it’s in the article right here. They made a “statistically dubious claim”. Duh.
I agree that the claim is statistically dubious. But that's not because the relevant people don't know math.
Very clear layout of the statistics. The solution is immigration!
The bigger error, to me, is to not recognize that for population level effects, the age when mothers have babies matters. Imagine the extremes. In one scenario, every woman still alive except , say, 5 percent that are infertile, has babies only at age 19 and age 21, and then those children have children at the same age, etc. Then imagine those same 95 percent of women have babies only at age 44 and age 45 (if they're still alive), and their children follow the same pattern. After any period of time, the first scenario will have a lot more people than the second. The doom scenarios of population shrinking can happen even if the vast majority of woman have replacement level fertility but they're all waiting until very late to have children. The timing actually does matter for population level trends.
The NYT article is quite misleading. Several of the charts seem to contradict each other, and it uses weasel words ("most women will eventually become mothers" – this implies a minimum TFR of 0.25, if 50.1% of women have one child) to avoid taking a stand, instead addressing nebulous "anxieties" around motherhood. What's the point of data journalism if you're just muddying the waters?
We’re going to end up with harems
My biggest question that I feel this debate often ignores to me is why do we assume either trend will stay in perpetuity? As far as I can tell, in some ways we are returning to sort of pre-baby boom numbers. There were far fewer humans on the planet then.
It seems to me entirely possible that we had a few big generations and our species reacted collectively by having fewer kids. In a few generations, perhaps the kids of Gen Z, will have larger ones. It seems like people act like whatever trend is currently happening will happen forever and I don’t know why. It wasn’t true with population growth re the population bomb, so it seems a little absurd to assume the reverse will be true. “Just following the trend line” makes less sense when things don’t always happen on a trend line.
At some point, both sides have to acknowledge what the issue actually is though. Liberals and conservatives both miss the mark because both focus on college educated women when the data just keeps showing us over and over again that working class women are the ones with more dramatic drops including not having children at all. Probably because college educated women can afford more fertility treatments!
But conservatives hate that women are college educated and liberals are the college educated ones so both just miss the problem completely. Worth exploring what solutions look like if we actually focused on the problem!