this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2024
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Stats in more equal countries prove otherwise, the only way you're making people have more babies is by getting rid of women rights, I don't feel like pulling up all the numbers again but it's the second time I'm having to correct the "if people had more means they would have more kids" theory on Lemmy.
If we go back a little further we see a much bigger fall in birthrate before women's rights. Without looking too deeply one could say it's related to the process of industrialisation.
https://localhistories.org/a-timeline-of-womens-rights-uk/
You've completely changed your comment so now my first reply doesn't make sense.
That drop coincides with what? Women going to work, which is a form of women right. Do you want to prevent women from working?
You can also see it reached a floor then started dropping again when women acquired more rights even before life started becoming unaffordable (as can be seen in my Canadian graphics as well).
Also, look at birthrate in Scandinavian countries where wealth is much better distributed and social programs are plentiful. Hell, in Canada itself the province of Quebec has the best social programs for parents and birthrate is one of the lowest.
People are oversimplifying the question because they're mad at the current economic situation and they like to pretend that it's the only reason they don't want a family, but if we look at the whole portrait it's clear that the question is much more complex than that.
Yep, sorry! I did change the comment.
Why did women go to work, was it so they could buy more things, to support their family .. I don't know.
Perhaps it offered a better life then living off the land.
Women would have worked in the home before having the 'right' to work in a factory..
Again, that ignores the fact that rich people (who don't have to work) have less kids and that's been the case for ages, it just so happens that rich women have access to education and contraceptives and that's been the case for over a hundred years.
You'd have to provide some data about not having to work and birthrates. According to table 2, by far the largest proportion of births is to those who are unclassified. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/articles/anoteonchildbearingbysocioeconomicstatusandcountryofbirthofmother/2016#births-by-socio-economic-status-and-age-of-mothers
However it doesn't distinguish between being wealthy, on benefits or perhaps being a student!
This paper suggests that the fall coincides with the industrial revolution. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44289704?seq=1
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
It's a very well known and studied phenomenon.
That's GDP of the country, and is not related to the number of children born to parents who don't have to work. It states that rich countries have a lower birth rate.
Do you think multimillionaires have to work and that people who make under 25k don't?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/
This chart does backup your statement that low income families have the highest birthrate.
It does not show whether people have to work, which is the point I was disputing (that rich people who don't have to work have fewer children)
Looking at the ONS data the percentage of women who's employment status is 'unclassified' is, by far, the largest proportion of women giving birth
Do
You
Believe
That
Multimillionaires
NEED
To
Work
?
Lol, I have no idea, a million isn't that much if one has a big house, staff, and private jets.
I'm not quite sure what your point is?
Multimillionaires don't need to work, they could stop working and live off the interest on their wealth, yet their fertility rate is lower than people who make under 50k/year, which is less than the interest you make on a million in savings.
That's assuming they don't want to keep their big houses, expensive holidays etc? Generally expenditure grows with income.
I think your argument is that people don't have children for reasons other than wealth. My argument is that wealth and the ability to live a certain life style does affect people's decision on having children.
That's where you're wrong, at a certain point you generate enough from interest that all you're doing is accumulating more and more wealth, yet these people don't have more kids.
And where is this data? What are you basing this on?
Because earning 200k doesn't mean they have millions in savings, and I'm not quite sure how you'd be able to get that data.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=XD
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1328574/fertility-rate-worldwide-income-level/
Even at lower levels, do you really think that households that make 200k need to work more than households that make 100k?
This shows me that people on high incomes have fewer babies, it doesn't show whether those not having to work whilst maintaining that high standard of living (i.e. independently wealthy - millions in savings) have higher or lower numbers of children.
I think we're arguing to the same end, that if it wasn't a choice between high standard of living / interesting career Vs having children there wouldn't be an issue. Capitalism, once again, is a victim of it's own success and desire for short term gains.
We've done such a good job advertising a better life that everyone's decided earning more and having a good career is the most important thing.
It has nothing to do with capitalism, it has to do with women being allowed to make a choice. In a socialist system they don't have more kids no matter how much support they get.
Fucking hell, I feel like I'm talking to someone who would love to see women being forced to have kids in exchange for being paid or something... "There you go lad, a nice check to make sure you and your kids don't go hungry, now go and start making babies, that's what you were meant for!"
I'm done, goodbye.
Lol, have you any data for your assumptions?
If you've run out of points by all means turn this into a personal attack.
I never suggested it's a good idea to reduce women rights, I'm saying that the reason birthrate was higher in the past and is higher in some places at the moment is because women didn't/don't have rights, it has nothing to do with income.
Also, about your first point, I already covered that when I mentioned that those who are poor tend to have more kids than those who have the means to easily afford to have them. Hell, poor people have more kids than rich people who could stop working.
It's not about money or access to child care or social programs, it's about choice. When they're given the choice the vast majority of people don't want a family big enough for the population to renew itself, you'll find exceptions (I've got two colleagues who have four children each) but the average will still be under 2.1 if people can easily prevent unwanted pregnancies. There's nothing new to it either as I showed and if you look at historical data in first world country it's always the same pattern (no matter the quantity of social programs to help parents or the amount of parental leaves that they get) and we're seeing that pattern repeat itself in developing countries.
People just don't want kids if they can help it.
Maybe that is the “Great Filter” that will end our society but I don’t think anyone has entirely demonstrated that. up to now higher birth rate is related to women specifically not having choices or high infant mortality, but that doesn’t mean we need to go back to that nor that those are the only possibilities
Many people do want kids, so if we as a society want to encourage more children, we need to make that choice easier rather than more difficult. We need to support those people and their choices. We all need to take responsibility for all of our future. It does “take a village” and our society needs to find a way to recreate that and still respect human rights, for the sake of all of our future
Again, people are acting like the USA is the only country that exists and ignoring all other States where having kids is much easier and where the birthrate is the same or lower.
US is at 1.66, Finland at 1.46. Finland offers much better social services and safety nets and socioeconomic equality than the USA, it also means women with more education, better access to abortion (even though the number of abortions is decreasing because they're not necessary in the first place if people have access to contraceptives, which they do in Finland), better access to a profession...
The more equal women are to men, the less kids they have... and I mean, why would people expect anything else? They're the ones who take care of the majority of the tasks related to raising children, given the choice they would rather have the same quality of life as men and get to do stuff for themselves instead of living for someone else!
Great! Seems like you have good ideas for next steps!
Yep, and people are already doing it including me, stop having kids.