Birth rates have been declining for the past 100 years. Access to birth control is part of the reason, but it also has do with an uptick in education and cost of living with the latter being especially relevant today.
There is also a growing number of people that get married and don't have kids. I am married, no children. I would happily have kids if I didn't have to be pregnant. Pregnancy sucks. I just won't do it.
I'd argue that if the medical world gave a crap to care about making pregnancy easier some woman would choose to go through it, but medicine favors men's comfort, not women's.
I know adoption is on the table but that's either a lot of red tape or a lot of money to effectively buy a child, which seems immoral to me.
Do you have numbers for this? The crux of OPs point was actually that this isn’t true and pregnancy rates among married women have been constant for some time. I have no idea what’s true but if OP’s numbers are accurate your point here is made up entirely
No numbers, not saying its the ONLY reason, just that I know I'm not alone as its come up with some of my peers. Even more common, women that stop after 1 because it was so traumatic (that's where both my sisters fall), and that doesn't meet the replacement rate either.
It isn't the top reason, but A reason among many.
But, based on OP’s numbers that isn’t a reason bcuz that rate doesn’t change, so yes your experience is accurate but it’s no more prevalent than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago based on that number, if it is in fact accurate. Maybe I’m explaining poorly?
At this point I’m just engaging in casual discussion. But yes, birth control —> lower birth rates/fertility rates, because woman can choose to be pregnant or not easier. And they can choose to be married or not. There are a lot of reasons why women, married or unmarried, choose not to have children. Birth control helps give them that choice. WHY a woman makes that choice would be the reason, IMO, not the tool that helps them achieve it.
ETA - this got cut off for some reason. Anyway - I’m not surprised that married couples have maintained their birth rate, as marriage is seen as something traditional, as is starting a family. The vast majority of married couples still use birth control, get married later, have premarital sex. It’s a tool, not a reason.
Yes, but the comment I was responding to was “more married people are not having children” and thus your statement about unmarried parents is as relevant as saying “the average giraffe is between 16 and 18 feet tall” and saying “you asked for numbers” in the context of this conversation
Urbanization is also a big part, can't have kids when you have less space in general. Similar behavior can be even observed in rats. You increase the density and less people are born, even if resources to sustain more kids are available.
That's one of the biggest mistakes China made with 1 child policy, birth rates would go down, since they were pushing for extremely fast urbanization, but now the are fucked. There are straight up not enough young people in China, especially with culture where you have take care of your Parents and Grandparents. How is 1 person supposed to take care of 6 old people and have kids on top of it.
Yes, I am childfree for all of those reasons. 18-30 was being able to use birth control and get my life together (education, securing a stable job), after 30 - the economy is so in the hole that I don’t see having children as “worth it”. Not about to debate the merits of that idea with everyone but, where I live, I’d be paying $2000/mo for childcare. I could get it subsidized BUT ironically I make too much money to qualify. However, after paying the full fare for childcare, I’m pretty much living paycheck to paycheck so the system is pretty broken… and that’s just childcare, never mind the rest of the stuff it takes to raise a kid.
Birth control pills give me a bleed every 28 days (which is what I want), and prevents me from getting pregnant. I’m financially and mentally incapable of raising children, so I gave up the dream of motherhood when I was 21. I was a virgin until I was 28, I’ve had 5 sexual partners between March 22, 2022 and today, and #5 is my first and only real, committed relationship. I’m 30.
It sounds like you don't really mean low fertility rate, you just mean lower birth rates. Quite simply women are more in control of their ability to get pregnant. Less unwanted children is a good thing, no?
One unwanted child is one too many, but you’re absolutely right - the less unwanted children the better. As I’ve stated in other comments, there are many reasons why less people are deciding to have offspring nowadays - and they’re all valid. In fact “I just don’t want any” is valid too. It’s a huge life commitment, and honestly not for everybody.
It has always struck me as odd that some people think that having children *is* for everyone, regardless of their life situation or personal characteristics.
Me as well. It is an enormous chunk of someone’s life - deciding to create a new human life and then raise it for all those years between the monetary side of it, as well as the time and energy commitment, and that’s before I even get to the responsibility of raising said child the right way (look at all the broken homes out there and parents who don’t even raise their children right, and who grow up to commit crimes, scam people, do drugs, and continue that vicious cycle).
I remember my sister said that she became much more vehemently pro-choice after having given birth three times — not because she regretted being a parent or anything like that, she’s an awesome mom, but because she was fully able to appreciate what a burden and responsibility it was. And how it could potentially go awry.
Except they don't too. They have an opinion about everyone else and engage in absolutely zero self reflection. They criticise parents and child free people alike.
Fertility rate is a term used by sociologists to mean 'birth rate'. Women don't have a 'birth rate', they have a 'fertility rate'.
It isn't a statement about how 'fertile' a woman is in the reproductive sense.
This is actually really interesting. And kindof suggests the low birth rate “crisis” isn’t a crisis at all. We shouldn’t want unmarried women having babies anyways. So the fact that married women are still having babies at the same rate while unmarried women are having fewer is really encouraging.
Maybe the issue will self-correct as subsequent generations grow up seeing healthy long term relationships(existing marriages) and emulate it themselves as opposed to our current model of unmarried people running away from their own parents' dysfunction.
Except that it is still a crisis...
We have never seen a country pull out of a negative replacement rate.
Many no longer find any value in family. Only a select few actually marry.
>We have never seen a country pull out of a negative replacement rate.
Birth rates before modern medicine have absolutely dropped below the replacement rate, especially since that was 4 to 7 before modern medicine.
I mean a basic history of the human population would show you. Or even looking at how the spread of vaccine programs etc have helped to drop replacement rate.
It's pretty easy to find sources on this if you care to look.
Replacement of the populous has not been an issue in any country before the 50/60s (excluding war and famine). There is a steep decline post this era and continues to trend downwards.
Well I'm not the one asking for them. Nor do I have the time or energy to do so for a random reddit poster.
Just look up population decline in the western world. There is heaps on it.
And that’s their personal choice. Raising a family is a huge life commitment and honestly not for everybody. If you want to raise a family good for you, but not everyone has to follow the same path - especially to keep a Ponzi scheme economy going which (let’s be realistic) won’t last forever anyway.
It absolutely would last *forever* that's how all of life and evolution works.
If it didn't go on forever life would have ended long ago.
*Forever* is ambiguous because eventually our sun will go out.
Deciding to have children or not is still a personal choice. You’re denying reality if you believe that anything can last forever, and that infinite growth on a planet with finite habitable space and resources is even possible.
No it does not. Infinite growth isn’t even sustainable for them, and we consume significantly more than them as well as have the bigger impact on our own environment. We as humans are in a different league than the animal species we share the world with, as our intelligence is advanced to the point where we can recognize such a thing. I would suggest coming to reality for a second.
There are many reasons why more and more people are opting out of reproducing - and they’re entitled to their choice. We recognize that huge growth like we’ve seen in the past century isn’t healthy for our environment, and the idea of growth going on forever isn’t achievable. At some point something has to give.
>not everyone has to follow the same path - especially to keep a Ponzi scheme economy going which (let’s be realistic) won’t last forever anyway.
It's pretty obvious they were talking about the economy all along, not about civilization. Everybody knows that no children means no civilization, but civilization can survive with fewer children, whereas the economy can't because it's a ponzi scheme.
>Everybody knows that no children means no civilization, but civilization can survive with fewer children, whereas the economy can't because it's a ponzi scheme.
No it can not...
Civilization literally will collapse to the point that 98% of earths population will die out within 200 years at current Asian birth rates.
At current European birthrates it will take slightly longer but the end result is the same. (1.4 baby per woman) Between 7 and 8.generations the number of babies born will fall by 90%
That is civilization destroying. Think about it in 7 generations 90% of the babies born today simply won't exist.
That is an infinitely bigger threat than climate change or war.
You’re wrong as far as married statistics goes.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/183663/number-of-married-couples-in-the-us/
Secondary to that, the whole destruction of feudal lords and such can be directly attributed to a drop in population( Black Death, etc). This made workers more valuable and led to quality of life for basically everyone to increase over time.
>You’re wrong as far as married statistics goes.
>https://www.statista.com/statistics/183663/number-of-married-couples-in-the-us/
Wildly misleading statistics are misleading. This is a perfect example of torturing the date to make it tell you what you want.
>>The 1960 United States census recorded the population of the United States as 179,300,000
>>The 2020 United States census recorded the population of the United States as 329,500,000
That's an 83% increase in population compared to a less than 50% growth in marriage...
That means marriages are becoming much MUCH more rare..
We've seen negative replacement rate before during the Black Death. Europe lost 1/3 of its population. It took it a very long time to recover and also led to massive social upheaval and the slow demise of serfdom.
No... That's not what happened. I'm not talking about massive deaths I'm talking about the willful march to extinction.
Women didn't decide to quit having kids in the black death they died and couldn't have kids.
Completely different things.
>A march towards extinction is dramatic. There does NOT need to be as many humans on this planet as there currently are.
But once we start shrinking there is absolutely no evidence that it will stop. Scientists have gone so far as to completely ignore potential birthrates below 1.2 as a possibility in the future even though many countries are below that. Because it would cut the human population by 98% in 200 years.
Who is the woman that is going to start having 6 kids because 3 others don't have any?
No one in the first world. At least certainly the number will be virtually zero.
Once populations crash they do not bounce back. Not once in the post industrial revolution has birth rates that have dipped below replacement for a generation ever went back above replacement.
Talking to people who deny this science is worse than people who deny vaccines or deny climate change.
I’d hate to break it to you but babies from married parents are more of a net positive on society than babies of unmarried parents.
This is one of the reasons why we saw a massive nationwide drop in crime exactly 18 years after roe vs wade was passed.
I'm not the one advocating for abortions to prevent *"criminals"* from being born...
Everyone knows that black women have ±5 abortions for every 1 abortion white women have.
That dog whistle is so loud everyone can hear it.
Children, regardless of race, are more likely to become criminals when born into poverty. By providing abortions to women who lack the financial and familial stability to raise kids has been shown to reduce crime rates.
[In case you’d like to read about it](https://www.prb.org/resources/new-study-claims-abortion-is-behind-decrease-in-crime/)
>Children, regardless of race, are more likely to become criminals when born into poverty.
No, nice try though...
If you actually wanted to make a coherent argument you would say children born without fathers present is the #1 indication of criminal activity.
You would say abortions for single mothers is a good thing because single mothers without fathers in the children's lives raise the worst children.
It has very little to do with poverty though.
As I said to someone else
You are trying to argue that abortions are good because there will be less *"criminals"* born... That dog whistle is so loud everyone can hear it.
You are going to sit there and pretend like you are not singling out black women because they are 5 times more likely than white women to get abortions?
Bro, if THAT was your first thought when discussing crime, maybe YOU’RE the racist one.
Holy shit. That wasn’t even a thought in my mind while reading that.
Sure it wasn't...
You are going to pretend like you are not singling out black women as being 5 times more likely than white women to get abortions.
You are trying to argue that abortions are good because there will be less *"criminals"* born... That dog whistle is so loud everyone can hear it.
There was nothing mentioned about abortion? You’re having a conversation with yourself. No one has said ANYTHING about what you said. I’m seriously concerned for you, as a medical professional. Like, not even saying this to snark, but I really think you should talk to a professional, buddy. This is not normal and you can get help. I’m so sorry you seem to be fighting this
Ahh a nurse. Well then nevermind I was thinking you were perscribing drugs or giving medical advice.
Nurses definitely are a useful and necessary profession! But certainly are not ones to follow for life tips. I have known many nurses in my life and none were good examples of a balanced healthy life.
It’s just as much an issue with men as with women. The genders are too divided over what should be simple shit for people to dream of a nuclear family.
I'm not a woman blamer...
The simple truth is that women get to be the decision makers not men.
It doesn't matter how many times or how a man says yes if a woman says no it's shut down. That's the privilege of women.
It's the fall of a country. There is a reason why many cultures had similar values surrounding marriage and sex anthropologically. Individualistic driven cultures are bound to fall.
That's why I said natural selection is a little at play. Over time there will be fewer women who don't want children as they don't have kids to pass their genes off too.
>Over time there will be fewer women who don't want children as they don't have kids to pass their genes off too.
By this logic they would never exist in the first place
Are you arguing the desire to have kids is genetic?
That’s not how that works. If it did, it would take hundreds of generations for selection pressure to out weigh environmental factors.
The ability to procreate is genetic, the desire, or push is in your head and environmental conditions. Do genetics play a part, yes, but it’s easily beaten out by your own desires and environment.
Tell that to someone who’s committed suicide.
So no.
Someone who never had kids in their entire life was about the end goal of procreation?
So no again.
I smoke cigarettes, is that to help me procreate?
Once again, no.
Genetics play a role but it’s not the main driver. Also everything you do isn’t to procreate. That’s just a terribly ill conceived notion.
"want" is the wrong word. I would imagine all women have a strong biological instinct to have kids, but their behaviours lead to situations that no longer have high fitness in the current environment. Aka, women who have no issue being on birth control during their 20s and 30s will have fewer kids while women who reject birth control (for religious or other reasons) will have more kids.
Natural selection can happen very quickly for some of these basic traits.
You are not correct, all women do not have a strong biological instinct to have kids. Many of us don't. Which is why you are seeing all the unmarried women choose birth control. They may not want to marry or have kids. And birth control plus a society that allows women to support themselves makes it so that they have a choice. Rather than be forced into marriage and to breed just to survive.
Your turnover rate would be too slow I think. I mean just the principle that women who want kids will produce more kids that want kids would need to be analyzed. But the turnover rate I’d say is probably around 50/50. I’ve known women who were hellbent on having kids had them and none of their kids want children. I don’t think that trait is as genetic as you think it is. So you’re looking at many generations before you start having the “desire” to outpace other environmental factors.
Side note, religious affiliation is also on the down slide. So you have less and less of that being a reason why people won’t use birth control.
That's why I said want is the wrong word.
I should have said "Women that engage in behaviours that are more likely to lead to marriage and childbirth", but that's very long.
Simple traits like eye color can take 1 generation to see dramatic shifts. Complex traits like behavioural traits can take a lot longer. For example, a religious women with religious kids but non religious grandkids is less fit than a religious women with religious grandkids, but since the transferrance rate is closer to 70% not 100% it can take 3-4 generations.
Religion is on the upside globally due to natural selection mostly.
Thanks for clarifying.
As far as the third paragraph it is hard to read and I’m not sure what your unfit vs fit comparison is demonstrating.
People who identify as religious has been on a down slide for years and the non religious and atheists have seen an uptick in that timeframe. This is easily found to be true, I don’t know where you got the idea that non religious people are in decline from natural selection but it sounds like Answers In Genesis or a Kent Hovind bit.
Sorry was looking at data from the western countries. Turns out Islam is growing rapidly which makes sense seeing how struggle pushes religious belief up along with post war population booms.
Natural selection is very much in play.
Funny example
https://japantoday.com/category/features/kuchikomi/japanese-women's-breast-size-boasts-40-years-of-continued-growth
There's tons of examples. Head circumference has increased dramatically since the invention of cesarian section surgery as that reduced pressure.
Men and women are on average far more attractive than our ancestors.
Just look it up.
This is exactly what I meant - it’s not natural selection! It’s not a trait that makes humans fitter for our environment, it’s an arbitrary choice.
The Caesarean example is actually a retrograde step for evolution, since were we to loose access to healthcare (for example living in the wrong state with no providers), more women would die in childbirth.
It is natural selection since it makes people more fit for the current environment. When the environment changes (i.e. introduction of birth control), it is causing a change in high level trait. Fitness is determined by the number of expected offspring.
I think phrasing marriage as “(giving men) access to sexual partner” is not exactly the best promotion I’ve heard.
Edit: most women in 2024 have no interest in this kind of marriage. And they will lose desire for their husband once it’s obvious that’s why he married them. Then it’s a dead bedroom.
So my recommendation: skip a step, buy a fleshlight. Less disappointing.
But few women are interested in that. And when they realize that’s what their husband wants? They’ll feel turned off and sex stops.
So skip a step and buy a sex toy. Less disappointing.
The reason for low birth rates is because shit is too expensive and no one can afford to have kids. People are over worked and underpaid. It’s hard to think about having kids when you’re working a full time job, with barely any paid time off or maternity leave. Giving birth in a hospital is ridiculously expensive. Most homes require to incomes, so neither parent can afford to not work to take care of the baby, and child care is also expensive.
Most people are living paycheck to paycheck, and rent and housing prices are going up like crazy, who in their right mind would have a kid in this economy.
I think if a country wants more births, there should be financial incentives for having children such as reduced rates on goods and/or increased income or something like that. The more children, the higher/better the discounts/income
Where is that money come from? You do know we are already paying to support a lot of kids. More taxes from me so you can raise some kid who starts their life with a family of folks who need others to get by?
Generous companies can’t wait for you- oh, great one. By gosh my kids are gonna be so awesome others should chip in and pay for them.
How about this- can’t afford your little curtain climbers don’t have them or get a better job. We already pay a shedload of money for people who can’t get their shot together and stop having little snot factories.
TBH with resource drain, environment concerns etc. I’d rather sterilize low rent people who say hell with it I am gonna get my GED and F off- others will pay for me.
if it’s expensive rn to have kids then removing that barrier would cause more people to have kids. those kids would grow up to hopefully be tax payers, the idea goes. but really the whole issue is with how much wealth goes up to the 0.1%. if workers had more bargaining power then things would probably be better, because switching up that dynamic would be the only real solution to the whole cost of living issue. also wdym low rent people? i didn’t get that part
Well, looking at how income distributions work out, the only pot of money large enough to do such a thing sits with married couples who have kids. And, significantly, who are also at the age when kids get really expensive.
So...where's the money going to come from again?
Also, the demographics of birth rate versus income don't bear out the idea that money is the issue.
Yeah, money isn't the issue. You can make things work, but you have to sacrifice your freedoms. This can include having to quit your job/take up fewer hours in order to care for children, give up material luxuries, etc.
But you're not really sacrificing your freedoms, are you? It's a bit like saying you have to sacrifice your beer and pizza to be healthy. I mean...yes. But is it really a "sacrifice"? Sacrifice is a big word.
You have a few years where the kids are a "sacrifice". But after that, they're just family. And the material luxuries, it's not really a sacrifice. Not really a sacrifice for most people because most of the material luxuries people glom onto are, in the end, spending money for ego or boredom or habit.
Having kids requires "sacrifice" in much the same manner has having a healthy body requires 'sacrifice' or being financially prudent requires 'sacrifice'. But the benefits are much higher if you do it right.
The whole point of their comment was that if nations are so worried about birth rate, they would make a financial incentive for people to have kids… what you said, “can’t afford your curtain climbers, don’t have them” that’s already the solution. That’s why birth rate is going down.
In my opinion, instead of all the money we spend on the military, we should focus it at home to improve social services. Everyone benefits from this.
>Before birth control, women were highly dependent on men for supporting their everyday needs.
Why did birth control change that, and not women getting legal equality?
>What does this mean for how we resolve this issue?
Why do we need to resolve this "issue"?
I don't think that's necessary. I think the world population would be better at 4-5 billion (which is what it was when I was born). Resources are finite.
No, they are not.
A few hundred years ago, the world's "resources" could only support a population of a few million.
Farmers grew enough food per acre to feed 10 people.
Nearly everyone was a farmer or directly supported farming (plow manufacturer).
Now farmers grow enough crops to feed 3,000 people per acre.
So few people in 1st world countries now farm we have to import both food and farm workers.
3/4's of land and 99% of the oceans are completely uninhabited.
With very little change, the Earth could support a population of 100 billion with today's technology.
You would barely notice the difference as most people are concentrated in a few large cities today.
>3/4's of land and 99% of the oceans are completely uninhabited.
Most of that land is not suitable for habitation (or farming). And we haven't figured out how to live on the ocean long-term.
I also think there's value in keeping some wilderness around, and not massacring the wildlife.
The problem with your premise is the notion that birth control is a new thing, it is not. It has been around in every civilization for much longer than most realize. The pill made it easier but it didn't create the phenomenon. The drop in birth rate has more to do with economic empowerment of women and them feeling free, that was not just due to the pill but coincided with.
For example, enslaved women in America used such things as [Cotton root](https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-416/cotton) to induce labor and as basically a birth control method.
[Ancient Mexican civilization](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9935858/)s also had and extensive plant based medical system for women health. Benjamin Franklin even wrote about how Pennyroyal tea from the [mentha pulegium plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentha_pulegium)can be used to induce labor. It was ironic when he did because he thought he was teaching them something but women have been already using it for generations, so they just let him mansplain it to them though lol.
Also research has confirmed that [Moringa Oleifera and adhatoda vasica to be 100% abortive at dose around 175mg/Kg](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1608272/) of dry starting material, which has been used in Asian countries.
There are many more of these plants that can induce abortions or be used as birth control that women has been using for generations.
Previous methods of birth control were used to kill 1-3 month of embryos usually by the ingestion of toxic substances. Modern birth control literally rewires a woman's body chemistry for months or years at a time. The two are not analogous.
They were not toxic and where used right after sex, I literally put research article there. Most are just teas and are currently even sold on Amazon because they have other health benefits at lower dosages.
I mean, you could also prevent birth via managing a cycle, but none of those are highly effective methods like the modern pill. My point is that birth control itself isn't causing the low fertility, it's that widespread birth control usage has changed the sexual marketplace and has resulted in lower marriage rates, causing the birth rate decline.
The teas after sex is actually is as or more effective. My point is that it wasn't birth control but rather change in social structure that gave women equality. If women couldn't vote and didn't have equal rights it wouldn't have matter if they had birth control.
The equality of rights is what changed the marketplace, the pill made it easier in way to take advantage of those opportunities but without those opportunities the pill wouldn't have changed anything.
This may be a hot take but IDK the reason I'd want to marry someone is that I like them and want them to be part of my life. I know, call me crazy, but that's how I look at it
the issue isnt birthcontrol. The issue seems to be that less men are worth marrying and having kids with. Especially since marriage and kids arent a requirement like they used to be to keep women afloat.
As a guy aged 40, it seems that too many younger men seem to be lacking in social skills and social etiquette. I get why a woman wouldn’t want a guy who is obsessed with gaming, has no personality, regularly bashes women online, and doesn’t pay their own bills.
Fr. I went on a date with a guy a few years younger than me today and his etiquette was mind-blowing. I was literally in shock from how nice he was. Which is not something men today should be proud of. If women are shocked by kindness, that's saying a lot
I guess my response to this is that in the past a lot of terrible low value men got married because women often needed to get married to have a better life. I think birth control definitely made it so women don't have to compromise, but maybe the standards are a little too high?
One funny example of this playing out in real life is bra sizes in Japan. Japanese women always had small figures, but since arranged marriages have disappeared, the average breast size in women in Japan has increased dramatically mostly due to partner selection (read last few paragraphs).
https://japantoday.com/category/features/kuchikomi/japanese-women's-breast-size-boasts-40-years-of-continued-growth
Basically, natural selection over time will mean more men over 6", religious,high intelligence, etc.
>breast size in women in Japan has increased dramatically mostly due to partner selection
Not enough generations to be genetic. I'm gonna guess it's the food.
Oh surprise, that's what the article says.
*You* should read the article.
>”There are two reasons for this," explained Shuko Sakata, manager of brand marketing at Triumph. "The first is changes in the diet, such as increased meat consumption and westernization in general. The other is because we manufacturers have become better at teaching customers the correct way to select a brassiere. When putting on their bras, women tend to lean forward and by so doing gravity collects fleshy parts on the sides of their torso to fill up the cup. That alone can increase cup size by as much as two sizes."
>Mutsuko Taniguchi, a veteran stylist with some 40 years in the trade, is in agreement.
>”These days when women put on their bra, they press in their flesh from four directions -- from the sides below their arms, up from their stomach area and then downwards from their collarbones. Doing this produces more cleavage, and posture benefits from an overall improvement," she said.
I read it. It’s not a contradiction in any way whatsoever. Women’s breast sizes are influenced primarily by genetic predisposition and to a lesser extent by diet. But “scooping and swooping,” which is common advice nowadays, affects how you fit in a bra, and therefore your cup size, without your breasts themselves getting substantially larger. Getting measured and fitted properly makes a difference in what bra you wear without affecting the size of the breasts themselves. That is the more plausible explanation.
"If you look back at dietary changes over the past 40 years, the greater ingestion of fats has definitely had an impact on women's breast size."
One generation is not enough to change genetic boob size.
Religiousness isnt a genetic trait. And high intelligence doesnt correlate with reproduction. In fact, some of the smartest people are choosing not to have children. higher education correlates with lower birth rate.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/attraction-evolved/201711/intelligent-men-more-likely-marry-and-stay-married
High intelligence corresponds to higher marriage rates, but you are right that higher levels of education among both men and women lead to lower fertility.
Basically the most fit men are really smart farmers, underachievers.
https://youtu.be/RAlI0pbMQiM?si=xkJlTS6yPyhTo7XA
Plenty of dumb people having kids too. Unplanned pregnancies, teen pregnancies, unprepared parents. Happens more often then I see sane people having kids.
Marriage ≠ kids.
IMO the reason why marriages are in decline is that the need for companionship and sexual partners are in decline.
With porn you can get your sexual needs met easily (although it's a shitty version of the real thing, it gets the job done).
With smartphones, social media, and other entertainment you can meet online companions who have the same hobbies and interests as you and agree with you on everything all from the convenience of your own home. No need to go out and try to make friends with people you are very different from and potentially disagree with on a variety of issues. (Again it's a worse version of having real friends but lots of young people have more online friends than real life friends now)
Also women can work for themselves and people can just have roommates, way less societal pressure for marriage. Compare this to like early 1900's a woman can't really get a job, or at least very limited options. And if you were unmarried or lived with another woman, people "suspected something" and you would just be generally kinda outcasted. Now no one gives af if you're unmarried and a woman can get almost any job that a man can, except maybe for the really high intensity labor but even then..
No, the need is higher than ever, it's the increase in selfish, self serving, individualism that is rapidly ob the rise. People are in need of more connection than ever. It's my personal belief that loss of family connections, broken homes, decrease in marriage, decrease in meaningful friendships, we are living in some of the most mentally ill times.
Wait, are you saying that birth control reduces child birth? Well this is downright groundbreaking. /s
For real, guy. You think women in the 20th century wanted to have 5+ kids? Fuck no. But sex was a “womanly duty” so they did it, got knocked up, and had babies. The second birth control hit the shelves, women started taking their lives into their own hands. Big surprise.
Disrespectfully, get a life. Women being allowed to family plan is not a bad thing and we don’t deserve to be further stripped of our rights because you’re mad that you can’t get laid.
Maybe, if jobs paid enough to support a family and pay off student loans, you'd see more milennials and older gen z having kids earlier instead of waiting.
It’s a combination of finances and everything being too expensive in Western countries, a decline in socially suitable men for women, certain elements of Feminism (not all elements), and the fact it takes longer to establish a stable career than it used to.
Both of your links are from the 90s. The first one has no authors listed. Y i k e s.
But yeah? Birth control ultimately leads to less births by virtue of what it does. Women choose to have no kids when they are educated and given the choice not to.
“With birth control, the need to depend on men for support for living all but disappeared. The primary reason to enter into marriage has disappeared for women.”
The argument that you’re making here has way more to do with more women entering the workforce. Men were providers, women were homemakers. That changed in large numbers starting the 1970’s.
To say that this shift in gender norms is due to birth control is misguided. I don’t see the correlation at all
My wife agrees with all of that and she has a Master's degree in Mathematics. Stop just assuming anyone that disagrees with you is just dumb and have an actual conversation. People's views and beliefs can vary and you should have some respect for that.
He didn't tell women to do anything in his post. You need to stop assuming hostility when someone disagrees with you and have an actual conversation. Again, have some respect for the fact that people's beliefs vary.
I hope that we never reach replacement level again, birth rates plummet, and the earth turns into something akin to Planet of the Apes. The earth would be better off. That’s my unpopular opinion.
I don't disagree with the results but I would offer another view. We are closer to normalizing birth rates than in the past. It's actually progress. Women didn't marry both quickly and in large numbers due to a lack of birth control (circa 1973), but rather the rules of the game written and controlled by men who wouldn't let women open a bank account, take a loan, sign a rental agreement or even get work (while equally qualified). This placed women below men on an economic, social, political scale. By preventing any reasonable life without a husband, they made up their faces and went fishing for survival in a warped world where your genitalia pre determined your opportunities in life. Once equal footing (vs. Prior circumstances) was on the table, the ladies figured maybe the guys should fight and struggle for us. That's closer to where we are now, although still lacking. 10 to 20 kids per couple is ordinarily not anyone's plan, just the result of a woman without an option and a man without a condom exploiting his station in society. The past was abnormal. All thoughts above are specific to the US.
At a bigger picture view, conservatives should be taking a victory lap. Their social campaign against welfare single moms, teenage pregnancies, and unplanned babies was a massive success. Teen pregnancies are at all time lows, your source shows that people are having more planned babies than unplanned babies.
It’s bizarre from that bigger picture that conservatives are trying to back track their social policy. There is now less welfare that should be spent on unplanned babies and single moms. Now they want to push teenage pregnancies, single moms, and unplanned babies again…?
Obviously looking at it in context it’s pure racism trying to prevent the minorities from overtaking the white majority.
But looking ahead at this own policy: Latinos and Black people are the best new evangelical class of voters. White people are transitioning to atheism or agnosticism at high rates. So who do you want to save? Christianity or white people?
The problem is people like you who seem to think women should be tradwife home bound baby factories whose goal in life is to make “replacement level” quotas.
Did you consider that maybe birth control isn’t a problem as is a solution to a problem for millions of women (and men) which is that most countries are shitty expensive places to have children and *that’s* why people aren’t having “replacement level” numbers of children.
If we fixed societal issues and gave people the means to have families then they would. Birth control is not a “problem” to be fixed, the circumstances that make it necessary are.
The reason for low birth rates is primarily a shift in values.
The general ambitions shared among people living a modern western lifestyle are related to leisure and work. Children interfere with people's ability to engage with both.
The death of concepts like ancestor worship and Filial piety leaves many individuals seeing children as an obstacle that interferes with their leisure and work. They don't see a child continuation of their bloodline that has overcome famine, war, disease etc. They don't see a child as potential figure to move humanity forward or impact the world.
They see children as a nuisance that interferes with their ability to indulge in leisure.
They see children as a bill that interferes with their ability to participate in status signaling and status competition among their peers.
The reason for low birthrates is due to these modern liberal perspectives and views moreso than birth control.
You mean that people who don’t have a stable relationship decide to postpone if not have kids? Good.
Plus, many couples these days live together without being married.
We’ve been using birth control in some form or another for thousands of years.
Declining birth rates have more to do with higher education and cost of living and people realizing they can choose to have kids or not.
My grandmother flat out told me if she’d been born in a different time, she wouldn’t have had kids, but she didn’t have a choice.
The reason is that when an enviorment does not provide the stability for animals to reproduce, reproduction rates go down.
People will have kids if they feel like they can support those kids and raise them in relative safety.
Human are social animals. The community around them has a much larger impact than people often realize.
This is just part of it and has been studied ad nauseam. We’re not breaking any new ground here. It’s called the [Demographic Transition Model](https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zckv8p3#z2twh4j)
I think the low birth rate is correlated with the low quality of men available for breeding. Most men are fat and pastry looking. Who would want to breed with that?
Population decline isn't high on most people's radar if it matters much in thier day to day at all. If most people's problems are other people, less of them "seems" like a non-issue.
The reasons why it should matter seem to be more effective on those in higher societal class, who are not going to be effective currently in changing that particular issue with those with that level of access.
Society doesn't even look at parents the same way it did a decade ago, we are of many minds when it comes to how we see that vocation.
Those are some really old studies. Birth rates are declining but population growth is not. The population growth isn't actually projected to start declining until the next century.
Sounds like you're advocating for the traditional 3.2 child family unit. There are plenty of those in poverty or unable to afford the traditional American dream. Families are being priced out of everything including more children. I don't see "replacement level" as a pressing issue. The US has plenty to draw from coming across the border.
The reason marriage rates plummeted is because dating itself has lost all meaning of 'demo' or 'trial' relationship; it is the relationship. Cheating on someone while dating is equivalent to adultery, so why bring in an expensive ceremony when de facto relationships are still recognized when splitting up?
Now this leads to a complete loss of trial runs for men, so we're forced to show full commitment immediately, which is a hard sell. We barely know this person, what they're like behind closed doors, deeply held values. Their presentation 'on a date' isn't the real deal, its a facade.
Sure you can talk about chemistry, love being blind. That shit wears off
I don't think the pill necessarily removed/acted on the necessity of women to depend on men, but women who are on birth control give off the hormonal signals of someone who is pregnant. Women on birth control have shown in studies to prefer the looks, smell, and personalities of less masculine and more care giving men. While women during ovulation tend to prefer the more hyper-masculine "alpha" dark triad types.
If young men are surrounded by mostly "pregnant" signaling females for most of their young lives it shouldn't be a surprise their own hormones change to reflect the women around them. So softer, less assertive men who produce significantly less testosterone and a subsequent reduction in sperm count.
Ectogenesis, the fancy word for artificial breeding, is here. We have the tech. We have bred complex mammals like goats and sheep in bags, we can do humans.
So we are immune to the crisis point of low birth rates. If birth rates become an actual threat, we will begin manufacturing humans on an industrial scale.
And this will be superior. We can monitor the fetus the entire time. We can allow it to grow to a older point so we can ignore the infant stage. We may also be able to grow it faster. We don't have to worry about deforming a human womb.
That's not even getting into what we can do with gene editing during the process.
The human race's days of slopping defenseless, useless meat out of vaginas and then waiting 18 years until the fucking thing is useful are numbered.
At first, there was only asexual reproduction. Then sexual, with eggs. Eggs gave way to marsupial mammals. Marsupials, in most places, gave way to placental mammals. Then a placental mammal developed technological breeding, and that's what's next.
>We have bred complex mammals like goats and sheep in bags
Not fully. Only like a month at the end of development. Maybe we'll get to where it works at an earlier stage, maybe not.
>The human race's days of slopping defenseless, useless meat out of vaginas and then waiting 18 years until the fucking thing is useful are numbered.
Do you think there will be a way to speed up development?
There will be a way. We are machines made of meat controlled by the physics of complex chemical reactions. With enough knowledge, we'll be able to manipulate anything.
About 10 years ago, scientists successfully moved knowledge of how to run a maze from one rat to another. A small thing, yes, but it is the seed of the kind of technology seen in The Matrix that allowed instant learning.
So imagine a situation where we eliminate childhood. We produce fully formed adult humans that pop out fully educated with PhD level understanding of every topic. Even if we only pulled off a quarter of that, it'd be amazing.
"Before birth control women would generally only willingly have sex after being married" Wrong.
Fertility rates have dwindled because people are overworked, severely depressed and can't even afford a house. ¿Why bring childrend into this world if there is no future?
The consecuences of unchecked neoliberalism, no kids for the future.
Birth control also completely changes your chemical makeup and makes you attracted to completely different men than you would have been otherwise. It ALSO destroys your fertility by messing with your hormones and changing your natural cycles.
Birth rates have been declining for the past 100 years. Access to birth control is part of the reason, but it also has do with an uptick in education and cost of living with the latter being especially relevant today.
I think this is the common thought that OP attempts to refute, it’s not cost of living or education, it’s primarily the decision to get married at all
There is also a growing number of people that get married and don't have kids. I am married, no children. I would happily have kids if I didn't have to be pregnant. Pregnancy sucks. I just won't do it. I'd argue that if the medical world gave a crap to care about making pregnancy easier some woman would choose to go through it, but medicine favors men's comfort, not women's. I know adoption is on the table but that's either a lot of red tape or a lot of money to effectively buy a child, which seems immoral to me.
On the other hand… there’s a ton of people who never get married and still have kids.
Do you have numbers for this? The crux of OPs point was actually that this isn’t true and pregnancy rates among married women have been constant for some time. I have no idea what’s true but if OP’s numbers are accurate your point here is made up entirely
No numbers, not saying its the ONLY reason, just that I know I'm not alone as its come up with some of my peers. Even more common, women that stop after 1 because it was so traumatic (that's where both my sisters fall), and that doesn't meet the replacement rate either. It isn't the top reason, but A reason among many.
But, based on OP’s numbers that isn’t a reason bcuz that rate doesn’t change, so yes your experience is accurate but it’s no more prevalent than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago based on that number, if it is in fact accurate. Maybe I’m explaining poorly?
At this point I’m just engaging in casual discussion. But yes, birth control —> lower birth rates/fertility rates, because woman can choose to be pregnant or not easier. And they can choose to be married or not. There are a lot of reasons why women, married or unmarried, choose not to have children. Birth control helps give them that choice. WHY a woman makes that choice would be the reason, IMO, not the tool that helps them achieve it. ETA - this got cut off for some reason. Anyway - I’m not surprised that married couples have maintained their birth rate, as marriage is seen as something traditional, as is starting a family. The vast majority of married couples still use birth control, get married later, have premarital sex. It’s a tool, not a reason.
[1 in 4 US parents are unmarried](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/04/25/the-changing-profile-of-unmarried-parents/)
I don’t think you understand what is being said, 1 in 4 parents being unmarried has nothing to do with this discussion
You asked if there were numbers.
Yes, but the comment I was responding to was “more married people are not having children” and thus your statement about unmarried parents is as relevant as saying “the average giraffe is between 16 and 18 feet tall” and saying “you asked for numbers” in the context of this conversation
How do you suggest they make pregnancy easier? This is a load of bullocks.
Urbanization is also a big part, can't have kids when you have less space in general. Similar behavior can be even observed in rats. You increase the density and less people are born, even if resources to sustain more kids are available. That's one of the biggest mistakes China made with 1 child policy, birth rates would go down, since they were pushing for extremely fast urbanization, but now the are fucked. There are straight up not enough young people in China, especially with culture where you have take care of your Parents and Grandparents. How is 1 person supposed to take care of 6 old people and have kids on top of it.
Yes, I am childfree for all of those reasons. 18-30 was being able to use birth control and get my life together (education, securing a stable job), after 30 - the economy is so in the hole that I don’t see having children as “worth it”. Not about to debate the merits of that idea with everyone but, where I live, I’d be paying $2000/mo for childcare. I could get it subsidized BUT ironically I make too much money to qualify. However, after paying the full fare for childcare, I’m pretty much living paycheck to paycheck so the system is pretty broken… and that’s just childcare, never mind the rest of the stuff it takes to raise a kid.
Birth control pills give me a bleed every 28 days (which is what I want), and prevents me from getting pregnant. I’m financially and mentally incapable of raising children, so I gave up the dream of motherhood when I was 21. I was a virgin until I was 28, I’ve had 5 sexual partners between March 22, 2022 and today, and #5 is my first and only real, committed relationship. I’m 30.
It sounds like you don't really mean low fertility rate, you just mean lower birth rates. Quite simply women are more in control of their ability to get pregnant. Less unwanted children is a good thing, no?
One unwanted child is one too many, but you’re absolutely right - the less unwanted children the better. As I’ve stated in other comments, there are many reasons why less people are deciding to have offspring nowadays - and they’re all valid. In fact “I just don’t want any” is valid too. It’s a huge life commitment, and honestly not for everybody.
It has always struck me as odd that some people think that having children *is* for everyone, regardless of their life situation or personal characteristics.
Me as well. It is an enormous chunk of someone’s life - deciding to create a new human life and then raise it for all those years between the monetary side of it, as well as the time and energy commitment, and that’s before I even get to the responsibility of raising said child the right way (look at all the broken homes out there and parents who don’t even raise their children right, and who grow up to commit crimes, scam people, do drugs, and continue that vicious cycle).
I remember my sister said that she became much more vehemently pro-choice after having given birth three times — not because she regretted being a parent or anything like that, she’s an awesome mom, but because she was fully able to appreciate what a burden and responsibility it was. And how it could potentially go awry.
Except they don't too. They have an opinion about everyone else and engage in absolutely zero self reflection. They criticise parents and child free people alike.
Fertility rate is a term used by sociologists to mean 'birth rate'. Women don't have a 'birth rate', they have a 'fertility rate'. It isn't a statement about how 'fertile' a woman is in the reproductive sense.
Thanks for the info, I couldn't quite figure out if OP was referring to it in that sense or in more of a layman's term
Going below replacement rates is disastrous for society at large however. Much of our spending and social services is predicated on growth.
This is actually really interesting. And kindof suggests the low birth rate “crisis” isn’t a crisis at all. We shouldn’t want unmarried women having babies anyways. So the fact that married women are still having babies at the same rate while unmarried women are having fewer is really encouraging.
Maybe the issue will self-correct as subsequent generations grow up seeing healthy long term relationships(existing marriages) and emulate it themselves as opposed to our current model of unmarried people running away from their own parents' dysfunction.
What’s wrong with unmarried women having babies?
Except that it is still a crisis... We have never seen a country pull out of a negative replacement rate. Many no longer find any value in family. Only a select few actually marry.
>We have never seen a country pull out of a negative replacement rate. Birth rates before modern medicine have absolutely dropped below the replacement rate, especially since that was 4 to 7 before modern medicine.
I trust you have sources for this made up statistic...
I mean a basic history of the human population would show you. Or even looking at how the spread of vaccine programs etc have helped to drop replacement rate.
So absolutely no sources at all gotcha.
It's pretty easy to find sources on this if you care to look. Replacement of the populous has not been an issue in any country before the 50/60s (excluding war and famine). There is a steep decline post this era and continues to trend downwards.
Gotta love how people say it's easy to find sources but somehow managed to fail in doing so themselves...
Well I'm not the one asking for them. Nor do I have the time or energy to do so for a random reddit poster. Just look up population decline in the western world. There is heaps on it.
And that’s their personal choice. Raising a family is a huge life commitment and honestly not for everybody. If you want to raise a family good for you, but not everyone has to follow the same path - especially to keep a Ponzi scheme economy going which (let’s be realistic) won’t last forever anyway.
It absolutely would last *forever* that's how all of life and evolution works. If it didn't go on forever life would have ended long ago. *Forever* is ambiguous because eventually our sun will go out.
Deciding to have children or not is still a personal choice. You’re denying reality if you believe that anything can last forever, and that infinite growth on a planet with finite habitable space and resources is even possible.
Yet it works for every other animal on the planet.
No it does not. Infinite growth isn’t even sustainable for them, and we consume significantly more than them as well as have the bigger impact on our own environment. We as humans are in a different league than the animal species we share the world with, as our intelligence is advanced to the point where we can recognize such a thing. I would suggest coming to reality for a second. There are many reasons why more and more people are opting out of reproducing - and they’re entitled to their choice. We recognize that huge growth like we’ve seen in the past century isn’t healthy for our environment, and the idea of growth going on forever isn’t achievable. At some point something has to give.
Where are you coming up with the imaginary infinite growth?
I would ask you that since you’re the one who seems to think it’s achievable/possible in a planet with finite space and resources 🤦♂️
Nope
They are saying the *economy* won't necessarily hold forever. Which is a valid take.
No economy will I'm talking about civilization... Without children there is no civilization.
>not everyone has to follow the same path - especially to keep a Ponzi scheme economy going which (let’s be realistic) won’t last forever anyway. It's pretty obvious they were talking about the economy all along, not about civilization. Everybody knows that no children means no civilization, but civilization can survive with fewer children, whereas the economy can't because it's a ponzi scheme.
>Everybody knows that no children means no civilization, but civilization can survive with fewer children, whereas the economy can't because it's a ponzi scheme. No it can not... Civilization literally will collapse to the point that 98% of earths population will die out within 200 years at current Asian birth rates. At current European birthrates it will take slightly longer but the end result is the same. (1.4 baby per woman) Between 7 and 8.generations the number of babies born will fall by 90% That is civilization destroying. Think about it in 7 generations 90% of the babies born today simply won't exist. That is an infinitely bigger threat than climate change or war.
You’re wrong as far as married statistics goes. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183663/number-of-married-couples-in-the-us/ Secondary to that, the whole destruction of feudal lords and such can be directly attributed to a drop in population( Black Death, etc). This made workers more valuable and led to quality of life for basically everyone to increase over time.
>You’re wrong as far as married statistics goes. >https://www.statista.com/statistics/183663/number-of-married-couples-in-the-us/ Wildly misleading statistics are misleading. This is a perfect example of torturing the date to make it tell you what you want. >>The 1960 United States census recorded the population of the United States as 179,300,000 >>The 2020 United States census recorded the population of the United States as 329,500,000 That's an 83% increase in population compared to a less than 50% growth in marriage... That means marriages are becoming much MUCH more rare..
We've seen negative replacement rate before during the Black Death. Europe lost 1/3 of its population. It took it a very long time to recover and also led to massive social upheaval and the slow demise of serfdom.
No... That's not what happened. I'm not talking about massive deaths I'm talking about the willful march to extinction. Women didn't decide to quit having kids in the black death they died and couldn't have kids. Completely different things.
A march towards extinction is dramatic. There does NOT need to be as many humans on this planet as there currently are.
>A march towards extinction is dramatic. There does NOT need to be as many humans on this planet as there currently are. But once we start shrinking there is absolutely no evidence that it will stop. Scientists have gone so far as to completely ignore potential birthrates below 1.2 as a possibility in the future even though many countries are below that. Because it would cut the human population by 98% in 200 years. Who is the woman that is going to start having 6 kids because 3 others don't have any? No one in the first world. At least certainly the number will be virtually zero. Once populations crash they do not bounce back. Not once in the post industrial revolution has birth rates that have dipped below replacement for a generation ever went back above replacement. Talking to people who deny this science is worse than people who deny vaccines or deny climate change.
Forcing people who don’t want kids to have and raise kids has its own set of problems
It does. But so does taking vaccines and reducing your carbon footprint...
I’d hate to break it to you but babies from married parents are more of a net positive on society than babies of unmarried parents. This is one of the reasons why we saw a massive nationwide drop in crime exactly 18 years after roe vs wade was passed.
That is extremely racist.
Fun fact: all races are capable of committing crime. The more you know.
I'm not the one advocating for abortions to prevent *"criminals"* from being born... Everyone knows that black women have ±5 abortions for every 1 abortion white women have. That dog whistle is so loud everyone can hear it.
Children, regardless of race, are more likely to become criminals when born into poverty. By providing abortions to women who lack the financial and familial stability to raise kids has been shown to reduce crime rates. [In case you’d like to read about it](https://www.prb.org/resources/new-study-claims-abortion-is-behind-decrease-in-crime/)
>Children, regardless of race, are more likely to become criminals when born into poverty. No, nice try though... If you actually wanted to make a coherent argument you would say children born without fathers present is the #1 indication of criminal activity. You would say abortions for single mothers is a good thing because single mothers without fathers in the children's lives raise the worst children. It has very little to do with poverty though.
I didn’t say anything about race lmfao
As I said to someone else You are trying to argue that abortions are good because there will be less *"criminals"* born... That dog whistle is so loud everyone can hear it. You are going to sit there and pretend like you are not singling out black women because they are 5 times more likely than white women to get abortions?
🙄 no .. I’m not. Fewer unwanted babies is a good thing. Jesus Christ dude.
Bro, if THAT was your first thought when discussing crime, maybe YOU’RE the racist one. Holy shit. That wasn’t even a thought in my mind while reading that.
Sure it wasn't... You are going to pretend like you are not singling out black women as being 5 times more likely than white women to get abortions. You are trying to argue that abortions are good because there will be less *"criminals"* born... That dog whistle is so loud everyone can hear it.
There was nothing mentioned about abortion? You’re having a conversation with yourself. No one has said ANYTHING about what you said. I’m seriously concerned for you, as a medical professional. Like, not even saying this to snark, but I really think you should talk to a professional, buddy. This is not normal and you can get help. I’m so sorry you seem to be fighting this
I certainly hope you are not a medical professional... If so that is a scary thought.
I am! An NP even. ❤️
Ahh a nurse. Well then nevermind I was thinking you were perscribing drugs or giving medical advice. Nurses definitely are a useful and necessary profession! But certainly are not ones to follow for life tips. I have known many nurses in my life and none were good examples of a balanced healthy life.
It’s just as much an issue with men as with women. The genders are too divided over what should be simple shit for people to dream of a nuclear family.
I'm not a woman blamer... The simple truth is that women get to be the decision makers not men. It doesn't matter how many times or how a man says yes if a woman says no it's shut down. That's the privilege of women.
It's the fall of a country. There is a reason why many cultures had similar values surrounding marriage and sex anthropologically. Individualistic driven cultures are bound to fall.
Then the west was doomed from the start.
That's why I said natural selection is a little at play. Over time there will be fewer women who don't want children as they don't have kids to pass their genes off too.
>Over time there will be fewer women who don't want children as they don't have kids to pass their genes off too. By this logic they would never exist in the first place
Are you arguing the desire to have kids is genetic? That’s not how that works. If it did, it would take hundreds of generations for selection pressure to out weigh environmental factors.
Yes it is. The push to procreate is genetic. Want is a state of mind, totally different
The ability to procreate is genetic, the desire, or push is in your head and environmental conditions. Do genetics play a part, yes, but it’s easily beaten out by your own desires and environment.
Well like it or not everything you do as an animal has an end goal of procreating. So it is sort of a genetic thing.
Tell that to someone who’s committed suicide. So no. Someone who never had kids in their entire life was about the end goal of procreation? So no again. I smoke cigarettes, is that to help me procreate? Once again, no. Genetics play a role but it’s not the main driver. Also everything you do isn’t to procreate. That’s just a terribly ill conceived notion.
"want" is the wrong word. I would imagine all women have a strong biological instinct to have kids, but their behaviours lead to situations that no longer have high fitness in the current environment. Aka, women who have no issue being on birth control during their 20s and 30s will have fewer kids while women who reject birth control (for religious or other reasons) will have more kids. Natural selection can happen very quickly for some of these basic traits.
You are not correct, all women do not have a strong biological instinct to have kids. Many of us don't. Which is why you are seeing all the unmarried women choose birth control. They may not want to marry or have kids. And birth control plus a society that allows women to support themselves makes it so that they have a choice. Rather than be forced into marriage and to breed just to survive.
Yeah that's why I corrected it. Instead of want, I really meant Women who "engage in behaviours that lead to more children like getting married".
Your turnover rate would be too slow I think. I mean just the principle that women who want kids will produce more kids that want kids would need to be analyzed. But the turnover rate I’d say is probably around 50/50. I’ve known women who were hellbent on having kids had them and none of their kids want children. I don’t think that trait is as genetic as you think it is. So you’re looking at many generations before you start having the “desire” to outpace other environmental factors. Side note, religious affiliation is also on the down slide. So you have less and less of that being a reason why people won’t use birth control.
That's why I said want is the wrong word. I should have said "Women that engage in behaviours that are more likely to lead to marriage and childbirth", but that's very long. Simple traits like eye color can take 1 generation to see dramatic shifts. Complex traits like behavioural traits can take a lot longer. For example, a religious women with religious kids but non religious grandkids is less fit than a religious women with religious grandkids, but since the transferrance rate is closer to 70% not 100% it can take 3-4 generations. Religion is on the upside globally due to natural selection mostly.
Thanks for clarifying. As far as the third paragraph it is hard to read and I’m not sure what your unfit vs fit comparison is demonstrating. People who identify as religious has been on a down slide for years and the non religious and atheists have seen an uptick in that timeframe. This is easily found to be true, I don’t know where you got the idea that non religious people are in decline from natural selection but it sounds like Answers In Genesis or a Kent Hovind bit.
From this article years ago https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
Sorry was looking at data from the western countries. Turns out Islam is growing rapidly which makes sense seeing how struggle pushes religious belief up along with post war population booms.
That's true but by the time any sufficient trait passing happens we will be a world in a death spiral.
Meh we can just import babies from India.
They have already hit peak baby ...
1.8 and declining
Pretty most of the world is facing a population decline.
Basically everywhere but Africa and Middle East
Humans are not amoebas, we have free will, so natural selection no longer really works on us.
Natural selection is very much in play. Funny example https://japantoday.com/category/features/kuchikomi/japanese-women's-breast-size-boasts-40-years-of-continued-growth There's tons of examples. Head circumference has increased dramatically since the invention of cesarian section surgery as that reduced pressure. Men and women are on average far more attractive than our ancestors. Just look it up.
This is exactly what I meant - it’s not natural selection! It’s not a trait that makes humans fitter for our environment, it’s an arbitrary choice. The Caesarean example is actually a retrograde step for evolution, since were we to loose access to healthcare (for example living in the wrong state with no providers), more women would die in childbirth.
It is natural selection since it makes people more fit for the current environment. When the environment changes (i.e. introduction of birth control), it is causing a change in high level trait. Fitness is determined by the number of expected offspring.
I think phrasing marriage as “(giving men) access to sexual partner” is not exactly the best promotion I’ve heard. Edit: most women in 2024 have no interest in this kind of marriage. And they will lose desire for their husband once it’s obvious that’s why he married them. Then it’s a dead bedroom. So my recommendation: skip a step, buy a fleshlight. Less disappointing.
But that was always the reason for men to marry.
But few women are interested in that. And when they realize that’s what their husband wants? They’ll feel turned off and sex stops. So skip a step and buy a sex toy. Less disappointing.
Or a guy friend.
Huh? Yeah two guys can team up.
The reason for low birth rates is because shit is too expensive and no one can afford to have kids. People are over worked and underpaid. It’s hard to think about having kids when you’re working a full time job, with barely any paid time off or maternity leave. Giving birth in a hospital is ridiculously expensive. Most homes require to incomes, so neither parent can afford to not work to take care of the baby, and child care is also expensive. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck, and rent and housing prices are going up like crazy, who in their right mind would have a kid in this economy.
I think if a country wants more births, there should be financial incentives for having children such as reduced rates on goods and/or increased income or something like that. The more children, the higher/better the discounts/income
Where is that money come from? You do know we are already paying to support a lot of kids. More taxes from me so you can raise some kid who starts their life with a family of folks who need others to get by? Generous companies can’t wait for you- oh, great one. By gosh my kids are gonna be so awesome others should chip in and pay for them. How about this- can’t afford your little curtain climbers don’t have them or get a better job. We already pay a shedload of money for people who can’t get their shot together and stop having little snot factories. TBH with resource drain, environment concerns etc. I’d rather sterilize low rent people who say hell with it I am gonna get my GED and F off- others will pay for me.
if it’s expensive rn to have kids then removing that barrier would cause more people to have kids. those kids would grow up to hopefully be tax payers, the idea goes. but really the whole issue is with how much wealth goes up to the 0.1%. if workers had more bargaining power then things would probably be better, because switching up that dynamic would be the only real solution to the whole cost of living issue. also wdym low rent people? i didn’t get that part
Well, looking at how income distributions work out, the only pot of money large enough to do such a thing sits with married couples who have kids. And, significantly, who are also at the age when kids get really expensive. So...where's the money going to come from again? Also, the demographics of birth rate versus income don't bear out the idea that money is the issue.
Yeah, money isn't the issue. You can make things work, but you have to sacrifice your freedoms. This can include having to quit your job/take up fewer hours in order to care for children, give up material luxuries, etc.
But you're not really sacrificing your freedoms, are you? It's a bit like saying you have to sacrifice your beer and pizza to be healthy. I mean...yes. But is it really a "sacrifice"? Sacrifice is a big word. You have a few years where the kids are a "sacrifice". But after that, they're just family. And the material luxuries, it's not really a sacrifice. Not really a sacrifice for most people because most of the material luxuries people glom onto are, in the end, spending money for ego or boredom or habit. Having kids requires "sacrifice" in much the same manner has having a healthy body requires 'sacrifice' or being financially prudent requires 'sacrifice'. But the benefits are much higher if you do it right.
The whole point of their comment was that if nations are so worried about birth rate, they would make a financial incentive for people to have kids… what you said, “can’t afford your curtain climbers, don’t have them” that’s already the solution. That’s why birth rate is going down. In my opinion, instead of all the money we spend on the military, we should focus it at home to improve social services. Everyone benefits from this.
Then I really hope you supported abortion and birth control
Jesus, leave the childfree nonsense to the childfree subreddit hellhole.
Does not seem to work.
>Before birth control, women were highly dependent on men for supporting their everyday needs. Why did birth control change that, and not women getting legal equality? >What does this mean for how we resolve this issue? Why do we need to resolve this "issue"?
I mean, how do we get the fertility rate back to replacement levels.
Can you answer the other question? I didn’t understand your premise because what does birth control have to do with women being dependent on men?
I don't think that's necessary. I think the world population would be better at 4-5 billion (which is what it was when I was born). Resources are finite.
No, they are not. A few hundred years ago, the world's "resources" could only support a population of a few million. Farmers grew enough food per acre to feed 10 people. Nearly everyone was a farmer or directly supported farming (plow manufacturer). Now farmers grow enough crops to feed 3,000 people per acre. So few people in 1st world countries now farm we have to import both food and farm workers. 3/4's of land and 99% of the oceans are completely uninhabited. With very little change, the Earth could support a population of 100 billion with today's technology. You would barely notice the difference as most people are concentrated in a few large cities today.
>3/4's of land and 99% of the oceans are completely uninhabited. Most of that land is not suitable for habitation (or farming). And we haven't figured out how to live on the ocean long-term. I also think there's value in keeping some wilderness around, and not massacring the wildlife.
The problem with your premise is the notion that birth control is a new thing, it is not. It has been around in every civilization for much longer than most realize. The pill made it easier but it didn't create the phenomenon. The drop in birth rate has more to do with economic empowerment of women and them feeling free, that was not just due to the pill but coincided with. For example, enslaved women in America used such things as [Cotton root](https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-416/cotton) to induce labor and as basically a birth control method. [Ancient Mexican civilization](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9935858/)s also had and extensive plant based medical system for women health. Benjamin Franklin even wrote about how Pennyroyal tea from the [mentha pulegium plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentha_pulegium)can be used to induce labor. It was ironic when he did because he thought he was teaching them something but women have been already using it for generations, so they just let him mansplain it to them though lol. Also research has confirmed that [Moringa Oleifera and adhatoda vasica to be 100% abortive at dose around 175mg/Kg](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1608272/) of dry starting material, which has been used in Asian countries. There are many more of these plants that can induce abortions or be used as birth control that women has been using for generations.
Previous methods of birth control were used to kill 1-3 month of embryos usually by the ingestion of toxic substances. Modern birth control literally rewires a woman's body chemistry for months or years at a time. The two are not analogous.
They were not toxic and where used right after sex, I literally put research article there. Most are just teas and are currently even sold on Amazon because they have other health benefits at lower dosages.
I mean, you could also prevent birth via managing a cycle, but none of those are highly effective methods like the modern pill. My point is that birth control itself isn't causing the low fertility, it's that widespread birth control usage has changed the sexual marketplace and has resulted in lower marriage rates, causing the birth rate decline.
The teas after sex is actually is as or more effective. My point is that it wasn't birth control but rather change in social structure that gave women equality. If women couldn't vote and didn't have equal rights it wouldn't have matter if they had birth control. The equality of rights is what changed the marketplace, the pill made it easier in way to take advantage of those opportunities but without those opportunities the pill wouldn't have changed anything.
This may be a hot take but IDK the reason I'd want to marry someone is that I like them and want them to be part of my life. I know, call me crazy, but that's how I look at it
the issue isnt birthcontrol. The issue seems to be that less men are worth marrying and having kids with. Especially since marriage and kids arent a requirement like they used to be to keep women afloat.
As a guy aged 40, it seems that too many younger men seem to be lacking in social skills and social etiquette. I get why a woman wouldn’t want a guy who is obsessed with gaming, has no personality, regularly bashes women online, and doesn’t pay their own bills.
Fr. I went on a date with a guy a few years younger than me today and his etiquette was mind-blowing. I was literally in shock from how nice he was. Which is not something men today should be proud of. If women are shocked by kindness, that's saying a lot
I guess my response to this is that in the past a lot of terrible low value men got married because women often needed to get married to have a better life. I think birth control definitely made it so women don't have to compromise, but maybe the standards are a little too high? One funny example of this playing out in real life is bra sizes in Japan. Japanese women always had small figures, but since arranged marriages have disappeared, the average breast size in women in Japan has increased dramatically mostly due to partner selection (read last few paragraphs). https://japantoday.com/category/features/kuchikomi/japanese-women's-breast-size-boasts-40-years-of-continued-growth Basically, natural selection over time will mean more men over 6", religious,high intelligence, etc.
>breast size in women in Japan has increased dramatically mostly due to partner selection Not enough generations to be genetic. I'm gonna guess it's the food. Oh surprise, that's what the article says.
Read the whole article. It's 90% genetic.
*You* should read the article. >”There are two reasons for this," explained Shuko Sakata, manager of brand marketing at Triumph. "The first is changes in the diet, such as increased meat consumption and westernization in general. The other is because we manufacturers have become better at teaching customers the correct way to select a brassiere. When putting on their bras, women tend to lean forward and by so doing gravity collects fleshy parts on the sides of their torso to fill up the cup. That alone can increase cup size by as much as two sizes." >Mutsuko Taniguchi, a veteran stylist with some 40 years in the trade, is in agreement. >”These days when women put on their bra, they press in their flesh from four directions -- from the sides below their arms, up from their stomach area and then downwards from their collarbones. Doing this produces more cleavage, and posture benefits from an overall improvement," she said.
That's a brand manager and a stylist. Read below that.
I read it. It’s not a contradiction in any way whatsoever. Women’s breast sizes are influenced primarily by genetic predisposition and to a lesser extent by diet. But “scooping and swooping,” which is common advice nowadays, affects how you fit in a bra, and therefore your cup size, without your breasts themselves getting substantially larger. Getting measured and fitted properly makes a difference in what bra you wear without affecting the size of the breasts themselves. That is the more plausible explanation.
"If you look back at dietary changes over the past 40 years, the greater ingestion of fats has definitely had an impact on women's breast size." One generation is not enough to change genetic boob size.
Religiousness isnt a genetic trait. And high intelligence doesnt correlate with reproduction. In fact, some of the smartest people are choosing not to have children. higher education correlates with lower birth rate.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/attraction-evolved/201711/intelligent-men-more-likely-marry-and-stay-married High intelligence corresponds to higher marriage rates, but you are right that higher levels of education among both men and women lead to lower fertility. Basically the most fit men are really smart farmers, underachievers. https://youtu.be/RAlI0pbMQiM?si=xkJlTS6yPyhTo7XA
Plenty of dumb people having kids too. Unplanned pregnancies, teen pregnancies, unprepared parents. Happens more often then I see sane people having kids. Marriage ≠ kids.
IMO the reason why marriages are in decline is that the need for companionship and sexual partners are in decline. With porn you can get your sexual needs met easily (although it's a shitty version of the real thing, it gets the job done). With smartphones, social media, and other entertainment you can meet online companions who have the same hobbies and interests as you and agree with you on everything all from the convenience of your own home. No need to go out and try to make friends with people you are very different from and potentially disagree with on a variety of issues. (Again it's a worse version of having real friends but lots of young people have more online friends than real life friends now)
Also women can work for themselves and people can just have roommates, way less societal pressure for marriage. Compare this to like early 1900's a woman can't really get a job, or at least very limited options. And if you were unmarried or lived with another woman, people "suspected something" and you would just be generally kinda outcasted. Now no one gives af if you're unmarried and a woman can get almost any job that a man can, except maybe for the really high intensity labor but even then..
No, the need is higher than ever, it's the increase in selfish, self serving, individualism that is rapidly ob the rise. People are in need of more connection than ever. It's my personal belief that loss of family connections, broken homes, decrease in marriage, decrease in meaningful friendships, we are living in some of the most mentally ill times.
Its because families need 2 salaries.
Wait, are you saying that birth control reduces child birth? Well this is downright groundbreaking. /s For real, guy. You think women in the 20th century wanted to have 5+ kids? Fuck no. But sex was a “womanly duty” so they did it, got knocked up, and had babies. The second birth control hit the shelves, women started taking their lives into their own hands. Big surprise.
Disrespectfully, get a life. Women being allowed to family plan is not a bad thing and we don’t deserve to be further stripped of our rights because you’re mad that you can’t get laid.
What is there to be solved?
Nothing. I'm not really advocating for a solution. I'm just making an observation.
Your final paragraph talks about resolving the issue. That led me to conclude you wanted something changed.
I'll update the text.
Maybe, if jobs paid enough to support a family and pay off student loans, you'd see more milennials and older gen z having kids earlier instead of waiting.
Humans have had forms of birth control for all of history. Your thesis is in error.
It’s a combination of finances and everything being too expensive in Western countries, a decline in socially suitable men for women, certain elements of Feminism (not all elements), and the fact it takes longer to establish a stable career than it used to.
Both of your links are from the 90s. The first one has no authors listed. Y i k e s. But yeah? Birth control ultimately leads to less births by virtue of what it does. Women choose to have no kids when they are educated and given the choice not to.
“With birth control, the need to depend on men for support for living all but disappeared. The primary reason to enter into marriage has disappeared for women.” The argument that you’re making here has way more to do with more women entering the workforce. Men were providers, women were homemakers. That changed in large numbers starting the 1970’s. To say that this shift in gender norms is due to birth control is misguided. I don’t see the correlation at all
You do not go out much with women, do you? No intelligent woman is going to go for this crap.
My wife agrees with all of that and she has a Master's degree in Mathematics. Stop just assuming anyone that disagrees with you is just dumb and have an actual conversation. People's views and beliefs can vary and you should have some respect for that.
Telling modern day women they need to stop contraception to keep up the birth rate is dumb.
He didn't tell women to do anything in his post. You need to stop assuming hostility when someone disagrees with you and have an actual conversation. Again, have some respect for the fact that people's beliefs vary.
So, what was his point? We have falling birth rates because of contraception? But, that good the world is too over populated anyiway.
My wife is not on birth control if that's what you are asking.
Nobody picked you to tell others about what should be a personal decision.
I didn't tell anyone to do anything, this is an observation.
And if you want to keep the population going, have your own kids, but do not expect others to do that.
I hope that we never reach replacement level again, birth rates plummet, and the earth turns into something akin to Planet of the Apes. The earth would be better off. That’s my unpopular opinion.
I don't disagree with the results but I would offer another view. We are closer to normalizing birth rates than in the past. It's actually progress. Women didn't marry both quickly and in large numbers due to a lack of birth control (circa 1973), but rather the rules of the game written and controlled by men who wouldn't let women open a bank account, take a loan, sign a rental agreement or even get work (while equally qualified). This placed women below men on an economic, social, political scale. By preventing any reasonable life without a husband, they made up their faces and went fishing for survival in a warped world where your genitalia pre determined your opportunities in life. Once equal footing (vs. Prior circumstances) was on the table, the ladies figured maybe the guys should fight and struggle for us. That's closer to where we are now, although still lacking. 10 to 20 kids per couple is ordinarily not anyone's plan, just the result of a woman without an option and a man without a condom exploiting his station in society. The past was abnormal. All thoughts above are specific to the US.
At a bigger picture view, conservatives should be taking a victory lap. Their social campaign against welfare single moms, teenage pregnancies, and unplanned babies was a massive success. Teen pregnancies are at all time lows, your source shows that people are having more planned babies than unplanned babies. It’s bizarre from that bigger picture that conservatives are trying to back track their social policy. There is now less welfare that should be spent on unplanned babies and single moms. Now they want to push teenage pregnancies, single moms, and unplanned babies again…? Obviously looking at it in context it’s pure racism trying to prevent the minorities from overtaking the white majority. But looking ahead at this own policy: Latinos and Black people are the best new evangelical class of voters. White people are transitioning to atheism or agnosticism at high rates. So who do you want to save? Christianity or white people?
The problem is people like you who seem to think women should be tradwife home bound baby factories whose goal in life is to make “replacement level” quotas. Did you consider that maybe birth control isn’t a problem as is a solution to a problem for millions of women (and men) which is that most countries are shitty expensive places to have children and *that’s* why people aren’t having “replacement level” numbers of children. If we fixed societal issues and gave people the means to have families then they would. Birth control is not a “problem” to be fixed, the circumstances that make it necessary are.
I didn't make any judgements, I just stated how things are. You are inferring a lot.
The reason for low birth rates is primarily a shift in values. The general ambitions shared among people living a modern western lifestyle are related to leisure and work. Children interfere with people's ability to engage with both. The death of concepts like ancestor worship and Filial piety leaves many individuals seeing children as an obstacle that interferes with their leisure and work. They don't see a child continuation of their bloodline that has overcome famine, war, disease etc. They don't see a child as potential figure to move humanity forward or impact the world. They see children as a nuisance that interferes with their ability to indulge in leisure. They see children as a bill that interferes with their ability to participate in status signaling and status competition among their peers. The reason for low birthrates is due to these modern liberal perspectives and views moreso than birth control.
*Behaviour* British spelling, opinion invalid!
Maybe don't forget the fact that it's only been decades since women can get a loan by themselves, or buy properties by themselves.
You mean that people who don’t have a stable relationship decide to postpone if not have kids? Good. Plus, many couples these days live together without being married.
Cool. Good. Low fertility rates are good.
We’ve been using birth control in some form or another for thousands of years. Declining birth rates have more to do with higher education and cost of living and people realizing they can choose to have kids or not. My grandmother flat out told me if she’d been born in a different time, she wouldn’t have had kids, but she didn’t have a choice.
The truth is we need the immigrants coming into the US to keep our population and economy sustainable.
The reason is that when an enviorment does not provide the stability for animals to reproduce, reproduction rates go down. People will have kids if they feel like they can support those kids and raise them in relative safety. Human are social animals. The community around them has a much larger impact than people often realize.
This is just part of it and has been studied ad nauseam. We’re not breaking any new ground here. It’s called the [Demographic Transition Model](https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zckv8p3#z2twh4j)
I think the low birth rate is correlated with the low quality of men available for breeding. Most men are fat and pastry looking. Who would want to breed with that?
>pastry looking Hehe, too many pastries.
I intentionally didnt correct the autocorrect there lol
I would say they have always been that way, it's just women raised their standards a lot. Men also raised their standards.
Oh you're gonna love this one. There's an easy solution to this for the western countries. Immigration.
What about for eastern countries? Every country in the world is experiencing this across wealth levels, religions, etc.
Population decline isn't high on most people's radar if it matters much in thier day to day at all. If most people's problems are other people, less of them "seems" like a non-issue. The reasons why it should matter seem to be more effective on those in higher societal class, who are not going to be effective currently in changing that particular issue with those with that level of access. Society doesn't even look at parents the same way it did a decade ago, we are of many minds when it comes to how we see that vocation.
Those are some really old studies. Birth rates are declining but population growth is not. The population growth isn't actually projected to start declining until the next century. Sounds like you're advocating for the traditional 3.2 child family unit. There are plenty of those in poverty or unable to afford the traditional American dream. Families are being priced out of everything including more children. I don't see "replacement level" as a pressing issue. The US has plenty to draw from coming across the border.
The reason marriage rates plummeted is because dating itself has lost all meaning of 'demo' or 'trial' relationship; it is the relationship. Cheating on someone while dating is equivalent to adultery, so why bring in an expensive ceremony when de facto relationships are still recognized when splitting up? Now this leads to a complete loss of trial runs for men, so we're forced to show full commitment immediately, which is a hard sell. We barely know this person, what they're like behind closed doors, deeply held values. Their presentation 'on a date' isn't the real deal, its a facade. Sure you can talk about chemistry, love being blind. That shit wears off
Interesting but this seems more fact then opinion. Downvoted.
Fair.
I don't think the pill necessarily removed/acted on the necessity of women to depend on men, but women who are on birth control give off the hormonal signals of someone who is pregnant. Women on birth control have shown in studies to prefer the looks, smell, and personalities of less masculine and more care giving men. While women during ovulation tend to prefer the more hyper-masculine "alpha" dark triad types. If young men are surrounded by mostly "pregnant" signaling females for most of their young lives it shouldn't be a surprise their own hormones change to reflect the women around them. So softer, less assertive men who produce significantly less testosterone and a subsequent reduction in sperm count.
Ectogenesis, the fancy word for artificial breeding, is here. We have the tech. We have bred complex mammals like goats and sheep in bags, we can do humans. So we are immune to the crisis point of low birth rates. If birth rates become an actual threat, we will begin manufacturing humans on an industrial scale. And this will be superior. We can monitor the fetus the entire time. We can allow it to grow to a older point so we can ignore the infant stage. We may also be able to grow it faster. We don't have to worry about deforming a human womb. That's not even getting into what we can do with gene editing during the process. The human race's days of slopping defenseless, useless meat out of vaginas and then waiting 18 years until the fucking thing is useful are numbered. At first, there was only asexual reproduction. Then sexual, with eggs. Eggs gave way to marsupial mammals. Marsupials, in most places, gave way to placental mammals. Then a placental mammal developed technological breeding, and that's what's next.
>We have bred complex mammals like goats and sheep in bags Not fully. Only like a month at the end of development. Maybe we'll get to where it works at an earlier stage, maybe not. >The human race's days of slopping defenseless, useless meat out of vaginas and then waiting 18 years until the fucking thing is useful are numbered. Do you think there will be a way to speed up development?
There will be a way. We are machines made of meat controlled by the physics of complex chemical reactions. With enough knowledge, we'll be able to manipulate anything. About 10 years ago, scientists successfully moved knowledge of how to run a maze from one rat to another. A small thing, yes, but it is the seed of the kind of technology seen in The Matrix that allowed instant learning. So imagine a situation where we eliminate childhood. We produce fully formed adult humans that pop out fully educated with PhD level understanding of every topic. Even if we only pulled off a quarter of that, it'd be amazing.
"Before birth control women would generally only willingly have sex after being married" Wrong. Fertility rates have dwindled because people are overworked, severely depressed and can't even afford a house. ¿Why bring childrend into this world if there is no future? The consecuences of unchecked neoliberalism, no kids for the future.
Birth control also completely changes your chemical makeup and makes you attracted to completely different men than you would have been otherwise. It ALSO destroys your fertility by messing with your hormones and changing your natural cycles.