My hypothesis, which I rarely hear anyone else mention, is that we no longer look to our children for entertainment. Life used to be really boring. Kids are excited by things adults find painfully dull. Having a weird little person around who is overjoyed playing with a stick is a pretty great thing in a world where there isn't much else to do.
Today people often seem to regard interacting with children to be a form of work. I don't think that our ancestors saw it that way. The kids certainly don't seem to see it that way; they're confused and disappointed when their parents don't want to play with them.
Many of the sociopolitical explanations of falling birth rates have been refuted by the present trends. Birth rates are now below replacement in most of Latin America and Asia, even where economic development is well below the level it was when they started falling in the rich world, and in spite of the persistence of traditional gender roles. Only Africa and the poorest parts of Asia are above replacement, and even then much less than before. Some of the highest birth rates today are in Afghanistan and Palestine. Not exactly paradise.
My hypothesis, which I rarely hear anyone else mention, is that we no longer look to our children for entertainment. Life used to be really boring.
while there is some truth to that with stories of a sudden baby boom 9 months after a significant power outage, i'd rather rephrase that as
"we no longer look to our children as the only thing we care about"
there are now so many other things (hobbies, causes) that we can put our energy into that they take away the focus from having kids. after all, once you have kids you will have to put aside some of your other activities for some years.
sociopolitical explanations of falling birth rates have been refuted by the present trends
i think birthrates don't so much correlate with wealth but with education. my guess is that education improves faster than wealth, so this could explain the development better.
I mean, you can try to be appealing to a higher ideal here, but all the people who make children (myself included) do it for themselves (the parents of the child). So yeah, entertainment might not be the exact word, but for a broad enough meaning of it, that's probably the reason for a good chunk of children.
My hypothesis, which I rarely hear anyone else mention, is that we no longer look to our children for entertainment. Life used to be really boring. Kids are excited by things adults find painfully dull. Having a weird little person around who is overjoyed playing with a stick is a pretty great thing in a world where there isn't much else to do.
Today people often seem to regard interacting with children to be a form of work. I don't think that our ancestors saw it that way. The kids certainly don't seem to see it that way; they're confused and disappointed when their parents don't want to play with them.
Many of the sociopolitical explanations of falling birth rates have been refuted by the present trends. Birth rates are now below replacement in most of Latin America and Asia, even where economic development is well below the level it was when they started falling in the rich world, and in spite of the persistence of traditional gender roles. Only Africa and the poorest parts of Asia are above replacement, and even then much less than before. Some of the highest birth rates today are in Afghanistan and Palestine. Not exactly paradise.