Sure and first generation immigrants typically have higher birth rates because they operate under different social structures. Since we aren't kicking out capitalism in the near future this problem will persist regardless of policy unfortunately.
Birth rates are falling in the Nordics below the UK and the US. Are family-friendly policies no longer enough?
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Sure and first generation immigrants typically have higher birth rates because they operate under different social structures. Since we aren't kicking out capitalism in the near future this problem will persist regardless of policy unfortunately.
That Dad Privilege Checklist ties to the phenomena known as 'the mental load'. The burden of the mental load is added stress to the domestic responsibilities, thus one of the drivers to why working women of today are increasingly opting to postpone/be child-free as they are expected to take on domestic duties, the mental load, and professional work (see the triple shift).
Just as krazen stated, it does circle back. Late-stage capitalism works against women/FAB to have children, as the economic system does not accommodate domestic burdens. Working Women/FAB are likely to lose out on promotions due to pregnancy and childcare responsibilities. Moreover, part-time and low paid profession workforce are mostly women/FAB.
Social expectations have been ingrained in society long before economic ideologies, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't critically examine them, after all the thread is discussing demographic crisis in neoliberalist economies.
My posts do not advocate a switch to socialism but merely pointing out how neoliberalist philosophy undermines women/FAB to have children. But if we want to delve deeper into socialism, Women/FAB are more likely to benefit from socialist policies as it gives them more support if they were primary carers (better public services, child tax credit, easier to climb social mobility).
It's actually been studied that the load doesn't lessen for women who out earn their husbands and have the more "important" job so that's not what's actually happening, or at least not the full story.
You don't have to tell me about the mental load; I live it every day.
Maybe I'm reading your posts wrong, but I think you are really misunderstanding what I'm saying and honestly kind of talking down to me? I don't know why you are acting like I'm dismissing the economic reasons for all of this or saying that late stage capitalism isn't part of the problem. I'm not. I'm just saying that it's not the only issue and a purely economic solution won't actually address the problem of the social expectations placed on women.
Which is exactly the type of criticism and change of social expectations that I'm advocating for that you seem to think I'm against or not considering? Otherwise I really don't know how to read this part of the your response:
That's exactly what my post is trying to get at, we should examine those social expectations. But simply focusing on "capitalism is the problem" doesn't bring those social expectations (that can exist free from capitalism even if they were formed in reaction to capitalism) to the forefront, which is the whole reason I responded in the first place.
I brought up socialism as an example of a solution that solves many of the issues but does not inherently solve the social expectations. Like, duh, as women we'd benefit more as primary caregivers under a socialist system. But such a system doesn't automatically address the idea that we should or are expected to be the primary caregivers. Hence needing to talk about why social expectations of being the primary caregiver persist, even when we make more and work more (outside our home) than our husbands?
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I might be missing something, but is there any scientific backing to the reasons discussed here?
Eg the discussion seems to sound a little like women in particular don't want to have kids anymore for reason XYZ. Best I've Found though, the view of not wanting kids seems to be quite aligned between genders. Similarly, many concerns given here (career, mental load etc) don't seem to particularly stick out among the main reasons behind this decision.
I'm no subject matter expert though so well possible there's other studies or evidence underlining some of the other points here
Eg the discussion seems to sound a little like women in particular don't want to have kids anymore for reason XYZ. Best I've Found though, the view of not wanting kids seems to be quite aligned between genders. Similarly, many concerns given here (career, mental load etc) don't seem to particularly stick out among the main reasons behind this decision.
I'm no subject matter expert though so well possible there's other studies or evidence underlining some of the other points here
No where did I say, nor was my point about more leisure time.
I don't find people choosing to spend their leisure time different from those of the past wrong.
It is the economic models that are trying to force cultures to keep up with endless population growth for more profit that is the problem. We don't need more people. We need better economies that focus on making people's live better.
If it's the topic of education and economics here's pre-Covid data https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-05-508.pdf
The Impact of College Education on Fertility: Evidence for Heterogeneous Effects
As college going among women has increased, more women are going to college from backgrounds that previously would have precluded their attendance and completion. This affords us the opportunity and motivation to look at the effects of college on fertility ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
I am not talking down at your points, that wasn't my intention at least. I am giving rebuttals to assumptions being made. How you frame your points, you're suggesting it's mostly social but I'd argue it's an interlinking of factors.
Didn't think you're against anything aside from assuming people are pinning capitalism as a catch-all contributor, when it has been repeated again and again it's a driver alongside other factors.
True, but we are talking about a demographic crisis in a modern economy. We are literally on the same side of what we're arguing.
i.e. Traditional gender roles (homemaker+breadwinner household) and late-stage capitalist economy (dual-income household) are incompatible.
A big part of it is women just not wanting to, hence why finally having a choice in the matter has resulted in this. (Something I mentioned before.) I'm focusing on the mental load as an another example of a social and not purely economic phenomenon because it's not something I've seen the (mostly men) in this topic consider and I think it should be talked about.
I've haven't seen a study that actually considered stuff like mental load, but if you don't think that the actual labor involved and expected of women is also affecting women's decisions then I don't know what to tell you. Plus, the design of the study you linked predisposed people to choosing "I just don't want to." And they don't provide their coding for the financial/economic reasons open ended category that could have easily included stuff like career. I imagine it's an understudied area because for so long people have assumed women automatically want to be mothers if they have the opportunity.
That wasn't my intention. My original response was actually that it's first because women finally have control over their bodies and second because of both economic and social reasons for women not wanting to become mothers. Literally:
You then responded saying that those are still economic factors, and I gave an example of something that's not necessarily driven by someone's economic situation.
How are you going to get the money to pay them when half the population are retires, and of the working age half are in age related care?
This is only a subset of the issue, but there is pretty convincing economic scholarship https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-economic-forces-pushing-both-parents-to-work on how two working parent households is a prominent feature of both low and high income countries. In countries like America, both parents are working because they can earn more than the cost of childcare, not because they need both incomes to survive.
Right. Patriarchy existed long before the invention of currency, not to speak capitalism. Perhaps it is less obvious in 'younger' countries like the US, but in nations with thousands of years of cultural roots that have survived to the present day, it wasn't uncommon to find women with higher social status still bearing heavier parental responsibilities than their husbands.
Looking at the history of socialist countries, a more equitable distribution of family labor relations doesn't automatically address the underlying issue of patriarchy. Many people with a limited understanding of socialism believe that resolving class disputes will settle gender conflicts, which is entirely wrong. In some countries that now claim to be "socialist", class conflict is often used by the propaganda department to conceal gender conflict.
Since this thread is about Nordic countries, especially Finland, it will be more accurate to look at that data.
Women are less likely to want kids than men across ALL age groups!
In Finland, men across age groups are more likely to want children than women
A GROWING NUMBER of under 35-year-old women are childless in Finland, reveals a survey by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). The Healthy Finland survey found that 73 per cent of 20–34-year-old women have not given birth, representing an increase of eight percentage points since...
The data backs up what Pau and others have been saying, there is a lot of societal pressure for women to do the majority of the work tied to having children, so it's understandable women are less likely to want to sign up for that nowadays.
We're not discussing population growth, we're talking about population maintenance. Even outside of a modern capitalist economy it is not sustainable to have the old outnumber the young in the manner we're headed for.
Some of this thread reads like the COVID days because you are absolutely right, that is the natural conclusion of shrinking birth rates.
This is unlikely to happen anytime soon, but I do think the only way to increase fertility long term is the dissolution of the nuclear family model for raising kids. Even if people have the resources for it, you have to have a huge desire to spend an insane amount of time with children and take on a huge mental load to raise them effectively. In a more communal context where the children's parents are less important (though not irrelevant!) people wouldn't necessarily have to completely sacrifice everything about their current time and emotional priorities to have children.
I myself like kids and would like to play a a more active role in raising some, but I know I wouldn't be very good as a parent in a nuclear family because of my anxiety problems (I would become personally miserable, even if I loved the kid), so I guess I'm resigned to just showing up now and then and being a "cool" uncle for my sibling's children.
I myself like kids and would like to play a a more active role in raising some, but I know I wouldn't be very good as a parent in a nuclear family because of my anxiety problems (I would become personally miserable, even if I loved the kid), so I guess I'm resigned to just showing up now and then and being a "cool" uncle for my sibling's children.
You forget that we went from one person working to two persons needing to work to be able to afford things like a house (rent or buy doesn't even matter). So yes a washing machine saves time, but not enough to offset a second person having a fulltime job.
We only had single person working for a short period from the 1940s to the 1960s. During the days of the factories, whole families would work the factories and on the farm the whole family would tend to the farms. In all cases, things tended to go from sunrise to sunset
Rarely in these threads do I see anyone talk about the obvious elephant in the room.
Child rearing correlates negatively with education level. What do developing and rich countries, high and low income inequality all have in common? The more they increase access to educational opportunities, and the more education their society attains, the worse the birth rate gets. The countries that have high birth rates are not those with good social safety nets, they're ones where the literacy rates, sexual health education, and job opportunities that scale with education are poor/non-existent. Hell even in America, look at the highest birth rates: they're not in the states with good public education, they're in the south/republican states iirc. Where education and maternal/sex healthcare/awareness are poorest.
If you want to solve this problem you have to contend with the reality that the more people learn about the world the less they want to have children early, and thus, often at all.
Child rearing correlates negatively with education level. What do developing and rich countries, high and low income inequality all have in common? The more they increase access to educational opportunities, and the more education their society attains, the worse the birth rate gets. The countries that have high birth rates are not those with good social safety nets, they're ones where the literacy rates, sexual health education, and job opportunities that scale with education are poor/non-existent. Hell even in America, look at the highest birth rates: they're not in the states with good public education, they're in the south/republican states iirc. Where education and maternal/sex healthcare/awareness are poorest.
If you want to solve this problem you have to contend with the reality that the more people learn about the world the less they want to have children early, and thus, often at all.
Well, like the issue of climate
There's probably a Venn diagram of low birth rate countries and countries with a substantive number of climate refugees.
Sorry for misunderstanding you Pau and I agree with the points above, traditional gender roles and inequal distribution of caregiving responsibilities will persist, regardless of what economic system we transition to.
Though a minor quibble is that societies that are more equitable, such as Scandinavian countries, young people still choose to not have children. Mostly driven by individual choice but for those who desire children, even with family friendly incentives in place, it's not enough to keep up with rising costs and cover financial insecurities.
The issue is far too complex and a combination of things.
I think others and this post here from you were basically what I was trying to say, perhaps clumsily, earlier on. I was trying to make the point that no matter the economic models and whatever we live in, it won't change how women typically have more child raising responsibilities in a household. That's why I said at the very least, child care services put a price on some of that cost, and it is EXPENSIVE, as most parents would attest. I tried to also say that in many respect, the qualify of lives were worse before yet child births were higher. As you've said, even in Nordic countries famous for being more economically equal, birth rates have still been decreasing. The only thing that makes sense about this new trend is women getting better education and gaining more choices in this matter. Ultimately, I am not going to say that's a bad thing either. Just an observable trend in my opinion. Some times a girl/woman just wants to be sitting at home and play a Mario game instead of raising a kid :P
(by the way, I appreciate you writing the lengthy responses earlier to my post. I acknowledge that even though I guess I didn't make my points well so it may have caused some misunderstanding. However, I think this latest post from you and others here are closer to what I wanted to convey. I think we are more or less in agreement here.)
This is definitely true in most of the world.
It's the opposite in Finland though (which this thread is about)! Those with low education are less likely to have kids, it's quite interesting. Although those with low education that do decide to have kids will have more than their high earner counterparts.
The highly educated often have two children — childlessness and high numbers of children more commonly seen among low- and medium-educated persons - Flux Consortium
FLUX Policy brief — Knowledge to support better decision making 1/2022 Marika Jalovaara, University of Turku and INVEST Flagship Anneli...
fluxconsortium.fi
Something I've not seen mentioned is how high birth rates have been used as a means of expanding the in-group. This can still be seen in, for example, fundamentalist religious groups. Go forth and multiply, not in order to enjoy the company of your children, but in order to increase the reach and influence of the current dogma or ideology. Having children within these ideologies thus becomes a higher calling of sorts, something I'm sure makes all the hassle of child-rearing more worthwhile. With the nordic countries generally being seen as the most secular and individualistic countries on earth, I'm not surprised that many forego the economic and social burden, something that an ideological mandate could, in a way, combat.
As a father of two, myself, one of my main drivers for having children is to give them the upbringing I was denied, something which in and of itself can be seen as a "higher calling" as well. I wonder if, perhaps, most of us need a guiding light such as this in order to take the leap of faith that having children entails. A resounding and undeniable answer to the question "why"?
As a father of two, myself, one of my main drivers for having children is to give them the upbringing I was denied, something which in and of itself can be seen as a "higher calling" as well. I wonder if, perhaps, most of us need a guiding light such as this in order to take the leap of faith that having children entails. A resounding and undeniable answer to the question "why"?
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Apologies to have misunderstood you earlier and thanks for following up.
What I was trying to raise before (and forgive me if I've poorly explained it as well) is that the increase in education and agency for women/FAB is driven by the shift in economic ideology, as well as other movements such as women rights, post-war social investment et cetra. We agree that's definitely not bad things, but I wanted to highlight that social-cultural attitudes can be influenced by economic ideology, just as social-cultural attitudes can influence economics.
The common reason why people attain higher education is to compete in the job market, an economic factor. Educated Women/FAB has more financial awareness and understand what their rights are, in turn postpone having children or be child-free.
The Finnish study that Nell linked did cite economic related reasons for voluntary childlessnes among women: 'lack of support', 'precarious financial situation' or 'impact career progression'. However, social reasons are to be acknowledged as well, such as 'unfair delegation of household responsibilities', 'mental load', 'impact to body' or simply 'no desire'.
What's also overlooked is time. Biological clock is limited for women/FAB. Education and entry level work takes up most of the fertile years (age ~20s), but in the past two decades, financial insecurities is being carried over to age ~30. Millennials that are open to having children are dropping starting families altogether, as its too late or aren't financially stable.
Yeah that is the big one.
In previous generations, having a bunch of kids was an asset. They were used as labor and social security.
These days, kids are basically super expensive pets. Especially when you live in a high CoL area as most of us Westerners do.
By the time you feel "ready" to have kids (a concept that has only been around for like 50 years) you are usually in your mid 30s and have gotten used to a life without kids.
We had a kid in our mid 30s and it has been rough. To me it feels like early 20s are a much better age to have kids. Back then I was partying till 5am and still made it to work, so I assume the rough nights with a baby would have been way less disruptive. Giving birth also becomes more complicated as you age.
Just a fucked up situation all around.
No worries, appreciate the apology and glad we cleared it up! :)
One thing about the equitably in Scandinavian countries: most of those metrics are based on economic and legal measures such as income and percentage of women in government. There are a few studies on attitudes around gender roles, expectations and behaviors, but those are fairly limited. The studies I've seen still show that women are doing the majority of child rearing even if men participate more than in other countries.
A common conservative tactic is to also point out that Scandinavian countries also have some of the most gender segregated labor markets, particularly in STEM. But I've never seen any studies that actually try to measure attitudes around women in STEM or their experiences in such workplaces. It's certainly possible that a society can have higher equitably in pay and government representation, but still have cultural factors that discourage girls from going into STEM. The flip side is that of factors that discourage men from going into traditionally female jobs.
Likewise :) True, human measures or the work put in children's development (feeding, teaching to walk, talk, potty train) are severely overlooked. Adding more to what you said about STEM, women/FAB in those professions also tend to have fewer children or none, which proves the penalty placed on women pursuing/progressing in those careers. There are studies surrounding women experiences in STEM, but it's only recent. There's also the 'Gender-equality paradox'; Countries with less gender-equity tend to have more women/FAB working STEM in contrast to countries with higher gender equity.
These jobs slap a motherhood penalty on women even if they don't have kids
Gender Segregation in Sciences UK Parliament Committee Notes
A study of factors affecting women's lived experiences in STEM (Australia)
The difficulty of professional continuation among female doctors in Japan: a qualitative study of alumnae of 13 medical schools in Japan
Women in STEM Challenges and Opportunities in India
One big way we could make a dent in this problem is for all of us to work less. If we worked 4 days a week at the same pay I'd bet a decent amount of money it would have a significant impact on the birthrate.
More time for rest, socializing, running errands, appointments, hobbies, and in general time to live a life. It would be transformative for society in so many ways.
More time for rest, socializing, running errands, appointments, hobbies, and in general time to live a life. It would be transformative for society in so many ways.
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I agree with this assessment. It's not the only factor, but it is a massive one. The modern method of childrearing in a 1-2 parent nuclear family is quite at odds with how children were raised for most of humanity's existence. Anthropological studies of childrearing really emphasize the validity of the idiom, "It takes a village." One study of an extant hunter-gatherer group found that after birth, a new mother never had to solely care for a newborn for more than 15 minutes at any given time. Siblings, grandparents, extended relations, and other members of the community would step in regularly and act as surrogate parents. This parental surrogacy continues throughout the life of the child. Older children in the community actually took up a lot of the duties of childcare.
That type of communal living and extended support just does not exist anymore in western societies. And as a father of a 1.5 year old, I really wish it did, but our current societal and economic paradigms are completely at odds with community building.
You could live in a more communal setting but that also means giving up your free time to contribute to the community, building relationships, dealing with other people and all their imperfections (warts and all). Folks on Era can't even muster dealing with their boomer parents let alone strangers.
I would like to live more in line with my ideals, but I can barely deal with interacting with posters on Era, much less actual people in my community.
But more seriously, I really hope community-building efforts start to grow over the coming decades. Not to increase birthrates, but for the wellbeing of people In general. The ease with which we can all escape into our own little worlds is a net negative for individuals and society as a whole.
Then the answer is a two state solution! One with folks on Era and one without.
When you look at it this does seem grim but it brings to mind the Simpsons quote "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" . All of the recent efforts have basically been minor tweaks on existing systems which center around some nuclear family . As some posters have discussed maybe there's other options such as communal living but it is definitely hard to see how that would fit in the capitalistic system. I think it we just might have to get to the point where we're desperate enough to try completely new things. And I'm sure some countries it will be taking rights away from women. But if there is another solution (state sponsored child care that actually pays well?) then maybe it would catch on quickly.
Create policies that welcome young immigrants and offer birthright citizenship. That should help.
Edit: I read an article this morning stating that Spain needs at least 24 million immigrants to support its pension plan.
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