[MinorityRepublican]

Right. My theory is nanny state/generous welfare benefits.

You pointed out women in universities and careers. Even Islamic counties in the Gulf are doing that.

Hmm.

[ek_hornbeck]

A simple way to resolve the issue:

While most advanced nations have some type of social security/welfare state, they differ in their generosity. The question is, how strongly are birthrates correlated with the size/scope of the welfare state. Japan's welfare state is far lesser than that of Scandinavian countries, but if anything Japan has a lower birth rate.

Similarly, we can look at the fraction of women who get college degrees or become part of the skilled/professional work force to see how strongly that correlates negatively with birth rate. I'm sure the data is out there somewhere and that someone has already done the regression analyses!