When the population of any given nation reaches an economic plateau unique to that nation, suddenly their birth rate drops from strong growth to maintenance levels of between 2.1 and 2.3 children per family. This is natural.
However, culture and most especially government, while they cannot raise this rate, can most certainly lower it further, by making parenting harder. This can be done in several ways.
High taxes, increasing commercial labor demands on women, demands for higher quality of life and education for children, dowry, parental debt such as student loans, high productivity demands from business, and lack of family oriented residences and recreations, as well as lack of religious or cultural acceptance of larger families.
Only in one situation was an industrialized nation that had reached its economic plateau, able to increase its birthrate beyond sustainability.
These were the almost unique circumstances of the post-WWII baby boom.
New towns and cities full of mostly childbearing age parents, with plentiful employment and prosperity, tolerably low taxes, and ample boredom. Having children was almost recreation, was expected of young couples, and was conformist, because that was what their peers were doing.
Importantly, most parents were still *trying* to have just two children, because an “only child” was seen as disadvantaged. But the growth occurred in the margins, with some parents having four or more children skewing the birthrate up significantly.
Until “women’s liberation”, most women were homemakers, with lots of time and energy to raise their own children, and help out with the raising of other children, which significantly improved parenting performance and ease of having children.
At first, the idea of a working mother made sense, especially if she worked during school hours, because she could contribute to family income, increasing family prosperity. However, government immediately interceded to raise taxes so high that to *keep* their current level of prosperity, the wife *had* to work just to pay the new taxes. Thus the family lost the labor of the wife.
Working also took so much energy that there was much less to go for making and raising children. This strongly encouraged parents to have fewer children. Then the culture demanded increasing levels of materialism, to show that parents were “good” parents, which also cause more decline in the number of children.
And the process continues unabated in the western world, and even in the far east.
Just yesterday, it was announced that the “freedom from taxes day” had become August 19th. This sort of thing kills the birthrate.
Good points...I would advice seeing the DVD “Demographic Bomb”. It covers a few of these points as well as a few others.
As a father of a single income, family of nine (wife, seven children, and myself) I would agree that our culture over all does not accept larger families...but it is neat to see the reactions of people in the stores. If we go to the larger cities we will normally get some nasty stares but in the more rural areas we will normally have some older couple that will come up and tell us how glad they are to see a large family again.
The DVD I was thinking of is “Demographic Winter”. The one I mentioned in my first response “Demographic Bomb” is the sequel to it...both are interesting viewing.