Posted on 02/27/2008 7:06:01 AM PST by Uncledave
Why are People Having Fewer Kids?
Perhaps it's because they don't like them very much.
Ronald Bailey | February 26, 2008
The "demographic winter" is coming. So warns a new documentary of the same name. What is the demographic winter? The phrase, according to the film's promotional materials, "denotes the worldwide decline in birthrates, also referred to as the 'birth dearth,' and what that portends." The first half of Demographic Winter was previewed at the conservative Heritage Foundation a couple of weeks ago. According the film, the demographic winter augurs little good, e.g., economic collapse and social deterioration. If current trends continue world population should begin a steep decline sometime around the middle of the 21st century. Why?
Because total fertility rates (TFRs) are plummeting around the world. Population stability is achieved when each woman bears an average of 2.1 kids over the course of her lifetime—one for her, one for her male partner, and a little overage to make up to childhood deaths. Today, there are sixty countries in which TFRs are below 2.1. For example, the European Union's TFR is 1.5 and no EU member state has a TFR at replacement or above. Even high population developing countries have seen steep declines in fertility. Since 1970, China's TFR fell from 5.8 to 1.6; India's from 5.8 to 2.9; Indonesia from 5.6 to 2.4; Japan's from 2.0 to 1.3; Mexico's from 6.8 to 2.4; Brazil's from 5.4 to 2.3; and South Africa's from 5.9 to 2.7. The U.S. TFR dropped from 2.55 in 1970 to around 2.1 today, largely because of the influx of higher fertility immigrants. However, the fertility of second generation Americans drops to the level of longer established Americans.
I doubt that the "demographic winter" portends economic collapse or social deterioration, but let us set that aside for this column, and instead ask why people are choosing to have fewer children? After all, voluntary childlessness seems to violate the Darwinian premise that our genes dispose us, like all other creatures, to try to reproduce.
However, demographic data are undercutting the notion that there is some kind of sociobiological nurturing imperative, economist and demographer Nicholas Eberstadt noted during the question period following the documentary. As evidence, he pointed to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, where 30 percent of women are childless and that Hong Kong's TFR has been below 1 birth per woman for at least a decade.
Demographic Winter asserts that "every aspect of modernity works against family life and in favor of singleness and small families or voluntary childlessness." And surely they are right. Modern societies offer people many other satisfactions and choices outside of the family. In particular women find that their time becomes more highly valued in occupations outside the home. There are no iron laws of demography, but one that comes pretty close is that the more educated women are, the fewer children they tend to have. Eberstadt also noted the best predictor of fertility levels is the desired family size as reported by women. And finally, the most profound event of the 20th century may have been the sexual revolution's drive toward gender equality, enabled by modern contraception. Unlike other creatures, people can have the fun of sex without the side effect of parenthood.
So, modernity essentially transforms children from capital goods that produce family income into consumption items to be enjoyed for their own sakes, more akin to sculptures, paintings, or theatre. But that's just the problem—according to happiness researchers, people don't really enjoy rearing children.
"Economists have modeled the impact of many variables on people's overall happiness and have consistently found that children have only a small impact. A small negative impact," reports Harvard psychologist and happiness researcher Daniel Gilbert. In addition, the more children a person has the less happy they are. According to Gilbert, researchers have found that people derive more satisfaction from eating, exercising, shopping, napping, or watching television than taking care of their kids. "Indeed, looking after the kids appears to be only slightly more pleasant than doing housework," asserts Gilbert in his bestselling, Stumbling on Happiness (2006).
Of course, that's not what most parents say when asked. For instance, in a 2007 Pew Research Center survey people insisted that their relationships with their little darlings are of the greatest importance to their personal happiness and fulfillment. However, the same survey also found "by a margin of nearly three-to-one, Americans say that the main purpose of marriage is the 'mutual happiness and fulfillment' of adults rather than the 'bearing and raising of children.'"
Gilbert suggests that people claim their kids are their chief source of happiness largely because it's what they are expected to say. In addition, Gilbert observes that the more people pay for an item, the more highly they tend to value it and children are expensive, even if you don't throw in piano lessons, soccer camps, orthodonture, and college tuitions. Gilbert further notes that the more children people have, the less happy they tend to be. Since that is the case, it is not surprising that people are choosing to have fewer children. And if people with fewer children are happier, then people with no children must be happiest, right? Not exactly, but the data do suggest that voluntarily childless women and men are not less happy than parents. And they sure do have more money to squander as they try to pursue what happiness they can and strive to somehow fill up their allegedly empty lives.
Disclosure: My wife and I try not to flaunt our voluntarily childless lifestyle too much.
Ronald Bailey is reason's science correspondent. His most recent book, Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution, is available from Prometheus Books.
Thanks. He’s in there babbling away at Mommy right now. We’ve been playing together tonight, and he’s wearing me out despite his pneumonia. Ach, du lieber Kind...
Of course I was the only one that noticed that she is only allergic to visible cats. All of my outlaws still talk about her deadly allergy. I can’t argue with any of them but if my wife mentions it I always suggest that she could get a Cheshire cat and then swagger off smiling smugly to sleep on the couch.
In the end...its all about cash. People need a basic standard of living. If your income is taxed, supposedly to provide for infirmity and old age, money that could be used to raise a larger family is effectively confiscated. In ages past some of that larger family assumed responsibility for the care of the ill and aged within the home. Europe got itself on the wrong side of the tax curve in the 1960’s. We’re headed there as of the 80’s. You can raise kids. Or you can create a welfare state. The brilliant socialists chose the latter..and effectively are taxing themselves into extinction.
Abbies are probably the most intelligent breed of cat, along with the Siamese, and the most even-tempered. They are patient, affectionate, and beautiful.
Unfortunately, they are frequently genetically flawed. Our first one, Haydn, died young (age 8) of digestive system failure. Our second, Sweetie, is dying right this minute, curled up in a baby blanket at the foot of our bed. Total renal failure; she hasn’t a prayer. She is perhaps eighteen years old, and has been in constant pain for maybe half that time due to various congenital defects. She has perhaps hours left.
But she is a great cat, and is going to her death with the dignity befitting the breed. Abbies are grave, dignified cats, and well-deserving of the title bestowed upon them by our family when they die: Coeur de Lion. We add the title “Lionheart” to their names because they are just that — domestic cats, each with the heart of a lion.
If you are prepared for the reality of Abby lifespans, you should consider adopting an Abyssinian (or a mix). You won’t find a gentler, more noble cat.
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
L O L preach it.
Translation: our marital sexual habits are hardly distinguishable from those of homosexuals and self-abusive teens.
For the worst Libertarians, children constitute an existential threat.
I keep bumping into references to the effect that they're "Not a lap cat... but a cat that likes to be with people, a cat that wants to know what you are doing - that wants to help. There is probably no breed anywhere more loyal than the Aby."
That's brilliant, I'll be adding that to my "quotes" file if you don't mind. You forgot the illegals, though.
Good rant, you should write more.
Regards
RepoGirl (who's Repodaughter DID just sing the entire alphabet this week!)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1590865/posts
We didn't come up with the name, we just appropriated it for our own use. Want to be on the ping list? We're a pretty irreverent and fun bunch.
Nice!
Remember I told you once that you were fine, I’d had your share of kids??
Although yesterday I could have cheerfully have sent you a son. grrrrrr
13 yo had a meltdown. I melted him down. ha!
Same thing happened to the Greeks and Romans.
Nothing modern about it.
I have four sons left and I would do it all over again in a second. But then I did a good job. Hands on, you might say. hahaha
Sustaining our Nation and culture.
You should review some of my other posts in this thread.
>>JMHO, I don’t think it’s possible to truly understand what love is until you’ve had children. I think this is especially true of understanding God’s love for us.<<
An ailing spouse that you have to do everything for works just about as well.
I just finished bagging and freezing her corpse. I'll call the pet cremators today and have them burn her poor old body. Her ashes will rest in their container on the shelf along the Wall Of Honor along with our other cats.
I believe in cat heaven, by the way.
Please consider adopting a stray or other abandoned cat. National Abyssinian Cat Rescue (NAR) can be of assistance in this regard. If you cannot find an Abby to rescue, please consider a generous donation to NAR.
Don’t confuse what I’m saying. I just don’t like people who REVEL in the fact they don’t have kids, and look down their noses at those who do. My wife and I have several fiends that are having trouble getting pregnant. It is very painful for them and many others. I never make light of that situation.
I just don’t like folks who say they hate kids, love their life of freedom, blah, blah, blah. It’s sounds like you are not like that at all, but have just haven’t met the right person or other legitimate circumstances have gotten in the way, etc. I mean you no ill-will.
It’s a particular breed of yuppie childless a-holes that I detest.
I know what you’re trying to say here.
In our society, there are plenty of people who, for various reasons, choose to remain barren. This is, of course, their right. However, people who actively hate children are, in my opinion, suffering from emotional disorders that need to be addressed. It is contrary to human nature to hate children, even if one feels no need or desire to become a parent.
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