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.
BTW, you do realize that China and India both have more than 3 times the number of Americans. You better get to breeding again!
"And after 9/11, there is no longer any doubt that today America faces an existential threat to our security -- a threat as great as any we faced during the Civil War, the so-called "Good War", or the Cold War."
-Condi Rice, Oct. 1 2002
Contraception, by separating sex from its reproductive and unitive purposes, makes marital sex similar to self-abuse or homosexual liasons, hence my amused snark.
No, I don't agree that heterosexual sex, protected by contraception, is similar to "self-abuse" (oh, the horrors of masturbation!) or homosexual liaisons.
I'm a straight woman, and I definitely know the difference between masturbation, straight intercourse, and homosexual sex.
Do you really want to return to the days when kids were threatened with H3ll simply for playing with their own genitals? Do you really long for the days when grown-up people were threatened with fire and brimstone for daring to desire sex without the fear of pregnancy every time they had sex?
I'm not advocating that people never think of reproduction, and I'm not advocating the "hook-up" culture. But clearly there is more to sex (and its purposes) than just reproduction... otherwise humans wouldn't desire it.
Clearly, not every person who has had a kid every year is eager to continue having them that frequently until they expire of either reproduction (woman) or the effort to support all those mouths to feed (man).
Would you say the same thing about a couple who, using advanced medical knowledge and sophisticated medical equipment, schedule their marital relations so as to prevent conception with near certainty?
What about sexual activities between a husband and wife that do not culminate in intercourse? Would such activities be on par with homosexuality or self abuse?
With people like yourselves, I have to align myself and hope you DO have another child. We need more people in the future coming from families like yours! Of course I hope that you wouldn’t need to be away from your family long if at all! But go ahead and have #4. G-d bless!
I’m not so sure that Bailey supports limited government. But even those who do support limited government, should be worried about the decline in the birthrate and the aging of the population because of the implications that has for national security.
Reason never seemed too “libertarian” to me.
Awww. Thanks for posting those.
I had a black cat a few years back. Man, I miss that cat...
People are not having kids because by the time you have reached a point in today’s society where you are allowed to make enough money to support a family, you are almost too old to have kids.
After my first year teaching this year in a middle school, I am frankly scared to have kids.
It has been awful...kids throwing things at you, cussing at you etc. What happens? Several days ISS, but then they are back at it again.
I was going to have kids, but now my wife and I just aren’t quite sure if we want the hassle.
I have no problem with people who choose not to have children for any reason. Just like no one has to understand why I enjoy kids so much and how being a mom is and always was the most important thing to me. I would have liked to have 10 (that scared the hell out of some boyfriends, lol) but stopped at 4.
You made some excellent points in your post.
Well thanks, but by "the cat went back home," I meant that the cat WENT BACK HOME (to its owners).
She's still alive and well and cute and FAT. < |:)~
Thank you. I think I do understand why most people want to have kids. My sister is totally into motherhood and it brings immense joy into her life. The nieces and nephews are a lot of fun, and it's amazing to see them develop from babies into walking, talking little people with their own personalities.
But I know the job also comes with a lot of heartache, stress, and sacrifice. That's why I have a lot of respect for her and everyone else who makes an honest effort at raising children.
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