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.
Some folks can’t have children and don’t want to go through the adoption nightmare.
Some folks don’t have children because they’re afraid they’ll hurt them (via their own bad childhood.)
Some folks don’t have children because they have difficulty taking care of themselves, much less someone else.
Some folks don’t have children simply because they don’t want children.
The last bastion of individuality should respect this.
“I don’t think it’s possible to truly understand what love is until you’ve had children.”
Agreed. Maybe folks should read the PD James book “The Children of Men” to see what a world without any children would be like.
I thought it was very good, nobody does dystopia better than the English. Don’t know about the movie, if it was much changed or not.
Thanks. Baby Chan will be all right. He’s a big, hearty boy, and is being well cared for. (Mommy and I cannot afford health insurance for ourselves, but we make damned sure he’s covered!)
He’s in the other room laughing and playing right now. If not for the 100°F fever and croupy laugh, you’d never know he had pneumonia.
My kids about BEGGED me to teach them to read. The oldest two were reading when they turned five. Something is seriously wrong with a kid who isn’t interested in reading. Of course, something is seriously wrong with the mother....
Thanks. Baby Chan will be just fine. Good luck with the teens! Remember, if you beat them on the soles of their feet, CPS is far less likely to notice.
Thanks for your post.
Do you people (not strider) who hate screaming kids in parking lots, stores, etc. realize that not all of them are brats being raised by loser permissive liberals?
Do you know that just maybe that child has autism and simply cannot yet control his temper, and his parents do not wish to drug his brain just so you don’t fuss? That maybe they try not to take him places but every once in a while cannot afford a sitter and really need groceries? That maybe they sat in the car for 15 minutes going over what to expect with him, but he still happened to lose his temper?
Oh, and if the child is between 2 and 5 years old, a tantrum every once in a while is developmentally appropriate, especially if the child is tired or coming down with a bug (which will only show itself the following day)? As a matter of fact, a toddler who NEVER stamps her foot in public, trying to assert her little will, most likely is in some way developmentally disabled. One of our little guys was quite slow to develop at first and I was secretly pleased by his first little tantrum (which I knew how to handle).
Please remember some of these things, childless people. It’s NOT always bad parenting. The example of the first child was all from personal experience, and countless people chose to come up to me and my screaming child to tell me that he was the worst-behaved child they’d ever met. As if that would cure his neurological disorder.
Thus ends our friendship. :P
I have two cats. If the husband weren’t here, I’d probably have 4. Of course, I would also have a couple more dogs.
So are we friends or not?
*Stumbles off for a strong cup of tea....*
“But that’s just the problem—according to happiness researchers, people don’t really enjoy rearing children.”
too general a statement.
There are many different aspets to “rearing children” - some of them enjoyable, and some of them not.
My one yr. old is at a phase where he is acting like a chimpanzee on crystal meth.
He is constantly moving chairs all over so he can climb up to places he shouldn’t be, so he can make awful messes for me to clean up.
While I am removing chairs and stacking them out of reach for the day - he is removing his diaper and peeing on the carpet.
Is this fun? No - I am not “enjoying” that aspect of it.
Do I “enjoy” being his mother? Absolutely - I am crazy about the kid and I know he won’t be a chimp forever.
Besides - the hugs and kisses he gives me - and the little dance he does for me when I sing to him make up for the other stuff.
If I saved my Mom instead of my children, she’d KILL me. :p
My Grandfather (born in ‘17) remarked that he was a commodity when he was born, but his daughter was a luxury item. I always wondered what that made me?!?
“Please remember some of these things, childless people. It’s NOT always bad parenting. The example of the first child was all from personal experience, and countless people chose to come up to me and my screaming child to tell me that he was the worst-behaved child they’d ever met. As if that would cure his neurological disorder.”
yes..people naturally like to assume the worst.
And if you tell those people about your son’s autism, they will either say to you that autism doesn’t really exist - that it is being used as an excuse for bad behavior - or that you shouldn’t be subjecting other people to your son’s autism.
as for how you will manage to get groceries without breaking the law by leaving him in the hot car?
tough luck lady - figure it out! /s
I agree with your post. I don’t know why people who choose to be childless are so ridiculed here.
I also love your disclaimer! In my experience, most parents love their kids but don’t necessarily care for many other children. I think what most parents forget is that most people don’t care for their kids - whether those people are childless or have kids!
The apple of your eye isn’t everyone else’s apple.
i was not socialized to cats, my mom hated them and xshub is deathly allergic to them, so they are just nonentities in my world. xshub was not a dog person either, but i got one and now have eased him up to two. if i didn't have xshub, i would have lots more : )
I am dreading Fall.
My baby will be going to school. I’ve had one pre-schooler or another with me almost all the time for nearly fifteen years.
I will be a total wreck on the first day of school. Then I think I’ll take a three hour uninterrupted bath. :)
But if you try to discipline the child, someone calls CPS.
It’s an unwinnable situation.
think about it, freepers ridicule EVERYTHING that doesn't fit within their own personal view of the world. i agree with you, there are judgmental statements made about those who are intentionally childless, but there are also plenty who ridicule those they consider to have TOO MANY kids [eg; the it's not a uterus is a clowncar gif that riles people up], or people who aren't SCIENCE majors in college etc etc etc. Freepers are just a judgmental lot, period. i think the freeriders need to take a chillpill and not feel so singled out for ridicule.
Amen...
Why do you say they are shallow? They choose to not have children- so what?
wait til your oldest leaves for college... i just went through that this past fall. she is a 3 hour plane ride away from me. technology makes it much different than it was in our day: text msgs, IMs, email and cellphones. we talk as much as we ever did, we are just not in each other’s physical presence.
My sister and brother both “hated” cats when they were young.
My brother got a cat as soon as he moved out, because dogs weren’t allowed in his domicile. Now he’s a cat fanatic.
My sister claims she only “hated” cats to “please” my father. (I, of course, ignored my father and had a cat anyway. I’m his baby. LOL) Now she has a whole herd.
There is nothing like having a pile of purring fur on your lap on a cold night. :)
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