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Comment by wiremine | Hacker News Reader

These two paragraphs highlight the findings the the hypothesis explaining the 50%+ change:

"During the 2000s, highly educated women had higher fertility rates than women with intermediate levels of education. Importantly, this is a result of a substantial increase in fertility among women with advanced degrees who increased their fertility by 0.7 children, or by more than 50%"

"What can explain the rise of fertility among highly educated women during the period that saw the largest increase in the labour supply of highly educated women? We argue that the growing income inequality over the past three decades created both a group of women who can afford to buy services that help them raise their children and run their homes, and a group who is willing to supply these services cheaply."

They don't mention anything about birth control, which I found interesting.

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Another thing that happened during this time frame is that certain professions, specifically teachers and nurses, began to require more and more education. I would also speculate, without offering any proof, that women in these professions were more likely to have children than other women of similar education. Therefore the increase.

ok, no proof, but how about a rationale at least? what makes you think that?

Possibly bullshit rationale for teachers:

Teaching unions have generally negotiated better-than-average natal leave policies and decent health insurance. With a small amount of planning and foresight, it would be possible to get pregnant such that the baby is born in the spring, and the post-natal leave extends to the summer break, effectively extending the leave period by an additional 2-3 months.

Teaching tends to not have a lot of cut-throat career advancement, compared to some other professions. Mostly, you get salary increases based on seniority and years of service, or one-off boosts, like completing a master's program.

Being a female-dominated profession, where the bulk of the other employees have been, are, or are planning on being mothers, there's likely more understanding and acceptance of child-related absences. Also comparatively generous sick-time policies.

Completely unsubstantiated, but people that choose to spend the bulk of their working hours with children might be more favorably disposed to them in general than people who choose other occupations.

Birth control is the mechanism that provides the choice. The rationale has to come from somewhere else.

Or medical treatments for fertility enhancement, which allow women to have children until a much older age.

Long term we get a servant-class of women whose genes are going to be displaced by those of high earning women. What's at issue is selection of earning capacity over time. Does it make for a better civilization? Or do we head towards a new GATTACA-style dystopia?

This has always been the case, with the difference that, in the past, servant families were seriously at risk of being wiped out, no matter how many children they had: their offspring was the first to be enrolled when cannon fodder was required, the first to suffer from famine, pestilence and low-sanitation standards, the first to suffer from or take part in violent crime, etc etc etc.

We're just running fast towards our past.

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