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Comment by sgt101 | Hacker News Reader

The differences to the current situation seem more interesting than the similarities.

Now :

- widespread easy access to contraception - low early life mortality - massive agricultural automation and machinery - pervasive educational opportunities

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You're missing the economic burden of extra children in modern urbanized settings, along with the rise of women in the workplace which further lowers fertility.

As far as I can tell, this trend is global in every modern urban setting, some are just further along.

The Muslims in my city seem to have no problem raising large families in a urban environment despite having less financial resources than the other cultural groups, so the explanation cannot be entirely economic. Culture and religion seem to play a very important part

The thing is, in our culture it's no loger cool to dedicate your life to selling doner kebabs. Pur definition of success includes high skills and specialization. That produced the society that attracts immigrants and that can't be reproduced back where they came from.

But it also puts high price tag on children.

Also family courts that punish providers in case of a divorce. Better play it safe and single.

Divorce is a relatively new thing. You used to just work on your problems and stay together for the family. Family courts are the symptom not the problem.

I think western society causes (or promotes?) a bit of hyper-individualism which makes cohabitation really difficult. We also have much easier access to alcohol, drugs, and gambling - aka “family destroyers”.

It used to be you had to stay together no matter what. It is not that people inthe past would miraculously solve marital problems - they often just had to stay despite violence, abuse or simply sever partners disregard. Except prohibition era, acess to alcohol and gambling was easy. Prohibition itself passed because alcohol situation was very bad.

And it simultaneously used to be that women were severely disadvantage in workplace making a men practical necessity - no matter what the relationship looks like. That is not people solving problems for family sake.

> It used to be you had to stay together no matter what. It is not that people inthe past would miraculously solve marital problems - they often just had to stay despite violence, abuse or simply sever partners disregard.

True story. My grandparents were separated for the final 30 years of their lives, after all their children left the house. But they never divorced.

I think also.. not dying. In the past it was common for people to have multiple marriages but with no divorce, I wonder what the stats say about median duration over time?

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