Sperm counts are declining. Scientists have pinpointed the main causes
euronews.com
euronews.com
It gave me the impression that there's not a consensus that sperm counts prior to 30 years ago have been declining steadily, let alone agreement on the overall causes. The Euronews article seems to be a write-up of one meta-analysis rather than an overview of the current state of knowledge.
This article just lists the major factors leading to low sperm counts that were seen by researchers who were reviewing a bunch of different studies. Smoking rates can be declining and still contribute to the problem. You can see the impact here: https://rbej.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12958-023-0...
They are more religious, but that is not the same as uneducated.
The education gap between rural and urban settings is a subject of much concern and unfortunately the tendency towards religious views has led to increased ignorance about sex as comprehensive sex ed is more likely to be rejected in rural areas replaced by "abstinence only" programs which result in higher rates of unplanned/teen pregnancy and even where comprehensive sex ed is offered, religious parents are much more likely to forbid their children from attending.
If we lived in a rural area. We would have half dozen kids. We even fantasies about it with my SO. But my SO has no interest in living in a rural area, so that is that.
the belief that university knowledge generates economic wealth stems more from superstition than empiricism. Empirical investigation shows no evidence that raising the general level of education raises a country's income level.
But we know the opposite is true, that wealth leads to the rise of education - that's not an optical illusion"
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I told him I had 7 kids. He looked at me with all sincerity and asked "You don't have a television?"
We have a TV. We believe children are a blessing from God and we'll take as many blessings as He'll give us. Many of my fellow country bumpkins believe as I do. I think religion has a big impact on the differences between rural and urban family reproduction.
One might think “well city dwellers have more money!” But a huge issue is housing. There’s a supply issue and a cost issue there that simply is a non-issue for rural populations.
Searching for some genetic reason is one thing, but “we cant make a comfortable living space for future children” is just a major point that comes up in surveys and just makes sense.
Because the reality is that if you did and you lived in an urban area, you are friends with many couples with kids, and no one is going past two, because they cant afford it without critical haircut to QoL.
And often this is families making 3x mean wages . with at least 1 parent working as an engineer or FAANG job.
I ask again. Are you a parent?
My wife is already primarily a homemaker, and even with the two kids I have to move things around for work to pitch in when there are scheduling conflicts. The problem isn’t money - it’s time and energy. For us to have more children, we’d almost have to hire domestic help.
isnt that dependent on money?
Given current expectations for raising kids, yes, it's a time+money sink. Then again, I think America over-parents on the whole, so altering expectations can also help.
The latter said "almost as if we would need domestic help" its exactly a factor of money.
Lets not kid ourselves. There is no education that is happening in the timesink that is food prep, showering, securing and hustling kids to and fro activities. Rural kids are far more independent, better prepared and more likely to eat better than their urban counterparts. The elders, in fact, help each other and the younger ones,and therefore make the large family a force multiplier in the rural areas.
Add on top of that the lack of cheap living space for a large family, and its a death sentence for the large family in an urban setting.
You cannot multiply a driver. Or a car. Or another room for a 3rd child. And if you could scale it up, it comes down to money anyway.
Time is money. A large family is just more money.
That's a big one. My formerly inexpensive region now requires 3-4 typical incomes to keep the lights on. We're so many decades past the "One Income, One Family" ideal that even the Fed can't envision a world without everyone working at least one job.
There's a second factor. Between my parents generation and my kids generation - the amount of time required for parenting has gone up ~10 fold. We're about as close to 24/7 parenting as is (even theoretically) possible.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...
The number of children goes down as income increases.
There is a biological component
Income is part of socioeconomics! That graph obviously does not agree with my explanation, but it’s an argument against a biological component.
I mentioned income because of your comment regarding “the lack of money as the main cause of declining birthrates”
If you look at Canada, its birthrate started going down when its economy was good and housing was cheap during the 1950s, which was before the sexual revolution. Theirs also started and progressed later eg abortion there wasn’t even legal until 1988.
If you look at other countries, birthrates are going down even in countries where the sexual revolution never occurred
Edit: you also can’t ignore BPA, a synthetic estrogen, that is everywhere especially in food products which use plastic containers. PFAS chems aka Teflon are also everywhere and now they’re even finding traces of gore Tex inside human bodies
The root causes are not socioeconomic
People prefer to view this as a lack of money due to increasing cost of living or stagnant wages because those are more comfortable to talk about, but an increasing standard of living raises the awkward question of whether it's even a good thing to have more (or any) kids.
Fertility rates in most developed countries go down, not up, as couples get richer. Poor couples think they'd have more kids if only they had more money, a bigger house, access to good schools, etc. but the couples who have all that stuff are actually having fewer kids than anyone else.
This isn't "children of men", this is educated workers choosing to not have kids and instead have a higher standard of living.
The root cause isn’t socioeconomic
I also genuinely like living in the city, not for the "fun" but because of the convenience. Everything I need is within a few minutes walk of my apartment.
To your point I think there’s a lot of that which is more manageable than expected, and there are a lot of spectrums to navigate there
My parents live in rural WA, and it's about a 30 min drive into town for, like, anything. Go to the gym? drive. Groceries? drive. Meet friends for coffee or beer? Drive. I was there for Christmas, and even a light snow made getting into town dicey. Meanwhile, it snows heavily where I live and outside of bitter winds necessitating a beard it never stopped me from getting anywhere.
National statistics indicate that 1 in 3 children will have CPS called on them during their childhood.
In the past, people were happy to (or did it because of social expectations or lack of contraceptives) "manage to raise kids".
Nowadays, people expect and even demand a "very comfortable life". The two aren't really compatible for most people except very high earners.
I have lived in a variety of rural areas for a number of decades and haven't seen this at all. I have 5 kids; I've seen very few families my size or larger - and nearly all of them were at church.
This study lists the likely suspects (scroll down for the table), but is not quantitative enough to show which have the highest impact.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7807371/
My guess: it's lead from gasoline- we've contaminated all top-soil with it. The effects are going to be around for a long time.
> We included 190 studies in our analysis. In the group of associated health conditions, varicocele (MD = 13.62%, CI: 9.39–17.84) and impaired glucose tolerance (MD = 13.75%, CI: 6.99–20.51) had the most significant increase in SDF. Among malignancies, testicular tumors had the highest impact, with a maximum of MD = 11.3% (CI: 7.84–14.76). Among infections, the overall effects of both Chlamydia and HPV were negligible. Of lifestyle factors, smoking had the most disruptive effect on SDF – an increase of 9.19% (CI: 4.33–14.06). Different periods of sexual abstinence did not show significant variations in SDF values. Age seemed to have a more drastic effect on SDF from age 50 onwards, with a mean difference of 12.58% (CI: 7.31–17.86). Pollution also had a detrimental effect – 9.68% (CI: 6.85–12.52).
I didn’t see stress mentioned.
Perhaps it is difficult to define/measure or lack of consensus measures across studies?
I'm not for living in the forest and obviously, technology has a lot of benefits, but maybe technology should be used in moderation, when one can clearly demonstrate it has a lot of benefits and very little costs.
[1] https://calnewport.com/approach-technology-like-the-amish/
And when they do, they are seen as zealots, or something somehow unattainable. See how many here talk about GNU, FSF, etc.
The point I'm trying to make is that technology is a bit like prisoner's dilemma. If you don't advance, you will be destroyed by those who do even though we might all be better off with less tech. As an example of this, consider CRISPR babies.
i mean, isn't that true of everyone in the US who isn't armed to the teeth?
also, i wouldn't be so sure they don't have some kind of weapons and ammo stored away.
It doesn't help that they're pacifists either
The Amish certainly set a bar that few besides Richard Stallman can match.
However, I do feel strongly that people I know are pretty deliberate about bringing each new piece of technology into their lives. This is true for folks in the industry, "tech enthusiasts" outside the industry, and relative luddites.
I think that after the tech explosion(s) of the 90s and 2000s folks are keenly aware that each new piece of tech represents a burden of some sort: recurring time and/or money costs.
This might not be the kind of deeply principled attitude displayed by the Amish (or RMS) but I do think people are pretty thoughtful and skeptical about new tech.
Ironically some of the exceptions I've seen are within the tech industry itself. Engineers who ought to know better are quick to embrace things that seem like obvious lock-in traps.
It is bad for prostate/nerve health. circulation. and by simply being incompatible with exercise.
If you're older, try a standing desk and see if peeing and other things improve. (might take a few weeks)
I'm deeply suspicious of sperm count research reporting in the media, because the reality is a whole lot of western masculinity culture (because that's what I'm familiar with) is utterly obsessed with penis-related metrics as a proxy for "worth as a human being" for men.