This is a weird way to frame women working.
> Doubling the number of job applicants didn't do anybody any favors during salary negotiation.
It seems like it might have done a few favors to the women who could even enter into those negotiations, whereas before those doors were entirely closed to them.
I framed it as bad for everyone because it essentially doubled the number of workers looking for jobs. Simple economics.
> It seems like it might have done a few favors to the women
They're certainly a lot more independent now but my point is it did not come without cost. Nowadays both husband and wife have to work to maintain a good standard of living.
For unmarried women, there is no cost, only benefits.
I'm not saying that any of this is bad in general, just that the U.S., and probably the world in aggregate, has paved its own path to a stagnant economy and an eventual declining population. And this isn't the fault of the individuals choosing this path, just that wealthy capitalists have put their own needs over incentivizing people to keep the world populated and participate in the end game of motherhood/fatherhood.
Already happening. Even in developing countries. Less productive young people in the work force, more unproductive old people depending on social security and whatnot. Everything's gonna be fine until the money runs out. Gigantic economic disaster in the making.
There is no nation without natalism.
> This doesn't bode well for the US if it means its population could soon become similar to that of Japan's
It will. As will every other country if nothing is done to heavily incentivize motherhood and family formation.
When I say this people usually downvote me to oblivion for some reason. Maybe they think I'm making this up. Well, I'm not. They should read what actual japanese government officials have been saying about this. They use the word "extinction".
Automation, increased productivity continue to rise at least as fast. Not clear we won't be fine simply because of that.
And No we do not have to chase the Malthusian Catastrophe to 'win'. We can do it other ways. Quelling consumerism. Reigning in capitalism. Sensibly designing cities.
The Japanese talk only of extinction of the pure Japan, which is on the face of it a racist policy. Not a real strong point in the argument. Japan will persist, with a normal mix of people from around the world creating a new culture that they want. Not something frozen in time that the octogenarians of Japan worship and cling onto.
> Japan will persist
> with a normal mix of people from around the world
> creating a new culture
So what you're saying is the actual japanese people will go extinct and all the immigrants who actually have children will replace them and create a new japanese culture.
And you see nothing wrong with that at all.
Nobody, not even the Japanese government expects that. They are anticipating a difficulty maintaining their culture against mixing with the world. Which has actually been going on for 70 years now, and continues at a breakneck pace.
Japanese people will come to include all sorts of people, who will happily live together and move forward. Without our permission or control, as folks all over the world do.
Are you sure?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64373950
> They are anticipating a difficulty maintaining their culture against mixing with the world.
Of course. If you don't have children, then you need immigration from countries that do. That will obviously change your culture.
A nation is made up of people of a shared origin, history, culture, ethnicity, language. If you replace the people with immigrants and they create a new culture, the nation is no more.
> Japanese people will come to include all sorts of people, who will happily live together and move forward.
That's like saying white people will come to include all sorts of people.
White people already do include all sorts of people -- whiteness is, obviously, not a single unified ethnicity, national, cultural, linguistic, or historical background but an aesthetic conception of someone's skin color. Because ethnostatism is stupid and intellectually inconsistent.
> > Japan will persist
The point is that they aren't doing well on the "persist" front. https://apnews.com/article/japan-birth-rate-record-low-popul...
Yeah, because some empire came and killed your people off and conquered your lands and enslaved your survivors and erased your culture so they could replace it their own.
Not because people wiped themselves off the map because they wouldn't have children.
No culture is "erased" as a result of this. Even if Japan fails to have children, Japanese culture and the Japanese nation will continue. It will look different, certainly. But there's nothing magical or better about the way things used to be simply because they used to be that way. Change is inevitable, and more than that, it is good.
No. Nations are a collection of people with shared ethnicity, land, culture, language, history. If the japanese people disappear, the nation will also disappear. It's not going to magically continue just because the country of Japan is still there. Can't have a nation without its people.
Japan will exist as long as people live there and call it Japan. It has nothing to do with ethnicity, land, culture, or history.
> nation
> A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language
There are nations without states. There are also nation states. The latter is more precise than country which does not imply any dominant ethnic group.
Doesn't change the fact birth rates in Japan are below replacement. Am I missing something here?
Blaming wealthy capitalists for ruining motherhood/fatherhood seems rather conspiratorial. Why do you believe men and women are not rational actors working in their own self-interest? Again, women want jobs not because capitalists forced them to participate in the workforce, but because being forced to be a dependent of the men in your life truly sucks.
And this discussion in the context of women having jobs is my problem with the framing. Forcing women to be birthing factories permanently hitched to a man for their own safety and security is a worse outcome than the cessation of economic or population growth.
Worse for whom? For women personally, probably. For nations? For the species? I don't know.
What's good for the individual does not necessarily align with what's good for the collective.
Though maybe not quite as silly as claiming that the individual desires of women don't matter but the individual desires of men do, given that there are more women than men. Certainly women's voices compromise more of the collective than men's voices, given there are more women, hmm?
No, I don't think so. It's still growing for now because there are still countries with birth rates above replacement. It is slowing down though. It's expected to peak and start its decline at the end of this century.
It's not a bad thing that women are able to become independent today with no spouse or children. In fact I agree that it's better now that women are no longer literally forced to find a man to live separate from their parents. It's just bad that capitalism made it impossible to be a mother without two incomes (as in, forcing both parental figures to have enough of an income to provide for the child). To add, this is partially what the school system is for - not just to educate the workforce of the future, but to babysit them during the day so that their parents can work their 9-5.
That is your words and is a weird way to frame women working.
> But treats it like a game all the same, and treats women like pawns in that game.
I point out that the author sees a positive of mating as how the woman is a "pawn" to do things like cook and sew for you.
My words are only to show that "despite" this being an advantage in '46, women have since entered the workforce, but the point I make is how this only really happened because the forces of capitalism demanded/allowed them to, in order to drive down everyones' wages with the increased competition.
This doesn't downplay the reasons women participated in the move towards both parties in a family working to make a livelihood. Just that capitalism saw an opportunity to thrive with the addition of women in the workforce; that benefit being either (A) they can increase total velocity within an organization without necessarily spending double the money by hiring 2x the amount of workers, or (B) can achieve the same output for less money. The benefits for the wealthy capitalists are compounded when you factor in how they were/are paying women less than men in general.
Right, this is the part with the weird framing.
Women work in order to achieve happiness, financial independence, have fun, give their life meaning -- all the reasons men do. Framing this as "capitalism forced women to work" seems entirely to ignore that women want to work just as much (or as little) as men do and for the same reasons.
Saying that the result is everyone's wages being driven down entirely ignores the fact that prior to this many women had zero ability to make any wages. So, their willing participation in the workforce is just a net benefit to them and to society as a whole.
My point is that motherhood/fatherhood shouldn't be downplayed. It's the real end game of life, and is what this book is speaking about - even after you die, your child(ren) will possibly reproduce as well, leaving you with dozens, hundreds of eventual offspring.
By allowing any women to enter the workforce, all wages got pushed down, so now instead of a married couple being able to have the mother permanently at home, rearing up their child in the way they see fit and forming a human connection for them, both parents are forced to work to make ends meet. By capitalism forcing/allowing women to work, they removed the option for a parent be a full-time caregiver for their child. Everyone must work now - if you don't, and the single earner isn't making bank, be prepared to eat off food stamps and sacrifice your convenience, health, and safety.
Humans overall will eventually cease to exist. All of us will be forgotten within a few generations, even if we have children. Motherhood/fatherhood is not the "real end game of life." You might believe so, but many others do not. Why are their points of view less valid than your own?
You continue to push the framing of this being bad for married couples. But again, it's simply better for unmarried women. Why should they be forced to suffer because we want artificially higher wages or because you have this idea that we need more babies?
It's the end game of life in the sense that your goal in life is to achieve immortality. Pretty much all of our ancestors did this by mating, and within the past 500 years you're likely to be able to find the names of all who came before you on ancestry, which is effectively immortality in name. Irvin Yalom once said, "They say you die twice. Once when you stop breathing and the second, a bit later on, when somebody mentions your name for the last time" (this quote was not from Bansky).
For those that don't, or didn't reproduce, immortality is so extremely hard to achieve. That's why I mention "increasing Google's stock price" - it doesn't matter, and nobody will remember your name for doing so. You'll leave a good life, but that's it. The only way to achieve immortality in this case is to leave a legacy. For example, Steve Jobs is slated to leave a legacy for as long as Apple is alive plus perhaps a thousand years or more. Of course, once humanity is wiped out, it won't matter all too much what anyone did or ever will do, save for all of the species of plants, animals, and insects we've extincted.
It's no secret that money, i.e. capitalism, is one of the biggest factors why millenials and soon enough Gen Z will avoid starting a family. A lot will do it for financial independence but the amount of married couples that also forego children is likely large. For all of them, they won't leave a legacy if they don't create the next Apple. If that's not important to them, I respect that and wouldn't wish to force them into anything, but many married (or prospective) couples are having their dreams crushed by how infeasible it is becoming to financially support children without both parents working a job.