The Obvious-Once-You-Think-About-It Reason Why Education Cuts Fertility
betonit.ai
betonit.ai
The tradeoffs presented to me don't appear appealing. "Who will take care of you when you're old?" Well, myself, presumably. That isn't a very strong argument, especially when considering the massive sacrifice and loss of freedom that comes with procreation. I know everyone says it is worth it, but I find little appealing to it. What's more, is society sees this as some sort of fundamental character flaw or moral failing rather than a rational decision based on my values.
Even beyond that, on a philosophical/ethical level, I believe bringing children into a world of such uncertainty and possible collapse is not really that appealing either, whether or not that is realistic. The anxiety I'd feel about such conditions the world is currently in would be orders of magnitude higher if I had children.
I'm sure nearly every person who ended up needed their kids to take care of them probably felt the same way right up until they needed help.
Regardless, "future help" is definitely a terrible reason to have kids. As you noted, it's a complete change in life, lifestyle, and priorities. One needs to be ready for this (or as ready as one can be, anyway) before taking it on, and be willing to commit 100% to a journey that will be unpredictable and that has no guarantees of success or happiness.
As a parent that was previously in a "no way am I having kids" state, yet wouldn't trade in being a parent for anything else in the world, I have 100% respect for those who do and those who don't want to have kids.
Here I'm overgeneralizing from the N=1 case of myself. But I had always been young-and-healthy, and even at middle-aged-and-healthy, I have a hard time visualizing the impending disabilities.
I've also got the bias of being comfortably middle-class. I will be able to afford the help I need for basic disabilities. It's easy to imagine that by the time I run out of money for that, I'll also have run out of interest in limping (literally) along.
There is a very strong chance that I will have a change of mind once actually faced with them, but it's really hard for me to have an emotional understanding of that now. So I need to point out that there is a very dark aspect hanging over that belief that you will take care of yourself in your age, just to take that out and consider it, even though I can't resolve it.
What a curious response. I have been hearing that argument for over 50 years, and, arguably, it has been used across the world since the first world war over 100 years ago, and (especially) since the first atomic bomb was dropped.
And yet it is essentially a feeble and frail argument based upon fear of the unknown.
Interesting to hear a techie say it.
The good news is carbon emissions have already decoupled from economic growth, solar and wind are growing exponentially, transportation is being electrified etc. At the same time, technological progress is only accelerating with AI, so our capabilities as a species will be quite amazing in the coming 50-100 years. We can and will fix this.
As for why have kids, beyond the fact that our civilization would collapse without them (unless we solve aging), it’s because they are truly wonderful. Parents may complain about the hard parts but rarely mention the great parts, as no one really wants to hear about them. It doesn’t feel natural to tell my childless friends how rewarding it is, especially since it can come across as judgmental.
This has led to a situation where those without children don’t quite believe parents when they say they don’t regret having kids, assuming it must be some kind of coping mechanism. But we, as parents, are the only ones who have experienced both childless lives and lives with children, and we tend to prefer the latter (though, of course, there are exceptions).
Do you ever feel existential dread? Do you ever wonder what life is for, or find it all feels pointless? Do you ever feel simply bored? I felt these things regularly in my twenties. While I wasn’t depressed, I could push through these feelings most of the time, though they worsened as I got older.
Since having kids, I haven’t felt that way once. The benefits of a childfree life, like extensive travel, while great fun in moderation is not something you build your life around. The life I had before feels hollow and shallow. Either way, I'll get to experience this life once more when they move out, and will deal with it then, but then with the fulfillment of knowing you have a family that you raised.
What you're saying is, there is no morally defensible reason to have kids, and the human species should just seize to exist for this reason
The point seems to be that it’s extremely risky. Your decision to have kids outweighs, in the long run, most any other moral decision you make.
> I believe bringing children into a world of such uncertainty and possible collapse is not really that appealing either
Has education made you more anxious than a person of the past? Your family line exists because for millions of years animals and then humans reproduced not knowing if they'd be able to find their next meal for the next week in a field, whilst you're worrying about far off what if's.
Age probably comes into this as well - a 35 year old is in general more risk averse than a 20 year old.
I think that if you're honest with yourself - you just don't want kids, and everything else you've written is an attempt to rationalise that rather than simply standing firm in your choice. There's nothing wrong with that, but it comes across as being a bit holier-than-thou, as if you're asking for people to debate with you, but there is no debate to be had.
Attempting to rationalize to who? Respectfully, I care very little what you or anyone else feels about my decision whether or not to reproduce. I made this decision 15 years ago. I was adding my perspective to this article's. And:
> There's nothing wrong with that, but it comes across as being a bit holier-than-thou, as if you're asking for people to debate with you, but there is no debate to be had.
Comments like this are almost certainly projection. There is nothing "holier than thou" about my comment that you aren't injecting into it based on your own biases. I'd challenge you personally to consider that your response to my post, perhaps, is a rationalization of your own decision to have kids.
This type of response is an insanely common refrain from people with kids, almost like it's offensive to state your decision not to have them - and is a perfect example of the kind of stigma my post briefly mentions.
I will state definitively that I do not see myself better or worse than people who have kids. Re-reading my post as critically as possible, I don't really see where this could be coming from, either. It's a decision based on my own rationality and evaluation of my values/fears/dreams/etc. Just like presumably, someone with kids may or may not have calculated as well. Both are reasonable.
The argument of the article is that there is pressure to finish your education before you have kids. The longer your education lasts, the later you wait to have kids. That's all right for males, but female fertility runs out sooner. So particularly, the more education females get, the later they wait to have kids, and so the fewer kids they have. The claim is, this mechanism is enough to explain why education cuts fertility.
Would anyone care to discuss that?
Let's say that the average woman wants to have children every 3 years. This is probably a gross oversimplification, but it feels about right; most people I know who have multiple kids or siblings have a 2-4 year age gap. In the days of yore (for some definition of "yore") women would typically have children from the age of 19-20 until 40-ish. That gives you about 20 years to have kids, resulting in families with ~7 children. Again, this feels about right; go back a few generations in my family tree and you see families of 6-8 kids.
If spending time at school is the dominant mechanism then women would typically have 5-6 fewer years in which to conceive, and you'd expect families to have ~2 fewer children, making the average ~5. But it's, what, 2.3 children and dropping?
A quick google search for fertility rate showed that the last significant peak in the US was in 1957 (after a slump around the world wars and great depression). A second quick google search for "what happened with women in the 60s" immediately starts discussing the women's liberation movement, with increased rates of women employment and education. A third google search for "when did birth control come out" gave the year 1960 for the use of Enovid as a birth control mechanism, but an actual release date of 1957 for cramps.
If I was going to point fingers at an "obvious" reason for a decline in fertility, it would be that women finally had the choice as to whether or not they would have kids, and they had the means to effect that choice.
You'll also want to put your education to use immediately. You want to take advantage of the pipelines for fresh graduates, and to be perceived as a youth when competing for entry-level jobs. It's hard enough to get that first job when you're fresh out. It could be even harder when you've spent the ages of 22-30 getting your kids born and ready to spend their days in school, so you're trying to score your first job in your late 20s or early 30s.
It may be that the education mechanism by itself suffices to explain it, even without that factor.
I wish it were possible to factor out that youth bias. We present women with such a terrible choice: their prime years for preparing for work are the same as their prime years for starting their family.