It’s just a huge opportunity loss if you talk to any young woman, and they’re obviously right. There is no tangible benefit to have more than two children other than “for the humanity!”.
Which has happened in Afghanistan. The Taliban has cracked down.[1] "Our analysis shows that by 2026, the impact of leaving 1.1 million girls out of school and 100,000 women out of university correlates to an increase in early childbearing by 45 per cent."
A family of rabbits without enough quiet, food, shelter, etc will have hardly any babies. The mother will also eat any babies.
Its not easy, but its worth it. Far more so that putting long hours into your job.
> I can absolutely imagine why many women would not want to have to raise children no matter how good the circumstances
That sentiment is part of the problem. Why is it still women's work to raise children? Why are there so few stay at home days? Why do couples not sharing parenting equally if both work? Why do not not have more famimly friendly working hours?
We have currently culturally accepted that its OK for women to do traditionally male work, but not for men to take on women's work. That will not work. I think this is unstable and we will have either a reversal (of which I see some signs) or a transition to men taking on more of a role in raising children (which is the better outcome, but I think is less likely because it is so ingrained that they do not).
> Even in countries with extreme demographic problems (SK and Japan), men still expect the women to take over the main duties of parenthood.
Maybe that is why they have extreme demographic problems? People choose to have kids for personal reasons, not demographic ones.
Why can we not have that cultural change? We managed the one that allowed women to do men's work? Everyones wins. men get the joy of full participation in their kids lives, women are not landed with all the work, and children get better parenting.
I was married to a stay at home mum and did half the parenting, but that meant I was overworked and she was not doing very much. It is one reason I am not married to her any more!
My ideal would be something like both working part time and sharing parenting. I blame governments focused on maximising the workforce and GDP. A lot of parents here in the UK drop kids off at school for breakfast and pick them up after "after school" activities. Not much joy in your kids if you hardly see them/
I know a pregnant woman has been nauseous for 6 months, is on prescription medication for it, and now can barely walk due to symphysis pubic dysfunction. Completely healthy prior to becoming pregnant in terms of BMI/blood sugar/pressure/physical activity/etc
I know many who have had to get a C section, or bed rest, or the kid has issues like allergies, club foot, autism, etc.
Is very real, but significantly lower for later pregnancies, and was generally not something that put people off in more prosperous times, even when medical care was less advanced.
There is a 100% correlation with total fertility rates dropping and women’s independence.
No one does need to make that sacrifice, but don't be alarmed when other groups that made that sacrifice start changing world how they see fit.
Subreplacement level fertility is bound to bound to bite you. We don't know of any way to turn subreplacement country (fertility rate < 2.1) into a above replacement country (fertility rate >= 2.1). Just how to mitigate it (immigration). Eventually pools of high fertility will run dry.
Some think that it depends on replacing individualism with some form of collectivism. Some think it's related to hope for future. It's very hard to do any comparison.
Kind of depressing when you realize you’re designing CPUs with billions of transistors and yet you’re going to end behind some retired boomer who sold cars just because he got here first and the magic of compound interest