However, poor and uneducated does not mean genetically dumb. People with really low IQ's are far less likely to have kids. Comparing people with sub 60 IQ's with over 140 IQ's the smarter people have more kids.
The fact that lots of people currently believe exactly this theory about societal decline due to the lower classes breeding too much just underlines this.
* Money/class * Laws and social status * Time-to-adulthood for your culture
Educated, middle-class people in Western countries have stopped having kids en masse largely because the first and last factors on that last have risen, massively. It now takes large amounts of time and money for educated, middle-class parents to raise a child to their own level (ie: an educated, middle-class adult), and the process has extremely many points of potential failure. It's often not even likely enough to succeed; for instance, if you live somewhere with bad schools or need your entire 20s to establish your own career before you can afford to feed a child.
> Takes a bunch of effort.
100% with you on that one.