I appreciate the historical perspective that this post offers, but I which it offered some other possibilities for what has been driving the falling birth rate. I’m no expert, but some factors I’ve heard cited include: increasing education among women, shifts in employment among women and men, and falling fertility in men (which may be the real ticking time bomb here). Most likely, availability of birth control is a contributing factor along with all of these and more.
A poster above seems to want to see feminists undermined. But if rising education and employment among women leads to falling birth rates, the feminists he wants to undermine are not those of the present, but those of 75 or more years ago. Does anyone really want to go back to a society that so completely oppresses women?
I generally agree with your article, except to say that Canada's fertility rate is significantly lower than the countries for which you have shown data, so the problem resonates maybe more acutely here at home. I increasingly love Elon Musk, but he IS a bit of an idiot-savant, gets some things really right, and a bunch of other things really wrong. But I am happy with any legitimate reason to beat up feminists (metaphorically) and I think Elon's thinking helps to do that, especially the feminist trend towards demonizing motherhood and blaming the external world (vs taking personal responsibility) for their problems. So I say, Go Elon!
Canada has a much higher per-capita immigration rate than the US. It’s not as controversial as it is in the US, so this has a good chance of continuing.
We do have higher immigration rates, thanks to McKinsey and the Laurentian Elite bien-pensants. At best, this is a band-aid solution, and does nothing to fix the root problem of WAY sub-replacement fertility rates in Canada. Plus that immigration, while having many positives, brings its own problems, not that the Canadian MSM or said bien-pensants, will let anyone discuss it rationally, without calling them 'Ray-cists!!!!!!!!'. Personally, I think Canadian society needs to re-emphasize the importance of family life, and encourage it.
Whatever the causes, the fact that fertility rates are below replacement levels in Europe and America would seem to threaten the future of Western civilization if it continues indefinitely (unless you assume that third world immigration will somehow save the situation). The ideal would be a stable equilibrium.
Luke, it's not only the West. It's increasingly worldwide. In fact, the lowest rates are in East Asia -- notably Japan, South Korea, and China, where fertility has fallen to 1 or even lower. Sustained fertility rates at that level, especially without large-scale immigration, effectively ensure rapid and severe population decline.
True, but I'm worried about the future of Western civilization and everything that does with it: democratic governance, liberal institutions, history, literature, the Judeo-Christian tradition.
No I think there are at least three possible ideals:
1. The ideal is a stable equilibrium at the current population level.
2. The ideal is a stable equilibrium at some other population level.
3. The ideal is a cycling population raising and falling over time.
Each had pros and cons. For example option 3 offers the opportunity to explore options and increase rather than decrease the understanding as well as increasing the knowledge of how to adapt.
I don’t think the chart tells the whole story nor exempts the introduction of the pill as a cause. Just because the trend was going down between 1900 and 1950 doesn’t mean it was naturally declining. Many things happened between 1900 and 1950, have you forgotten about the 2 world wars that killed many men and jailed whole families in concentration camps? And what about the stock market crash and Great Depression?
My late aunt who was born in 1911 said men and women were discouraged to marry during the Great Depression because it was considered irresponsible to start a family during that time.
I think the chart shows the country finally getting back to normal after WWII and then something major happened, like maybe the pill.?
I don't think there's any question that the world wars, and the Depression, suppressed family formation and fertility rates. The question is whether they were the main driver of the overall trend line through that period. On that, note that after the First World War, the fertility rate bounced right back -- but only to resume the earlier trend line, which had been in place for many decades. The same is true of the Depression and the Second World War. But again, the end of the baby boom was followed by a return to a trend line dating back all the way to the 19th century, as the remarkable smoothness of the overall trend line across the entire period demonstrates. I'll leave to specialists to argue over whether/to what extent the pill contributed beyond that, but I think it's very clear that the broad outline of what happened post-1960 is the playing out of a trend dating back to the previous century.
Since this article sparked my curiosity I decided to check some more statistics and found that divorce rates are a complete inverse of the birth rate trend from 1900 to 2022. Check it out.
I enjoyed your history lesson, but it looks to me like the birth rate has levelled off to around 2 since just beyond 2000. But that's just the "western world". And that might really be Elon's worry!
Zooming back that far makes the precise current data hard to make out. You can play with the chart -- adding or subtracting countries -- here: https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate I'll also add a couple of charts to the post.
I mean, I would have think about the industrial revolution and the development of plastic, and forever chemicals, as well as all the other factors, has to make a noticeable difference in fertility rates. I gave birth to 3 live children. I lost 1 in 8th month of pregnancy and 2 before 3 months. I lost my boy to SIDS at 30 days. This has been years ago, but I know I dealt with way more health issues than my mom that had 8 children. I am offended with so many women and children in US suffering in poverty without much path up, that the power of the universe is worrying how to make more by force.
Excellent analysis. Thank you. If the critical concern is fertility rate vs. replacement, then it would be useful to plot both functions, fertility rate and replacement rate, so that differences could be noted. Or just plot the differences. I assume the replacement rate varies across time and across countries; maybe that assumption is incorrect. Also if fertility rate is births per woman, it might be misleading in respect to population replacement, at least in cross-national comparisons, because childhood mortality varies across counties. Would it be possible to get data about childhood survival (e..g, number of 15-yr-olds per woman 15 years earlier) and use these data instead of births per woman?
Like Elon Musk, in this case, Dan Gardner is likely shallow too. Read this (disclaimer: the linked piece may contain outdated information especially about fertility increases in high HDI countries): https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate . If the article’s claim that the pill is responsible for about 40% of the post-war post-1960 decline in fertility rate in US is correct, then it cannot be denied that the pill played a significant role in the decline.
First, other analysts concluded the number was as much as one-half lower than that paper. But more importantly: You'll forgive me for being "shallow" if I don't feel I am rebutted by a single analysis of a relatively brief timeframe *in one country* that concludes only a minority of the decline is the result of the cause which Elon Musk and many others identity as the sole cause -- and instead continue to put far more weight on the fact that the same broad, long, trend line can be observed in country after country after country, including (as I noted) some of those in which the chronology plainly does not support the pill being the primary driver.
Dan, forgive me for saying this again but you are shallow. Atleast steelman what Elon for all his flaws really said, "In the past we could rely upon simple limbic system rewards in order to procreate. But once you have ***birth control and abortions*** and whatnot, now you can still satisfy the limbic instinct but not procreate. We haven’t yet evolved to deal with that, cause this is all fairly recent, you know, the last fifty years or so for birth control. I’m sort of scared that if we don’t make enough people to at least sustain our numbers, perhaps increase a little bit, then civilization’s going to crumble." Come on, do I need to tell you that birth control includes more than the pill and also about the rise in abortions in Japan before reliable contraception was legalized in that nation? In the article I linked, effects of birth control on other countries such as Bangladesh are also noted. Sure, Elon Musk is shallow since he dismisses all other causes of fertility decline like you mentioned. However, you seem to dismiss any significant impact of reliable birth control and abortions (safer even when illegal compared to the ones of pre-industrial era). Recall the effects of criminalisation of abortion, contraception, etc. on Romania before people found ways to circumvent the laws.
Steelmanning does not require one simply ignore the perfectly plain meaning of the words actually spoken by the speaker. In fact, to do so is absurd. And that is what you are doing. As to what I am claiming, no, I am not saying the pill was/is irrelevant. Greater availability of birth control increases people's ability to control birth, plainly. If the pill added to that, I'd be surprised if it didn't make a difference -- but only at the margin. Because there is an enormous and long-standing trend line which smoothly continues before and after the pill's introduction, which pretty clearly undermines Musk's claim. And it is his claim -- his actual claim, not the words you are chosen to put in its place -- that I am rebutting.
And in future, one, it is only polite to identify yourself in a conversation. And two, there's no need whatsoever for insulting the other person. Tell me why you think I'm wrong and omit the ad hominem, please, oh speaker of truth.
That would be a short post: Generally, efforts to change it have failed, or had only marginal effect. That doesn't mean they're worthless, however. Boosting the rate from, say, 1.6 to 1.8 at least softens the impact down the line. So what "works"? In general, providing family supports for mothers in the workplace. France and Sweden both have relatively (if modestly) higher fertility rates in part because they provide considerable support for working mothers, which effectively lowers the cost of having children, both monetary and career.
You know you will never get to 133 million followers with this same and informed content. But thanks so much.
"Sane & Informed" is kind of Dan's thing. And it's a wide open field!
I appreciate the historical perspective that this post offers, but I which it offered some other possibilities for what has been driving the falling birth rate. I’m no expert, but some factors I’ve heard cited include: increasing education among women, shifts in employment among women and men, and falling fertility in men (which may be the real ticking time bomb here). Most likely, availability of birth control is a contributing factor along with all of these and more.
A poster above seems to want to see feminists undermined. But if rising education and employment among women leads to falling birth rates, the feminists he wants to undermine are not those of the present, but those of 75 or more years ago. Does anyone really want to go back to a society that so completely oppresses women?
I generally agree with your article, except to say that Canada's fertility rate is significantly lower than the countries for which you have shown data, so the problem resonates maybe more acutely here at home. I increasingly love Elon Musk, but he IS a bit of an idiot-savant, gets some things really right, and a bunch of other things really wrong. But I am happy with any legitimate reason to beat up feminists (metaphorically) and I think Elon's thinking helps to do that, especially the feminist trend towards demonizing motherhood and blaming the external world (vs taking personal responsibility) for their problems. So I say, Go Elon!
I agree with you, Steven.
Thanks! I normally don't expect to find much agreement with my posts on Mr. Gardner's Substack!
Canada has a much higher per-capita immigration rate than the US. It’s not as controversial as it is in the US, so this has a good chance of continuing.
We do have higher immigration rates, thanks to McKinsey and the Laurentian Elite bien-pensants. At best, this is a band-aid solution, and does nothing to fix the root problem of WAY sub-replacement fertility rates in Canada. Plus that immigration, while having many positives, brings its own problems, not that the Canadian MSM or said bien-pensants, will let anyone discuss it rationally, without calling them 'Ray-cists!!!!!!!!'. Personally, I think Canadian society needs to re-emphasize the importance of family life, and encourage it.
Whatever the causes, the fact that fertility rates are below replacement levels in Europe and America would seem to threaten the future of Western civilization if it continues indefinitely (unless you assume that third world immigration will somehow save the situation). The ideal would be a stable equilibrium.
Luke, it's not only the West. It's increasingly worldwide. In fact, the lowest rates are in East Asia -- notably Japan, South Korea, and China, where fertility has fallen to 1 or even lower. Sustained fertility rates at that level, especially without large-scale immigration, effectively ensure rapid and severe population decline.
True, but I'm worried about the future of Western civilization and everything that does with it: democratic governance, liberal institutions, history, literature, the Judeo-Christian tradition.
No I think there are at least three possible ideals:
1. The ideal is a stable equilibrium at the current population level.
2. The ideal is a stable equilibrium at some other population level.
3. The ideal is a cycling population raising and falling over time.
Each had pros and cons. For example option 3 offers the opportunity to explore options and increase rather than decrease the understanding as well as increasing the knowledge of how to adapt.
Agreed. In particular many advanced societies (starting with Japan) are going to have to learn how to manage shrinking populations in the years ahead.
I don’t think the chart tells the whole story nor exempts the introduction of the pill as a cause. Just because the trend was going down between 1900 and 1950 doesn’t mean it was naturally declining. Many things happened between 1900 and 1950, have you forgotten about the 2 world wars that killed many men and jailed whole families in concentration camps? And what about the stock market crash and Great Depression?
My late aunt who was born in 1911 said men and women were discouraged to marry during the Great Depression because it was considered irresponsible to start a family during that time.
I think the chart shows the country finally getting back to normal after WWII and then something major happened, like maybe the pill.?
I don't think there's any question that the world wars, and the Depression, suppressed family formation and fertility rates. The question is whether they were the main driver of the overall trend line through that period. On that, note that after the First World War, the fertility rate bounced right back -- but only to resume the earlier trend line, which had been in place for many decades. The same is true of the Depression and the Second World War. But again, the end of the baby boom was followed by a return to a trend line dating back all the way to the 19th century, as the remarkable smoothness of the overall trend line across the entire period demonstrates. I'll leave to specialists to argue over whether/to what extent the pill contributed beyond that, but I think it's very clear that the broad outline of what happened post-1960 is the playing out of a trend dating back to the previous century.
Since this article sparked my curiosity I decided to check some more statistics and found that divorce rates are a complete inverse of the birth rate trend from 1900 to 2022. Check it out.
I enjoyed your history lesson, but it looks to me like the birth rate has levelled off to around 2 since just beyond 2000. But that's just the "western world". And that might really be Elon's worry!
Zooming back that far makes the precise current data hard to make out. You can play with the chart -- adding or subtracting countries -- here: https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate I'll also add a couple of charts to the post.
I mean, I would have think about the industrial revolution and the development of plastic, and forever chemicals, as well as all the other factors, has to make a noticeable difference in fertility rates. I gave birth to 3 live children. I lost 1 in 8th month of pregnancy and 2 before 3 months. I lost my boy to SIDS at 30 days. This has been years ago, but I know I dealt with way more health issues than my mom that had 8 children. I am offended with so many women and children in US suffering in poverty without much path up, that the power of the universe is worrying how to make more by force.
Excellent analysis. Thank you. If the critical concern is fertility rate vs. replacement, then it would be useful to plot both functions, fertility rate and replacement rate, so that differences could be noted. Or just plot the differences. I assume the replacement rate varies across time and across countries; maybe that assumption is incorrect. Also if fertility rate is births per woman, it might be misleading in respect to population replacement, at least in cross-national comparisons, because childhood mortality varies across counties. Would it be possible to get data about childhood survival (e..g, number of 15-yr-olds per woman 15 years earlier) and use these data instead of births per woman?
Like Elon Musk, in this case, Dan Gardner is likely shallow too. Read this (disclaimer: the linked piece may contain outdated information especially about fertility increases in high HDI countries): https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate . If the article’s claim that the pill is responsible for about 40% of the post-war post-1960 decline in fertility rate in US is correct, then it cannot be denied that the pill played a significant role in the decline.
First, other analysts concluded the number was as much as one-half lower than that paper. But more importantly: You'll forgive me for being "shallow" if I don't feel I am rebutted by a single analysis of a relatively brief timeframe *in one country* that concludes only a minority of the decline is the result of the cause which Elon Musk and many others identity as the sole cause -- and instead continue to put far more weight on the fact that the same broad, long, trend line can be observed in country after country after country, including (as I noted) some of those in which the chronology plainly does not support the pill being the primary driver.
Dan, forgive me for saying this again but you are shallow. Atleast steelman what Elon for all his flaws really said, "In the past we could rely upon simple limbic system rewards in order to procreate. But once you have ***birth control and abortions*** and whatnot, now you can still satisfy the limbic instinct but not procreate. We haven’t yet evolved to deal with that, cause this is all fairly recent, you know, the last fifty years or so for birth control. I’m sort of scared that if we don’t make enough people to at least sustain our numbers, perhaps increase a little bit, then civilization’s going to crumble." Come on, do I need to tell you that birth control includes more than the pill and also about the rise in abortions in Japan before reliable contraception was legalized in that nation? In the article I linked, effects of birth control on other countries such as Bangladesh are also noted. Sure, Elon Musk is shallow since he dismisses all other causes of fertility decline like you mentioned. However, you seem to dismiss any significant impact of reliable birth control and abortions (safer even when illegal compared to the ones of pre-industrial era). Recall the effects of criminalisation of abortion, contraception, etc. on Romania before people found ways to circumvent the laws.
Steelmanning does not require one simply ignore the perfectly plain meaning of the words actually spoken by the speaker. In fact, to do so is absurd. And that is what you are doing. As to what I am claiming, no, I am not saying the pill was/is irrelevant. Greater availability of birth control increases people's ability to control birth, plainly. If the pill added to that, I'd be surprised if it didn't make a difference -- but only at the margin. Because there is an enormous and long-standing trend line which smoothly continues before and after the pill's introduction, which pretty clearly undermines Musk's claim. And it is his claim -- his actual claim, not the words you are chosen to put in its place -- that I am rebutting.
And in future, one, it is only polite to identify yourself in a conversation. And two, there's no need whatsoever for insulting the other person. Tell me why you think I'm wrong and omit the ad hominem, please, oh speaker of truth.
Could you do how to raise the fertility rate based on actual data, please. I am assuming you won’t touch what the fertility rate should be.
That would be a short post: Generally, efforts to change it have failed, or had only marginal effect. That doesn't mean they're worthless, however. Boosting the rate from, say, 1.6 to 1.8 at least softens the impact down the line. So what "works"? In general, providing family supports for mothers in the workplace. France and Sweden both have relatively (if modestly) higher fertility rates in part because they provide considerable support for working mothers, which effectively lowers the cost of having children, both monetary and career.