This is overcomplicating things. I dont think Nigeria has a lack of labor despite the high fertility rate. The longer you live, the later you think of having kids or not at all if your clock has run out. We just live in a happy coincidence, where the rise of AI will require less labor for equal or more output, so population bust wont be a problem for prosperity, unless skynet decides to kill us.
Yes I agree part of the drop in fertility is putting off when to have kids.. but technology is rectifiying that with huge improvements in reproductive technology
Hi Russel. Why does going from 125 to 60 mln make you uncomfortable? As you said, we went from 2.5 to 8 bln effectively in one lifetime. Never seen before. Now, THATS uncomfortable, objectively. Yet, we perceive it as normal, for some reason. While it’s anything but.
I feel like genetically we are programmed to populate - and logically, its the genes that promote procreation are the most likely to succeed... so its feels wrong...
Eeeeh. You say so, and it seems inuitive, but records show it aint so. It's a well known fact that Earths population increased only very very gradually, and then hockey stick since 1850's or so. One assumes it's all about epidemics and hunger.
However, if you look into the weeds and start reading anthropologists and ethnologists, suddenly the picture becomes far less clear. In pretty much all rural societies family size regulation existed in one form or another - infanticid, abortion, migration of young males, you name it. Most extreme on pacific islands that are self contained and kept the same population for a millenium. But pretty much everywhere else as well.
Now, most obvious correlation is energy per capita vs. population. But that has pretty much flatlined. So the question whether we go back to homeostasis, through some means, is actually open.
As I understood it, and this is from "Guns, Germs and Steel" - human population grew slowly in hunter gatherer societies, as you had to wait until your baby could walk before you had another. Then farming made having multiple children more possible, and then finally increased supply of food, government payments to single mothers, and better medicine lead to an explosion in births.
Nah - rural societies multiplied fast only when it was in economic interest of parents to have more children, which are rather specific circumstances, usually connected to taxes and state policies. In many, many other cases peasants preferred to limit the number of children, through various means. Prime example I know of - Russia from ca. 1810 to 1840, when due to legislation number of males in the family bore no relation to the amount of land the family got. Then it changed, and boom - population explosion, despite no change in infant mortality whatsoever.
Family regulation ranged from brutal, see Hensel and Gretchen, to societal, like late marriage. Off the top of my head, in Adam Smiths time or thereabouts the marriage age for girls in England was around 24. Pretty ripe by the standards of that time. Infanticide was pretty universal in all cultures, so was
I am sorry, it's been a while since I was looking into this, can't riff it off just like that with sources on hand. But my point - the thesis that humans are gonna multiply naturally like rabbits until they reach the limits of the ecosystem has a lot of counterfactuals. Probably because we are humans and can actually think and plan ahead.
I agree with that - and part of my fertility thesis was that governments are looking to promote real wages - which should potential promote people to have more kids. If you cant feed them, dont breed them as they used to say
That's fair. I would very cautiously suggest, because I don't really know, that the ability to sustain children is a necessary, but not sufficient condition to lift birth rates. What seems to have worked in the past, again, from my rather limited sample, is the NECESSITY to have more children to get ahead. Either through sheer need of more employable workforce/warriors in your clan, or something else, but basically kids increasing your chances for survival, rather than just marginal material gain.
It's not a very useful metric, but at least seems to be right and true.
This stuff is free. If I thought it was particularly valuable I would put it behind the paywall. I like looking at it as it would have huge macro connotations if fertility rates did indeed start to rise again.
I dont think I have yet seen a good reason to explain the decline. It is such a complex issue. Girls and Boys dont seem to get together so easily in their teens. Girls want and need a career. Having children can be hard and many put off children and then find its to late. One person did explain the decine by the huge rise in Childlessness. He was saying childless women have risen from about 8% to 30%. If that is true would that be helped by better fertility treatments. While I do think this trend will change I think like most things today change takes a lot longer that we think. Great discussion Russell
In addition to the rising cost of living and income inequality, a key factor contributing to lower fertility rates in South Korea and China is the socioeconomic and cultural challenges faced by women, such as workplace discrimination and societal expectations. The novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo illustrates these pervasive struggles through the life of an ordinary woman navigating systemic gender inequalities.
The trouble I have with that is even places with a strong focus on gender equality - namely Scandinavia - also see falling fertility. And countries with quite conservative cultures also see higher fertility rates, so gender equality does not seem to correlate well to fertility outcomes...
It would interesting to overlay health cost to the regression.. Also if one overlay BMI of Pregnant mothers, it would help indicate if the parent is even capable of reproducing?
Israel has very pro-natal policies and high birth rates. I think other countries find it hard to convince tax payer to pay for other people to have babies...
Interesting stuff on Fertility as always. I reckon the varying past to current labour types will affect the reproduction rates or the validity of comparative pooled labour.
Big difference between the new era content producers and old age manufacturing labour.
If less pooled labour volume results in more fertility than perhaps more efficient productivity or less burdensome labour “could” also increase fertility rates.
However I feel it’s much more a materialistic society than ever Madonna imagined.
There’s the confounding factor of wealth in the regression analysis?
This is overcomplicating things. I dont think Nigeria has a lack of labor despite the high fertility rate. The longer you live, the later you think of having kids or not at all if your clock has run out. We just live in a happy coincidence, where the rise of AI will require less labor for equal or more output, so population bust wont be a problem for prosperity, unless skynet decides to kill us.
Yes I agree part of the drop in fertility is putting off when to have kids.. but technology is rectifiying that with huge improvements in reproductive technology
Hi Russel. Why does going from 125 to 60 mln make you uncomfortable? As you said, we went from 2.5 to 8 bln effectively in one lifetime. Never seen before. Now, THATS uncomfortable, objectively. Yet, we perceive it as normal, for some reason. While it’s anything but.
I feel like genetically we are programmed to populate - and logically, its the genes that promote procreation are the most likely to succeed... so its feels wrong...
Eeeeh. You say so, and it seems inuitive, but records show it aint so. It's a well known fact that Earths population increased only very very gradually, and then hockey stick since 1850's or so. One assumes it's all about epidemics and hunger.
However, if you look into the weeds and start reading anthropologists and ethnologists, suddenly the picture becomes far less clear. In pretty much all rural societies family size regulation existed in one form or another - infanticid, abortion, migration of young males, you name it. Most extreme on pacific islands that are self contained and kept the same population for a millenium. But pretty much everywhere else as well.
Now, most obvious correlation is energy per capita vs. population. But that has pretty much flatlined. So the question whether we go back to homeostasis, through some means, is actually open.
As I understood it, and this is from "Guns, Germs and Steel" - human population grew slowly in hunter gatherer societies, as you had to wait until your baby could walk before you had another. Then farming made having multiple children more possible, and then finally increased supply of food, government payments to single mothers, and better medicine lead to an explosion in births.
Nah - rural societies multiplied fast only when it was in economic interest of parents to have more children, which are rather specific circumstances, usually connected to taxes and state policies. In many, many other cases peasants preferred to limit the number of children, through various means. Prime example I know of - Russia from ca. 1810 to 1840, when due to legislation number of males in the family bore no relation to the amount of land the family got. Then it changed, and boom - population explosion, despite no change in infant mortality whatsoever.
Family regulation ranged from brutal, see Hensel and Gretchen, to societal, like late marriage. Off the top of my head, in Adam Smiths time or thereabouts the marriage age for girls in England was around 24. Pretty ripe by the standards of that time. Infanticide was pretty universal in all cultures, so was
I am sorry, it's been a while since I was looking into this, can't riff it off just like that with sources on hand. But my point - the thesis that humans are gonna multiply naturally like rabbits until they reach the limits of the ecosystem has a lot of counterfactuals. Probably because we are humans and can actually think and plan ahead.
I agree with that - and part of my fertility thesis was that governments are looking to promote real wages - which should potential promote people to have more kids. If you cant feed them, dont breed them as they used to say
That's fair. I would very cautiously suggest, because I don't really know, that the ability to sustain children is a necessary, but not sufficient condition to lift birth rates. What seems to have worked in the past, again, from my rather limited sample, is the NECESSITY to have more children to get ahead. Either through sheer need of more employable workforce/warriors in your clan, or something else, but basically kids increasing your chances for survival, rather than just marginal material gain.
It's not a very useful metric, but at least seems to be right and true.
I’d suggest you poll your paying customers whether you should continue to present this stuff or drop it.
This stuff is free. If I thought it was particularly valuable I would put it behind the paywall. I like looking at it as it would have huge macro connotations if fertility rates did indeed start to rise again.
They won't, and any regional change will not have a macro economic benefit to your success in the market.
I dont think I have yet seen a good reason to explain the decline. It is such a complex issue. Girls and Boys dont seem to get together so easily in their teens. Girls want and need a career. Having children can be hard and many put off children and then find its to late. One person did explain the decine by the huge rise in Childlessness. He was saying childless women have risen from about 8% to 30%. If that is true would that be helped by better fertility treatments. While I do think this trend will change I think like most things today change takes a lot longer that we think. Great discussion Russell
In addition to the rising cost of living and income inequality, a key factor contributing to lower fertility rates in South Korea and China is the socioeconomic and cultural challenges faced by women, such as workplace discrimination and societal expectations. The novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo illustrates these pervasive struggles through the life of an ordinary woman navigating systemic gender inequalities.
The trouble I have with that is even places with a strong focus on gender equality - namely Scandinavia - also see falling fertility. And countries with quite conservative cultures also see higher fertility rates, so gender equality does not seem to correlate well to fertility outcomes...
It would interesting to overlay health cost to the regression.. Also if one overlay BMI of Pregnant mothers, it would help indicate if the parent is even capable of reproducing?
Israel has very pro-natal policies and high birth rates. I think other countries find it hard to convince tax payer to pay for other people to have babies...
I personall believe, govts find it hard to get their heads around pregnancy
Some governments more than others!
Interesting stuff on Fertility as always. I reckon the varying past to current labour types will affect the reproduction rates or the validity of comparative pooled labour.
Big difference between the new era content producers and old age manufacturing labour.
If less pooled labour volume results in more fertility than perhaps more efficient productivity or less burdensome labour “could” also increase fertility rates.
However I feel it’s much more a materialistic society than ever Madonna imagined.