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I think the decline in fertility below 2.1 (replacement rate) can be directly linked to modern day feminism and women's rights. However, what I have noticed is that rich female friendly nations do far better in terms of birth rate than rich conservative strict gender role societies.
For example - France has a fertility rate around 1.8. 1.7 for the US. Germany 1.4.
In the east with more strict gender norms the rich societies however have far more abysmal fertility rates - Japan 1.3, South Korea 0.8, Taiwan 1.1, Singapore 1.2.
Now one may argue that the decline in fertility rate is not due to feminism and women's emancipation but rather due to improvements in wealth of society. However, a counterpoint to this is that faster modernizing societies; in terms of becoming more feminist, tend to have declining fertility rates even when not wealthy nations.
Example- Nepal - 1.8, India - 2.0-2.1.
Based on the above data I would posit that feminist societies result in fertility rates declining to below replacement rates, but once a country is wealthy it is far worse for the population to remain conservative than for it to be a feminist nation due to the fact that conservative rich nations do far worse on population growth than feminist nations.
Conclusion - modern feminism doomed/ saved human civilization to constant steady population decline and that's the best case scenario for population demographics from all the options currently available.
Thoughts?
I think any attempt to use some generic form of "traditional" or "conservative" is going to be more confusing than enlightening here. It matters quite a bit what the tradition being conserved is.
I mean the liberation of women as per modern standards is a very new event barely a century old in most nations of the world. So conservative can be safely used as a catch all term for ideologies that do not support women's liberation at the modern feminist range.
There are many things that are very very new that have at least as obvious of an effect, most obvious is widespread cheap birth control, which itself is likely not unrelated to the rise of feminism. There is greatly increased global connectivity and a comensorate reduction in local connectivity. The world is generally more peaceful to most people's experience which is in most ways a boon but could very well erode the cohesion of communities and thus family formation.
My point is that if we're trying to figure out why tons of very different cultures are having this issue it doesn't seem like a good idea to first reach for a cultural reason. It's much easier for the Japanese to be disrupted by our products than our culture.
Disagree with your final point. America's greatest export of the past century has been it's culture. Name one country without pizza or superman. ( You may argue that Pizza isn't American and I would reply exactly, their cultural propagation is so extreme we even give the Americans claim of non-American western inventions. )
Agreed with everything you said in first para. Cheap birth control makes sense, but birth control is available to every single one of these countries yet they have different fertility rates so birth control isn't the only thing. I don't know how your statement about more global connectivity explains fertility decline. More peaceful world more people can leave their homes harder to find mates in a different geographical environment makes sense. However, any of your points that work are an additional reason for fertility decline but in no way state that feminist ideology is not a part of this population decline.
Pizza and superman are products. How many of these places celebrate halloween or play American football? I do know what you mean, everyone is wearing our blue jeans as the meme goes but are they actually thinking like Americans?
Why did American feminism come about when it did? The story as I know it is most credibly that these previously mentioned technologies along with house hold labor saving technology came around and obsoleted the traditional feminine gender roles and feminism was created in search of a new role for women who suddenly found themselves with way less responsibility and it's associate meaning. It seems more likely that this same process happened in there other places rather than the memes created after the fact.
These products contain ideological content. Even a basic Pepsi ad contains ideological implications.
Arguably American cinema was progressive relative to much of the world back when it was conservative. Now? Every story is about how society is keeping a woman/teenager down and it's their job to fight for their inalienable right to be free and do things their own way against a hidebound system.
This is not just portrayed as right but normal. Can't tell you how many times I've heard in American media that teenagers are natural anarchists who need to break the rules (and what of all the teenagers that have historically thrown themselves into the threshing machine of initiation rituals to prove themselves to the tribe?)
Except a lot of places never industrialized to the degree the US did yet those ideas often still spread (tbf they're especially likely to take root in the elite classes)
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There are American football teams in Europe. Like, it's not the most popular of sports, but it's there, and from what I've understood it's growing in popularity.
Halloween parties for adults have been a thing.
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A product can be an extension of one's culture too as long as it is recognized as the creation of a specific people ( Americans in this case.) How would you define culture?
Are more places aware of what is holi or are more people aware of what is halloween?
I mean western influence has been expanding for the last century there is little doubt about that. Just see how the UN pushes for gay rights and countries do end up adopting it in numbers, similar case for weed legalization, both ideas born from the west.
That would follow only if the other societies were becoming more women friendly in workplaces on the same curve in relation to their level of development which is not the case, instead you see an acceleration of western values disconnected from technological development levels where they were initially formed in non-western countries to the extent that far more third world countries are likely to grow old before they grow rich based on current trends when compared to the fertility and GDP graphs of developed nation.
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