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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   30568 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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Any argument based on "TFR is going down, which clearly shows that X is the cause" is trivially defeated by the fact that ever country has this same outcome regardless of the cultural starting point.

The starting point may differ, but do those countries share any cultural drift? For instance, is there any country that has a lowering TFR over a span of time where women's education and liberty are reduced? I think there's a strong argument that globally, TFR is falling anywhere where women are getting more empowered. The degree and rate of empowerment might differ, of course, but as far as I can tell the root cause everywhere is women in higher education and the workforce.

My 'deep dive' into the question shows that it is multifactor, although there's some overlap/common causes behind certain factors.

Like, its almost ridiculous how many disparate pressures appear to make women less prone to producing kids (that's a slightly unfair way to put it, but it captures the problem, I think).

Chemicals they randomly encounter in the modern environment, chemicals they intentionally put in their body, social expectations shifting, economic incentives shifting, the (short term) opportunity cost of kids, the increase in immigration rates, the advent of social media, increasing concentration of people in urban areas, and yeah, the fact that women are now solely responsible for choosing their mates and there are zero restrictions left on their decision process... so they decide to not decide.

I don't think all of these factors are downstream of female liberation.

And many of these pressures are only possible thanks to technological developments of the last century. Which is also true of female liberation itself.

As I put it:

Please guys, I said right at the outset that its multifactor and I'm really uncertain about the major causes! I'm just proposing the policies I think most directly target the issue at hand. I really wish I had better things to do with my time than think about this at length and type long screeds to the internet. Better things like raising kids! That'd be really nice! BUT APPARENTLY I HAVE TO SOLVE ALL THE REST OF THIS to bring my chances up.

Chemicals they randomly encounter in the modern environment, chemicals they intentionally put in their body, social expectations shifting, economic incentives shifting, the (short term) opportunity cost of kids, the increase in immigration rates, the advent of social media, increasing concentration of people in urban areas, and yeah, the fact that women are now solely responsible for choosing their mates and there are zero restrictions left on their decision process... so they decide to not decide.

A lot of these same pressures show up in subcultures that still manage a superior TFR, though. What changes is how empowered the women in them are. Or do you see something else?

Economic incentives shift the paradigm for men, too.

Simple example, if you owned a family farm, popping out a ton of kids was helpful IF ONLY for the cheap labor that couldn't easily unionize.

But if you have a job as a doctor, lawyer, finance bro, whatever, ESPECIALLY if you're living in a small, expensive apartment in a high COL area, the prospect seems irrational up front. No need for extra hands, and definitely have to worry about feeding those extra mouths.

You may want kids, eventually, but you want sex NOW, so hey, why not shack up with as many women as possible then find 'the one' when you're economically established.

Economic incentives shift the paradigm for men, too.

Sure, sure. But I bet in environments that restrict women, wealthy and not so wealthy men have more kids, too.

Dependsssss because in some of those environments, the wealthy men just stack up as many wives as they can afford and the less wealthy guys have go out and steal their brides from abroad or something.

I believe you! Which countries are those? If there are still nations out there where the wealthy men are reproducing and the poor aren't, we could learn something from them.

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