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I've previously posted on the Motte about the state-funded Swedish Investigative Committee For a Future with Children (Swed. Utredningen för en framtid med barn) with instructions to look into the recent decline in fertility. The Committee is now back with its third report, “The Power of the Purse: Economic standard in households with and without children”. Since the Culture War thread has been rather uncultured this week due to the very real war in Iran, I thought I’d pop in with this tiny smörgåsbord of demographic cultural war-data. As before, here's a link in case you know Swedish or want to use an AI to give you the uptake. https://framtidmedbarn.se/rapport/nr-3-planbokens-makt-ekonomisk-standard-i-hushall-med-och-utan-barn/
This one unfortunately isn’t very interesting, and the key take-aways are mostly things you absolutely already know. For example, were you aware single mothers have lower economic standards than other households, and that they also receive bigger portions of their income from various welfare-sources? Shocking, I know. And did you know that DINK-couple (Double Income, No Kids) who never become DICKs (Double Income, Couple o’ Kids) have more disposable income than other groups? Yeah, revelations such as these are what you can expect reading this and as insight porn goes it’s not very titillating. This particular report is also on its tippiest tippy-toes around the larger questions at play here, and it has little to say regarding what kind of fertility we want to increase and what economic policies would help with what. Every franchise has a dud, I guess.
Still, there was one interesting part that stuck with me on page 15 wherein the report summarizes the fertility rate of Swedish women per age group. Given current trajectories, we’ll soon see women aged 40-44 out-reproduce the 20-24 cohort! Mostly it’s the 20-24 year old women who aren’t having children, but there's a slight rise in 40-44 year old mothers. It’s a very striking figure and the Swedish is not difficult; I actually recommend you take a gander for yourself.
It’s well known that the risk of a child developing Down’s Syndrome increases with advanced maternal age, and it also increases risks for the mother. Honestly though, I secretly wonder if the greatly increased risk of chromosomal abnormalities and other pregnancy-related issues are just the tip of the iceberg. This big flashy debilitating stuff might be a canary in the coalmine for all sorts of more subtle and insidious adverse long-term effects for children born to geriatric pregnancies. We already know increased paternal age can cause a variety of subtle and bad mutation. Depending on how bad geriatric pregnancies and advancerd paternal age are, we’re in for real trouble since convincing both men and women to have children while young is going to be a hard sell.
Question for this report: is the advancing age of parents worse for children than we think, or are these fears unfounded? What kind of childrearing households, if any, should the state promote with its economic policies?
The obvious fix for an increased parental age would be for the state to pay for the harvesting and cryo-conversation of gametes of young adults and IVF a few decades later when they want to become parents. The costs for that are trivial compared to other financial incentives for having children, and it would certainly not be out of character for Sweden.
I am not surprised that most women do not elect to become mothers at age 20. Having a kid (or more than one) will substantially constrain your life (because for the first couple of years, they require monitoring 24/7, it takes ~15 years until you might leave them for a month to go backpacking in Australia without being thought a monster). Add to that fewer people are in stable relationships.
The other thing is that most couples in their 20s (and possibly in their 30s) can't really afford kids. (Of course, what people think they can afford is mostly dependent on their culture and class. I think among the middle/upper-middle class, the standard would be that each kid should have their own room, but this is largely arbitrary. Others might consider a roof over their head an optional extra for starting a family, or consider it irresponsible to put a child into the world without the funds to pay for an Ivy League education.)
This is literally breaking a leg to sell a crutch. How about we just stop with the insane anti-natal psy-ops instead?
You assume there's an insane anti-natal psy-op that someone can choose to stop. There isn't. The difference between modern and pre-modern attitudes is not the result of any great conspiracy.
I think he's talking specifically about the "you can just wait, there's IVF" messaging which leaves out mention of any of the difficulties you might face.
It doesn't create the attitude, but it does help reinforce it by implying there's an easy fix to the downsides of not having kids early.
No, I am, in fact, a conspiracy theorist.
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