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I agree with this for those who actually dont want to have children, however as far as a childless world goes - the main reason for this is because people are not getting into relationships or having sex in the first place. So any policy that tackles childlessness needs to tackle why people arent pairing up to begin with. Perhaps thats an aside, but still something worth pointing out.
You're right, reduced rates of relationship formation are a major contributing factor. Which implies there's a face-saving element to it: "I'm not having children because of climate change" sounds a lot better than "I'm not having children because I can't find Mr./Mrs. Right".
Meh, kind of. But its not like not being able to find someone is all that bad either. Single and non married are a significant and rising portion of the population. At this point, its fairly normal, even if it doesn't give the same social brownie points.
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Seconded for the relationship formation argument. Its the only true constant variable cross society, even factoring in economic incentives for and against having kids. Italy, Spain, Greece never had a population control policy and thier birth rates plummeted. France maintained relatively (for western white society) ok birth rates, as did Nordics for awhile. Thailand has abysmal birth rates while Vietnam putters along decently.
Economic incentives, social mores about cohabitation, overstudying culture... they all form the ceiling and floor of a fairly generous action space people can act within to socialize pairbond and eventually have kids. The real problem is that many modern societies treat dating as a clear cleave between two phases, working vs schooling, and once you're working your schooling dating experience if any counts for nothing. People reset their preferences on the moment for what they want, which while valid for any number of reasons often boils down to "I changed my mind for reasons I don't care to understand or reflect on" which ISN'T valid. Discover why you changed or you'll never understand why you keep failing!
I will concede that smartphones really changed the game for information accessibility and preference shaping. That is directly shaping not antinatalism - those assholes are unhappy regardless of whether they have kids, just like all the childless celebs who openly launder their mental illnesses that stop them from "wanting" kids in the first place - but socmed IS shaping partner expectations. Men don't actually want to date a gamer egirl thot, women don't want a sensitive artsy softboi. Both are lessons only learnt after dating a bit and realizing ones own preferences and adapting to real life.
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What if people are not getting into relationships and having sex, because they want less children?
Why avoid relationships for this? You can just get the tubes tied or snipped in that case.
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Because children are less of an inevitable consequence of sex due to contraception the most attractive can play the field for longer and more efficiently, screwing incentives across the whole stack
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did we miss the entire sexual revolution? pills condoms homosexuality implants all let you fuck childfree. no, people aren't having sex because people think sex is either so sacred it must be had with the perfect partner that doesn't exist and if its not sacred its just inefficient masturbation so just jerkoff to ai waifu at home and avoid the mess of other people.
I think they fail to find the perfect partner because the come to marriage at an age when romantic pairbonding parts of the brain are less sensitive. They come to marriage late because they only want one or two kids. Teenage girls always seem to be madly in love with their boyfriends, and the romance just isn't there by the age of 27 in the same way. I think that's physical.
Possibly it's because those women get jaded by past experiences and/or exposed to more and more anti-male propaganda. But on the other hand, it seems to be the case that teenagers feel the effects of hormones more strongly. So yeah, likely there is a physical component as well.
Not just hormones. I think there's a critical period or something for marriage and modern people miss it and don't realize it. It's probably between about 14 and 22, give or take. For women. Men are probably a little later, like 17 and 25.
That’s also my suspicion. If we’re talking about the college-educated demographic, if one does not have a long-term partner at graduation, the chances of future marriage and parenthood are probably dropping drastically. I’m guessing there is research bearing this out.
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Women marrying before 22 was never the default in cisHajnal societies (and transHajnal societies where women married younger didn't really do love marriage) so 22 as the upper end of the optimal range for female love marriage is too high.
My own marriage is a point in favour of the "dating jadedness, not chronological age" thesis - my now-wife and I did the whole teen romance thang with all the cringe you would expect in our mid-20s, having both only been meaningfully on the dating market for 1-2 years (in my case, late acquisition of required social skills due to likely autism).
This is just about every Motte poster, methinks.
Hey, some of us are in the “never” category!
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Having gotten married in my 20s, fresh out of college myself, I think it provided an opportunity for us to grow together as we started careers, before we were individually as rigidly bound to careers, friend groups, and other obligations. It was a very flexible time in our lives.
I don't regret it, but I can see that friends that are still looking in their 30s and 40s are hauling more baggage that has to fit in the wagon when they get hitched. Not even bad baggage, necessarily: sometimes it's that you both would have friend groups you've made and standing plans five nights a week.
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Well, it was for the people who lived in the Hajnal area before about 1500 AD. Hajnal societies only emerged in the early modern period. They're historically abnormal and are going extinct, so maybe not a great exemplar to use.
Not true.
Maybe the range is a bit larger then but I doubt it extends past 30. It probably depends on the person.
They're also the only societies that produced modernity, and empirically the societies that go extinct slowest under conditions of modernity (except Modern Orthodox Jews). A RETVRN to goatfucker patriarchy is impossible, because even a suburban McMansion doesn't have a big enough lawn to graze the goats.
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