I think about the conditions that most seem to work toward producing children and I have three that seem to be in common: optimism about the future, cheap to live, and at least one parent that can be an at home caregiver. Religion tends to solve for the first one — if you believe, then God runs the universe and things will ultimately work out, and God will provide for your needs. It also, in traditional forms tends to prioritize the creation of the third by promoting women acting as caregivers. The second seems to be an economic problem— make it cheap enough that a family can have and maintain multiple children on a single income. In the country land is generally cheaper and thus getting enough space for a large family is less of a problem, and if good jobs are available that allow a single earner to provide so that the other can stay home and raise the kids, this seems ideal.
This list is fairly good, but it's missing something important: men and women getting married in the first place. Maybe you bundled this into your third point but I'd say it deserves explicit mention. The marriage rate has been collapsing due to a variety of factors, and this poses a huge issue to solving the problem. We could have the most optimistic future, cheap living standards, and people who are so rich that they could afford to stay at home, but none of that matters if men and women hate each other and refuse to form long term commitments with each other. I guess some women could become single moms by going to sperm banks, but that hardly seems like a society-wide solution.
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Notes -
I think about the conditions that most seem to work toward producing children and I have three that seem to be in common: optimism about the future, cheap to live, and at least one parent that can be an at home caregiver. Religion tends to solve for the first one — if you believe, then God runs the universe and things will ultimately work out, and God will provide for your needs. It also, in traditional forms tends to prioritize the creation of the third by promoting women acting as caregivers. The second seems to be an economic problem— make it cheap enough that a family can have and maintain multiple children on a single income. In the country land is generally cheaper and thus getting enough space for a large family is less of a problem, and if good jobs are available that allow a single earner to provide so that the other can stay home and raise the kids, this seems ideal.
This list is fairly good, but it's missing something important: men and women getting married in the first place. Maybe you bundled this into your third point but I'd say it deserves explicit mention. The marriage rate has been collapsing due to a variety of factors, and this poses a huge issue to solving the problem. We could have the most optimistic future, cheap living standards, and people who are so rich that they could afford to stay at home, but none of that matters if men and women hate each other and refuse to form long term commitments with each other. I guess some women could become single moms by going to sperm banks, but that hardly seems like a society-wide solution.
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