The first is that fertility decline is caused mostly by birth control. The problem is, it began long before birth control became widespread. A century ago, most developed nations had TFR somewhere between 2 and 2.5.
The second is that high fertility memes are durable. But usually exactly the opposite happens, “cultural change causes lower fertility” is the same as “high fertility memes lose”. That happens with religious groups the same way—Mormons used to have much higher fertility, and now they don’t.
As for adapting for deceases—that is a survivor bias. For example, several dozen amphibian species are believed to be wiped out by fungal infection in last decades. It is rather unlikely that humanity will go extinct that way, if anything there are some isolated tribes. But industrial civilization can collapse due to low population long before natural selection would cause fertility to rise again. With TFR 1.2 (like in Italy now) population would drop below 100 million in about three centuries.
It’s a dubious assumption that fertility decline is caused mostly by birth control. Fertility declined long before birth control became widespread.
That’s simply not true. If you read Wikipedia and its external sources, you would learn that birth control was actually increasingly common in the developed world during the 1800s. So, it’s logically sound to conclude that increased birth control was the real reason why fertility rates declined across the developed world during the 1800s and early 1900s. Birth control practices were also generally adopted earlier in Europe than in the United States.
Also, if you ask any parent who has a child, they will testify that their birth rate was low when they were using birth control, and that their birth rate increased when they stopped using birth control. It really is that simple.
As soon as we forget that birth control was what enabled women to pursue higher education and career advancement in the first place by liberating them from childcare, it’s very easy to over-complicate all this and come up with beliefs that don’t accurately explain why fertility rates decreased over the past 200 years. Any population that deliberately avoids birth control is guaranteed to have an extremely high fertility rate in the modern world.
So yes, birth control was the true reason why fertility rates declined in the developed world in the last 200 years. Birth control was invented for a reason: to avoid overpopulation.
Well, the more precise phrase would be “fertility decline was not caused by the invention of new birth control technologies”. It is totally possible for a society to have below replacement fertility using only birth control methods available since pre-industrial era.
That’s not true either. It may not be feasible to achieve below replacement fertility using only pre-industrial birth control technology. It would definitely be difficult to achieve that and produce sufficient birth control for hundreds of millions of people without industrial technology.
Regardless, new birth control innovations still increased both the availability and effectiveness of birth control, which still contributed to lowering birth rates. All birth control methods have pros and cons, and when people have more options to choose from, it becomes easier to pick one that works the best for their needs and desires. It also makes it easier to use multiple birth control methods at the same time, since it’s possible for one method or another to fail.
New birth control technologies in 1900s also contributed to lowering birth rates. IUDs were developed during the early and mid 1900s. Wikipedia also states that “Vasectomy as a method of voluntary birth control began during the Second World War”. Emergency contraception was first developed in the 1970s. Roe vs Wade was also passed by the US Supreme Court in 1973, which legalized abortion nationwide across the US and gave people yet another viable method of birth control. I know people who have had vasectomies, IUDs, emergency contraception, and abortions, and I can guarantee that they would all have higher birth rates if these birth control methods weren’t available to them. It simply doesn’t make sense to insist that increasing the availability and effectiveness of birth control methods did not help reduce fertility rates.
The first is that fertility decline is caused mostly by birth control.
If birth control hasn’t been enabling fertility rates to decline, then what has? Birth control has existed ever since the Ancient Egyptians. However, the increasing availability of the birth control pill, other contraception methods, and the legalization of abortion during the 60s and 70s (in the US) are notable for contributing to the declining fertility rates in the US.
The essay also argues that reductions in wealth cause declines in fertility rates. In the last century, we can observe this during the Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Covid-19 lockdowns.
The second is that high fertility memes are durable. But usually exactly the opposite happens.
No, the opposite doesn’t usually happen. For all of human history, higher fertility memes have tended to outlast lower fertility memes. Some maladaptive memes do persist, but that’s mainly because it takes a long time for them to die out. By way of analogy, smallpox maintained a TFR of 30% after millennia of infecting humans.
Now of course, the last 200 years are exceptional, since many lower fertility memes have overpowered higher fertility memes. But exceptions to the rule don’t disprove the rule, especially when the timescale has been too short since the Industrial Revolution to see how everything will eventually play out. We are living in the most exceptional times ever in all of human history.
“cultural change causes lower fertility” is the same as “high fertility memes lose”
Mormons used to have much higher fertility, and now they don’t.
Yes, that’s mainly because more Mormons are using birth control. And yes, some higher fertility memes are losing their ground to lower fertility memes, but there’s also many high fertility memes and memeplexes that still have very high fertility rates, such as the fundamentalist Muslims, the Amish, and Ultra-Orthodox Jews.
But industrial civilization can collapse due to low population long before natural selection would cause fertility to rise again.
If birth control hasn’t been enabling fertility rates to decline, then what has?
Rising women status contributed more than everything else combined.
However, the increasing availability of the birth control pill, other contraception methods, and the legalization of abortion during the 60s and 70s (in the US) are notable >for contributing to the declining fertility rates in the US.
That was a continuation of trend which started more than a century before that, after temporary baby boom reversal ended.
No, the opposite doesn’t usually happen. For all of human history, higher fertility memes have tended to outlast lower fertility memes. Now of course, the last 200 years are exceptional, since many lower fertility memes have overpowered higher fertility memes.
The reason that happened is that communication became much easier. So it is reasonable to expect that low fertility memes will generally win for as long as the world remains interconnected.
there’s also many high fertility memes and memeplexes that still have very high fertility rates, such as the fundamentalist Muslims, the Amish, and Ultra-Orthodox Jews.
There were many more highly religious (and fertile) communities in the past. So the default is to expect that they will follow the same path like say Quebec.
I’ve written a list of things that could be done to boost Western fertility rates.
This list looks rather US-centric. Many countries, for example in eastern Europe don’t have these specific problems but have low fertility anyway. So most likely this would not help much.
Rising women status contributed more than everything else combined.
As the essay explained, increased birth control was necessary for that to occur. Women cannot pursue higher education or careers if they primarily work as homemakers who raise children. Birth control was necessary to liberate women from childcare if they so choose, so birth control was still the main factor that caused fertility rates to decline over the last 200 years.
That was a continuation of trend which started more than a century before that, after temporary baby boom reversal ended.
The reason that happened is that communication became much easier.
Not quite. It would be more accurate to say that lower fertility memes have temporarily become more popular because humans in the developed world are not adapted to resisting them.
So it is reasonable to expect that low fertility memes will generally win for as long as the world remains interconnected.
No, that’s not reasonable. Low fertility memes have failed to overpower the remaining high-fertility memes and memeplexes that I already mentioned (e.g. the Amish, fundamentalist Muslims, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, etc), and there’s no evidence or reasoning to suggest that they will.
We need to think about this more dynamically. The future is not predicted by the average behavior of people today. The future is predicted by who is reproducing today. That is the fundamental principle of evolution. What is normal today will be extinct in the future if it doesn’t reproduce.
There were many more highly religious (and fertile) communities in the past. So the default is to expect that they will follow the same path like say Quebec.
It doesn’t make sense to predict that. The remaining highly religious and fertile demographics have failed to decrease their fertility rates. They practice different memes and they probably have different genes. So, what happened for Christians and Hindus isn’t necessarily going to happen for Haredi Jews, Amish, or fundamentalist Muslims.
This list looks rather US-centric. Many countries, for example in eastern Europe don’t have these specific problems but have low fertility anyway.
I strongly disagree. Most of the suggestions in the list are applicable to nearly all Western countries, including Eastern Europe.
Anyway, I don’t think it’s going to be productive to continue this discussion because I feel like I’m repeating myself. I’m going to stop responding, but if you have a question or an objection, it’s probably already addressed somewhere in the Population Dynamics FAQs.
There are several dubious assumptions there.
The first is that fertility decline is caused mostly by birth control. The problem is, it began long before birth control became widespread. A century ago, most developed nations had TFR somewhere between 2 and 2.5.
The second is that high fertility memes are durable. But usually exactly the opposite happens, “cultural change causes lower fertility” is the same as “high fertility memes lose”. That happens with religious groups the same way—Mormons used to have much higher fertility, and now they don’t.
As for adapting for deceases—that is a survivor bias. For example, several dozen amphibian species are believed to be wiped out by fungal infection in last decades. It is rather unlikely that humanity will go extinct that way, if anything there are some isolated tribes. But industrial civilization can collapse due to low population long before natural selection would cause fertility to rise again. With TFR 1.2 (like in Italy now) population would drop below 100 million in about three centuries.
Actually, I have a few last points to say.
That’s simply not true. If you read Wikipedia and its external sources, you would learn that birth control was actually increasingly common in the developed world during the 1800s. So, it’s logically sound to conclude that increased birth control was the real reason why fertility rates declined across the developed world during the 1800s and early 1900s. Birth control practices were also generally adopted earlier in Europe than in the United States.
Also, if you ask any parent who has a child, they will testify that their birth rate was low when they were using birth control, and that their birth rate increased when they stopped using birth control. It really is that simple.
As soon as we forget that birth control was what enabled women to pursue higher education and career advancement in the first place by liberating them from childcare, it’s very easy to over-complicate all this and come up with beliefs that don’t accurately explain why fertility rates decreased over the past 200 years. Any population that deliberately avoids birth control is guaranteed to have an extremely high fertility rate in the modern world.
So yes, birth control was the true reason why fertility rates declined in the developed world in the last 200 years. Birth control was invented for a reason: to avoid overpopulation.
Well, the more precise phrase would be “fertility decline was not caused by the invention of new birth control technologies”. It is totally possible for a society to have below replacement fertility using only birth control methods available since pre-industrial era.
That’s not true either. It may not be feasible to achieve below replacement fertility using only pre-industrial birth control technology. It would definitely be difficult to achieve that and produce sufficient birth control for hundreds of millions of people without industrial technology.
Regardless, new birth control innovations still increased both the availability and effectiveness of birth control, which still contributed to lowering birth rates. All birth control methods have pros and cons, and when people have more options to choose from, it becomes easier to pick one that works the best for their needs and desires. It also makes it easier to use multiple birth control methods at the same time, since it’s possible for one method or another to fail.
New birth control technologies in 1900s also contributed to lowering birth rates. IUDs were developed during the early and mid 1900s. Wikipedia also states that “Vasectomy as a method of voluntary birth control began during the Second World War”. Emergency contraception was first developed in the 1970s. Roe vs Wade was also passed by the US Supreme Court in 1973, which legalized abortion nationwide across the US and gave people yet another viable method of birth control. I know people who have had vasectomies, IUDs, emergency contraception, and abortions, and I can guarantee that they would all have higher birth rates if these birth control methods weren’t available to them. It simply doesn’t make sense to insist that increasing the availability and effectiveness of birth control methods did not help reduce fertility rates.
If birth control hasn’t been enabling fertility rates to decline, then what has? Birth control has existed ever since the Ancient Egyptians. However, the increasing availability of the birth control pill, other contraception methods, and the legalization of abortion during the 60s and 70s (in the US) are notable for contributing to the declining fertility rates in the US.
The essay also argues that reductions in wealth cause declines in fertility rates. In the last century, we can observe this during the Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Covid-19 lockdowns.
No, the opposite doesn’t usually happen. For all of human history, higher fertility memes have tended to outlast lower fertility memes. Some maladaptive memes do persist, but that’s mainly because it takes a long time for them to die out. By way of analogy, smallpox maintained a TFR of 30% after millennia of infecting humans.
Now of course, the last 200 years are exceptional, since many lower fertility memes have overpowered higher fertility memes. But exceptions to the rule don’t disprove the rule, especially when the timescale has been too short since the Industrial Revolution to see how everything will eventually play out. We are living in the most exceptional times ever in all of human history.
We can think of memes using the traditions | fashions dichotomy. Eventually, the fashions will die out, after enough time passes.
Yes, that’s mainly because more Mormons are using birth control. And yes, some higher fertility memes are losing their ground to lower fertility memes, but there’s also many high fertility memes and memeplexes that still have very high fertility rates, such as the fundamentalist Muslims, the Amish, and Ultra-Orthodox Jews.
I’m worried about this too to some extent. I’ve written a list of things that could be done to boost Western fertility rates.
What population are you referring to?
If birth control hasn’t been enabling fertility rates to decline, then what has?Rising women status contributed more than everything else combined.However, the increasing availability of the birth control pill, other contraception methods, and the legalization of abortion during the 60s and 70s (in the US) are notable >for contributing to the declining fertility rates in the US.That was a continuation of trend which started more than a century before that, after temporary baby boom reversal ended.No, the opposite doesn’t usually happen. For all of human history, higher fertility memes have tended to outlast lower fertility memes.Now of course, the last 200 years are exceptional, since many lower fertility memes have overpowered higher fertility memes.The reason that happened is that communication became much easier. So it is reasonable to expect that low fertility memes will generally win for as long as the world remains interconnected.there’s also many high fertility memes and memeplexes that still have very high fertility rates, such as the fundamentalist Muslims, the Amish, and Ultra-Orthodox Jews.There were many more highly religious (and fertile) communities in the past. So the default is to expect that they will follow the same path like say Quebec.I’ve written a list of things that could be done to boost Western fertility rates.This list looks rather US-centric. Many countries, for example in eastern Europe don’t have these specific problems but have low fertility anyway. So most likely this would not help much.As the essay explained, increased birth control was necessary for that to occur. Women cannot pursue higher education or careers if they primarily work as homemakers who raise children. Birth control was necessary to liberate women from childcare if they so choose, so birth control was still the main factor that caused fertility rates to decline over the last 200 years.
Birth rates still could not have decreased if it wasn’t for increased birth control. As for the baby boom, it was predictable that birth rates would increase when society became wealthier and had endured ~16 years of the Great Depression and World War II, which both made it harder to have children.
Not quite. It would be more accurate to say that lower fertility memes have temporarily become more popular because humans in the developed world are not adapted to resisting them.
No, that’s not reasonable. Low fertility memes have failed to overpower the remaining high-fertility memes and memeplexes that I already mentioned (e.g. the Amish, fundamentalist Muslims, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, etc), and there’s no evidence or reasoning to suggest that they will.
We need to think about this more dynamically. The future is not predicted by the average behavior of people today. The future is predicted by who is reproducing today. That is the fundamental principle of evolution. What is normal today will be extinct in the future if it doesn’t reproduce.
Eventually, humans will evolve genes and memes that are resistant to the effects of birth control. As the link explains, there’s plenty of evidence that different genes and memes affect fertility rates. It’s only a matter of time before the ones that promote the highest fertility win out and become the most popular.
It doesn’t make sense to predict that. The remaining highly religious and fertile demographics have failed to decrease their fertility rates. They practice different memes and they probably have different genes. So, what happened for Christians and Hindus isn’t necessarily going to happen for Haredi Jews, Amish, or fundamentalist Muslims.
I strongly disagree. Most of the suggestions in the list are applicable to nearly all Western countries, including Eastern Europe.
Anyway, I don’t think it’s going to be productive to continue this discussion because I feel like I’m repeating myself. I’m going to stop responding, but if you have a question or an objection, it’s probably already addressed somewhere in the Population Dynamics FAQs.