Is it still true that “more gender egalitarian countries have lower fertility rates” if you only include industrialized / wealthy countries? Thinking off the top of my head, some of the least gender egalitarian OECD countries, South Korea and Japan, also have some of the lowest fertility rates.
That chart doesn’t prove much because there were a ton of confounding variables. The late 1940s were an extremely strange time for Japan due to multiple years of near famine, American occupation, new constitution, total reorganization of its industrial economy, etc., as well as the beginning of 4 decades of extreme economic growth, which is associated with lower fertility. Wikipedia even says that the “Western practice of ‘dating’ spread” implying it was not a thing before. All this had to have moved fertility in one direction or the other.
The entirety of Japanese society, government, politics, economy, etc, changed dramatically beginning in the late 1940’s, in a rather sudden way largely due to the influence of a foreign power. Thus I think that the fact that formal legal equality for women in Japan began in the late 40’s, and Japan’s fertility rate decline also began in the late 40’s, provides extremely little information on the relationship between gender equality and fertility in developed countries.
Edit: Thomas Kwa already said basically the same thing, I just didn’t see his comment when I wrote mine.
Is it still true that “more gender egalitarian countries have lower fertility rates” if you only include industrialized / wealthy countries? Thinking off the top of my head, some of the least gender egalitarian OECD countries, South Korea and Japan, also have some of the lowest fertility rates.
Unfortunately I don’t have such data. But regarding Japan, I found this chart:
That chart doesn’t prove much because there were a ton of confounding variables. The late 1940s were an extremely strange time for Japan due to multiple years of near famine, American occupation, new constitution, total reorganization of its industrial economy, etc., as well as the beginning of 4 decades of extreme economic growth, which is associated with lower fertility. Wikipedia even says that the “Western practice of ‘dating’ spread” implying it was not a thing before. All this had to have moved fertility in one direction or the other.
Of course this isn’t a proof, but it’s the best explanation for the drop I heard so far.
To the person who disagree voted: I assume you know a better or equally good explanation for the drop?
The entirety of Japanese society, government, politics, economy, etc, changed dramatically beginning in the late 1940’s, in a rather sudden way largely due to the influence of a foreign power. Thus I think that the fact that formal legal equality for women in Japan began in the late 40’s, and Japan’s fertility rate decline also began in the late 40’s, provides extremely little information on the relationship between gender equality and fertility in developed countries. Edit: Thomas Kwa already said basically the same thing, I just didn’t see his comment when I wrote mine.