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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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Reminds me of the research on Swedish (or some other Nordic country) families, and how number of younger siblings or siblings in general causes next generation to have more kids. It seemed like oldest sibling will always have more kids than younger sibs (though I assume oldest kids with siblings have more kids than only child kids).

My immediate thought was that it means people that grew up with younger kids and inevitably helping take care of their younger siblings have the exposure to raising kids. Changing diapers and feeding kids and all this stuff isn’t something they have to imagine, cuz they’ve done it! But the youngest sibling wouldn’t have that experience so would tend to have fewer kids cuz lack of experience etc. I would assume this means only children that have a lot of kid experience/exposure would also have more kids (from younger cousins / babysittinf / etc).

So fertility is self enforcing: the more kids you have, the more kids, on average, they would have.

Or the oldest are generally more fit since definitional the mother was younger when pregnant

Also the interesting fact that younger brothers are much more likely to be gay than older brothers.

According to several studies, each older brother increases a male child's naturally occurring odds of having a homosexual orientation by 28–48%. However, the numbers of older sisters, younger brothers, and younger sisters have no effect on those odds.