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While I wouldn't deny that there are cultural messages that come up here, I'd think that the workplace is a far bigger issue here than the K-12 education system. If women perceive having a child as holding them back in their career, fewer will.
Lots of women freeze their eggs and have the clock run out on them. That is not really an issue of not wanting kids but trying to balance them with having a secure career first and failing.
Once again, I bring out Osili & Long's 2007 "Does Female Schooling Reduce Fertility? Evidence From Nigeria" [pdf], which found that each year of elementary school reduced the average number of children per woman by significant amounts. (You can also find more results from Africa on the negative correlation between female education and realized fertility rates here.) And while I can't find it at the moment, I recall a Nepalese study that found similar results for "Western-style" grade schools but, interestingly, not for "Islamic" ones. (Whether that's due to differences in the schools themselves, or a selection effect reflecting differences between the sorts of students who attend the two types of schools is a question, though.)
Which, of course, could be addressed with better education about the realities of female fertility, the limits of technology, the nature of the trade-offs being made, and so on.
"Impact of female education on fertility status of Muslim community" by Irshad Khan, as linked to in "The Cause of Population Decline" by the Dreaded Jim.
Thank you.
As I recently said elsewhere online: I recall reading somewhere that growing up with the internet has changed how younger generations remember things. That is, instead of remembering some specific piece of information itself, they instead remember the path to look up/retrieve such information. I, however, am definitely part of the older generations, then. I read a lot of stuff, online and offline, and while I can remember a lot of facts and details I’ve read, I don’t so much remember just where or when I read them. Thus all my “ I recall reading somewhere.”
Which isn't great for my participation in the link-and-citation heavy argumentation one finds here.
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I mention the career and college education part too in my post but the influence of teaching people and not teaching people certain things can not be underestimated.
If you encourage and tell people to do X, then they actually are going to do X, unless X is very destructive for them. Even then some will do it. The reality is people are encouraged and incinitivzed to do multiple things today, many of which are against natalism. If you make it particular focus that they should have multiple children and get to see parents raising their children, then plenty of women especially are going to have more children.
The education system can be but one aspect of this. The others can be the media and the goverment in general. Like they can make the current thing to be the current thing, they can certainly promote the meme that those capable in general and in regards to being good parents should have children, and the more capable the more children.
People would have more children if there is a doctrine, like the religious doctrine to have children and so they see it as an expectation and a duty. Part of this should be the religious element that existed previously being encouraged. But you can also try to promote it in a more secular sense too. The lack of direction is a key aspect of the current malaise. Good leadership that tells people to do things that are good for them and for society in general is necessary instead of getting used to habits that are destructive for them and for society in general.
Pressure works.
Sure, and I don't have any disagreement with the idea of encouraging the good in principle.
But the more of an investment something is, the more it'll determine someone's life, the more pressure it needs. It seems relatively easy to enforce ludicrous norms , but often that's because those norms cost less. People bend because they can easily retreat later on. Not so with kids.
Some people may legitimately just be bad at forecasting what'll make them happy and would benefit from some Caplanesque education, but I think this is a thorny problem for a reason: if people perceive the costs to be too high it's hard to see them being educated out of it without some seriously novel tactics that haven't been tried by the most educated and powerful nations in the world, who have every incentive to fix this problem.
The reality is that these nations haven't tried these tactics and humanity is lead by abysmally awful leadership on the natalist question. Our elites and our civilization in general on this issue deserves an F.
I am not recommending Caplanesque education.
I actually think that the current trajectory comes with massive sacrifices and does include a decent % of true believers and others who go along.
In rgards to the sacrifice part of raising children that relates to focusing on the sacrifice part and not the reward part. But if people see monogamous families as a reward for which the sacrifice is worth it, that would effect their choices.
We should also not forget that overpopulation was once seen as a problem and certain policies were advocated that were implemented to reduce fertility rates which they did.
I think we should be pragmatic but act based on a goal and modify things accordingly to the results. The social technology that results in a sustainable civilization has existed in much of human history, and we can pick even a mix of that which includes some amount of "liberalism" so we could try enforcing the mores of the past and gatekeep them. So the fact that this has happened makes the idea of an insurmountable problem mistaken. And modern Israel also is doing this.
My experience reading liberals and the zeitgeist influenced by them is that they put their dogma first and have an attitude of not wanting to change things from the dogma and its limits even if it would be good to do so.
What do you think should be done? Its all hopeless and humanity should admit that it will go extinct? Let us all be replacement by the projected to be demographically growing blacks, unless their fertility decline too? Should robots run the planet?
Or do you have a different idea? I pretty much suggested most of the things that seem like they would work, including discouraging education in the 20s. I am sure other people can also articulate such plans with plenty of crossover and put even more detail if they want.
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