Catching up on things I should have noted earlier, here's a fine article on demographics and affordable family formation by Jonathan V. Last in The Weekly Standard. (The one suggestion I'd make is that I think Last understates the Hispanic Total Fertility Rate: 2.3 is more like the American-born Hispanic TFR, not the total Hispanic TFR.)
So now you're a 'cultural demographer'.
ReplyDeleteWell at least you can't make your usual complaint about not being credited.
And in TWS, too.
John Derbyshire [April 21, 2009]: And no, it's not really the one-child policy that's driving the issue any more. East Asian young women just don't seem much interested in childbearing. In urban regions, the one-child policy isn't needed. They don't even want to have the one. The joke I've heard from Chinese friends is that the one-child policy slogan "Have one child!" has been changed to "Have one child... please!"
ReplyDeleteJonathan V. Last: But the most prevalent new demographic archetype is the parasaito shinguru or "parasite single." These creatures are college-educated, working women who live with their parents well into their 30s - not because they are too poor to pay rent, but because they spend their salaries on designer clothes, international travel, and fancy restaurants. The parasite singles are Japan's biggest consumer group because, unlike real adults, their entire paychecks are available for discretionary spending. Sociologist Masahiro Yamada, who coined the term, explains, "They are like the ancient aristocrats of feudal times, but their parents play the role of servants. Their lives are spoiled. The only thing that's important to them is seeking pleasure."
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose:
RACE MIXTURE IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
by Tenney Frank
American Historical Review
July 1916, vol. 21, no. 4: 689–708
54-Frank.pdf
...We know, for instance, in Caesar's day of forty-five patricians, only one of whom is represented by posterity when Hadrian came to power. The Aemilii, Fabii, Claudii, Manlii, Valerii, and all the rest, with the exception of the Cornelii, have disappeared. Augustus and Claudius raised twenty-five families to the patriciate, and all but six of them disappear before Nerva's reign. Of the families of nearly four hundred senators recorded in 65 A.D. under Nero, all trace of a half is lost by Nerva's day, a generation later. And the records are so full that these statistics may be assumed to represent with a fair degree of accuracy the disappearance of the male stock of the families in question. Of course members of the aristocracy were the chief sufferers from the tyranny of the century, but this havoc was not all wrought by delatores and assassins. The voluntary choice of childlessness accounts largely for the unparalleled condition...
Off Topic:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/24/states-weigh-letting-noncitizens-vote/
Makes you proud to be an American, right?
I sure hope my last comment went through.
ReplyDeleteI am just sick and dadgum tired of this shitty-assed bug-riddled on-again/off-again software package at Blogger/Blogspot.
Instead of spying on people all the dadgum time, maybe Eric Schmidt could invest some energy in tending to the software infrastructure which is crumbling all around him?
Or not - maybe I should be rooting for Google to go broke.
"And in TWS, too."
ReplyDeleteThey also once did an article that talked about Roissy a lot. Different author though.
"They also once did an article that talked about Roissy a lot. Different author though."
ReplyDeleteRoissy is part of the problem. He's a 41-year-old guy (or even older) who still chases tail in bars/clubs. He has said he never wants to get married or have kids, and worst of all he encourages others to follow in his footsteps.
The cold reality is this: where I live, only the Mexican immigrants have families of 3 children or more. Everyone else is either childless or has a tiny family (one or two kids) later in life.
The years when people still "fool around" in the dating market have been extended into the early 30's, and no doubt in the future this will be extended into the early 40's, at least for men.
Yeah, great recipe for a stable population...NOT!
Wake me up when someone realizes that "one child policy" when used as it is in this title, is really a "evolve a population resistant to the demographic transition policy".
ReplyDeleteOh, that's right, "Nazis" already realize that.
Shit. I was hoping to get some sleep.
"But after 1985 children became steadily more expensive. By 2007, the cost of raising a child had risen 15.4 percent over the 1960 level."
ReplyDeleteMisleading since children are cheaper by the dozen.
"There is a constellation of factors tamping down fertility in America. And even with steady immigration, they represent our own, bottom-up adoption of a One-Child regimen."
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone ever think that it might, in fact, be immigration that is tamping down our natural population growth? Sure, the sixties happened around the same time as the population bust, but so did two other major events: the civil rights movement, which opened up white neighborhoods to blacks; and the 1965 immigration act.
So now the real trouble for a young couple is finding an affordable house in a neighborhood where one doesn't feel like a stranger in his own country; where one can be surrounded by people of the same race with similar cultural proclivities.
Honest to God, I am fed up with politicians who try to socially engineer this country into something they think it should be.
I think much of the problem is no fault divorce. A woman can unilaterally divorce her husband, taking much of the family wealth and the children with her, even if he has done nothing wrong (ie she's "unfulfilled.") I don't see why I should sign up for a contract that can be easily broken by the other side with no penalty.
ReplyDelete"Does anyone ever think that it might, in fact, be immigration that is tamping down our natural population growth?"
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't explain the low fertility rate of places like Japan, that have no immigration.
I think the biggest driver of low fertility rates is the education of women, believe it or not.
I think the biggest driver of low fertility rates is the education of women, believe it or not.
ReplyDeleteIn place of "education", I'd substitute the word "indoctrination".
But, even there, as another poster points out above, guys like Roissy are every bit as much to blame for this mess as are the gals.
People either want to have children, or they don't, and it's the "want" which is at the heart of the matter.
Although I think it is imperative that mid- to late- 20-ish kids, like grad students & medical/surgical interns & young associates at law firms, be warned - in no uncertain terms - that a woman's fertility (her very potential to have children in the first place) plummets in her mid-30s.
My impression is that [literally] millions of high-IQ young people have been [or, in their youth, were] lured into the fantasy that women can somehow magically continue to have children well into their late 40s.
I just know way too many high-IQ professional chicks whose lives [and, let's face it, whose family trees] were ruined by that lie.
Human populations can bounce back quite quickly. My maternal grandparents had 12 children that lived to adulthood (10 still living). Even with one aunt becoming a nun, I'm one of 50 cousins (49 still living). I have lost track of how many first cousins once removed that I have.
ReplyDeleteSo, in a little over 100 years, Richard & Jennie went from 2 people to perhaps 150.
Western civilization has experienced several population crashes of over 50%(after fall of Rome, Great Famine/Black Death). We bounced back. In fact, under the right circumstances, culling the herd can be a good thing.
I'm an educated, fairly successful white male with a measurable IQ and a good income who was married to a woman with the same attributes. We had no kids.
ReplyDeleteMy ex remarried a few years ago to a guy with basically the same income and smarts. They've had no children, and don't plan to.
My girlfriend and I have been together for 8 years. She's actually more financially successful and very bright. We have no plans to marry or have kids.
Meanwhile, the foreclosed two-family across the street from the girlfriend's house has been purchased by an immigration lawyer and is now occupied by two Section 8 families, two mothers of indeterminate ethnic derivation with a combined 9 kids. Given that one of the teenage daughters is about to whelp, the next generation of welfare clients from this particular "family" is assured. Needless to say, this little group won't be adding much to the SS benefits for we retiring Boomers.
We get too much of whatever the government pays for, which in my neck of the woods is the underclass. Idiocracy is on its way!
Speaking as a non-reproducing woman with too much education, I can tell you this: No one can rationally explain why we should have children, if we're not naturally inclined.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was considering it, every reason proffered seemed "selfish" - for the experience, to continue the family line, to have someone to love, to be loved, or at least to be more like other women. Now, I miss all those things now, but at the time they seemed shallow. Of course, "for the good of the race" was definitely out.
The best reason I ever heard was, because God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. Because God said so. But I wasn't religious back then. I was rational.
Gee, maybe my hopelessly utopian vision of a communitarian future isn't so hopeless after all? Children would once again take care of their parents and the incentive to have children would again be restored.
ReplyDeleteThe introduction spells it all out:
http://sites.google.com/site/lukelea2/thesoftpath
Raising children is, objectively speaking, a poor choice in this world. (We have two.) It's grueling labor, day and night, and it's all unpaid. Not to mention that when the kids get to be school-aged, the government starts treating them like they're its property. You invest in them, and then the entire culture around you conspires to turn them against you. Most of the burden of raising the children falls on my wife. She is educated, and she really suffers when she sees her brain declining day by day. What really saves us is a house maid (legal, and not in America) nine hours a week for the heavy duty, plus a babysitter, plus grandparents and their time and money. Without knowing that we would have that? No way.
ReplyDeleteBut this problem, just as the problem of declining population, will be solved in a decade or two, by two things. Robots will help with the menial tasks around taking care of the old and children. And greater longevity (100-plus, see Ray Kurzweil) will mean that most people will be plugging away and paying taxes at eighty.
The greatest influence in our lives has been science-driven progress--just compare how you live compared to your parents--and bear in mind that over 90% of all scientists who have ever lived are living and working right now. Here I think the Chinese will benefit the world hugely, once they establish some basic standards for their country.
So Mark Steyn's thesis about "socialism" causing low TFRs amongst Europeans appears to be junk, because European Americans in morally-superior super capitalist America (TM) have the same TFR and have had a plummeting TFR for decades, despite our free-market policies.
ReplyDeleteGood. Now we can ignore the National Review completely.
Two girls, one child.
ReplyDeleteI think the biggest driver of low fertility rates is the education of women, believe it or not.
ReplyDeleteOF COURSE IT IS.
Why is this hard or complicated?
Institutional education and childbearing do not mix. All kinds of things that are physically more demanding - hard agricultural labor for example - mix better with childbearing. It's not ideal but it's a better match up.
Educated, professional women have hardly any children, yup. It looks like we can ban women from higher education and most jobs, or we can go extinct. The latter choice seems far more likely.
ReplyDeleteAs has been recently observed (here?), Social Security severed the link between producing offspring and old-age security. Now we don't rely on children for support, just the "worker-to-retiree ratio."
ReplyDeleteThis at one stroke made it less "rational" to have children, and created a strong pull for more immigration, to maintain the all-important worker-to-retiree ratio.
Luke Lea said..."Gee, maybe my hopelessly utopian vision of a communitarian future isn't so hopeless after all?"
ReplyDeleteFrom his website: "[People]in their free time would take part in the construction of their own houses, cultivate gardens, cook and eat at home, care for their own children and grandchildren, and pursue other leisure-time activities."
Other leisure-time activities? Are you kidding no question mark. My husband is one of the few men I know who has the skills and innate ability actually to construct his own home. (He built a 30'x15' shed for his dad that's so solid, it could easily be made habitable.) I can tell you he would not consider that a "leisure-time activity". Nor do I consider gardening, cooking or child-care to be such. I do way more actual housework than most women I know (that's what they tell me) and I wouldn't be interested in the much greater work load you so blithely propose. Furthermore, you're talking about not only hard physical labor but skills that aren't being passed down from generation to generation as they once were.
You go on to say roughly 50% of people say they'd like this arrangement. Sure, that's because they aren't thinking about, say, canning fruits and vegetables in summer's heat or staying up all night with a sick child or cooking from scratch (which last I presume you advocate). They're thinking about evenings spent in rockers on the porch with the kids or winter nights in front of the fireplace, not about how hard it is to construct a porch or fireplace.
"Hopeless" is certainly apt in your case.
Western civilization has experienced several population crashes of over 50%(after fall of Rome, Great Famine/Black Death). We bounced back. In fact, under the right circumstances, culling the herd can be a good thing.
ReplyDeleteIn the big picture, and for the survivors, yes. In the wake of the BD, wages and prosperity went through the roof.
When I was considering it, every reason proffered seemed "selfish" - for the experience, to continue the family line, to have someone to love, to be loved, or at least to be more like other women. Now, I miss all those things now, but at the time they seemed shallow. Of course, "for the good of the race" was definitely out.
ReplyDeleteThe best reason I ever heard was, because God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. Because God said so. But I wasn't religious back then. I was rational.
So, paying back the debt never occurred to you? I mean, without your parents' sacrifice, no you.
Marginally off-topic, but have any of you seen the Pioneer Woman blog? It's this personal blog of a USC educated sophisticate who fell in love with an Oklahoma rancher and writes about her life with him on the ranch, raising their four kids and so forth. It's practically a paean to Affordable Family Formation, and the interesting thing is that it has a HUGE audience among women (13 million page views per month as of last year), especially ones in urban areas who are living a simpler, more agrarian existence vicariously through her.
ReplyDeleteHollywood, which contrary to Whisky's fantasies loves to tell stories of sophisticated women being swept away by down-home men, is developing her story into a Reese Witherspoon movie. The whole thing is a fascinating phenomenon and a window into how powerfully a lot of traditional family values still resonate even in Blue America.
Speaking as a non-reproducing woman with too much education, I can tell you this: No one can rationally explain why we should have children, if we're not naturally inclined.
ReplyDeleteWell, how about because a life centered around providing for family and raising those kids is vastly superior to the alternative?
The tone of your post suggests you've figured out that petulantly challenging established mores wasn't the smartest career move. Enjoy the emptiness you so richly deserve.
Jerry, who are you to speak of "in this world"? What world? What do you really know of the world? Think about it.
The greatest influence in our lives has been science-driven progress--just compare how you live compared to your parents--and bear in mind that over 90% of all scientists who have ever lived are living and working right now.
ReplyDeleteI like that 'ole science driven progress. Its the belated realisation of exactly who supplies that science driven progress - white folks - that steers me, more and more to a WN position.
I've heard a lot of possible explanations for declining birth rates -- social security; feminism; immigration; and so on.
ReplyDeleteI'm skeptical of most of these explanations. Fertility has dropped dramatically among black Americans. This is a group of people which is not known for planning ahead, so it's hard to believe that in the past they had big families for retirement purposes.
Similarly, as someone pointed out, non-immigration countries like Japan have experienced a big drop in fertility.
Also, Arab countries -- which are not known for giving much in the way of rights to women -- are experiencing big drops in fertility.
My best guess is that it's because (1) children are a big pain in the ass; and (2) children entail a financial, legal, and emotional commitment which you cannot easily get out of.
I think most guys and a lot of girls would be most satisfied sexually and emotionally if they could move to someone new every 2 or 3 years. The fact is that even excellent relationships get a bit stale after a while.
This topic depresses me to no end. The very society that allows us to live in such comfort seems to also be the root of our demographic decline as well. They should be seperate, but they have been tied together by the elites, and it will be very difficult to untangle them.
ReplyDeleteWe know from the European experience that you can't convince women to reproduce through generous government programs alone; then again, what can government fix besides national defense?
The only "Western" nation that is in the process of reversing it's long-term demographic decline is Russia, and that seems to be from a combination of crude but effective nationalism combined with a larger than average rural and small town population with lots of cheap land (Moscow is no better than Paris or New York in that regard). Plus the overall year-to-year gains are so slow that it's not entirely clear that the Russians can get their act together before they are overwhelmed by other forces (Political upheaval, Muslim rebellion, Chinese landgrabs, ect.).
Even the Latin American and Near Eastern nations are experiencing this decline. It doesn't matter if the nation is a dictatorship, a democracy, an oligarchy, whatever, you end up with the same result.
What are viable solutions for this problem, if any? Is this part of the natural cycle of civilization, or is there some sort of solution that can balance development with healthy reprodution rates? I would imagine striking down the Orwellian public education system and drastically restructuring Social Security would help somewhat, but the amount of resistance you would get from the angry masses would make it impossible to implement in a peaceful fashion.
Purging the cultural Marxist influences from our society would also be necessary, but can that be done without leading to violence? I don't see those people being displaced without a fight, they have too much to lose at this point, and with their ability to spread disinformation, it will be very hard to spread countermeasures in a normal and civilized fashion.
Speaking as a non-reproducing woman with too much education, I can tell you this: No one can rationally explain why we should have children, if we're not naturally inclined.
ReplyDeleteIf you're not naturally inclined? What the hell does that mean?
For normal people, the obvious reason is that having children is we how we extend our lives into the future.
Carol said...
ReplyDeleteSpeaking as a non-reproducing woman with too much education, I can tell you this: No one can rationally explain why we should have children, if we're not naturally inclined.
When I was considering it, every reason proffered seemed "selfish"
Whereas the alternative "rational" path you took down childless life was so "selfless"?
You are irrational if you think avoiding the most demanding, long-term, costly and irreversible human entanglement as a parent is "selfish" compared to the childless alternative of enjoying complete individual freedom to pursue any career, live anywhere and follow whatever passions responsible only to oneself like a Lost Boy on Neverland Island.
Logically, if you are going to question the motivations behind every act you can only judge the acts themselves and their concrete measurable effects. By that definition, parenting is the most common and greatest "selfless" act in transferring wealth, time and opportunities from a parent to a child (and society) for the latter's material benefit with no expectation of any concrete return.
Unless you are a 1:100 million talent who can reasonably expect to perform earth shattering work to fundamentally improve the world, you're a replaceable cog whose work is largely just striving for personal security, fame and/or power.
(cont...)
(from last post...)
ReplyDeleteAlso, no one should have to rationally "explain" to women why they should have children. The default position shaped by millions of years of evolution demands that a very powerful argument need be made against having children.
That "argument" made by the decadence of modern society is not so rational as Womens Studies would think. It's simply easier to appeal to the vanity and hedonism in women than to sell her on all the sacrifices raising kids requires.
Perhaps our first world demographic collapse is a response to new environmental shocks that are raising the bar for parental "fitness". If so, it should cull those with the weakest wills and minds that fall prey to the propaganda of a civilization's cyclical decadence (at least for the SWPL classes).
Society would be so much better if parents were at least compensated for all their sacrifices with additional votes for each child they bear, raise and support until age of majority. After all, the childless have chosen nihilism on the most basic level and can have no concrete personal interest in society or about the world after they slip the coil.
"And greater longevity (100-plus, see Ray Kurzweil) will mean that most people will be plugging away and paying taxes at eighty."
ReplyDeleteYeaaahhhh, there's an old adage, it's hard to make predictions - especially about the future. But Kurzweil's too smart to fall for that. HE doesn't ascribe to such timeworn, discredited fallacies. He's got a time machine, I'm sure.
Apropos of nothing, when I was a kid in the '70s, all the sf writers and futurists assured us we'd be terraforming Mars and mining the asteroid belt by now.
Back in the 1880s, trains went so much faster than humans on foot or horseback that straight extrapolation of the trend in exponentially increasing travel speeds said we'd be going a million miles a second now and on our way to Alpha Centauri.
Dam* Einstein for discovering the universal speed limit.
Oh, and then Moore told us that computing speeds double every 2 years, and the doubling will never stop. I scoffed, but was quickly corrected that it's a Law, you know.
---
What Kurzweil is doing is a process called, in the contrary-investor field, "extrapolating trends to infinity." Lots of condo-flippers around here just recently, who ascribed to the same philosophy. Dam* the mortgage meltdown. Who coulda seen THAT one coming?
"Simon in London said...
ReplyDeleteEducated, professional women have hardly any children, yup. It looks like we can ban women from higher education and most jobs, or we can go extinct. The latter choice seems far more likely."
No, we don't need to ban women from education and most jobs. We just need to ban YOUNG women.
The "women's liberation" movement was started by Betty Friedan's book "The Feminine Mystique." That book was about "lonely, bored" housewives WHOSE KIDS WERE GROWN.
Women SHOULD be educated and employed -- AFTER MENOPAUSE. It makes no sense to waste the talents of half the population, but we cannot, either, waste the fertile years of a woman's life.
Simple solution provided in the book: Sequencing (Having it all, but not all at once).
Women's lib is a good idea in a technological society where safe birth means most women live to age 80 -- but the "lib" has to come AFTER the child-rearing. And I think you'd be surprised the number of young women who, IF it were socially acceptable, you could get on board with this plan:
Get married, make and raise the babies, THEN go to college and get a career.
Big problem with “Sequencing – lib has to come after the child-rearing” – the child- rearing becomes the work and justifiable retirement follows. E.g. sister-in-law harangued me at age 20 as she was on a focused/hard-working/well-paid career path (legal secretary) – but one that she hated – viewed lawyers as a pus-eating disease – would not attend a neighborhood function if she knew that a lawyer would be present – treated the articling students like shit.. I felt bad/applauded her for having her life so focused, regretted that I hadn’t figured out what to do with mine. After 10 years she became pregnant, hasn’t been employed outside of the home since. Thus 2 points: 1: she has spent the time since then supporting her family (husband/ 2 kids) to the point that work is an option for her and husband/my brother. They are wealthy. Not a hope in hell that she will ever get an education let alone work again. 2: If someone had told me the plan (hate your job for 10 years, raise family, retire) I may have signed up e.g. 10 years as an ‘Ice Road Trucker/Dirty Jobs’, never seek employment again. From what I understand of HBD the above is pretty well female programmed – choose a good man who will provide well with your support, raise a family well, wait for grandkids on Sunday. Thus ‘Sequencing’ would leave sis-in-law slack-jawed – are you out of your mind? We have completed all that hard work stuff – you think I’m attending college/job interviews at the same time as my son? Insane.
ReplyDeleteCC-BlF:
ReplyDelete"Get married, make and raise the babies, THEN go to college and get a career."
Yes, that makes sense and I've often thought the same. If you start your family young you can have it done with half your life ahead of you. I guess employers are to blame for preferring 22 year old girls out of college to 44 year olds whose children are grown. But it may also be that women who have children often tend to lose interest in their careers, so keeping them single and childless keeps them oriented on career - and on consumption.
My grandfather was an only child born just before the depression. His dad died young of the big C.
ReplyDeletenow he has almost 100 living descendents).
His ivy educated granddaughter has three kids and is very pro family.
These things bounce back sometimes.
White birthrates are falling because white men are unattractive and ineffectual.
ReplyDeleteWhite women want black and hispanic men who are 10 fold more masculine, serve in the military, and are good at stuff.
Declining fertility is happening accross the world, so education of women does not account for the decline of fertility in Africa and Latin America. It seems two things account for the majority of the fertility decline.
ReplyDelete1. When people are asured that their kids are going to survive, they have fewer kids.
2. With the modern societies, especially in an urban setting, kids are no longer an asset for the old age but a liability with no pay back.
Onething I learned from this article is that all the forces of legal and illegal immigration from Mexico that people in this thread are harping about may come to an end much sooner than is expected. Maybe in a couple of decades, it will slow to a tickle due to Mexico birth rate going significantly below replacement rate.
We live in interesting times.
"Onething I learned from this article is that all the forces of legal and illegal immigration from Mexico that people in this thread are harping about may come to an end much sooner than is expected. Maybe in a couple of decades, it will slow to a tickle due to Mexico birth rate going significantly below replacement rate."
ReplyDeleteAre you high?
The upper classes have fewer kids, the lower classes have plenty. As the upper classes shrink, they will have less need of cheap labor. They will continue to dump their lower class citizens into the US.
"Idiocracy is on its way!"
ReplyDeleteIf you want reasons, you can re-read your own post, fool.
Think of it as evolution in action.
ReplyDelete