Oh and by the way, repealing no-fault divorce laws will literally get women KILLED. Especially when combined with the rest of the package deal of regressive nostrums recommended in this article. Seriously.
TL/DR version: To increase birthrates, decrease gender equality, decrease women’s rights (reproductive and otherwise), and increase the gender wage gap dramatically. By force if necessary. (Or simply outright force people to get and stay married as early in life as possible.) And…Voila! Bonus points for outright banning (younger) women, and mothers of all ages, from the workforce.
In other words, there is NO ethical way to raise birthrates more than very marginally, at least not in a modern or even semi-modern society. Thus, I could never, ever advocate doing any of the above.
But truly growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell, which eventually kills its host. It’s almost like Gaia is trying to tell us something…
The entire Overpopulation FAQs page is basically a robust collection of short essays dedicated to answering questions about population dynamics, overpopulation, and population control. I hope that you'll find the whole page interesting since we seem to share the same interest.
I will admit I don't find your narrative fully compelling, and the idea that birth control pills and legalization of abortion was central in the drop of fertility makes more sense to me.
Japan may have only legalized the pill in 1999, but abortion (1990 abortion rate is 37.4/100 births) and sterilization (maybe 7% of women chose sterilization?) were already available. It also has very low divorce rates, and still its TFR has been very low for decades.
Also, the fertility rates have been free falling in Iran after the Islamic Revolution between 1981 and 2003 (from over 6 to less than 2). How do you explain this?
You say that marriage bust was result of rising female empowerement, however in reality the drop was very quick. Is gender gap really good explanation? Isn't it just publication of Population bomb and anti-natalist movement?
Brilliant, really enjoyed this article and have re-read a couple of times.
I’m curious what caused this sudden boom in male income and educational attainment from the 1930s? It seems like there was some very sudden shift in what men were doing all over the western world.
I’m just guessing, but could it be that the jobs these economies were producing were particularly benefiting men over women? I’m thinking automobile manufacturing and other heavy manufacturing production type work. This might explain some of the educational attainment with employer sponsored programs?
Another thing that explains both the baby boom AND the marriage boom: the birthrates falling in the decades prior to it. Think about it: the falling birthrates during the 1920s and 1930s resulted in a shortage of younger women relative to slightly older men in the 1950s. That led to men wanting to marry sooner than later so they would not lose in the game of “musical chairs”, and younger women had thus more bargaining power relative to slightly older men. And is axiomatic that starting to have kids at an earlier age results in more kids being born in total. Then, the reverse happened when the Baby Boomers came of age in th 1960s and 1970s: a surplus of younger women relative to slightly older men. Men predictably “played the field” as a result, because they could, and that helped kickstart not only the sexual revolution but also second wave feminism, and a later marriage pattern that resulted in lower birthrates. (The Pill only added to this.)
A less pronounced version of the 1950s’ gender ratio happened in the 1990s, with vaguely similar but much more muted results, as the culture had also permanently changed back then since women actually had civil and reproductive rights by then. And the 2000s and 2010s saw largely equal gender ratios, but the kinds of men in higher demand by women were becoming scarce due to structural changes in the economy, thus a repeat of the 1960s and 1970s pattern.
And with birthrates so low for so long, the 2030s will come to resemble the 1950s in terms of gender ratios once again. Ergo, a largely self-correcting cycle.
Put another way, this can also be seen as a tacit admission that absolute monogamy is really not natural as it were, since, to quote the execrable Jordan Peterson, it has to be "enforced". It is practically an axiomatic law of nature that there are three kinds of monogamy: strict, lifelong, and universal. Pick two out of three.
No society in all of recorded history has been able to achieve all three for very long. Not without a safety valve, at least. Something always has to give. Even Orthodox Jews, arguably the most monogamous people in history, still allow a convenient escape hatch for men (but NOT women): quick and easy unilateral divorce. And historically, until fairly recently women and children were left high and dry after divorce, often utterly destitute. Perhaps that was what Jesus Christ was getting at esoterically when he *allegedly* prohibited divorce at that time (which is of course open to interpretation through contemporary lenses). But such prohibition only kept women trapped in the gilded cage of patriarchy, albeit a somewhat "kinder, gentler" variant.
Regarding the fourth figure on single and married men's and women's income.
"Another mechanism is that children and a family are a powerful motivator for men, who make up almost all of the right tail of hard workers, innovators, and entrepreneurs that drives economic growth."
This is undoubtedly true, but I wonder if this graph really illustrates that it is the men that distinguish themselves financially from women who are able to get and stay married.
This would support the later observation that the Baby Boom was the result of young women seeking wealth and status by attaching themselves to higher-status young men.
This is the most important article I have read in recent memory. It identifies a huge social problem and offers solutions.
Nice one!
Oh and by the way, repealing no-fault divorce laws will literally get women KILLED. Especially when combined with the rest of the package deal of regressive nostrums recommended in this article. Seriously.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/27/us/no-fault-divorce-explained-history-wellness-cec/index.html
But women are just means to an end, and the end justifies the means, right Machiavelli? (Or should I say, Gilead?)
TL/DR version: To increase birthrates, decrease gender equality, decrease women’s rights (reproductive and otherwise), and increase the gender wage gap dramatically. By force if necessary. (Or simply outright force people to get and stay married as early in life as possible.) And…Voila! Bonus points for outright banning (younger) women, and mothers of all ages, from the workforce.
In other words, there is NO ethical way to raise birthrates more than very marginally, at least not in a modern or even semi-modern society. Thus, I could never, ever advocate doing any of the above.
But truly growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell, which eventually kills its host. It’s almost like Gaia is trying to tell us something…
I've written a list of recommendations for boosting Western fertility rates as well: https://zerocontradictions.net/FAQs/overpopulation-FAQs#boosting-western-fertility
The entire Overpopulation FAQs page is basically a robust collection of short essays dedicated to answering questions about population dynamics, overpopulation, and population control. I hope that you'll find the whole page interesting since we seem to share the same interest.
I will admit I don't find your narrative fully compelling, and the idea that birth control pills and legalization of abortion was central in the drop of fertility makes more sense to me.
Japan may have only legalized the pill in 1999, but abortion (1990 abortion rate is 37.4/100 births) and sterilization (maybe 7% of women chose sterilization?) were already available. It also has very low divorce rates, and still its TFR has been very low for decades.
Also, the fertility rates have been free falling in Iran after the Islamic Revolution between 1981 and 2003 (from over 6 to less than 2). How do you explain this?
I seriously doubt that many men refuse to get married because they fear they are going to lose half their wealth in a divorce (well, young men growing up now may do, but men in the 70s or 80s didn't). It seems to be that a much better explanation for the drop in marriage rates is the much smaller number of shotgun marriages after abortion and contraception became available: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/new-mothers-not-married-technology-shock-the-demise-of-shotgun-marriage-and-the-increase-in-out-of-wedlock-births/
Finally, I seriously doubt that inequality hasn't increased in the US.
I recall that in the book you cite, the author includes healthcare expenditure as welfare, which is preposterous.
You say that marriage bust was result of rising female empowerement, however in reality the drop was very quick. Is gender gap really good explanation? Isn't it just publication of Population bomb and anti-natalist movement?
Brilliant, really enjoyed this article and have re-read a couple of times.
I’m curious what caused this sudden boom in male income and educational attainment from the 1930s? It seems like there was some very sudden shift in what men were doing all over the western world.
I’m just guessing, but could it be that the jobs these economies were producing were particularly benefiting men over women? I’m thinking automobile manufacturing and other heavy manufacturing production type work. This might explain some of the educational attainment with employer sponsored programs?
Another thing that explains both the baby boom AND the marriage boom: the birthrates falling in the decades prior to it. Think about it: the falling birthrates during the 1920s and 1930s resulted in a shortage of younger women relative to slightly older men in the 1950s. That led to men wanting to marry sooner than later so they would not lose in the game of “musical chairs”, and younger women had thus more bargaining power relative to slightly older men. And is axiomatic that starting to have kids at an earlier age results in more kids being born in total. Then, the reverse happened when the Baby Boomers came of age in th 1960s and 1970s: a surplus of younger women relative to slightly older men. Men predictably “played the field” as a result, because they could, and that helped kickstart not only the sexual revolution but also second wave feminism, and a later marriage pattern that resulted in lower birthrates. (The Pill only added to this.)
A less pronounced version of the 1950s’ gender ratio happened in the 1990s, with vaguely similar but much more muted results, as the culture had also permanently changed back then since women actually had civil and reproductive rights by then. And the 2000s and 2010s saw largely equal gender ratios, but the kinds of men in higher demand by women were becoming scarce due to structural changes in the economy, thus a repeat of the 1960s and 1970s pattern.
And with birthrates so low for so long, the 2030s will come to resemble the 1950s in terms of gender ratios once again. Ergo, a largely self-correcting cycle.
Put another way, this can also be seen as a tacit admission that absolute monogamy is really not natural as it were, since, to quote the execrable Jordan Peterson, it has to be "enforced". It is practically an axiomatic law of nature that there are three kinds of monogamy: strict, lifelong, and universal. Pick two out of three.
No society in all of recorded history has been able to achieve all three for very long. Not without a safety valve, at least. Something always has to give. Even Orthodox Jews, arguably the most monogamous people in history, still allow a convenient escape hatch for men (but NOT women): quick and easy unilateral divorce. And historically, until fairly recently women and children were left high and dry after divorce, often utterly destitute. Perhaps that was what Jesus Christ was getting at esoterically when he *allegedly* prohibited divorce at that time (which is of course open to interpretation through contemporary lenses). But such prohibition only kept women trapped in the gilded cage of patriarchy, albeit a somewhat "kinder, gentler" variant.
Great article! Now the next step is gaining enough power to implement these policies...
Regarding the fourth figure on single and married men's and women's income.
"Another mechanism is that children and a family are a powerful motivator for men, who make up almost all of the right tail of hard workers, innovators, and entrepreneurs that drives economic growth."
This is undoubtedly true, but I wonder if this graph really illustrates that it is the men that distinguish themselves financially from women who are able to get and stay married.
This would support the later observation that the Baby Boom was the result of young women seeking wealth and status by attaching themselves to higher-status young men.
Do you have a twitter?