Another Example of the Idiocy of Feminist Doctrine

Many people with he-works, she-stays-at-home have the same problem today they did in the 1950s: they don't live in each other's worlds and so it is easy for them to drift apart, leading to divorces, etc.

For committed couples, from a purely economic standpoint, and if they have kids especially, sure, it may make a lot of sense for one to stay home and one to go work, regardless of who goes to work and who stays at home. But the effects it has on the couple, the division of labor, esp. now that expectations have changed, cannot be ignored.

The toothpaste is out of the tube and frankly I do not think it can be put back in by any means that does not require a suspension of liberties that we as a people (ie, western peoples) will not give up.

So the net result of creating this unary system of expectations in the social-labor market rather than a binary one has been a rapid decline in birthrate, creating a situation that is similar to those that have historically been associated with large devastating plagues. In essence, by an effective survival rate of, say, 1.8 people per 3-4 people, we re-create for all intents and purposes the outcome of a plague (eg: if each couple has 1.8 kids and 30%-40% of all adults never have kids on top of that, we get an effective replacement rate of around 1.2 persons per 2. That's a lot like the survival ratio for something like the Black Plague, only without the dead bodies piled up on the streets). In less than 2-3 cohort cycles, the population will, without immigrants, drop to 20-30% of its starting headcount. The civilization as it was therefore cannot be said to survive. Only immigrants can keep the headcount up and by definition, they are external to the civilization. This is what Europe and the US are seeing in action. By 2100, if things keep going this way, the US will be a largely Hispanic country with Mexican Spanish as the national language, religiously it will be largely Mexican-Catholic, and most of Europe will be culturally Euro-Muslim and religiously, the same.

However they too will make similar decisions and in the following 200-300 years, a similar pattern is bound to play out. The values of the prior civilizations, which lead to lower birthrates, will have the same effect on them. In Europe, the next immigrant influx to replace dying populations will be from the far East: India and China. Same thing then will happen there, and the home countries will also have been affected also by these same ideas that lead to collapsing birthrates. But I cannot be as sure since that is farther off in time.

After that, it is hard to tell where the next recovery cycle will come from since the current major source of new humans are only those. (Sub-Saharan Africa is not doing well due to HIV and other diseases and it is unclear if as a demographic collective they too will be able to maintain their numbers.) But when trying to predict things 500-1,000 years out, well, the likelihood of success gets smaller and smaller. I am pretty confident though in my by-2100 prediction, for what it's worth.

Edit 4/26: I just "discovered" an extraordinary feature of Google. Go to the Google page and type in "{country name} fertility rate", such as "mexico fertility rate", and you get back the value for it. In the case of Mexico, it is 2.1 children/woman, which is the sustenance rate for a population. Try it now with "United States" and you get 2.1. Now try China and you get 1.8. India, where everyone thinks they are having kids like gangbusters, comes back at only 2.74. Germany is 1.38, Britain, 1.94, etc. So we can see that some common misconceptions are readily de-conceived by such things.

When it comes to human population, I am in the we-need-to-shrink-it camp. However as a society (or set of societies) we also need to think of what effects this has on people as they grow older -- will there be enough elder-care for the many people growing old or is the future one of a bunch of 30-somethings running around trying to take care of 70-somethings, or do we all just fend for ourselves? I am a bit of a pessimist so I think it will be some of both, with the better-connected among us having more elder care available that the less well-connected. Ultimately though whether or not people have enough kids to replace themselves or expand the population depends largely on two factors: 1) Do they feel they have the time and resources to do it and 2) Do they really WANT to do it, for whatever reason? Taking #2 first, I think historically the main reason people have wanted kids is that kids are a form of social security and a way of cheating death, in a sense. There is a strong emotional impulse to reproduce as well; some people just feel they have to do this thing called reproducing. But once they have one child, they usually have it out of their system. The subsequent kids have historically come from a sense of necessity. Modern technologies and social modalities have substantially reduced the feeling that one must now have kids in order to survive (ie, producing one's own labor pool and social security payment system). And as for consideration #1, when both parents are working, and with the economy having adjusted to an assumed 2-person income, it is easy to conclude they don't have the time, resources, or in many cases, raw energy to have kids.

Just these two factors needed to change and that was all it took to take the human race's reproduction rate even in the poorest places (by today's standards) on Earth from a repro rate of as many as 6 children/woman down to 2 or less in what, less than 150 years? Granted the survival rate of individual people has shot up due to medicine (part of technology as I discussed above - see this chart - that jump-area can be traced mostly to improvements in medicine and the awareness of the need for personal cleanliness, a "technology" in a sense) but the birth rate cannot be affected merely by a high survival rate, since kids must be born first before they can survive or not.

I hope that by 2200 the human race will in fact have substantially reduced the headcount, down to a far-more-managable 3 billion people. Current projections for humanity place us at a very high headcount by 2100: Over 9 billion (see here). That is just too close for comfort. A lot can happen between now and 2100, granted, but if this is true, then there cannot be as much peace and security in the world then as today.

Maybe we could do away with the idea of a self sustaining nuclear family; you know two parents and then the kids. Look at some of the first and second generation immigrant families and how they work together. In some of those cultures they help each other out in starting and maintaining businesses. Relatives play a much larger role in the raising of kids. In fact if you include grandparents that don't work much anyways and some aunt or uncle who could watch multiple kids at once this could free up the rest to work more in total.

But of course with more family involvement comes less freedoms, as matt suggests happens when solving the parenting problem.
When a family supports each other then the individual must make decisions that support that family. This includes to some extent where you live, what you work in and your lifestyle, and who you marry. While you are losing autonomy for the benefits of being able to work and properly raise kids it might comfort you that at least it is not to the government. But if your family is your whole world, in some respects it might as well be the government. Other benefits of certain larger family oriented cultures, like the Chaldeans, is that they seem to be more motivated in business, education, and are less likely to be lonely.

Another idea I have is would if instead of commuting 20 miles to school or work we had both of those closer to home. Would if we had segregated communities where some of the couples with similar lifestyles could agree to sharing some of parenting responsibilities.Have the parents take turns taking care of matters for their kids and the others. If this were to ever work it would still give people the freedom to choose what community they want and what couples they would trust (you can't choose your family). I think this would more likely work if communities were more localized; the more overlap there is the more efficiency, ability to find other couples, and the easier to trust them.

I'm not sure about the large scale economics of moving towards more localized communities but I saw it when I stayed with a family in Germany. They were quite successful and both worked nearby and their kids walked to school. The city the live in is relatively large and very productive.

From reading the comments attached to the article it is pretty clear that many mothers and fathers do not want to stay home with their kids. They would rather pay a daycare or nanny. (also some good pro-homeschool comments mixed in, which is the "counter movement" to all the dual income/pro-daycare parents).

I think we live in a world where many people have children out of biological desires and because it is what society expects; But no one really considers the day to day care that children need.

It is easy to do because we live in a world where everything can be bought including child care (or child raising). A parent no longer has to make any sacrifices, if they are satisfied with this arrangement.

The article mentions all the expenses involved in working outside the home (vehicle/commuting expenses, clothes, child care, etc.) But one thing it does not touch on - is the employer's expense and inconvenience of hiring a parent that is part of a dual income couple (I will refer to mothers as it is usually women that take time off for family related issues).

A business that employs a working mom has to consider the extra expense involved in covering maternity leave (in the USA maternity leave is not paid, but it is an inconvenience to employers), sick days due to pregnancy, absences or late arrival due to unexpected issues with children, time mothers spend on the phone dealing with family issues, inability to work overtime, etc.

So not only may it be more economical for families to have one parent stay home, but it may be economical for businesses as well.