First in a series. Let's have some broader than usual discussions. Both 30,000 ft assessments and on-the-ground woman-immediate perspectives.
We talk about the Fertility Crisis, but what if it's not? What if it's just one more adjustment in human history? The current trends are so widespread worldwide that our encouraging couples to have more children is likely to have an effect only at the margins. Those of you younger than me are going to be looking at major changes.
As I have mentioned, I have lunch with guys I went to summer studies with in 1970. I have five children, two biological, four of the other five have two each. I am the only one with any grandchildren, two of the five biological. My other lunch-monthly partner has no children. My men's pub night also has almost no grandchildren. When I am talking it is from a grandparent perspective; I have to work to see things from my children's or grandchildren's perspectives. The preservation of the world I grew up with or even of the nation or the species matters less to them, even in evangelical culture where it is still strong.
Cranberry mentioned some things that might make it easier for young women to have both children and the careers that they wanted, noting that the tradeoff is quite real. Demographers like Lyman Stone note that education and wanting to establish oneself before having children has cut the available childbearing years in half. Even those who want children will have fewer. If nothing ever went wrong biologically, emotionally, or financially for all the young couples, that will still likely be less than replacement as a cohort.
So we should do all those things, if they show any promise of helping. Designing narrower carseats or finding some other method of protecting little ones. (The dropoff in children accelerated when those became mandatory.) But European countries already make huge social and financial support efforts, and their numbers are dropping too. France and the Scandinavian countries kept their numbers up just below replacement for a while, but now those have dropped off too. And those countries love babies and children. Everyone beams at them on the train. (Not that they talk, of course! That's for noisy Americans.)
The sad truth is that women design their lives for the praise and acceptance of other women more than for men, and women no longer socially admire and reward having children as much. It doesn't have to be the antipathy and disdain that a few women show that discourages women from putting in that kind of effort. It's knowing that the same amount of effort will get you more admired by other women.
Side note: this is related to the "Do women dress for men or for other women" question, hotly debated over at Grim's years ago. It is both, of course, but the point is that we immediately assume it is for men but when we stop to think of it, it's more about being admired or accepted by other women than we had first realised. So too here. Any individual woman is far more influenced by what her husband thinks than querying her friends whether she should have children now. The point is that the world of women and the status it bestows is much more important than we commonly credit.
An example from an earlier generation is handcrafts. Those are still admired by women, even in the younger generations. Women will brag that a friend sews wonderfully, and mean the compliment sincerely, not condescendingly. So also with needlepoint and the like. But quilting is more art than practicality now. The type of status is different, and in some women, quite absent. My wife's knitting group is envious that she has two granddaughters interested in knitting. But they aren't very interested anymore. There's softball, basketball, and volleyball, which draws far more praise for those girls.
To me life is about learning to give, even pour yourself out for others. While having a spouse and children is certainly not the only way to get there, it is the most direct, and more reliable than the other choices. Tet plenty of my college friends have no children and do not see that as a lack in their lives. Fertility crisis? What's that? Why is it important? You can have a great life other ways.
19 comments:
I've written several unfinished/unpublished comments to Cranberry's comment and still am not quite sure what I want to say... because while I don't exactly disagree with her comments... I do inexactly and I can't quite put my finger on why that is. I think that it is generational as my daughters are older than hers. Also, I thought of the role birth control pills played in my generation and the feminism of that era. Then there's the feminism and role of women in my mother's generation. Way too much to unpack in a comment... might be difficult in a novel.
"The sad truth is that women design their lives for the praise and acceptance of other women more than for men"...a woman in a blog discussion said that 'we (women) are the mobile gender'..she went on to say that for a long span of history and prehistory, women were at risk of being kidnapped into a new tribe, and that their survival was dependent on quickly navigating the social landscape and fitting in.
Still, I observe quite a few women who have been strong in standing up against Wokeness, even though it meant going against against their female peer group.
I agree that it may be a generational change--and there are multiple generations involved.
Quote: "The sad truth is that women design their lives for the praise and acceptance of other women more than for men, and women no longer socially admire and reward having children as much. It doesn't have to be the antipathy and disdain that a few women show that discourages women from putting in that kind of effort. It's knowing that the same amount of effort will get you more admired by other women."
This rubs me the wrong way, so let me try to expand on my reaction. Is there a man involved in this? Because I would not say that it's a single decision. It's a joint decision. (I will discuss the single decision below.) There are women who want to be mothers, but whose husbands/partners do not want to be fathers. In those cases we know of from real life, this has been a painful situation. Note that both sides can take medical steps to prevent conception. I cannot blame a spouse for refusing to leave his or her partner due to a reluctance to have children.
I would say that women respect motherhood, but that the wider culture does not--or treats women as men. There was a recent case in which a law student at Georgetown had to fight for reasonable accommodations for her pregnancy: https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/after-exam-controversy-georgetown
I am happy that her classmates perceived the injustice in Georgetown Law's original stance. In that lies a hope that future women will be able to combine education and childbearing. Because most smart women are not going to choose to be only mothers. Maybe part of the trouble is the earlier efforts of early feminists led to an expectation that women can be "super men," that is, do it all, without complaint.
As a thought exercise. Imagine that there were no women, only men, and that child creation involved only a contract between two men to allow one of the men to bear a child. (in other words, leave mutual attraction out of the process.) In order to have a next generation of similar size, each male couple would have to create two children. How would the roles be decided? One each? Draw lots? Alphabetically? Would you expect the male who bore the children to refrain from public life thereafter, due to that one-time decision? After all, this is the future of the world! Surely, anyone who declined to sacrifice for the future deserves criticism?
Do you think the child-bearing partner would expect some compensation for the time, trouble, and career loss involved in the enterprise?
As I write this, I think there are some expectations that women will sacrifice a great deal for their children, and that therefore society needs make no attempt to support mothers. Certainly, some women will choose to do so, but I think it is becoming clear that nowhere near enough women of childbearing age are finding that an equitable deal today. And we can list the ways in which prior supports have been withdrawn, and the newer supports are lacking.
But respect and praise from other women does not pay the bills. It doesn't provide daycare. It doesn't provide education.
As to the single case, it is possible for women to choose to turn to sperm banks to start a family. An estimated 440,986 women used donor sperm in 2015-17, but the study does not break out women who were conceiving without a partner from couples treating infertility: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31371048/
I don't believe anyone should be forced, or maneuvered, into having children if they want to remain childless.
But...
This significant drop in birth rates is leading the world into uncharted territory. I would have said that Russia would have no need to invade Ukraine, as the populations of both countries were falling before the war. And yet, Putin is spending young men the country really can't afford to lose in this war, and kidnapping Ukrainian children into Russia.
We really do not know what our leaders will decide to do. Strange things happen when population pyramids invert.
Tet plenty of my college friends have no children and do not see that as a lack in their lives. Fertility crisis? What's that? Why is it important? You can have a great life other ways.
We have known for decades that there would be a great need for elder care services in this country, once we figured out that the baby boom was followed by a baby bust. Long term care costs are staggering. AVI with five children and five grandchildren, you are in a better situation than your buddies with no children. With the best of intentions, your ten descendants can't care for everyone (and they're not all in New Hampshire!)
And that's only long term care. There are other, bizarre effects that the world is gradually discovering. Like, bear attacks in Japan: https://www.reuters.com/graphics/JAPAN-BEARS/dwpkkldkapm/
I have been saying for many years that women dress for other women. They will say that they dress to be stylish, but since only women (for the most part) care about style, that is another way of saying the same thing. This is a longstanding argument I have been having with my wife, who sometimes picks what I consider to be very unattractive clothes, because they are the current style.
By the way, a woman who wants to find a husband could do a lot worse than to study what men like. (And no, this does no mean slutty, although that works on some men.) I'll give them a clue for free: most men like long hair, unless the woman is so beautiful that a pixie-ish look is attractive.
Excellent. Good thought experiment. David, you may be remembering my quoting Dr. Tania Reynolds of UNM in my series about Tinder enabling the polygamies. https://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2022/10/will-tinder-enable-polygamies-mating.html
But I will still fight for my contention that women conferring status on other women is more of an issue than we have credited. European countries do pay the bills, but their birthrates are down to 1.5. My son in Norway was appalled to find out that Norway would pay a single woman $48K (10 years ago) to stay home with the child for three years. I pointed out replacement to him.
Admittedly, the amount of work and being taken out of commission socially is also a sacrifice.
Sorry I rubbed you the wrong way. Really. It is all contentious. I have gotten tired of the reflex comment from women I went to school with what great aunts they are, to children who were never nearby. It's very nice, but it's not equivalent. I think it goes to some core spiritual principals. It is undeniable that women get less back than they would get from a career, in many domains. That can be mitigated, but it's not going away. Women from my generation still feel obliged to explain why they never had children. I have seldom heard a woman from a generation younger do that, and none at all from two generations younger. They shrug and airily dismiss it. They wouldn't do that if there were social pressure from their peers.
"Women from my generation still feel obliged to explain why they never had children. I have seldom heard a woman from a generation younger do that, and none at all from two generations younger. They shrug and airily dismiss it. They wouldn't do that if there were social pressure from their peers."
Social pressure seems to be largely in the other directions among those younger. For example, the reaction this woman (who has already built & sold one company) got when telling people she would prioritize having more kids & spending time with them over career, at least in the short term:
https://x.com/jessegenet/status/1862963887555186803
I do think there are signs of a sea change, though...the new Apple add focused on parents & kids may be a signpost.
@Cranberry - your thought exercise is bit precious as it conveniently leaves out the role of fatherhood while exaggerating the role of childbearing in motherhood. It assumes that the only reason to have children is to create the next generation and that one of the parents will pay for it in certain way -- the childbearer always being the one screwed. It does not allow for the father to be invested in the well-being of his child or the bearer of said child. Surely, I'm not understanding what you mean.
I think in general the fertility crisis is often treated by those concerned about it the same way the climate change crisis is treated by those concerned about that: important until there's a competing priority, at which point it gets bumped down several spots on the list.
My current example is Elon Musk, who at this point is perhaps the most visible advocate for increased fertility rates. He's been tweeting about this for quite some time and says it should be one of our top priorities, while also having lots of kids himself. But much to the dismay of Lyman Stone, one of the first things Musk honed in on when he started looking at the federal government was to state he wanted to immediately end remote work for federal employees. Lyman pointed out work from home is one of the few broad policies we actually know successfully increases birth rates, but Elon still approached it with a hammer. He didn't even suggest he would look at individual departments to see who could work effectively at home, he just wants to end it entirely so we don't have empty buildings. That's his prerogative of course, but if he can't even keep birth rates at the top of his own list, how do we expect anyone else to?
Another thought: you mention the influence of women on other women, but it's pretty notable that a lot of our drop in fertility rate came from a reduction in teen pregnancy. Part of our problem with increasing birth rates is that (in general) we actually only want to push certain kinds of births: those to married parents. I don't have data on it, but anecdotally male stigmas against single motherhood do actually seem pretty strong, at least based on my friends experiences on dating apps. I actually get the stigma and am not particularly looking for it to be undone, just think it's worth noting that we are not just trying to increase birth rates.....we are trying to increase the number of kids adult married women have while continuing to decrease the number of teen moms and single moms. That's a somewhat more nuanced problem!
The most concentrated set of messages most of us get about reproduction are probably in high school health classes, which even in religious schools are HEAVILY focused on not having children before certain ages or in less than ideal circumstances. Again, I don't object to this messaging, but we do have to consider how you decrease unwise births while simultaneously incentivizing other births. Or do we believe that the fertility crisis is enough of a crisis that we will be okay with boosting all types of births including those to teen moms or single moms? I've seen no indication people want to go that direction, but it is a possible solution.
I'm sure I have more thoughts, but that's my initial brain dump.
Well, Bethany you covered a lot of territory quite admirably, and I guess I'd better get onto my second in the series. Unfortunately, I only have two unconnected thoughts. So let me just say "yes, we don't easily admit that we are only really encouraging certain kinds of births, and that may be the main driver of the decline."
Remote work: some thoughts from Katherine Boyle
https://boyle.substack.com/p/can-zoom-save-the-american-family
https://boyle.substack.com/p/can-starlink-save-the-american-mother
Donna B, the intent of the thought exercise was to pare back the debate to the essentials. It is not intended to posit a world which would ever exist. In essence, birth control DOES effectively render women into men, in that they have a choice as to whether they will conceive a child.
The fertility debate, as presented by well-meaning male pundits, is often either, "how can we incentivize women to have more children," or, "women are being selfish by refusing to have children." I'm trying to step back from the expectation that it is natural for women to have children, and thus any decrease in fertility is an unnatural state which is someone's fault. Because as I've noted in my children's peer group, not conceiving children is the default state. The women are often more focussed on their careers than the men.
Of course fathers do have a role to play in children's lives. However, without the birth of a child, there is no father.
Most of the discussion on remote work seems pretty binary: remote work GOOD or remote work BAD. Seems pretty obvious to me, though, that the choice/mix should be based on the particular work to be done and the attributes of the people doing it, or who should be doing it. Company-wide edicts are a bad idea.
Possible exception for government, though--because government work is so rule-regulated, it is difficult or impossible to manage people flexibly. I was talking a couple of days ago w someone who has interacted w a lot of government agencies & workers, and she felt that the laziness / goofing off was so extreme that 100% work in office was needed.
Maybe right answer for federal government is: back to work in office NOW, then start providing remote work AND geographical decentralization of offices on a gradual basis.
As for the federal government, a significant percentage of the federal employees young enough to conceive children are in the military. https://ourpublicservice.org/fed-figures/a-profile-of-the-2023-federal-workforce/ Pregnancy is not encouraged in people on active duty.
The federal workforce in general is older than the American workforce at large. About 80% are older than 40, which means that WFH for federal employees is not going to significantly increase birthrates. And, the federal workforce is supported by taxes, which means that in order to support those workers, the cost of living is increasing for everyone.
Work from home is great, if people are honest and ethical about it. However, it is hard to keep track of who is actually doing the work. Certainly, having work from home and maintaining empty office buildings is the most expensive way to go about it.
Part of the appeal of WFH is avoiding traffic. I have heard that DC traffic is terrible. Maybe locate office buildings away from areas with terrible traffic? I think many people would like to join peers at a central space if it were 15 minutes away.
The tech world has had people who have been "working" multiple jobs at once. https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/14/22624669/wall-street-journal-tech-workers-multiple-remote-jobs Requiring people to show up in person cuts down on such games.
WFH is the only good thing to come out of COVID. I never want to work any other way again if I can avoid it.
However, I did hear a well-reasoned argument this week that young workers are badly disadvantaged by the practice. Because they no longer work directly with older workers who mentor them, their skill development and thus career progression is retarded. WFH offers far more limited interaction with the more experienced, whose skills are honed and whose network of contacts might become available to young people who impress.
A fair point! Still, no thanks from me.
“…hotly debated over at Grim's years ago…”
Very. The condition of peace was that I never bring up that suggestion again.
"However, I did hear a well-reasoned argument this week that young workers are badly disadvantaged by the practice. Because they no longer work directly with older workers who mentor them, their skill development and thus career progression is retarded."
Someone who manages about 30 people distributed across the US and various other countries said that WFH works fine, *except* it makes it very difficult to bring new people on board and accustom them to the way things work in the organization.
Should be noted, of course, that not everyone works in offices or the home equivalent of same...there are factories, warehouses, maintenance shops, physical retail stores, scientific laboratories, construction sites, air traffic control facilities, and many more.
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