[airgapstopgap]

Those economic explanations are searching for keys under the lamp post. As Tanner Greer notes[1]:

> Structurally the arguments in both countries go like “life is so hard, and things generally so depressing, that I have no desire to bring children into the world.”

> In both cases generations previous, who lived through events far more harrowing and whose material circumstances were far worse, did not express similar beliefs at any scale.

Improving living conditions is always nice, so it is shoehorned into every conversation. What arguments could he raised against improving the atrocious housing situation (at least on the level of vague sentiment, "time to build", not necessarily YIMBY activism)? None at all, the very attempt amounts to a political suicide.

Yet when you see basically the same trends and very similar absolute values in countries as dramatically distinct as Argentina, Belgium, England, Iran and Russia [2], it becomes increasingly clear that no economic variable suffices, no charitable materialist analysis can account for the cultural shift. The real answer is simply the perceived value of children and lifestyle amenable to their existence plummeting worldwide. Now, even minor (by the standards of our predecessors) inconveniences and contrived long-term considerations like climate change can be cited as legitimate reason to not have any (or not have more than one).

Modernity sees no point to children. And as nations age and budget decisions are weighted in favor of older and childless people, as urban infrastructure itself evolves to make children more of a labor-intensive chore a working person would not be expected to afford, any possible remaining point becomes even less compelling. But to begin with, rationalizing the child-free lifestyle with material excuses is just a vestige of old normative morality, token respect for traditional natalism.

In fact, we would advance the discourse more if we paid attention to outliers both in terms of fertility and in terms of its trend, those being, to my knowledge: Israel, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan. And no, it's not entirely about low-education traditionalist groups, certainly not in Israel.

1. https://twitter.com/Scholars_Stage/status/165885018362973389...

2. https://twitter.com/BirthGauge/status/1662234743851700224

[lotsofpulp]

> And no, it's not entirely about low-education traditionalist groups, certainly not in Israel.

Yes it is, Israel’s high fertility rate is driven by tribes that either explicitly or implicitly influence how many children they want by restricting their financial independence. Same story with all the other countries you listed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel

> The ethnic group with highest recorded TFR is the Bedouin of Negev. Their TFR was reported at 10.06 in 1998, and 5.73 in 2009. TFR is also very high among Haredi Jews. For Ashkenazi Haredim, the TFR rose from 6.91 in 1980 to 8.51 in 1996. The figure for 2008 is estimated to be even higher. TFR for Sephardi/Mizrahi Haredim rose from 4.57 in 1980 to 6.57 in 1996.[30] In 2020 the overall Jewish TFR in Israel (3.00) was for the first time measured higher than Arab Muslim TFR (2.99).

Look at the graph here of the fertility rates of different types of Jews:

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2022/08/18/...

[airgapstopgap]

What motivates people to provide sources that refute their own argument? The Bedouin (Muslim), Google says, make up 200,000-250,000 out of Israel's 9,3 million people. Or as your source puts it:

> Of Israel’s population of 9.5m, Israeli Arabs, mostly Muslim, make up about 21% of the total, while Jews account for roughly 74%.

> Though Haredim are just 13% of the population, their offspring make up 19% of Israeli children under the age of 14, and 24% of those under the age of four.

So the majority of modern Israeli population are Jews, mainly secular and moderately religious (61%). It seems most children there also belong to those categories, although somewhat less than their parents' population share. And as stated in the headline, Muslims are in decline and have already converged to the average national rate. So there is strictly no way for Israel's fertility rate to be driven only by traditionalist minorities. They explain the increase.

> Look at the graph here of the fertility rates of different types of Jews:

I did. For convenience: https://archive.is/8FAsi/4ca20b298a776c0318c24337c475fa4dce0...

As can be seen, secular Jews are roughly at 2 children per woman and "religious" (but not Haredi) are at 4. Once again, other OECD countries are roughly between 1.0 and 1.7 and falling. And they, too, have a share of religious traditionalists.

All that said, a good article. Some interesting bits:

> If an Israeli woman has fewer than three children, she feels as if she owes everyone an explanation—or an apology.” That, at any rate, is the view of a leading Israeli demographer. When she visits London she is struck by its dearth of toy shops.

> …But it is harder to explain why secular Jewish Israelis also have more children than the norm. Most work; paid leave for Israeli parents is not especially generous. Nor is child care cheaper than in other rich places. Some argue that Jewish Israelis make more babies because they foresee a rosier future: Israel ranks among the world’s top ten countries in happiness.

> Another reason may be that the state encourages baby-making by, for instance, bankrolling fertility treatment. It subsidises in-vitro fertilisation to the tune of $150m a year. Tiny Israel has about the same number of frozen embryos as America. This may have only a slight effect on Israel’s birth rate, but it signals that the government wants its citizens to procreate.

> One more explanation may be that Israeli grandparents tend to help out more than their peers in many other rich countries. Since Israel is small and densely populated, grandma is never far away. In one survey 83% of secular Jewish mothers aged 25-39 said they were supported by their child’s grandparents, whereas only 30% of German mothers said the same. In Israel the traditional family structure is still strong. In France and Britain more than half of babies are born out of wedlock. In Israel it is under 10%.

So, no, this isn't about "tribes" restricting financial independence. This is about a modern secular society that isn't blatantly antinatalist, plus coexists with sizable non-modern groups. Perhaps we could learn something from them, on both accounts.

For more in-depth research: https://www.taubcenter.org.il/en/research/israels-exceptiona...

[lotsofpulp]

>What motivates people to provide sources that refute their own argument?

I do not see how the data I offered does. This quote specifically seems to support my claim that tribes that "restrict" or maintain certain "expectations" of women are disproportionately responsible for pulling the fertility rate up (which is 3 compared to other countries of being less than 2).

>Though Haredim are just 13% of the population, their offspring make up 19% of Israeli children under the age of 14, and 24% of those under the age of four.

>As can be seen, secular Jews are roughly at 2 children per woman and "religious" (but not Haredi) are at 4. Once again, other OECD countries are roughly between 1.0 and 1.7 and falling. And they, too, have a share of religious traditionalists.

I agree that it is notable that secular Jews are at a higher fertility rate, but note that it is not much higher. There are 2 factors at play here, the biological costs of having children, which are immutable, and the "economic" costs of having children, which are mutable. You make a good point here:

>In one survey 83% of secular Jewish mothers aged 25-39 said they were supported by their child’s grandparents, whereas only 30% of German mothers said the same. In Israel the traditional family structure is still strong. In France and Britain more than half of babies are born out of wedlock. In Israel it is under 10%.

It takes a village to raise a baby, and it may be true that given enough familial support, a woman would be more likely to have ~2 children rather than 0 or 1 as is being seen in other developed countries that lack the familial support system for myriad reasons. However, even with familial support, I think few women would opt for 3 children, and a very small minority would opt for 4 or more.

[airgapstopgap]

> note that it is not much higher

1,5 (or 1,2) vs 2 is a lot. It is close to 3 so confidently above replacement for the whole secular+non-Haredim religious group (reminder that nominally the US is nearly completely "religious") and very close to replacement rate for secular Jews only; they will not experience significant population contraction in the next 100 years even if left on their own. This is important in that it means they also will never run into dependency ratio problems and necessity of mass immigration to prop up the failing economy, at the current rate; they will also never experience the cultural impact of extreme geriatrization of the society (some European nations are at average age 45 and higher now). Trends are also completely different, there is no precipitous decline (in fact it looks like a slow wobble and their TFR may return to 2+). If secular Jews were their own country they'd have been doing fine, arguably better than now and clearly unlike the rest of OECD TFR-wise.

> the biological costs of having children, which are immutable, and the "economic" costs of having children, which are mutable.

While the biological costs are not trivially mutable, there is a world of difference between having a child at 21, 27 or 35. The toll childcare takes on the body ramps up rapidly with age, while the ability to provide care declines. Older people fail to function well in a sleep-deprived state. We are doing everyone and especially women a disservice by suggesting that this decision is most wise to postpone.

[lotsofpulp]

>We are doing everyone and especially women a disservice by suggesting that this decision is most wise to postpone.

Absolutely! Another component of all of this is before the costs of pregnancy and birth and raising the kid, which is matching up two people to procreate and create a life together.

I have numerous cousins and friends who would rather be single than commingle their life with a partner who they think would make their life worse, a phenomenon with many causes, but one particular one that sticks out to me is the lack of social pressure to pair up, and especially on women's side, a safe society with the ability for them to live alone without needing a man makes the compromise not make sense.