[anovikov]

It can't and won't help them. Unless you physically deprive women of rights and let them be married off against their will and others control their fertility, as it was in the "good old days" when the birth rate was sufficient.

It never worked in any country. Even in those with, to say the least, highly questionable human rights record and complete control of government over mass media: see China. Or with those with ample resources and willingness to spend them towards this goal: see Sweden.

Women are not having lots of children not because some evil forces are telling them not to, but simply because they can. They never wanted to procreate in "sufficient" numbers, they just didn't have a choice then. If we go as far as to deprive them of that choice, we will completely cancel everything we know as a civilised society - and also fail, because a huge emigration wave will ensue, and if we try to ban emigration, we will quickly fail into economic, technological and cultural irrelevance.

It's a choice between being Japan (controlled, predictable dieoff, slow but certain death), being Iran (nice population growth but...), and being America. To me it sounds like a no-brainer which one of the evils to choose.

[NoZebra120vClip]

Fertility isn't dropping merely because women have "rights", but it's also because women are being forced into labor markets where they never would have needed to work before, women are being told, over and over again, how horrible it is to be mutually interdependent with a man, be married, or bear children or have families, and how much happier they'll be as successful, college-educated empowered go-getters.

It's both impractical and unpopular for women to raise children and stay at home while doing it. These are the rights they've won; foremost of them is the right for their bloodlines to die out within a few generations.

[jdthedisciple]

The happiest women are married women.

The happiest among them are those with children.

Don't take my word for it, just look it up yourself, too tired to pull up the dozens of studies for you.

Clearly women want to have children. Nobody needs to force them to.

But rather, society is (indirectly) forcing them NOT to have them.

No need to deny human nature. Your caricature of a society that has children is complete and utter fantasy which has no bearing on real life. It is a product of aforementioned propaganda.

[hnhg]

There is perhaps a survivorship bias in those studies, since divorce is so easy now, only people who are happy in marriage remain. i.e. reported happiness in marriage increases while everyone unhappy simply divorces and so the numbers would get swayed that way. Divorce rates have rocketed and women are very likely to leave marriages these days in many countries. So you end up with a tiny happy cohort that has no bearing on the wider population. So you should produce your sources to see how this is accounted for, ideally.

[rtz121]

The problem with this is that women are of course happy when they have children, they love their children after all (father do too of course). But you don't love potential future unborn children do you?

Before having children they are a burden and a detriment to your lifestyle. After having them they are the best thing that could have happened to you.

[orwin]

And happiness is higher in countries with high divorce rates. Figures.

[HDThoreaun]

This could just as easily mean that people who are happy have more kids, not that having kids makes you happy.

[jdthedisciple]

This is like saying

"it could just be that people who are successful happen to be hard-working, not that working hard increases your chances of success"

The societal level of denial has reached new heights indeed.

[anovikov]

On the last point, i am not even sure there is correlation let alone causation. Successful people i know hardly work a lot (or they do but in short extreme stunts, like 3 weeks of 80-100 hours a week and then almost idle at 0-10 hours a week for the next 6 months). They mostly just tuned themselves into ability to get "into right place at the right time" at a rate way more frequent than regular folks, by having and consciously developing right personality traits.

[jdthedisciple]

> by having and consciously developing right personality traits.

Which takes a lot of effort and hard work.

> They mostly just tuned themselves into ability to get "into right place at the right time"

Which takes a lot of hard work

> then almost idle at 0-10 hours a week for the next 6 months

You have been tricked into thinking so, they just work so much more efficiently at some point and delegate a lot - at which point they are already successful due to their previous hard work

[HDThoreaun]

Except you haven't actually given any evidence that kids cause happiness, just a correlation.