Yep, people don't realize how much of a bubble they might be in. I grew up in a relatively wealthy/very high education suburb so all of my friends from high school are just barely settling down (getting married, no kids yet) after finishing PhDs/MDs etc. When I lived in the bay area, it was super common to be single or partnered but no kids (in my friend group, in our mid-late 20s). It really never occurred to me that there were other 'timelines'.
I moved out to Salt Lake City in the pandemic and now at 30 I'm very rare to be both single and have no kids. It's very common for people to have started having kids at age ~22 or so, even amongst the non-LDS crowd. I suspect San Francisco and Utah are polar opposite ends of the "having kids or not"-spectrum, so it does make sense in hindsight but it's still surprising to me
Nah, cultures that don’t have kids will just be replaced by ones that do. This process is already will underway in America, with WASPs (who have a strong anti-natal streak) being replaced by Hispanics.
Interestingly, in the US, you find that the birth rate of all races converge. Why? Educated, empowered women have less children or no children, and in general delay childbearing. Immigrant fertility is higher, but settles back down after a generation or two.
> Interestingly, in the US, you find that the birth rate of all races converge.
Because white (European) American individualist culture is inexorable in America. It’s in the water, you can’t avoid it. But the question is, as the white population collapses, will that continue to be true?
> Why? Educated, empowered women have less children or no children, and in general delay childbearing.
Why do you assume it has to do with education rather than other cultural traits? Muslim American women for example are more educated than white women, but have more kids.
At least in that culture, the difference isn’t education, it’s that having children is necessary for acceptance and respectability in Muslim society, and moreover children are socialized to care very much about those things. It’s not like with white Americans who are islands to themselves and don’t play by anyone’s rules.
> Why do you assume it has to do with education rather than other cultural traits? Muslim American women for example are more educated than white women, but have more kids.
Education and empowerment overrides cultural pressure.
> As in the rest of the world, fertility rates in countries with Muslim-majority populations are directly related to educational attainment. Women tend to delay childbearing when they attain higher levels of education.
Technically, it is lack of women's independence and rights that cause the higher fertility rates. This is often correlated with societal poverty, but not a necessary condition.
I doubt it will. Infact, I would be willing to bet good money that china is going to start factory farming the next generation within the next 20 years, using artificial wombs & in vitro fertilization.
> china is going to start factory farming the next generation within the next 20 years, using artificial wombs & in vitro fertilization
Enormously more expensive than producing children the natural way. Given the CCP’s history of using coercion to make people have less kids (forced sterilisation, forced abortion, some even allege infanticide), I would not be surprised if they start coercing people to have more. From an ethical perspective that’s terrible, but why expect a government which hasn’t cared about ethics in the past to start caring about it now or in the future? Coerced natural reproduction is massively cheaper than artificial wombs
I moved out to Salt Lake City in the pandemic and now at 30 I'm very rare to be both single and have no kids. It's very common for people to have started having kids at age ~22 or so, even amongst the non-LDS crowd. I suspect San Francisco and Utah are polar opposite ends of the "having kids or not"-spectrum, so it does make sense in hindsight but it's still surprising to me