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Kvetch's avatar

Why didn’t you mention the #1 reason for the drop in fertility: lower childhood mortality? People definitely had to have more babies when only half made it to age 15. It kind of poisons the well to leave that out, and makes the problem look twice as bad as it is.

Also, something that gets left off lists of the reasons for the drop in fertility because of Social Desirability Bias is the taboo against infanticide. When people could just kill a baby if they couldn’t support it, they likely would have been able to have more children closer to their limit of supportable offspring. Not advocating a return of infanticide, but worth noting that this was a common practice in many cultures that isn’t talked about.

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Scott's avatar

A more libertarian approach might be to consider how government hinders fertility e.g. grain subsidies, laws against free-range kids - https://reason.com/tag/free-range-kids/ - et cetera, and stop doing those things.

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