These are my blog posts on fertility, in reverse chronological order: Apr 14: Hail Richerson & Boyd In their book they suggest fertility fall due to prestigious folks now doing more early career prep, leaving less time for kids after.
The book "Random Family" by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc is partly about overpopulation. Coco and Jessica have so many babies, by so many fathers, and their children have so many half-siblings, that at times it’s impossible to keep the names straight. By the time the two women are in their early thirties, they have given birth to Mercedes, Nikki, Nautica, Pearl, LaMonte, Serena, Brittany, Stephany, Michael, and Matthew, by Cesar, Torres, Puma (or maybe Victor), Willy (or maybe Puma), Kodak, Wishman, and Frankie. This is a book awash with sperm (Jessica even manages to conceive twins while in prison, after an affair with a guard), and at one stage I was wondering whether it was medically possible for a man to become pregnant through reading it. I think I’m probably too old.
There are many, many things, a zillion things, that make my experiences different from those of Coco and Jessica. But it was remembering my first pregnancy scare that helped me to fully understand the stupidity and purposelessness of the usual conservative rants about responsibility and fecklessness and blah blah blah. It was the summer before I went to college, and my girlfriend’s period was late, and I spent two utterly miserable weeks convinced that my life was over. I’d have to get, like, an office job, and I’d miss out on three years pissing around at university, and my brilliant career as a… as a something or other would be over before it had even begun. We’d used birth control, of course, because failing to do so would cost us every-thing, including a very great deal of money, but we were still terrified: I would just as soon have gone to prison as started a family. What 'Random Family' explains, movingly and convincingly and at necessary length, is that the future as Coco and Jessica and the fathers of their children see it really isn’t worth the price of a condom, and they’re right. I eventually became a father for the first time around the same age that Jessica became a grandmother. - (Nick Hornby ‚Stuff I’ve Been Reading‘ Sept. 2003)
So, R. Hanson's recipe: "PAY for babies, substantially" will indeed raise TFR among the Cocos and Jessicas of the USofA. Or in Somalia. Substantially. At a much, much lower pay-level than needed to move the needle on TFR among college-students (prospective/present/former). The question I never see addressed in overcomingbias is: Do we want that? I am doubtful. "Just Emil Kirkegaard Things" would scream: NO!
Maybe 10k at birth and 200k when the kids passes SAT in the top 20%, 500k in the top 5%, 1 million in the top 1%? Find the equilibrium.
Having read just a few of these, I see that the overarching theme is "Fertility crisis won't be solved and the Amish shall inherit the Earth".
However, there is a technologically feasible, but ethically unacceptable (yet) way for the WEIRD/liberal countries to solve fertility - child production/farming based on IVF and artificial wombs, then having children raised by foster care, state facilities (orphanage?) or communes. This solution would also accomplish other progressive/leftist goals of true gender equality and dissolving the institution of family.
As the scenarios and forecasts for 50 or 100 years into the future are discussed here, we should also consider dystopian scenarios such as above. Any thoughts on this?
The book "Random Family" by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc is partly about overpopulation. Coco and Jessica have so many babies, by so many fathers, and their children have so many half-siblings, that at times it’s impossible to keep the names straight. By the time the two women are in their early thirties, they have given birth to Mercedes, Nikki, Nautica, Pearl, LaMonte, Serena, Brittany, Stephany, Michael, and Matthew, by Cesar, Torres, Puma (or maybe Victor), Willy (or maybe Puma), Kodak, Wishman, and Frankie. This is a book awash with sperm (Jessica even manages to conceive twins while in prison, after an affair with a guard), and at one stage I was wondering whether it was medically possible for a man to become pregnant through reading it. I think I’m probably too old.
There are many, many things, a zillion things, that make my experiences different from those of Coco and Jessica. But it was remembering my first pregnancy scare that helped me to fully understand the stupidity and purposelessness of the usual conservative rants about responsibility and fecklessness and blah blah blah. It was the summer before I went to college, and my girlfriend’s period was late, and I spent two utterly miserable weeks convinced that my life was over. I’d have to get, like, an office job, and I’d miss out on three years pissing around at university, and my brilliant career as a… as a something or other would be over before it had even begun. We’d used birth control, of course, because failing to do so would cost us every-thing, including a very great deal of money, but we were still terrified: I would just as soon have gone to prison as started a family. What 'Random Family' explains, movingly and convincingly and at necessary length, is that the future as Coco and Jessica and the fathers of their children see it really isn’t worth the price of a condom, and they’re right. I eventually became a father for the first time around the same age that Jessica became a grandmother. - (Nick Hornby ‚Stuff I’ve Been Reading‘ Sept. 2003)
So, R. Hanson's recipe: "PAY for babies, substantially" will indeed raise TFR among the Cocos and Jessicas of the USofA. Or in Somalia. Substantially. At a much, much lower pay-level than needed to move the needle on TFR among college-students (prospective/present/former). The question I never see addressed in overcomingbias is: Do we want that? I am doubtful. "Just Emil Kirkegaard Things" would scream: NO!
Maybe 10k at birth and 200k when the kids passes SAT in the top 20%, 500k in the top 5%, 1 million in the top 1%? Find the equilibrium.
Seems very little analysis on the impact of religious views on fertility.
Having read just a few of these, I see that the overarching theme is "Fertility crisis won't be solved and the Amish shall inherit the Earth".
However, there is a technologically feasible, but ethically unacceptable (yet) way for the WEIRD/liberal countries to solve fertility - child production/farming based on IVF and artificial wombs, then having children raised by foster care, state facilities (orphanage?) or communes. This solution would also accomplish other progressive/leftist goals of true gender equality and dissolving the institution of family.
As the scenarios and forecasts for 50 or 100 years into the future are discussed here, we should also consider dystopian scenarios such as above. Any thoughts on this?
"Are Gardens Fertile?" seems to be quite different from the others.
Since you seem to be on a scholarly island, I've taken the liberty of suggesting some references and other researchers you might be interested in:
https://sites.google.com/umn.edu/larryjones/research/family-economics-and-fertility-choice
Online World of Surrogacy https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/berendonline
https://www.routledge.com/Creating-Future-People-The-Ethics-of-Genetic-Enhancement/Anomaly/p/book/9780367203122
Alice Evans https://www.ggd.world/