Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not. Shaw The average woman is born with around 300,000 eggs … 12 percent of those eggs remaining at the age of 30, and only 3 percent left by 40. … From the mid-30s on, the decline in fertility is much steeper with each passing year. … Female undergraduates significantly overestimated their fertility prospects at all ages. … The biological reality that female fertility peaks in the teens and early 20s can be difficult for many American women to swallow, as they delay childbirth further every year. … The older you get, the more difficult it is to get pregnant and the higher the chance of miscarriage, pregnancy problems such as gestational diabetes and hypertension, and chromosomal abnormalities such as Down syndrome. … The risk of autism increases with a mother’s age.
My physical attractions were so strong at the age of 15 that 37 years later I still remember fondly features of the bodies I fondled, and realize seeing these women grown, that that memory would carry me through a lot. Same with women I was attracted to in college, their 50 year old selves hold for me much of the same affect that their 19 year old selves did back in the day. (My wife and I met, married and had kids in the range 39-42 years or so. There was no doubt a component of "if not now, when?" which drove us.)
As the world becomes richer and healthier (or at least the part we seem to participate in) intergenerational cooperation within families would seem to be a "natural" response. I have often thought I would enjoy it if my daughters had kids at a relatively young age and stayed in the family home. Most of the downside of early parenthood seems removed by a well-off healthy intergenerational aid. Indeed, where kids are had young by the poor and not-as-healthy, you see this intergenerational thing happening anyway. Why wouldn't it work where people are healthy and wealthy?
Tangential - I sometimes think that that earlier marriage might yield more average lifetime utility by allowing more people to have regular sex starting earlier but I guess that is a different subject.
People don't really want to have kids. Women's hormones might drive them to try it out, but actually having kids is regrettable work. Men don't even pretend to care. Note the stats on divorce, abandonment, etc.
See also the work of Arline Geronimus, in particular "Damned if you Do: Culture, Identity, Privilege, and Teenage Childbearing in the United States", and "Teenage childbearing as cultural prism".
I've read that the first born usually out performs his/her brother's and sisters. Is this biological or sociological? If it's biological that the earlier the child is born in it's parents life the better it does then that's a strong argument to move birth back to younger ages.
Lets assume for a second that current life choice decisions are optimal if we ignore fertility. That is, estimates of fertility are the only consistent error people are making.
Then the question is, do we fix life choices or do we fix fertility? My gut reaction is that fixing fertility is likely to be the lower cost option. Even ignoring possible efficiency losses from breaking up secondary and tertiary schooling there is the simple issue that young people are very excited about their possible careers and eager to embark on them.
The biological clock often doesn't start ticking until later. We should seek to align biology with those preferences.
Great-grandparents are 45, and great-great-grandparents are 60, but there is a bigger co-ordination problem here, due to lots of ancestors and lots of descendants.
The only sustainable solution to this problem is to make women unequal "breeders" in a male-dominated society, as happens in the places which are closest to your plan at the moment. You can structure marriage markets and divorce laws to discriminate in favour of men. Don't they say that our repressed desires make themselves manifest in our dreams?
all the same, count me out. i wouldn't now want a partner i picked at 15, and i wouldn't at any age accept a partner selected by anyone else.
as for early marriage elsewhere, a big reason those child brides stay in long marriages to vile old men is that they are in societies where it is difficult (socially, legally, etc) for women to get out of a bad marriage, and/or where they have little prospect for financial support if they succeed in escaping -- not exactly conditions i'd want to import.
in a freer environment, i don't think you could convince 15-year-olds to marry, and if you did, i think you'd see a lot of them splitting in a hurry.
i believe eric was suggesting that he didn't have much in the way of palatable options available at 15. ditto that.
I must be a total aberration then. . . my father was 52 when I was born; my mother, a few months shy of 42. . . and I ended up with an IQ in the 135-143 range, not autistic, not defective, unless you count having to wear glasses for a bit of amblyopia. . .. . . I still have all my parts (tonsils, appendix, etc.) and rarely get sick. . .
Or immigration? I suppose technology plays a part in that..
Our optimum level of learning ends at around twenty five, at which time those hypothetical children are only ten. This scenario might be sacrificing the full potential of the careers of one generation to optimise the next- the full potential of which might be sacrificed in turn.
And if it happened now, the baby boomers and children would both be pushing more pressure onto those in the middle for care, financial or otherwise.
My physical attractions were so strong at the age of 15 that 37 years later I still remember fondly features of the bodies I fondled, and realize seeing these women grown, that that memory would carry me through a lot. Same with women I was attracted to in college, their 50 year old selves hold for me much of the same affect that their 19 year old selves did back in the day. (My wife and I met, married and had kids in the range 39-42 years or so. There was no doubt a component of "if not now, when?" which drove us.)
As the world becomes richer and healthier (or at least the part we seem to participate in) intergenerational cooperation within families would seem to be a "natural" response. I have often thought I would enjoy it if my daughters had kids at a relatively young age and stayed in the family home. Most of the downside of early parenthood seems removed by a well-off healthy intergenerational aid. Indeed, where kids are had young by the poor and not-as-healthy, you see this intergenerational thing happening anyway. Why wouldn't it work where people are healthy and wealthy?
Thanks that is some interesting reading.
Tangential - I sometimes think that that earlier marriage might yield more average lifetime utility by allowing more people to have regular sex starting earlier but I guess that is a different subject.
I suppose that I have nothing to complain about as long as increases in quality of living outpace population growth.
People don't really want to have kids. Women's hormones might drive them to try it out, but actually having kids is regrettable work. Men don't even pretend to care. Note the stats on divorce, abandonment, etc.
Eric doesn't want to have his wife chosen from a pool of ~100 15-year-old rural Manitobans.
See also the work of Arline Geronimus, in particular "Damned if you Do: Culture, Identity, Privilege, and Teenage Childbearing in the United States", and "Teenage childbearing as cultural prism".
I've read that the first born usually out performs his/her brother's and sisters. Is this biological or sociological? If it's biological that the earlier the child is born in it's parents life the better it does then that's a strong argument to move birth back to younger ages.
;)
This seems like a bit of overkill to me.
Lets assume for a second that current life choice decisions are optimal if we ignore fertility. That is, estimates of fertility are the only consistent error people are making.
Then the question is, do we fix life choices or do we fix fertility? My gut reaction is that fixing fertility is likely to be the lower cost option. Even ignoring possible efficiency losses from breaking up secondary and tertiary schooling there is the simple issue that young people are very excited about their possible careers and eager to embark on them.
The biological clock often doesn't start ticking until later. We should seek to align biology with those preferences.
Great-grandparents are 45, and great-great-grandparents are 60, but there is a bigger co-ordination problem here, due to lots of ancestors and lots of descendants.
The only sustainable solution to this problem is to make women unequal "breeders" in a male-dominated society, as happens in the places which are closest to your plan at the moment. You can structure marriage markets and divorce laws to discriminate in favour of men. Don't they say that our repressed desires make themselves manifest in our dreams?
Afaik, societies with early marriage also make divorce very difficult.
Thanks for asking. Freezing eggsl is just beginning to come into use.
I'd assumed it was established tech.
all the same, count me out. i wouldn't now want a partner i picked at 15, and i wouldn't at any age accept a partner selected by anyone else.
as for early marriage elsewhere, a big reason those child brides stay in long marriages to vile old men is that they are in societies where it is difficult (socially, legally, etc) for women to get out of a bad marriage, and/or where they have little prospect for financial support if they succeed in escaping -- not exactly conditions i'd want to import.
in a freer environment, i don't think you could convince 15-year-olds to marry, and if you did, i think you'd see a lot of them splitting in a hurry.
i believe eric was suggesting that he didn't have much in the way of palatable options available at 15. ditto that.
I must be a total aberration then. . . my father was 52 when I was born; my mother, a few months shy of 42. . . and I ended up with an IQ in the 135-143 range, not autistic, not defective, unless you count having to wear glasses for a bit of amblyopia. . .. . . I still have all my parts (tonsils, appendix, etc.) and rarely get sick. . .
Or immigration? I suppose technology plays a part in that..
Our optimum level of learning ends at around twenty five, at which time those hypothetical children are only ten. This scenario might be sacrificing the full potential of the careers of one generation to optimise the next- the full potential of which might be sacrificed in turn.
And if it happened now, the baby boomers and children would both be pushing more pressure onto those in the middle for care, financial or otherwise.