Is the decline of fertility rates to below-replacement levels in countries like the US, Japan, Italy, and Sweden a product of women being unwilling to settle down? If so, how should governments approach women's unwillingness to marry and reproduce?

jackandjill22 · 2016-08-21T21:57:15+00:00

I think women are now unwilling to have children because they are

pursuing their careers;
more sexually promiscuous and involved in casual relationships;
more worried about their physical appearance than they used to be decades ago - this fitness obsession sometimes makes a woman refrain from having kids because she doesn't want to "ruin her body".

Honestly, there is no way to make women want to reproduce and marry anymore. Feminism accomplished its mission to destroy the traditional values.

despisedlove2 · 2016-08-21T17:54:59+00:00

You are talking about societies and civilizations in terminal decline. The high fertility immigrants in these countries will inherit them. The cultures of these countries are slowly mutating and dying.

It is neither the first time, nor the last time, that an advanced civilization decided to commit suicide. The funny thing is that almost all civilizations in decline have certain common factors. Yet, human beings refuse to learn.

TheHammer987 · 2016-08-21T17:57:16+00:00

i doubt the decline in those countries all have the exact smae reasons. Most countries fall to about replacement birth rate when birth control bills are introduced (source:sex and war, by poyts and hayden).

Japan's is definitely the most interesting, and not yet well understood. there is a theory in collapsing societies that seems to fit, but its unclear. In japan, the men have stopped pursing women en masse. This wasn't due to the women asserting themselves at all, women in japan still rate one of the most submissive in the world. the theory about collapse was this: When a giant colony of mice was once designed to be pushed to over populate and collapse, the men withdrew from breeding, and became obsessed with self grooming. That seems to be happening with Japanese men. What makes it weird as an idea as japan was never over populated. when humans over populate, we invent societal lines and kill each other (tutsi versus hulus, source 'collapse' by diamond)

its definitely wierd.

[deleted] · 2016-08-22T01:57:07+00:00

Much of it is women who didn't want kids in the past but were forced to by their financial dependency don't have to now. Much is also that people see how fulfilling and fucking awesome a child free life is, especially a DINK lifestyle, and opt out of having dependents.

~ signed, the happily child free :)

Atlas_B_Shruggin · 2016-08-21T17:40:19+00:00

by simply ending dysgenic policies, not by enacting eugenic policies

[deleted] · 2016-08-21T20:52:16+00:00

It's a product of our complete disconnect from the natural world. We've over-indulged on comfort and now most people are heavily focused on satiating those base urges that make us feel good. We're not afraid of the future, the state will look after us, and we no longer have any sense of pride in our heritage or culture so we don't see any particular reason to continue it. Plus, people are seeing that marriage and children is not such a good time for most people who do it.

alderheart · 2016-08-21T23:09:02+00:00

None if my Japanese workmates want to have children. They know how society views mothers as "moo cows" who are no longer capable of anything other than housework and nose wiping.

KrispyMcSockington · 2016-08-21T17:47:05+00:00

Japan is totally different, it's problem is men are just going herblore and playing video games. They don't pursue women hardly at all. There literally is no cock carousel.

fullmoonhermit · 2016-08-21T22:15:57+00:00

I think it's unwise to assume we know the cause behind declining birth rates. There are many theories, but the research is still very lacking.

I also don't think that this is a problem for most countries facing a resource-poor future. A smaller population is beneficial for many regions (with some exceptions).

FrostyGoingHisOwnWay · 2016-08-22T03:13:50+00:00

It is about women being unwilling to lose their place in their company they work for. Even in liberal as fuck Sweden, women don't have enough kids to replace the current population because even in a best case scenario, a woman who takes time to have her child and recover is going to be disadvantaged when it comes to promotions and raises compared to her non-pregnant male and female peers.

The governments shouldn't do anything more. I'm very curious about what a whole world below replacement ratio looks like. Do things naturally just self-correct or do we go into a population "death-spiral"?

FrostyGoingHisOwnWay · 2016-08-22T13:20:02+00:00

It has little to do with willingness, women want children as much now as they ever did, it's just that they tend to want to settle down in later life. The stats show people marrying and having children at much older ages, typically into the 30's which was unheard of in previous generations, it wasn't that long ago that people were marrying and starting a family in their early 20's.

The problem is that with the pill being invented and feminism telling women that it's OK to be promiscuous, it has created a society where access to sex for men now no longer requires commitment, it's the age old saying, "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free".

Women spend their best years (their youth) sleeping about more and more and what happens is that by the time they want to settle down in later life they've hit the wall, they do not have the sexual market value they once had, where as men their age are still eligible to date the 22 year olds. In fact its easier for a man in his 30's with a decent income to impress an impressionable 20 something who is young and fun and looking for a good time. Men get their sexual market value in different ways to women, women win the lottery and get all their youth and beauty up front early and lose it over time, by contrast men are judged by resources, confidence, money and power which you get none of to start with and you get more with time.

What is happening is young women acting this way is shooting the older versions of themselves in the foot. The younger generation keep the focus of men by being promiscuous and being liberal with sex but that is at the expense of the older generation. The problem with this is every woman will be that older generation at some point in her life and when the desire for babies comes along and baby rabies kicks in around 30-35 getting a man in that age bracket to settle down is harder, because you're competing against much younger and more attractive women.

There are other factors at play here, marriage and children have become an astronomical risk for men, you're talking about at least 50% of your assets if not more, as well as losing access to your house, your children and most of your future earnings. Most men do not want to risk that kind of loss, and so if the government is to do anything it's to get out of the family, if you want to see men opt back into marriage then remove no fault divorce, end alimony, end child support. That means women need to pick men who they are sure they'll stay with and both parties depend on each other rather than the state and that means working at the relationship instead of ending it (which statistically is what women currently favour).

Shazoa · 2016-08-22T15:02:31+00:00

I don't think anything needs to be done. People that don't want to have children no longer feel like they have to, that it's their responsibility. That's a good thing.

barbadosslim · 2016-08-21T17:25:24+00:00

Probably not.

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[deleted] · 2016-08-21T18:47:08+00:00

If so, how should governments approach women's unwillingness to marry and reproduce?

Import labor with H1B visas and "amnesty"

anitapk · 2016-08-21T20:13:06+00:00

Anecdote time: Women i see settle all the time and so do men. I don't see cock carousel riding as much as I hear about it from us, there aren't as many hookups as they are frowned upon, people are still very likely to end paired up. The women who are 30+and single are seen as outliers where I am.

We don't have money to have kids and government doesn't help.

Noxin__Nixon · 2016-08-22T06:50:22+00:00

Is the....unwilling to settle down?

No.

[deleted] · Sun Aug 21 18:10:41 2016 UTC

[permanently deleted]

questioningwoman · 2016-08-21T22:26:52+00:00

How? Give extra money to people who reproduce. Also give them extra benefits and more free things that single people don't get. Heavily advertise these benefits to the public so they get the message that if they reproduce, they will get this, this, and this. Almost any problem can be solved using money.

jackandjill22 · 2016-08-21T20:54:49+00:00

Incentives are a simple way of doing it. Instead of offering more birth control, we simply offer money or other compensation for improving the birth rates. This is especially easy to do with those on welfare, as Atlas said, since they already have higher birth rates in general.

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