"The global population has experienced an unprecedented reduction in birth rates over the past few decades. People in rich and poor countries alike are having fewer babies, which demographers warn will lead to a worsening problem of global aging."

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/a-1 ... 78692.html

In the animal kingdom, overpopulation sometimes results in a species eating up its food supply, leading to a crash. However, I believe some animal species have a mechanism which tells them of impending conditions--such as drought--that results in the species having fewer offspring. Human population now stands at about six billion, but our food supply is still relatively stable. Yet, birth rates globally have fallen and are expected to level off in the next 20 or 30 years. (I'm sort of shooting from the hip here.)

Anyway, I've always had a hunch that declining birth rates worldwide were somehow connected to overpopulation. We may already be far past a sustainable population level globally and somehow our species knows it. I saw this article in Psychology Today and it discusses a new "kin influence hypothesis" which I thought was pretty interesting. This theory may represent the mechanism which levels off birth rates before population reaches a catastrophic point. We may be in for a crash anyway, but it's always fun to speculate.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the ... ocieties-m

article follows . . .

History’s mysteries: Why do birth rates decrease when societies modernize?

Starting in Europe in the late 1800s and continuing today, birth rates have been declining in societies as they become more affluent, industrialized, and technologically advanced. In fact, fertility output is dropping so precipitously in some countries -- such as Japan, Germany, and Italy -- that their total population is now in decline. This is a major cause of concern in these countries, whose leaders try figure out, for example, how a shrinking workforce will be able to support a growing elderly population. Some governments have even launched programs that award their citizens money (payoffs?) to have more children.

Many things change when societies modernize, but it's not clear which factors directly cause the declining birth rates. Is it because birth control methods are more effective and readily available to people? Because parents no longer need children as extra hands on the farm? Or has raising children just become too expensive in modern societies?

There have been no shortage of reasons proposed, but unfortunately, many of these explanations are unconvincing. For example, it's not about better birth control technologies; these were developed long after birth rates started dropping in Europe. Also, the idea that children can be financial commodities to their parents is largely a myth: the cost of raising a child vastly exceeds what the child could ever pitch in, even in agrarian societies of the past.

A more reasonable possibility is that parents limit their family size in order to allocate more resources to each child. Parents may have adopted this strategy because the relative cost of raising children in modern societies has skyrocketed. For example, education is now perceived to be a vital component of a prosperous life, so parents don't let their children drop out of school to help support the family; indeed, they're more likely to encourage their children to pursue optional forms of education such as college. Modern societies also have higher standards for what parents are expected to provide: a safe home and neighborhood to grow up in, good health care, healthy food, and plenty of parental attention. This theory of allocating more resources to fewer children, however, doesn't explain why so many modern couples decide not to have any children at all; it's not because they can't afford it - usually it's wealthier people who decide to stay childless. Perhaps people who enjoy a great deal of freedom in their lives are more reluctant to let go of it.

The newest explanation for declining birth rates, called the kin influence hypothesis, focuses on how people's social networks have expanded. In traditional (pre-modern) societies, social networks were relatively small and consisted almost entirely of genetic relatives (kin). But because family ties are generally weaker in modern societies, our social networks have come to include a large proportion of non-kin (e.g., friends, co-workers). As a result, family members now constitute a smaller part of people's social interactions than any time in our evolutionary history. According to the kin influence hypothesis, this change is the critical factor in decreasing birth rates because family members encourage each other to have children, whereas non-kin don't. Without this pro-reproductive encouragement coming from family, people are less likely to have children.

Think about it in evolutionary terms: if an organism's ultimate "goal" is to pass down his or her genes -- to maximize one's reproductive fitness -- then it should be in each person's interest for their kin to have children as well. When your siblings, or your cousins, or your own children have kids, part of your genetic heritage is being passed down and surviving. Just as we tend to help relatives more than non-relatives - because doing so increases our own reproductive fitness - we should also try to influence family members to have children.

A classic example is when a parent says to her married daughter, "I'd really love to see some grandchildren before I die." Usually, though, these messages are more subtle. For instance, parents and other family members may promise to help with any childcare that's needed. Or they'll reward higher status to family members who have children and accord lower status to those who don't. If you think about it, kin influence is a standard feature of the family environment. From an early age, most of us are socialized to get married and have children when we grow up - we are raised to believe that this is something we should do. Much of this socialization comes from parents and other family members.

In traditional societies, where family makes up a majority of a person's social world, youngsters are probably exposed to pro-reproductive messages on a regular basis. But when family is more distant and our interactions with them less frequent, this encouragement loses much of its power. As a result, there are weaker norms, attitudes, and values toward having children. The farther away people move from their families and the less contact they have with them, the fewer children they produce.

We should be clear about one thing though: it's not that friends discourage each other from having children; they typically don't. It's just that friends have no direct incentive to encourage it. In most cultures, reproductive decisions are considered private issues, not something for friends to be meddling into.

Of course, other changes in society contribute to lower birth rates as well. Religion is one of the few cultural institutions that still encourage people to reproduce ("Be fruitful and multiply"), but this influence tends to diminish as societies modernize. Instead, society has created other rewarding goals to pursue -- e.g., financial success, a meaningful career, leisure activities -- which are often hindered by having children. The allure of these pursuits has only been getting stronger, perhaps at the cost of birth rates.

Whatever conditions cause people to limit their family size, once this norm is established it spreads readily to other places. Traditional cultures, after merely being exposed to practices such as contraception and smaller family sizes in the mass media, begin to adopt these practices themselves. Today, as the mass media infiltrates new areas of the globe and more countries begin to modernize, this has significant implications for world population growth. Despite the familiar doomsday scenarios of overcrowding and unsustainable resources, current projections indicate that these low-fertility norms will greatly reduce population growth in the decades to come.

(This post was co-authored by Josh Foster.)

Yup... it's going to be a Brave New World.

There were some really good points brought out here. The last one about financial success, meaningful career, and leisure activities is an important one to consider. If there were more people with incomes that allowed them to have a meaningful career which allowed them plenty of forced time off and money for leisure activities then it may give people less stress about considering how a child may disrupt such concerns.

There's also fashion. It's less and less fashionable to be a Mom or to have children. At home Moms are getting scarcer and scarcer and some women seem to blush when they mention that they are one... backed up quickly by, "I went to college and did this and such but when little jackass came along..." They have to justify that they're more than just a Mom when being a Mom is one of the most noble and underrated assets a family and country have.

Women's lib has targeted Moms. They got this part of the movement wrong in my opinion and made it unpopular to be a Mother. Men and Women don't stay young forever and in my opinion it's somewhat of a duty to have a child that is raised correctly and will become a productive member of society. It's nice not to leave a large carbon foot print but it's even nicer to leave behind someone who will continue the good fight.

Today we are as liberal as we have ever been but there's no reason we can't do our best to create some responsible little people. It's about work ethic in a sense but when there are so many outside pressures not to have kids, when our society has built itself to make having kids less attractive, and when our financial situations don't allow us to consider having children - it's only the irresponsible people that pump them out.

Loyalty is a big thing, too. Why invest in something with so much risk attached to it? Marriage is something that really wasn't discussed here. I want to see how marriage is tied along with the birth rates. Also, the rates of divorce and how much child support/alimony/cost of divorce is thrown in - in relation to how many people get married. I also want to see WHEN people have kids in life. I bet they're having kids later and later in life, which also diminishes the amount of kids (if at all) people have. I want to see how many people are having kids outside of marriage and how many cases of child support - both paid and unpaid as well as government support are tied to these cases.

The more people learn that they can have a much more personally fulfilling life by not having kids, the more the government will need to make having kids more attractive to those who value pleasures outside of 'family'.

Who raises kids now anyway? Teachers as far as I'm concerned. How many hours out of the day do kids really spend with their biological parents? Is there a study on that?

This article is concerned with pumping out a fresh work force... it has no concern with the quality of children but only quantity. Maybe these parents know that and would rather not do something if it's not going to be for the best. Why bring a child into the world if they don't have the time to raise it and the costs associated with it were so astronomical? You know why people are concerned about this??? Because there are laws against manufacturing people. If you allowed people to be manufactured by companies as slaves - this article may never have been written. It's probably not cost effective to produce people now anyway. Why produce a fresh workforce when you can have someone else do it for you! Then when the child is of age to work it can slave until it's too old to do so anymore. That's a brilliant way to do business.

The society we're in isn't geared towards kids at all. We're fighting for self indulgence... not raising a future generation.

I still haven't read Malthus' Essay on Population. I'll read it next. It's not very long.

a lot of population growth reduction has to do with the prevailing economic model of a nation.

It took the current "first world" nations dacades to transition from a farmer's family plan (double digit child birth with many dying young) to urban family plan (replacement value or less of children).

The problem being many nations which are transitioning into the industrial age end up with the benefits of industrialization which includes improved child mortality rates coupled with longer life spans of adults. That leads to an over-abundance of people in individual families. Where China's motto used to be the more hands for work the better, it quickly became our work has provided us with life stability, now we have too many hands to feed.

you see that on a smaller scale in each family.

with increase in the education of women, you also see fewer children per family. Child birth and care requires a tremendous amount of energy and time and many educated women don't see that as their sole purpose for existence as it has long been espoused.

What i find interesting is not this trend towards smaller families, because i think that was inevitable given the transition from aggriculture to urbanization, but the speed of the transition of these family plans for developing nations who are coming late to the party.

They benefit from the experience of the outliers who made it to the information age first, so when they upgrade from hunter-gatherers or farming communities, they don't just go to the wagon wheel...

With global interconnectivity, these cultures are capable of immediate immersion in first world culture. that means new markets, new resources, new opportunity for established global powers. they bring the modern world with them in-force and that can mean a very fast, even rushed acquisition of modern technology.

It seems that this corresponds pretty tightly with family planning.

interesting subject, and one i have been interested in since high school.

Thanks, Camacho,

What is most baffling about the worldwide decline in birth rates is that it's happening in rich and poor nations alike. So you talk about some of the factors in the U.S. like it's not fashionable to be a mother and that parents know how expensive it is to send kids to school (especially college). But the trend of decreasing birth rates is also happening in developing nations. The article suggests that once the norm of rearing fewer children gets established it spreads more readily to other places.

There a couple of other issues not really discussed in the article. I would agree that the family should be more of a priority, but in a world of six billion people (expected to go up to 8 or 9 billion), we may already be past the point of sustainable population. The population leveling off will apparently wreak havoc on our economy, as it has in places like Japan, which have a rapidly aging population. Even China, due to its one child per family policy, is expected to hit a brick wall before it can fully develop as an economic superpower. So the population leveling off is not going to be pretty. BUT, while we can talk about the importance of getting back to the family and raising children, there is the little problem that we have likely already surpassed a population that is sustainable. Even if someone disagrees with this premise, one has to accept the reality that at some point we will reach a tipping point of too many people that can said to be supported by the natural resources on this planet.

What is really interesting to me about this article is that it mentions the forces that drive apart extended families. I don't live in the same state as any of my brothers or sister or parents. I have a daughter in Montana (soon to be Oregon) and a son in Chicago. My wife and I really want to live near our children and this was a wish of our parents too. Somehow the way we live makes it very difficult for families to stay together. My children barely know their grandparents and aunts and uncles. We move because of jobs and other opportunities. It would be interesting to see if this is the case with other folks here.

Very succinctly put, johnson. The path to modernization is much shorter these days.

here's a somewhat related thread i posted a while back.

blue-states-vs-red-states-forward-and-retro-family-planning-t8413.html?hilit= family planning

UPDATE:

The link in the thread above is busted. here's a roughly equivalent article speaking on the same subject.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazi ... 1_5904.php


What it really comes down to is the un-educated tend to start families sooner due to lack of appreciation for consequence or lack of knowledge of contraception. This article puts it neatly.

In red states, families make adults. In blue states, adults make families.

I liken it to pre-industrial, and really, pre-education, family planning paradigms. They have larger families because they start reproducing as soon as their bodies are chemically able. abstinence doesn't work any better than training a person to never take a dump works. But you can keep from making a mess in both instances through education.

By witholding our reproduction until after the acquisition of skill, education, and resources (i waited until i was settled in a home of my own and in my early 30's before even considering having a kid) we have fewer children first out of preference (we may have more kids, but some of them may be adopted) and second biological restrictions.

I have always considered it to be of paramount importance that when i have a kid that i know how to raise a kid. That means having the experience and resources available to make that childhood not just a matter of survival, but an opportunity to thrive. Stable, loving, educational, empowering.

Teenagers being teenagers, and then un-prepared to deal through lack of education, and further hampered by a belief system which heavily frowns on controling where you shoot DNA in any way except complete abstention leads inevitably to kids having kids. Which leads to even further retardation in most cases, though there are the outliers...

This is the pattern of modernization, and likely responsible for much of the decline in population growth. As education become available it is apparent that women are NOT there solely as a man's quick-grow chemistry set and play thing. They just MIGHT have lives to live on their own, full of rewards that have nothing to do with their fertility.

I see this as a moral choice as well as a prudent one. For the record, i detest the Duggars and Octo-mom. They are doing it wrong.

Good article.

That is a good article. This would segue nicely with the whole gay marriage debate.

I'm deleting this post.

Why?

It was half assed.

I should delete all my half-assed comments too.

The kin influence hypothesis is interesting, and I see no reason why it couldn't be added to the list of factors that contribute to declining birth rates. As the key explanation, though, well I think it's just not going to boil down to any one thing. I tend not to go along with laws or rules pertaining to society that seem to mimic scientific laws. Don't get me wrong, science of all types is essential for us to be able to know what is going on in any complex situation. Just look at what Jared Diamond has done in his books; he's illuminated all sorts of causations that were previously cloudy. But what we'll end up with is a better handle on complex interactions in culture more than, I think, we will the type of reductive theories that have been so important to the sciences up to this point.

Hi DWill. Yes, I didn't get the impression that the kin influence hypothesis provides a complete explanation for declining birth rates. As you say, it's probably one of a multitude. In modern communities we don't have as much interaction with members of our own kin. Other relationships--professional and casual alike--become even more important. I suppose even online communities provide an important social outlet for us. In that context, as members of non-kin social groups, it's possible we don't receive some of those subtle social cues that urge us towards propagation and we are more motivated to take proactive measures against it (such as birth control). The kin influence hypothesis may be just one of many of those kinds of social influence that come into play.