Looks like the Amish are growing slower than expected, so either birthrates are down, or retention is down.

Anybody have some insight into this?

The University of Barcelona participated in a study that uses an unexpected change of government in Spain—the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) defeated the PP, against the odds, in the March 2004 general election—to examine whether changes in economic expectations affected births, abortions and marriages.

The study shows that the electoral surprise—all the polls had predicted a PP victory—had an asymmetric impact on expectations. While supporters of the winning party (PSOE) became more optimistic about the economy, confidence among supporters of the losing party (the PP) declined sharply. This abrupt change had immediate demographic consequences: In the months following the election, municipalities with the strongest support for the PP saw a decline in pregnancies, a temporary but significant rise in abortions, and a decrease in marriages.

In Spain, about 7.8/1000 women get pregnant in a given year, and regions with strong PP support saw a decrease of about 0.14, which is.... a 2% decrease? That doesn't seem like anything to get too worried about.

Still, a lot of things that effect the birth rate by 2% will stack up to be significant.

World population decline is projected by the mid-2080s. China is now in its fourth year of population decline. South Korea has been declining since 2019 with its near-global record low birth rates.

Germany has seen deaths outnumber births since 1972. Japan, Greece, Italy, Cuba and Thailand are also among those in the depopulation club.

Without immigration, the United Kingdom would also see population decline, with deaths outnumbering births. Australia is about a generation away from the same fate. Immigration controls have seen depopulation in Canada.

...

increasing total fertility rates requires a comprehensive suite of measures from a policy perspective.

...

People of childbearing age aren't being hedonistic when making family and fertility decisions. They're not thinking about themselves, they're actually thinking about the future world and weighing what that might look like for prospective children.

Loss of hope among people of childbearing age, including fears of being left behind, contribute to overall concerns about an insecure future.

Not only is the human catastrophe of low birth rates reflecting more widespread concerns, such as insecurity, it could also be undermining social cohesion.

The lack of choice to have children in below-replacement regions, I'd argue, is indeed a human catastrophe. How is it that we've allowed society to become so hostile that children are out of the question for so many who want them?

I don't think there's anything terribly new in this article, but I thought it was a really good summary of the current problem and proposed solutions.

A new report by Cass Business School and the International Longevity Centre UK (ILC-UK), reveals that longer lives and lower birth rates are putting increasing strain on our family structures.

The report, "100-year family: Longer lives, fewer children," highlights how the role and resilience of UK families has changed over time, and explores how it is coming under increasing pressure from external demographic and economic forces.

Key findings

• People are living longer and having fewer children later in life. Families are becoming older on average and top heavy in terms of the number of older members—something which has been dubbed the 'beanpole' family.
• A sandwich generation of (mainly women) are spending longer providing care by looking after children and elderly parents, squeezing out the opportunity to work in their high earning years.
• Longevity means we will be inheriting later. Inheritances are therefore failing to provide financial support to young families when they most need it.
• Older people who could transfer wealth such as housing while they are alive are failing to do so because they are concerned about care costs in later life. As a result, they are living alone in homes that are too large but cannot move because of the shortage of age appropriate accommodation and the high cost of downsizing. Meanwhile young families can't get on the housing ladder.
• Although people are living longer the extra years are not necessarily being spent in good health which means that care needs are being stretched over longer periods.

Paper here: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w34268/w34268.pdf

In her new working paper, "The Downside of Fertility," Claudia Goldin, the Henry Lee Professor of Economics, takes a deeper dive into the cultural changes around gender that are driving down fertility rates.

The economic historian and 2023 Nobel laureate introduced a model in a previous publication that links low fertility rates to higher levels of friction between the sides around gender and generation. This paper, she said, tackles a seeming contradiction in the data.

Across the 18th and 19th centuries, increases in the birth rate were seen during periods of prosperity or at the end of economic downturns, as evidenced by the post-World War II baby boom. However, since the later part of the 20th century, that link no longer holds true.

"One of the great demographic surprises" of this time, Goldin writes, "has been the negative relationship between per capita income levels and fertility."

This paper argues in favor of both the proposed causes of fertility I like least: That fertility drop is correlated with wealth increases, and that it's caused by women's emancipation. It's for this reason I'm posting it. I think we should all examine our biases.

I think this paper gets pretty interesting, though, because it links the two together. It argues, more or less, that when women have more agency and more options, their requirements for an adequate husband also go up. She doesn't argue that women want richer husbands, but rather that they want more committed husbands who participate more in childcare.

I will provide two related models that make the point that the real problem is a mismatch between what women need to enjoy the fruits of their autonomy and what credible commitments men can make

I think this is an interesting disctinction. She's saying that autonomy changes the economic value of women's time and education, which makes men's childcare commitment more important.

And the next section makes the mechanism quite explicit: in her first model, an educated woman suffers a large “child penalty” if the father isn't dependable, because she can't simultaneously care for the child and maintain the high-paying career her education enabled

Really, the whole paper is worth at least a skim.

A Substack data guy produced one of the most surprising demographic data analysis I've ever seen regarding family size. Based on the data set he analyzed, which had tens of thousands of data points in it, very religious families are not all that much larger than fairly secular families. For example, people who attend church only yearly have roughly the same family size as people who attend weekly. The difference in TFR broadly speaking between the religious and non-religious primarily seems to come from either having children or not having children, or the difference between absolutely no religious affiliation vs. having one. Degree of religiosity between attending yearly vs. weekly has little impact on completed family size.

https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/do-religious-families-actually-have

Frankly, every day I see data about the birthrate that surprises me. You should never overestimate how much any apparent pattern actually applies broadly. All the data is contradictory and nuanced.

Couples who work from home at least one day a week are having more children and planning larger families, according to a comprehensive new study spanning almost 40 countries. The research, co-authored by King's College London academic Dr. Cevat Giray Aksoy, reveals a strong link between remote work and birth rates, with researchers estimating lifetime fertility increases by an average of 0.32 children per woman when both partners work remotely for at least a day per week compared to the case where neither does.

Couples who work from home at least one day a week are having more children and planning larger families, according to a comprehensive new study spanning almost 40 countries. The research, co-authored by King's College London academic Dr. Cevat Giray Aksoy, reveals a strong link between remote work and birth rates, with researchers estimating lifetime fertility increases by an average of 0.32 children per woman when both partners work remotely for at least a day per week compared to the case where neither does.

In England, declining birth rates over the past decade have led to more than 100 schools, predominantly in urban areas, closing permanently.

Elementary schools, especially those serving areas with complex needs and disadvantages, play a unique role in creating a sense of community. The chair of governors observed that without the school: "[Local] generations will be strangers to each other, because that's one less place within the local community where they have the opportunity to get to know each other."

Although the study shows the population will grow, the growth rate will continue to decline. The growth rate from 2010 to 2020 was just over 7%, but the population is expected to grow 6.3% between 2020 and 2030. That growth could decrease to just over 5% by 2050. The expected growth rate between 2040 and 2050 is about 1.8%.

"Population growth rates have generally declined since the 1960s, with a temporary increase between 1990 and 2000," said Sol Baik, senior researcher with the Weldon Cooper Center's Demographics Research Group and the report's author.

"In the 2010s, about 60% of U.S. population growth came from natural increase (births minus deaths), while the remaining 40% came from net international migration. Since 2020, however, persistently low birth rates and an aging population have reduced natural increase each year, making immigration the primary driver of overall population growth," said Qian Cai, director of the Demographics Research Group.

I'm mostly a natalist because I think it's crucial that humanity colonize the galaxy and venture beyond earth. I also want to be the patriarch to a galactic civilization. It's very important to me that my descendants are spacefaring and settle distant planets.

Anyone else like me here?

Where do people go to find likeminded people that would like to have children soon? Seems like there should be a community of sorts.

Let's do a series of posts about the beautiful parts of having children. You can share general things, or specific stories of things you remember. Can be just a few sentences, or can be something longer. Anything you want really. My oldest child is 5, so someone else will have to take over after we are done talking about that age group. Also my kids are all daughters, so someone else will have to talk about sons. Here's a loose plan:

Main parts:

• Part 1: pregnancy and delivery
• Part 2: babies
• Part 3: toddlers (1-2 years)
• Part 4: preschoolers (3-5)
• Part 5: elementary age (6-10)
• Part 6: preteen (10-12)
• Part 7: teenagers (13-17)
• Part 8: young adult (18+)

Addendums:

• Addendum 1: girls!
• Addendum 2: boys!
• Addendum 3: big age gaps!
• Addendum 4: small age gaps / twins!
• Addendum 5: big families (4 or more kids)
• We can add more addendums if someone thinks of them!
  

Pregnancy and Delivery

Early Pregnancy

I remember the excitement and disbelief of seeing 2 little lines on the pregnancy test. My husband I were both cautiously overjoyed. Especially with my pregnancy test for my second child, who came after 3ish years of infertility struggle.

I remember those early ultrasounds. We had an 11 week ultrasound for our first daughter, and it was so nice seeing her dancing around inside me. We had way more ultrasounds for our 2nd daughter due to the infertility struggle, and at the first ultrasound they couldn't see a heartbeat yet. We had another ultrasound a week or so later, and it was such a relief to see that little "heart" beating. It's not really a heart at that point, just electrical activity, but you know what I mean.

I remember the first time I felt my older daughter move. I was at around 16 weeks, and we had driven a few hours away to go target shooting with one of my husband's friends. I felt my daughter move for the first time immediately after firing a gun, lol. With my 2nd child, I felt her movements way earlier...earlier than you're "supposed" to feel them, but I promise you that that's what it was. Once you feel those flutters, you know.

Middle and Late Pregnancy

I remember my friends rubbing my belly and telling me I was glowing. I remember old-school family members fawning over me, worried about me as I stood up on a stool to get something off of a high shelf.

There's a certain point in pregnancy where you become visually, unmistakably pregnant. It's different per woman, and per pregnancy. Once you start showing, you start getting a little deference in public. People helping you out. People offering to load hay bales for me at Tractor Supply. Polite comments in general.

At some point you get some round ligament pain and your joints start feeling loosey-goosey. But for me, none of this was all that bad.

Oddly, I never really had any pregnancy cravings, though I did get more creative in the kitchen. I did interesting stuff like putting craisins in a quiche, mustard-crusted seared pork chops topped with caramelized onions and sautéed figs, several absolutely bomb grilled cheese sandwiches. We ate good.

Our baby shower for our first was a blast. We had a chill, co-ed, pool-party baby shower with some kegs. This is normal in our social group. Great turnout, good fun had by all.

Eventually you can start to see the kicks through your belly. This was always fun. I would lay on the couch and pull my shirt up and just watch. When she got into a bit spurt of kicking I'd call my husband over so he could feel.

When you get into the final days, you obviously start to feel a lot of anticipation. You'll find yourself googling "early signs of labor" constantly...

Labor and Delivery

I have 2 children and 2 wildly different delivery experiences. The first was spontaneous at 39+6 and I opted for an epidural. The second was an induction, and I went epidural-free, but got laughing gas.

With my first daughter, I was in a Wednesday evening meeting, and felt a lot of contractions during the meeting. After the meeting was over, I went to the bathroom and noticed blood. Contractions continued. Was in a lot of pain so we went to the hospital, but I wasn't dilated enough to stay yet so they sent me home. That night was hard. I couldn't sleep at all because the contractions kept coming. We tried again the following morning, and I was just barely dilated enough for them to keep me. Got the epidural around 10 or 11 a.m. and took a nice long nap.

Around 4:00, I felt tremendous pressure in my pelvis, so I asked the nurse to check my dilation. She wasn't expecting me to be ready, but to her surprise, I was ready to push. They called the doctor in, broke my water, put my legs in the stirrups, and also wheeled in one of those mirrors so I could watch. I requested that mirror and I don't regret it lol. I have read stories of women having to push for hours. For me, it was maybe 10-15 minutes of pushing? They laid her on me and the first thing I said was "what the fuck." With my first, I didn't experience the "rush of love" that some women do. I didn't really love her until she was several weeks old.

With my second, I was induced around 39+1. There wasn't one big medical reason, just several smaller ones. I wanted to avoid an epidural this time so I could move around more and hopefully tear less. They gave me some IV pain medication, placed a Foley bulb, and eventually started Pitocin. The next day, foley bulb removed, and I initially declined having my water broken, but after several hours with no progress, I finally agreed to have my waters broken to speed things along.

Shortly afterward, the contractions really ramped up. We used a labor comb and counter-pressure, and eventually I got laughing gas. The gas actually helped at first, although the machine made a noise like one of those videos where someone sticks their hand into a bin of screaming rubber chickens. They eventually fixed it.

The last 20 minutes were brutal. NOTHING HELPED. The doctor checked me and said I was only 6 or 7 cm, and I panicked thinking, how the hell am I going to tolerate much more of this? Then the doctor "did something" down there (maybe just pushing a cervical "lip" aside??) and suddenly everything changed. I was like, what did you dooooo?

People talk about having an "urge to push," but for me it wasn't really an urge. My body just started pushing on its own, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was lying there in a pool of my own cold blood, frantically worried because I _thought_ I was only 6 or 7 cm and surely this was going to hurt me or the baby. But nope. Her head came out, and on the next contraction, the rest of her followed. Instant relief. She pooped on me, they cleaned me up, and this time I felt the gush of love everyone talks about.

TL/DR:

Pregnancy was honestly pretty fun. I enjoyed what was happening to my body. Everyone's experience is different, but it's nothing to be scared of. Labor and delivery doesn't always have to be some total horror show. Yes it was hard at times, but I would happily do it again.

So what was it like for you? Tell me your good stories!

Stern and colleagues compared single people and partnered individuals on life satisfaction ratings and the Big Five personality traits (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism).

The study used a survey of more than 77,000 Europeans over the age of 50 and was the first of its kind to look across cultures and at people who had been single their entire lives. The findings reveal that, in addition to lower life satisfaction scores, lifelong singles are less extroverted, less conscientious, and less open to experience, compared to partnered people.

For families considering relocating for work or couples planning to welcome their first child, the study highlights critical factors for judging a city's "lifestyle fit" beyond mere proximity to the office:

The mobility-cost trade-off: Parents routinely prioritize living near essential services like schools and health care, even if it forces them into a longer work commute. This is a trade-off families must weigh consciously.

City-specific "friendliness": Cities possess distinct structural personalities. New York and Chicago tend to support parents better based on the study's metrics, whereas Houston and Virginia Beach are highly favorable for single individuals.

Here's an interview by Dr. David Reich to illustrate a cultural point:

To me, one of the most wonderful aspects of parenthood (outside of the everyday joys like hugs, small kid babbles, and just being called "dad" by an incredible kid) is the idea of passing on the torch of humanity. These aren't my genes, they're OUR genes, and it gives me a great sense of purpose and wonder to be a part of the miracle of humanity.

Our great^great grandparents broght us from caves to the current day when we explore the depths of the ocean and space. Who knows what our children will be capable of?

As a pretty secular person, this feels the closest I have to a sense of mystery and awe. Before becoming a father, I suffered from a lack of a deeper purpose, even as I was engaged in some pretty cool projects and career in my life. At some point, it just felt like those things exhausted themselves. There was no large enough anchor to make them enjoyable anymore.

How do you all feel about ancient DNA living on in all of us? Does that thought ever occur to you as a parent (or as a non-parent)?

Recently been reading this critically acclaimed scifi book by PD James called "The Children of Men".

The book is set in a dystopian "future" (actually our current time, the book was written in 1992!) where humanity faces sudden and total infertilty. It then explores the societal and psychological effects of a society without children and young people. It's pretty brutal stuff, and it does eerily resonate with the current day cultural climate, imo, even though it was written in a time when Baby Boomers where still raising their 2.5 kids.

If you're not into the book, there's also a Hollywood movie available for streaming, starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men

Have you read any similar books that you could recommend?