If that were true, we would expect richer countries to have higher birth rates. Instead, we see roughly the opposite trend. The richer a country gets, typically, the lower the birth rate. You can’t tell me that a teacher and a data entry clerk in Virginia are less economically capable of raising children than subsistence farmers in Malawi, no matter how high the rent in Virginia is.
If you want to see high income places with high birth rates, then you end up in very traditional/religious cultures, like Mormons and the Arab petro-states, where women face extremely high cultural pressure (if not force/violence) to be child-bearers.
Idk I think it’s explained by different phenomena. In nature there are two child raising strategies, K & P types (might be different letters sue me). For fully K type parents they produce 1000s of children each reproduction cycle, release them into nature & let statics be the cruel parent to have a few reach adulthood. For fully P type parents they will have just a single child each reproductive cycle, & raise them to maturity. Obviously this is a scale & all animals lie somewhere in-between these two extremes.
Obviously all humans are closer to P type but someone in a poorer region is more likely to live in a less stable region. As such they will follow a more K type parenting style since there is a higher chance of something bad happening to their children resulting in a “waste of evolutionary resources” (no life is a waste but you get the point). In a wealthier region they are more likely to live in a more stable area. As such they will choose to follow a P type parenting style & put a lot of resources into a few children. Since there is a high likelihood of all of their children making it to maturity a few “high value” children is preferred to many “low value” children (nobody is really more valuable bla bla). So rich region parents act more like P type parent & poor region parents act more like K type parents. (Obviously there are more factors but I think this probably has the biggest effect)
Then for people who are struggling & can’t afford to produce one “high value” child they make a logical choice to do it later when they have more resources. Since humans are complicated they can create other values they see are more valuable then children or decide to do something later until having children is no longer a possibility. Either way it results in less children & we are seeing the results on a global scale. (Post note. Obviously I am skipping over the cultural factors like religion & other individuals factors, but on a macro scale people are making these choices unwittingly)
Then for people who are struggling & can’t afford to produce one “high value” child they make a logical choice to do it later when they have more resources. Since humans are complicated they can create other values they see are more valuable then children or decide to do something later until having children is no longer a possibility.
In your language, we would expect people in the first sentence to revert to K type parents. If they do not, they simply fall into the category described by your second sentence.
Richer countries tend to have really shitty work life balances though, You need both money to raise a kid and time to do it as well, if both parents are working full time and barely making rent then of course they aren’t going to have kids. Japan and South Korea are perfect examples of this.
And in rich countries, who are the people still having many children? The poor, uneducated, rural, religious/conservative segments of the population, who believe in some way or another that raising a child struggling in poverty is preferable to not having children at all.
If that were true, we would expect richer countries to have higher birth rates. Instead, we see roughly the opposite trend. The richer a country gets, typically, the lower the birth rate. You can’t tell me that a teacher and a data entry clerk in Virginia are less economically capable of raising children than subsistence farmers in Malawi, no matter how high the rent in Virginia is.
If you want to see high income places with high birth rates, then you end up in very traditional/religious cultures, like Mormons and the Arab petro-states, where women face extremely high cultural pressure (if not force/violence) to be child-bearers.
Idk I think it’s explained by different phenomena. In nature there are two child raising strategies, K & P types (might be different letters sue me). For fully K type parents they produce 1000s of children each reproduction cycle, release them into nature & let statics be the cruel parent to have a few reach adulthood. For fully P type parents they will have just a single child each reproductive cycle, & raise them to maturity. Obviously this is a scale & all animals lie somewhere in-between these two extremes.
Obviously all humans are closer to P type but someone in a poorer region is more likely to live in a less stable region. As such they will follow a more K type parenting style since there is a higher chance of something bad happening to their children resulting in a “waste of evolutionary resources” (no life is a waste but you get the point). In a wealthier region they are more likely to live in a more stable area. As such they will choose to follow a P type parenting style & put a lot of resources into a few children. Since there is a high likelihood of all of their children making it to maturity a few “high value” children is preferred to many “low value” children (nobody is really more valuable bla bla). So rich region parents act more like P type parent & poor region parents act more like K type parents. (Obviously there are more factors but I think this probably has the biggest effect)
Then for people who are struggling & can’t afford to produce one “high value” child they make a logical choice to do it later when they have more resources. Since humans are complicated they can create other values they see are more valuable then children or decide to do something later until having children is no longer a possibility. Either way it results in less children & we are seeing the results on a global scale. (Post note. Obviously I am skipping over the cultural factors like religion & other individuals factors, but on a macro scale people are making these choices unwittingly)
In your language, we would expect people in the first sentence to revert to K type parents. If they do not, they simply fall into the category described by your second sentence.
Richer countries tend to have really shitty work life balances though, You need both money to raise a kid and time to do it as well, if both parents are working full time and barely making rent then of course they aren’t going to have kids. Japan and South Korea are perfect examples of this.
And in rich countries, who are the people still having many children? The poor, uneducated, rural, religious/conservative segments of the population, who believe in some way or another that raising a child struggling in poverty is preferable to not having children at all.