

Fertility rates climb back up in the most developed countries - cwan
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/08/fertility_rates_climb_back_up_in_the_most_developed_countrie.php

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tokenadult
"If a country's HDI score is between 0.9 and 0.92 (as is the case for South
Korea or Germany), the average fertility rate is low enough at 1.24 for the
population to halve in size every 40-45 years. However, countries with the
highest scores (including Australia and Scandinavia) have an average fertility
rate of 1.89 - not quite the replacement level, but close enough that small
levels of migration can sustain the same population."

So even with the recent reversal, there are still many countries with a below-
replacement birth rate, which over time leads to a shrinking population. I
would have expected a headline more like "Fertility rates inch back up but
still below replacement" for the blog entry.

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yhgtgygv
This has been known and discussed for 50years.

Country first becomes developed, birth rates drop as women get a chance at
education and careers. A generation or two later they get enough social care,
maternity rights etc and birth rates rise again.

If you ignore the effects of immigration you can plot countries especially in
europe by birth-rate to years since they became 'developed' very accurately

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byrneseyeview
What is "social care"? What are "maternity rights"? And how many women in the
workforce had both in 1959? I think it might have been _predicted_ then, but
not known.

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yhgtgygv
That's the point, in the 50s women could work but didn't have child care =
drop in birth rate. In the 70s, child care + maternity rights = rise in birth
rate. You can plot it for scandinavia, Holland, France, Spain, Portugal,
Greece. - Same curve just a timeshift as to which point in the progress they
are

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byrneseyeview
And I am still not sure what "maternity rights" are. I'm pretty sure no
civilization has lasted longer than a generation while _depriving_ everyone of
the right to have kids, but I'm also pretty sure it's not a "right".

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yhgtgygv
Sorry thought you were being ironic! Maternity rights = government/employment
things to do with having a baby. eg. A right to a certain length of time off
work after the baby is born, a right to free/subsidized childcare, rights not
to be discriminated against at work. etc.

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byrneseyeview
I was being slightly ironic. It's kind of funny that you would credit
maternity leave policies and high transfer payemnts for raising fertility.
Most of the liberals I know are effectively sterile; my conservative friends
tend to have kids early and crank 'em out. It seems like some people are in
favor of parenthood, in theory, and others are going to do whatever it takes
_in practice_ to have the number of kids they want. Guess which group claims
to be more concerned about "Maternity rights!"

I think that's what we're seeing here. Hispanic Catholics, ultra-Orthodox
Jews, Neo-Victorians
([http://web.archive.org/web/20070714214937/http://www.nyobser...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070714214937/http://www.nyobserver.com/print/55828/full)),
and Mormons are all having lots of kids; secular people and classic WASPs
aren't. Which makes the latter groups smaller and less relevant over time.

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randallsquared
Sweet; we could use more minds.

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tybris
Darn, we need that population decline.

