Fertility and parenthood
It has been noted that fertility rates in industrialized countries are dropping below the replacement level. The countries that are increasing population are those that have significant immigrant inflow, such as the US. As a result, the total of world population living in 'first world' countries is decreasing as a percentage of the total.
The reasons for this are several, and the trends have been in place for some time. The age of adulthood has been both decreasing and increasing at the same time. While you can vote earlier, the age of first marriage is getting later. This creates an inbetween state that I'll call 'young adulthood' where you are old enough to make some decision (i.e. military service, voting) but not old enough for other decisions (i.e. permanent sterilization, drinking).
Also adding to this situation is that the goal of having children is no longer seen as a requirement. This is partly due to the feminist movement and their efforts to redefine 'woman' as separate from 'mother'; though it is still unbalanced, women these days have the same culturally sanctioned option to not have children that men have. Another part of this is that the cost of living has gone up far enough that two-earner households are much more of a rule than they were even 30 years ago.
The final and probably most significant factor in this trend is the simple cost of parenthood. A college education, which is required if the potential child is to have any real chance to do well, now costs about 60% of a new house in most markets. Considering that a house is typically purchased on a 30 year mortgage, the prospect of having multiple children and having to help finance multiple college educations make parenthood the demense of the very driven, or the fairly well off. People of my generation are already having to help pay off college debt earned ten years ago that still haunts us to this day. And tuition rates are increasing at over twice the rate of inflation. And this doesn't even get into the cost of housing, medical care, and extracurricular activities a child incurs.
So it is no wonder to me that making children a culturally optional thing causes the birth-rate to drop in the face of the cost of parenthood. Biological drives are strong, so plenty of parents will make a go of it and try to pay for it all "somehow". It is no surprise that industrialized Europe has a negative population growth-rate, especially in the face of restrictive immigration laws.
This also impacts how our Culture views when is a good time to be a parent. Since we haven't perfected uterine replicators yet, parenthood requires a mother to carry a child to term. Simple biological necessity that I hope science will eventually fix. So the 'motherhood' window is limited by the fertility window of that mother.
The age of menarche has been getting younger in the past few decades. The causes are not clear, but I suspect it has a lot to do with good nutrition. Ironically, the very thing that allows us to live longer means our reproductive systems hit full-speed earlier. Back when I was taking sex-ed classes, that special age was widely believed to be on or around 14. Since then the conventional wisdom has revised somewhat downward to 13 (or 12 if you want to cause debates).
At the other end of the spectrum, you get menopause. The average age of that has been increasing a bit in the past few decades as well, though not as fast as lifespan has. This is an area where science has a big influence in its impact to women. Fertility science has advanced to the point where even 55 year olds can be parents. It is an accepted biological fact that a woman is only given so many eggs, and once they are gone they can't be replaced.
Which gives a very rough fertility window of age 13( +/- 2) through 40(+/- 10). Now that we've gotten the science out of the way, lets examine cultural guidelines and rules:
There are exceptions to this, of course. Life is variable like that. If one earner is earning enough to really be able to support a family by their self, this opens up the window quite a bit. Some employers offer paid sick-leave for children AND affordable family medical insurance to all employees, which also opens up the window. And some two-earner households may never break the $40,000/year mark, which shortens the window dramatically. These are far from hard and fast rules, merely guiding influences.
It sounds really grim, but there is hope on the horizon. Glimmerings at the moment, but they do hint at greater things.
In the past decade Science has succeeded in creating precursor cells for both human spermatozoa, and ova. Should the ova technology get perfected, in the next 15 years we could see 60 year old women mothering children from eggs created in a lab (probably in batches, with the best eggs selected for fertilization) and not subjected to 60+ years of biological entropy. Both technologies will allow same-sex parents to create children descended from both parents. Because of the technology involved, these methods will be relatively expensive. However, since they allow parenthood later in life this actually helps pre-select parents for those who are actually able to afford the college/retirement duality problem.
And as the old saying goes, "It takes a village to raise a child". Collations of parents can get together to pool child-care resources, which can really help parents get over the critical hump between birth and full-time schooling. I saw some of this growing up, and it worked. Socialism isn't all bad, you know.
As the world industrializes, it should provide a break on our population growth. Right now the vast majority of our population growth are in countries where birth-control is scarce, nonexistent, or culturally taboo. The world may finally hit zero population growth simply because it'll get too expensive to have that many children. Reproductive options are a good thing!
The reasons for this are several, and the trends have been in place for some time. The age of adulthood has been both decreasing and increasing at the same time. While you can vote earlier, the age of first marriage is getting later. This creates an inbetween state that I'll call 'young adulthood' where you are old enough to make some decision (i.e. military service, voting) but not old enough for other decisions (i.e. permanent sterilization, drinking).
Also adding to this situation is that the goal of having children is no longer seen as a requirement. This is partly due to the feminist movement and their efforts to redefine 'woman' as separate from 'mother'; though it is still unbalanced, women these days have the same culturally sanctioned option to not have children that men have. Another part of this is that the cost of living has gone up far enough that two-earner households are much more of a rule than they were even 30 years ago.
The final and probably most significant factor in this trend is the simple cost of parenthood. A college education, which is required if the potential child is to have any real chance to do well, now costs about 60% of a new house in most markets. Considering that a house is typically purchased on a 30 year mortgage, the prospect of having multiple children and having to help finance multiple college educations make parenthood the demense of the very driven, or the fairly well off. People of my generation are already having to help pay off college debt earned ten years ago that still haunts us to this day. And tuition rates are increasing at over twice the rate of inflation. And this doesn't even get into the cost of housing, medical care, and extracurricular activities a child incurs.
So it is no wonder to me that making children a culturally optional thing causes the birth-rate to drop in the face of the cost of parenthood. Biological drives are strong, so plenty of parents will make a go of it and try to pay for it all "somehow". It is no surprise that industrialized Europe has a negative population growth-rate, especially in the face of restrictive immigration laws.
This also impacts how our Culture views when is a good time to be a parent. Since we haven't perfected uterine replicators yet, parenthood requires a mother to carry a child to term. Simple biological necessity that I hope science will eventually fix. So the 'motherhood' window is limited by the fertility window of that mother.
The age of menarche has been getting younger in the past few decades. The causes are not clear, but I suspect it has a lot to do with good nutrition. Ironically, the very thing that allows us to live longer means our reproductive systems hit full-speed earlier. Back when I was taking sex-ed classes, that special age was widely believed to be on or around 14. Since then the conventional wisdom has revised somewhat downward to 13 (or 12 if you want to cause debates).
At the other end of the spectrum, you get menopause. The average age of that has been increasing a bit in the past few decades as well, though not as fast as lifespan has. This is an area where science has a big influence in its impact to women. Fertility science has advanced to the point where even 55 year olds can be parents. It is an accepted biological fact that a woman is only given so many eggs, and once they are gone they can't be replaced.
Which gives a very rough fertility window of age 13( +/- 2) through 40(+/- 10). Now that we've gotten the science out of the way, lets examine cultural guidelines and rules:
- Thou Shalt Not Have Children Until Thou Art Adult. Or Thou Shall Be A Teen Pregnancy, and Lo, it is bad. Where "Adult" in this case means "over 18". This is an area where Culture conflicts with Nature in a BIG way. Both males and females are most fertile on or before age 18.
- Having a child late in life is possibly bad for the child. Eggs get old. The longer you wait to have a child, the more likely that child will be medically high-maintenance. The conventional wisdom for where the line is for 'too old' is not clear, though subjective evidence shows that anyone over 35 will probably get talked about by their peers.
- You don't want to pay for college and retirement at the same time. Consider the average 4 year college, the 'accepted' retirement age of 67, and you get a no-later-than date for last-child-birth of 45. Add in the fact that a lot of people don't really start saving for retirement until they hit their 40's anyway, and you have problems in spades.
- You really should be out of college before having a child. Because if you get pregnant while in college, your ability to finish college goes w-a-y down, and that impacts your ultimate earning potential. And earning-potential is all about paying for your own child's college in 18 years. So, no child-birth for you until you're older than 22.
- You really should have health-care coverage before having a child. Which means either paying for it out of pocket (ouch!) or finding an employer that offers family medical coverage. Since it is common for 'family' private medical insurance to cost over $1000/month, the employer route is far more likely for most freshly-graduated people. Especially in the face of student loan payoffs.
- You really should have child-care arranged. Especially in the years between birth and full-time school. Extended families aren't as common as they used to be, so the free grandma babysitter isn't as available as it once was. Also, women still earn less than men on average, so it is more likely to be financially wiser for the woman to stop earning and become a full-time parent than it would be the man to do it. The choice comes down to a horrible trio:
- One parent stay home and do it, giving up a job
- Pay for child-care
- Rearrange work-schedules so there is always someone home.
- You need to be able to afford it. Children are expensive. All that clothing and stuff. There is a very good reason that 1/3rd of all garage sales are held to to try and hawk the old, never-to-be-used-again children's clothing and toys. Also, a lot of employers do not cover 'sick kid' under paid sick-leave, so that's a hit to earning potential right there.
There are exceptions to this, of course. Life is variable like that. If one earner is earning enough to really be able to support a family by their self, this opens up the window quite a bit. Some employers offer paid sick-leave for children AND affordable family medical insurance to all employees, which also opens up the window. And some two-earner households may never break the $40,000/year mark, which shortens the window dramatically. These are far from hard and fast rules, merely guiding influences.
It sounds really grim, but there is hope on the horizon. Glimmerings at the moment, but they do hint at greater things.
In the past decade Science has succeeded in creating precursor cells for both human spermatozoa, and ova. Should the ova technology get perfected, in the next 15 years we could see 60 year old women mothering children from eggs created in a lab (probably in batches, with the best eggs selected for fertilization) and not subjected to 60+ years of biological entropy. Both technologies will allow same-sex parents to create children descended from both parents. Because of the technology involved, these methods will be relatively expensive. However, since they allow parenthood later in life this actually helps pre-select parents for those who are actually able to afford the college/retirement duality problem.
And as the old saying goes, "It takes a village to raise a child". Collations of parents can get together to pool child-care resources, which can really help parents get over the critical hump between birth and full-time schooling. I saw some of this growing up, and it worked. Socialism isn't all bad, you know.
As the world industrializes, it should provide a break on our population growth. Right now the vast majority of our population growth are in countries where birth-control is scarce, nonexistent, or culturally taboo. The world may finally hit zero population growth simply because it'll get too expensive to have that many children. Reproductive options are a good thing!
posted by Corwin at 9:15 AM
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