The Global Fertility Crisis is worse than you think

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K2-HMFIC
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7:15a, 5/19/26
https://substack.com/home/post/p-197850696

Derek Thompson is a lib at The Atlantic, but did an absolute phenomenal interview with University of Pennsylvania economist Jess Fernndez-Villaverde on the sources and implications of the global fertility crisis.

Big highlights first:
  • Black birthrates have collapsed in the US and have been passed by whites for the first time in the history of the US.
  • Latin America and the Middle East are in an absolute nose dive.
  • The US has a higher birth rate (1.7) than Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, and Thailand
Causes:
  • Big shocker…female employment in a service based economy
  • Actual shocker…likely the global spread of western norms through social media and the mass popularity of cell phones since 2012.
Big Question remaining:
  • Will birthrates recover as people are having fewer people later (ie. delayed parenthood)? Or is this a sustained demographic bobsled like China, South Korea, and Japan?
  • How does this impact the rise of AI?
I just hope somewhere, this interview is being read to Paul Ehrlich on repeat for eternity.
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Gilligan
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7:18a, 5/19/26
AG
I'm ok with less people.
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BadMoonRisin
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7:19a, 5/19/26
AG
I'm pretty sure the rising cost of living as a least a little bit to do with it, especially housing.
i'm sorry i dont laugh at the right times.
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Spergin
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In reply to K2-HMFIC • 7:23a, 5/19/26
K2-HMFIC said:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-197850696

Derek Thompson is a lib at The Atlantic, but did an absolute phenomenal interview with University of Pennsylvania economist Jess Fernndez-Villaverde on the sources and implications of the global fertility crisis.

Big highlights first:
  • Black birthrates have collapsed in the US and have been passed by whites for the first time in the history of the US.
  • Latin America and the Middle East are in an absolute nose dive.
  • The US has a higher birth rate (1.7) than Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, and Thailand
Causes:
  • Big shocker…female employment in a service based economy
  • Actual shocker…likely the global spread of western norms through social media and the mass popularity of cell phones since 2012.
Big Question remaining:
  • Will birthrates recover as people are having fewer people later (ie. delayed parenthood)? Or is this a sustained demographic bobsled like China, South Korea, and Japan?
  • How does this impact the rise of AI?
I just hope somewhere, this interview is being read to Paul Ehrlich on repeat for eternity.


The only solution that works is reducing female employment and income and increasing male employment and income. You can see this in all types of stats: one of the most interesting being lottery winners. Male winners get married and have kids. Female winners either get divorced or become promiscuous or even more single.
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K2-HMFIC
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In reply to Spergin • 7:31a, 5/19/26
Spergin said:
K2-HMFIC said:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-197850696

Derek Thompson is a lib at The Atlantic, but did an absolute phenomenal interview with University of Pennsylvania economist Jess Fernndez-Villaverde on the sources and implications of the global fertility crisis.

Big highlights first:
  • Black birthrates have collapsed in the US and have been passed by whites for the first time in the history of the US.
  • Latin America and the Middle East are in an absolute nose dive.
  • The US has a higher birth rate (1.7) than Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, and Thailand
Causes:
  • Big shocker…female employment in a service based economy
  • Actual shocker…likely the global spread of western norms through social media and the mass popularity of cell phones since 2012.
Big Question remaining:
  • Will birthrates recover as people are having fewer people later (ie. delayed parenthood)? Or is this a sustained demographic bobsled like China, South Korea, and Japan?
  • How does this impact the rise of AI?
I just hope somewhere, this interview is being read to Paul Ehrlich on repeat for eternity.


The only solution that works is reducing female employment and income and increasing male employment and income. You can see this in all types of stats: one of the most interesting being lottery winners. Male winners get married and have kids. Female winners either get divorced or become promiscuous or even more single.



Bruh…I hate to break it to you…but that genie ain't going back in the bottle.
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K2-HMFIC
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In reply to BadMoonRisin • 7:32a, 5/19/26
BadMoonRisin said:
I'm pretty sure the rising cost of living as a least a little bit to do with it, especially housing.


I didn't include it in my notes, but it was one of his causes.
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flown-the-coop
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7:33a, 5/19/26
AG
Global Fertility Crisis = Mother Nature (and her boss) doing her thing to not overload the earth.

Embrace it, God knows what he's doing.
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rocky the dog
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7:33a, 5/19/26
AG
Elections are when people find out what politicians stand for, and politicians find out what people will fall for.
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YouBet
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In reply to Gilligan • 7:35a, 5/19/26
AG
Gilligan said:
I'm ok with less people.


Fewer.
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flown-the-coop
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In reply to rocky the dog • 7:36a, 5/19/26
AG
rocky the dog said:

I've known some chicks over the years that this will both get you laid AND with a lady your non-gaming friends would envy.

Guys just need to nut up and touch grass (or similar…).
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YouBet
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7:36a, 5/19/26
AG
The actual shocker doesn't surprise me at all. We've said the same thing on this site across multiple fertility threads for years.

I wish someone would interview us. We know stuff.
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Ol_Ag_02
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In reply to YouBet • 7:42a, 5/19/26
AG
YouBet said:
Gilligan said:
I'm ok with less people.


Fewer.


Tanya. Here.
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Im Gipper
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7:44a, 5/19/26
Quote:
The Global Fertility Crisis is worse than you think


What if I told you I don't think of it at all

I'm Gipper
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Aust Ag
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7:54a, 5/19/26
AG
"western norms through social media".

And guess what demographic is the #1 culprit there ?
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BusterAg
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7:55a, 5/19/26
AG
The highest factor of decreased fertility rates is female education levels. As females become more educated, they have fewer kids. The propensity is decreased based on level of education, too. Graduate degree is fewer than undergrad degree which is fewer than high school degree which is fewer than no degree.

The celebration of motherhood is the only thing, other than birthing pods and sci-fi type solutions, that will save the human race.

From a societal perspective, the best way to handle this is to provide massive tax breaks to moms. My proposal is:

1) Increase the standard deduction for married couples with kids even more than it is now. It should be 3x the standard deduction for 2 individuals combined, before even starting with dependent kids. It should be like 5x once you hit 5 years together. This will put a lot of lower middle class back into the non-FIT paying category. That is fine. People pay other taxes than FIT, and we need babies.

2) Reduce the marginal income tax RATE for parents of 3 or more kids. Include adopted kids as long as they live in the primary residence of the adopted parents. Something like 0.75% (that's 3/4th of 1%) for each adopted kid 3 through 8, and 1% for each biological kid 3 through 8, so up to 6% lower RATE on FIT. That will make some babies without concentrating the economic incentive to the lower socio-economic classes of the country.

3) Make all daycare that is not eligible for a tax credit to be tax deductible. So, 25% to 35% of qualified daycare is a tax credit, and the balance is tax deductible. We need better incentives for moms to work.

4) Unemployment insurance for all moms on maternity leave. You get up to 9 months in payments from the government equal to what you would get for unemployment. This gives higher-earning moms an incentive to take time out, even though this time out has an impact on the overall compensation of women. But, that is just the nature of the beast.

Having babies inside of wedlock with attendant parents is a societal good. The feminist movement and the sexual revolution have tried very, very hard to demonize that societal good. We need to unwind that as much as possible.

One of my favorite Hero's on this board is Dad-o-lot. Decadad is an honorable achievement for a man to attain (not to be confused with being the father of 24 illegitimate children like some NBA stars, for example, who are asshats.)
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BusterAg
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In reply to flown-the-coop • 7:58a, 5/19/26
AG
flown-the-coop said:
rocky the dog said:

I've known some chicks over the years that this will both get you laid AND with a lady your non-gaming friends would envy.

Guys just need to nut up and touch grass (or similar…).

The only issue with this is that being really good at video games tends to make you less good at making money.

The latter is more important. By a mile.

Some blokes can do both well. But, the combination of video games and THC, which is likely the hugest problem here, makes being good at making money very, very difficult.
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flown-the-coop
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In reply to BusterAg • 8:03a, 5/19/26
AG
I smoke weed, play video games and made lots of money.

Only had one kid though.

From my observation, the fertility rate explodes when you add in pine trees, trailer parks, crystal meth with a healthy dose of government handouts.

Somewhere there has to be a happy medium.

And we need less people, not more. You cannot continue to increase both population and standard of living with finite resources.

Why we abandoned that basic understanding is beyond me.
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tysker
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8:06a, 5/19/26
AG
The only reason countries "need" more people is to continue the entitlement and welfare state.
Government redistribution and entitlement projects don't work nearly as well when growth is declining, as clearly evidenced by failures of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and even the VA. Eventually, the government starts to run out of other people's money
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No Spin Ag
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In reply to flown-the-coop • 8:12a, 5/19/26
flown-the-coop said:
I smoke weed, play video games and made lots of money.

Only had one kid though.

From my observation, the fertility rate explodes when you add in pine trees, trailer parks, crystal meth with a healthy dose of government handouts.

Somewhere there has to be a happy medium.

And we need less people, not more. You cannot continue to increase both population and standard of living with finite resources.

Why we abandoned that basic understanding is beyond me.


Agree to the Nth.
There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the later ignorance. Hippocrates
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Bob Lee
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In reply to tysker • 8:14a, 5/19/26
AG
tysker said:
The only reason countries "need" more people is to continue the entitlement and welfare state.
Government redistribution and entitlement projects don't work nearly as well when growth is declining, as clearly evidenced by failures of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and even the VA. Eventually, the government starts to run out of other people's money


If you're not having kids, you're counting on other people's children to take care of you when you're old whether or not there are any welfare programs.

Eventually, you'll start to run out of other people's children.
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tysker
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In reply to K2-HMFIC • 8:16a, 5/19/26
AG
K2-HMFIC said:
Causes:
  • Big shocker…female employment in a service based economy
  • Actual shocker…likely the global spread of western norms through social media and the mass popularity of cell phones since 2012.

This is not news to anyone who has studied economics or political science at any point over the last 40 years or so. The education and empowerment of women across the second and third worlds has been a primary driver of wealth creation, freedom, and opportunity, and pulling individuals and families out of generational poverty. This coincides with the expansion of post-Cold War democratic capitalism, the fall of the Soviet Union and East Germany, and the failure of communism.

A downside that the political left refuses to acknowledge, however, is that education and empowerment of women often lead to increased income and wealth inequality due to differences in outcomes.
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YouBet
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8:16a, 5/19/26
AG
Ok, I've read the article. Interesting for me because it validates what we've said on here many times. Most of the reasons for TFR declining are covered in the article which have been covered here ad nauseam. There isn't just one reason for this - there are many converging into one big push that is causing the decline.

The most interesting topic in all of this for me which many just write off is how we manage the decline. He used this Thailand example which also goes back to shocking comments Elon has made in the past on this that people just cant get their heads around:

Quote:
Finally, if fertility really stays at 1 or 1.1 for a long time, I don't think we appreciate how big a change this is. Now I'm going to make a crazy forecast, and I want everyone to understand this is a crazy forecast. Let's suppose Thailand keeps its current fertility rate of 0.8 for 200 years. Thailand right now has 63 million people. At the end of 200 years, it will be around two million people.


That means you have to shut almost everything down in your country over the next 200 years and/or wholly abandon infrastructure. If you do nothing with it, countries are going to look like dystopian hellscapes after a zombie apocalypse.

The other issue I foresee that will have to be managed is the loss in know how. As population declines, if you do not have a proportional decline across all talent and skill sets then you could end up in a much less population society, but without the know how to do certain things anymore. It would be the Dark Ages 2.0.

They also made the obvious hopium argument that AI and robotics may/will offset some of the chaotic decline because it will take over functions that humans now do. But that doesn't fix the massive loss to human society and healthy interaction (his English pub example).

It's a fascinating conversation and the outcomes of this are going to get worse before they get better...if ever.
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DallasAg 94
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8:20a, 5/19/26
Abortion.
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YouBet
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In reply to flown-the-coop • 8:20a, 5/19/26
AG
flown-the-coop said:
I smoke weed, play video games and made lots of money.

Only had one kid though.

From my observation, the fertility rate explodes when you add in pine trees, trailer parks, crystal meth with a healthy dose of government handouts.

Somewhere there has to be a happy medium.

And we need less people, not more. You cannot continue to increase both population and standard of living with finite resources.

Why we abandoned that basic understanding is beyond me.


You also can't maintain government spending and intrusion with fewer people. But we all know we will face a battle on that front because they absolute will not voluntarily give up any power or funding. They will pick up the slack on the latter with AI, tech, and robotics. We face the potential of becoming a massive techno police state, if we don't push back.

Funding all of that will be the trick.
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tysker
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In reply to Bob Lee • 8:21a, 5/19/26
AG
Bob Lee said:
tysker said:
The only reason countries "need" more people is to continue the entitlement and welfare state.
Government redistribution and entitlement projects don't work nearly as well when growth is declining, as clearly evidenced by failures of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and even the VA. Eventually, the government starts to run out of other people's money


If you're not having kids, you're counting on other people's children to take care of you when you're old whether or not there are any welfare programs.

Eventually, you'll start to run out of other people's children.

Entitlement programs like Social Security were meant to mitigate this risk, treating workers as the focal point. However, a shift in labor/physical capital has altered the economic landscape. It doesn't help that people are living 10-20 longer than previous generations along with fewer labor market participants.
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aggie93
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In reply to Gilligan • 8:21a, 5/19/26
AG
Gilligan said:
I'm ok with less people.

Only because you don't realize what that really means. The only thing that might save us is robotics.
"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

Ronald Reagan
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flown-the-coop
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In reply to aggie93 • 8:23a, 5/19/26
AG
aggie93 said:
Gilligan said:
I'm ok with less people.

Only because you don't realize what that really means. The only thing that might save us is robotics.

Yea, no. There is so much incredibly flawed logic in the oft cited models that people should be ashamed to even bring it up.

The ones pushing this **** are the ones who envision a future of countless people building ever bigger things in evermore places.

There are other much more sensible and plausible futures with a much much better quality of life that does not require depleting of all resources and colonizing the the universe.

HTH.
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TexAgs91
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8:25a, 5/19/26
AG
If humanity lost 90% of its population that sounds pretty devastating right?

That would put us back to where we were in the 1800s.
No, I don't care what CNN or Miss NOW said this time
Ad Lunam
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japantiger
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8:26a, 5/19/26
S
The entire Federal and State tax and regulatory system should incent families of 3+; with the incentives getting larger as kids increase.
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K2-HMFIC
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In reply to YouBet • 8:26a, 5/19/26
YouBet said:
flown-the-coop said:
I smoke weed, play video games and made lots of money.

Only had one kid though.

From my observation, the fertility rate explodes when you add in pine trees, trailer parks, crystal meth with a healthy dose of government handouts.

Somewhere there has to be a happy medium.

And we need less people, not more. You cannot continue to increase both population and standard of living with finite resources.

Why we abandoned that basic understanding is beyond me.


You also can't maintain government spending and intrusion with fewer people. But we all know we will face a battle on that front because they absolute will not voluntarily give up any power or funding. They will pick up the slack on the latter with AI, tech, and robotics. We face the potential of becoming a massive techno police state, if we don't push back.

Funding all of that will be the trick.

The interview dug into that...

For rich countries, in order to increase taxable income you'll have to import more people or cut social services.

Neither of those are very popular options.
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fixer
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8:26a, 5/19/26
Two income families have done wonders for the world.
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flown-the-coop
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In reply to TexAgs91 • 8:27a, 5/19/26
AG
TexAgs91 said:
If humanity lost 90% of its population that sounds pretty devastating right?

That would put us back to where we were in the 1800s.

Which 10% are we keeping. That matters a lot in this thought exercise.
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YouBet
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In reply to aggie93 • 8:27a, 5/19/26
AG
aggie93 said:
Gilligan said:
I'm ok with less people.

Only because you don't realize what that really means. The only thing that might save us is robotics.


Correct. Goes back to my managed decline point. Most of us right now hand wave it away because no one on here will have to really deal with it. Typical short-term thinking that many of us adhere to.

What we are dealing with right now (all Western nations) is the current solution by governments to try and fight it - mass immigration of third worlders. And that's a zero sum, very short-term thinking game which only destroys your culture.

See Japan on this under their new President. She declared that their immigration efforts, which were increased in the past several years, will now be scaled back because they've done the math and realized that more immigrants means Japanese culture will die. Instead, they are going to accept and manage the inevitable decline but remain Japanese. Massive respect to them for that.
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Bob Lee
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In reply to tysker • 8:27a, 5/19/26
AG
tysker said:
Bob Lee said:
tysker said:
The only reason countries "need" more people is to continue the entitlement and welfare state.
Government redistribution and entitlement projects don't work nearly as well when growth is declining, as clearly evidenced by failures of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and even the VA. Eventually, the government starts to run out of other people's money


If you're not having kids, you're counting on other people's children to take care of you when you're old whether or not there are any welfare programs.

Eventually, you'll start to run out of other people's children.

Entitlement programs like Social Security were meant to mitigate this risk, treating workers as the focal point. However, a shift in labor/physical capital has altered the economic landscape. It doesn't help that people are living 10-20 longer than previous generations along with fewer labor market participants.


I'm not saying it's not a reason. It's not the only reason. Shifting the average age of a society up by one generation would not be a pretty picture in any scenario. Welfare or no welfare.
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flown-the-coop
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In reply to K2-HMFIC • 8:28a, 5/19/26
AG
K2-HMFIC said:
YouBet said:
flown-the-coop said:
I smoke weed, play video games and made lots of money.

Only had one kid though.

From my observation, the fertility rate explodes when you add in pine trees, trailer parks, crystal meth with a healthy dose of government handouts.

Somewhere there has to be a happy medium.

And we need less people, not more. You cannot continue to increase both population and standard of living with finite resources.

Why we abandoned that basic understanding is beyond me.


You also can't maintain government spending and intrusion with fewer people. But we all know we will face a battle on that front because they absolute will not voluntarily give up any power or funding. They will pick up the slack on the latter with AI, tech, and robotics. We face the potential of becoming a massive techno police state, if we don't push back.

Funding all of that will be the trick.

The interview dug into that...

For rich countries, in order to increase taxable income you'll have to import more people or cut social services.

Neither of those are very popular options.


The folks who write these articles do so because they no longer have jobs in the Socialist Parties Central Planning Committees.
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