Population Decline

[Bo Diddley]

Research does not support your position.

https://www.deseret.com/2022/10/6/23...y-byu-wheatley

What finding do you expect to find from Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University? I need to see their methodology and data before I buy what they're selling.

The disconnect between marriage and fertility is recent

So there's a disconnect? This right after "the linkage remains as strong statistically as ever".

The study notes that countries that have higher fertility outside of marriage — like the United States, France and Sweden — also have higher fertility among those who are married, so nonmarital births are not what makes the difference.

So marriage isn't the difference here in the US. Or in southern Europe or SE Asia.

[Jeff Lebowski]

What finding do you expect to find from Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University? I need to see their methodology and data before I buy what they're selling.

So there's a disconnect? This right after "the linkage remains as strong statistically as ever".

Obviously you are misinterpreting that statement.

So marriage isn't the difference here in the US. Or in southern Europe or SE Asia.

And ... you misread this too.

Here is the executive summary:

Does marriage matter for fertility? Around the world, a growing share of births are to unmarried mothers. Public opinion polls show fewer and fewer people believe that parents need to be married. Many commentators assume that the historic link between marriage and childbearing is now broken. Some go further and claim that policymakers may be wise to ignore marital status as an important element of the fertility process. In related arguments, low fertility in East Asia, attributed to strong stigma against unmarried motherhood, is thought to be remedied by destigmatizing nonmarital childbearing and deprioritizing marriage.

This report challenges these ideas. Marriage still matters for fertility; indeed, marital behaviors remain closely tied to fertility behaviors, so much so that it is virtually impossible to promote marriage or fertility alone without also influencing the other. We demonstrate the consistent importance of marriage for fertility using three methods:

1. First, across several cohorts of U.S. women, we show how the odds of marriage increase upon childbirth, and how the odds of childbirth increase upon marriage. That is, getting married still boosts childbearing today as it did in the past (and having a child boosts the odds of marriage).

2. Next, we explore the observed empirical relationship between changes in marriage and changes in fertility rates in OECD countries and find that later marriage tends to mean lower fertility. Nonmarital fertility does not fully compensate for lost marital births.

3. Finally, with a detailed quantitative analysis of fertility in select Asian and other countries, this report finds that common stories about Asian fertility are incorrect. While nonmarital fertility in Asia is low, marital fertility in Asia is also unusually low, suggesting that factors broader than stigma against nonmarital fertility must be driving low fertility.

While this report demonstrates that marriage and fertility are closely linked, whether the link is causal is not always clear. As shown especially in the NSFG data, while marriage does boost fertility, fertility also tends to lead to marriage. Because marriage and childbearing are linked in individual minds and plans, desire for children can motivate marriage, even as desire for marriage can motivate childbearing. But causality running both directions should not be construed to mean that the existence of either causal pathway is in doubt: it is clearly the case that changes to fertility or marriage behavior cause changes in the other behavior. The causal links between marriage and fertility are complex and bidirectional but undeniably important. As marriage is relinquished or postponed, so, too, is childbearing.

Bottom line: declining marriage and and increasing age of marriage both result in fewer births. I can't believe this is controversial.

[Bo Diddley]

Bottom line: declining marriage and and increasing age of marriage both result in fewer births. I can't believe this is controversial.

It's not controversial, it's debatable. From their article:

https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/reso...ters-final.pdf

As a result, in higher-income societies, the link between marriage and fertility is more debated. Whereas in most historic societies, marriage was a precondition for childbearing, today in most high-income countries, considerable shares of births are to unmarried mothers. This has led many scholars to suppose that the historical role of marriage in gatekeeping fertility is broken, at least in Western countries. Both academic research and recent public opinion polls from Gallup have identified the declining popularity of marriage. Indeed, those Gallup polls explicitly show a growing share of Americans saying that the parents of a child need not get married, directly demonstrating the supposed breakdown between marriage and childbearing.

Just because I like what they're saying doesn't mean I will buy into it. I try to be especially careful of my own biases and remain skeptical lest I fall victim to confirmation bias.

[Clark Addison]

i read cougarboard and cougarstadium during the day - two groups that are overwhelmingly conservative. when it comes to population decline it seems like it's a concern not shared by liberals or at the very least if it is shared by liberals, it seems to be largely ignored by that side. any thoughts as to why that may be? if it's not a concern (which is how it seems to me), why not? what are the counter arguments? i'd be interested to hear from some of the more liberal folks on this - NWC, Frank Ryan, etc.

i get the feeling the root of the issue is the importance the right places traditional family vs the importance the left places on folks feeling comfortable and accepted for non-traditional families/relationships. hence i wonder to what extent the right blows it out of proportion and to what extent the left need to pull their heads out.

Counter argument:

I am pretty certain I am not original and this has probably been posted 6 times already in this thread but I don't care.

[Jeff Lebowski]

It's not controversial, it's debatable. From their article:

https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/reso...ters-final.pdf



Just because I like what they're saying doesn't mean I will buy into it. I try to be especially careful of my own biases and remain skeptical lest I fall victim to confirmation bias.

It is tough to follow your logic here. By characterizing the debate the authors are simply framing the context of their research.

[Bo Diddley]

It is tough to follow your logic here. By characterizing the debate the authors are simply framing the context of their research.

They stipulate there is a debate and then make their case with their interpretation of the data.

[Jeff Lebowski]

They stipulate there is a debate and then make their case with their interpretation of the data.

Lol. Which is literally how research is done.

[Bo Diddley]

Lol. Which is literally how research is done.

Oh I don't disagree. I was simply trying to make a point that my point of view was not controversial, simply on the other side of the debate.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Oh I don't disagree. I was simply trying to make a point that my point of view was not controversial, simply on the other side of the debate.

There are two sides to the debate, therefore it is not controversial? Oh boy. I give up.

[Bo Diddley]

There are two sides to the debate, therefore it is not controversial? Oh boy. I give up.

Ok, you got me. Words are hard sometimes. For some reason I've always associated controversy with an emotional component, and debate without, but as I consider the actual words, they're pretty much the same thing.

[Pelado]

Ok, you got me. Words are hard sometimes. For some reason I've always associated controversy with an emotional component, and debate without, but as I consider the actual words, they're pretty much the same thing.

Incontrovertible.

[Bo Diddley]

Incontrovertible.

You can take your big words and shove 'em! I'm going to try that NYT bee game or whatever it is to see how badly I am at it.

[Pelado]

You can take your big words and shove 'em! I'm going to try that NYT bee game or whatever it is to see how badly I am at it.

Wow. Been a while since I got that kind of reaction just by agreeing with someone.

[Bo Diddley]

Wow. Been a while since I got that kind of reaction just by agreeing with someone.

Oh. Well in that case,

[Northwestcoug]

Informative article today in the NYT. Lots of good graphics:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...ographics.html