Fertility Links, including a conversation with Lyman Stone

Alice Evans on the fertility decline; Seth Kaplan on communities; Lyman Stone on marriage; Christine Rosen on male-female hostility

My conversation with Lyman Stone, on the worldwide fertility decline. Recommended.

Alice Evans writes,

From the 1960s, US fertility fell primarily due to fewer births among couples. In that context, baby bonuses might raise fertility. But today, the major contributing factor is the decline of coupling.

She uses the term coupling to cover unmarried as well as married couples.

the real decline is happening among people with less education.

She points out that the decline in coupling is worldwide, and she is inclined to blame smart phones.

1. Smart phones and technology have massively improved the quality of personal entertainment, creating both distractions and conveniences. This encourages encourage home-bound isolation. As chronicled by Jean Twenge and colleagues, US teens are spending more time alone. COVID then created an exogenous shock, vastly improving the infrastructure of solitude. Working from home, without the drag of making fun banter by the water-cooler, people may not necessarily develop confidence and charisma. Instead, they become more socially anxious.

2. Online connectivity enables anyone in the world to peruse books, films and social media that champion gender equality. Women in Turkey, Malaysia and Mexico can ‘culturally leapfrog’ to the most egalitarian frontier. However, this process is notably asymmetric. Male compatriots may rather maintain their established status! As a result, the sexes drift apart.

Evans says that the Indian subcontinent is an exception to the decline in coupling.

1. Caste and kinship networks are secured through marriage, which remain vital for status and social inclusion. Girls are typically socialised to marry, obey their in-laws and stay put. A litany of relatives ask, “When are you getting married?” Singledom and divorce are both heavily stigmatised.

2. Gender gaps in smart phone ownership are especially large. Lack of access to modern technology inhibits women’s cultural leapfrogging.

Seth Kaplan writes,

At the street level, urban planners could focus on creating a physical landscape that nurtures social cohesion as a core priority, rather than treating it as an afterthought. This would mean more densely built, multiclass, multifunction neighborhoods that encourage social interaction, civic-mindedness, and loyalty to one’s neighbors and community. Fountains, churches, local associations, commercial streets, libraries, parks, public buildings, and community centers serve as “third places” where people from the same zip code can meaningfully connect. In such environments, children will not only have more places to wander, but parents will be more intimate with and trusting of their neighbors.

He wants to encourage stronger communities, with more personal interaction and more social childhoods. But if he thinks that “densely built” and “libraries, parks, public buildings, and community centers” are the answer, I’d like to see an example where that works.

Based on my experience, cul de sacs work. I have suggested housing developments where in order to move in you must have at least one child under the age of 10. You could keep this rule in place for, say, the first five years after the development is built. Bring a bunch of young families together, and I predict that you will have the kind of community Kaplan wants. I don’t think that you will get it from “densely built” or “public buildings.”

Lyman Stone writes,

In the ancestral environment, women are not day-in-day-out dependent on men for “provision,” rather, women are are episodically dependent on men, and men especially operate as insurance policies against local resource shortages, protein deficiencies and, crucially, out-group violence. Today, the exact needs differ, but men are still basically insurance policies.

He sees tension in the dynamics between female fertility and male earning power. Men under 35 have relatively low earnings. But that is when they might be needed by a woman who is capable of bearing children.

He suggests that young men can be made attractive marriage candidates by marriage subsidies.

whereas subsidies for childbearing will require a lot of money to get a few babies, subsidies for marriage should require rather less money to get more marriage.

Christine Rosen writes,

men can be forgiven for feeling as if they were sacrificed on the altar of gender egalitarianism. And although some (such as Andrew Tate) have sought solace in terrible models of masculinity, most don’t hate women; they are simply turning away from trying to be what women want and finding their own paths.

Instead of marriage, they optimize their health, as the range of male wellness fads—from cold plunges to intermittent fasting—suggests.

…far too many men are choosing to spend more time alone; according to the American Time Use Survey, they are doing so at rates higher than any other group. More are also foregoing relationships and marriage. “Only about 60 percent of 35-year-old men are ever-married today, down from 90 percent in 1980,” the Institute for Family Studies has found. “This trend suggests that a growing share of Americans will not get married before their healthiest years are long past them.”

substacks referenced above:

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The Real User Interface: Recovering Our Neighborhoods

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The Global Collapse of Coupling & Fertility