Links to Consider, 4/19
Alice Evans on the decline of marriage; Michael Lind on the baby bust; Jonathan Haidt answers critics; Rob Henderson reinforces Haidt on "safetyism."
Systematically, marriage rates tend to fall with secularisation, individualism and gender parity in earnings. The rise in single women may even reinforce a self-perpetuating cycle. Why settle, if there are plenty of fish in the sea? Moreover, a multitude of sexual invitations may exacerbate promiscuity and distrust.
She argues that we are not going to squeeze that toothpaste back into the tube.
A consistent pro-family, pro-natalist program would unite the right’s support for the one-earner, two-parent family with the labor left’s support for higher wages instead of more welfare. A version of this approach—albeit one marred by discrimination against women as well as racism—existed in the U.S. between the New Deal and the beginning of the neoliberal era in the 1970s, a period characterized by historically low immigration, maximum unionization, a minimum wage that was nearly 50% higher in inflation-adjusted terms than today’s minimum wage, and a high number of one-earner, two-parent families.
But I don’t think he appreciates how feeble his policy proposals for raising male wages would be. The big reason that we don’t have as many one-earner, two-parent families as we used to is not that men are less rewarded for market work than in 1960. It’s that women can earn so much more than they could in 1960. And how do you propose to squeeze that toothpaste back into the tube? Abolish all of the jobs that have been created over the past fifty years that don’t require lots of physical strength? Put a huge tax on wages paid to women?
I don’t believe that anyone knows how to use economic reforms to deal with the problem that Lind is claiming to address, which is the baby bust. And note that the baby bust is happening in many different countries, with many different economic policies.
The baby boom took place at a time when women who wanted sex outside of marriage were shamed, and women who refused to have sex outside of marriage were culturally supported. It took place at a time when homosexual men were expected to repress themselves and behave “normally” instead. We’re not going to squeeze that toothpaste back into the tube, either.
We have a baby bust that may be a crisis if it persists for several generations. For now, we have the economy we have and we have the norms we have, and I don’t want to see government take a heavy hand in trying to change things. Instead, let the economy evolve and let the norms evolve and let reproductive science evolve. We don’t need a policy panic today.
I have encountered no substantial criticism of my claim that an epidemic of mental illness (primarily anxiety and depression) began in multiple countries around the same time––the early 2010s. Selterman notes the relevant point that depression rates have been rising with some consistency since the mid-20th century, so this is not entirely new. But I believe that the velocity of the rise is unprecedented. The graphs are shocking and astonishingly similar across measures and countries. Right around 2012 or 2013, teen girls in many countries began reporting higher rates of depression and anxiety, and they began cutting and poisoning themselves in larger numbers. The numbers continued to rise, in most of those countries, throughout the 2010s, with very few reversals.
[No other] theories that have been offered so far that can explain why this would happen at the same time and in the same way in many countries at roughly the same time
Think of the analogy between social media and smoking. Nobody is saying that we should wait for the perfect randomized control trial before we blame smoking for cancer. Nobody is saying that because there are other causes of cancer we should not blame smoking.
Sex is not the only risky thing that Gen Zers are having less of. They are generally disinclined toward danger and risk-taking. Teenagers used to flout advice about physical safety. Gen Z is different. Rather than rejecting safety, they have embraced it.
I started teaching statistics and economics classes for seniors as a volunteer in high school in 2001. I was 47, and the students were thirty years younger. But we were so similar that I felt like I belonged on their side of the room.
I started my last year of high school teaching in 2015. By then, I felt that I had lost the ability to relate to young people. I thought that maybe it was me, given that I was now 61. But I did remark that high school senior weren’t dating and they weren’t driving.
In my early years of teaching, I would tell friends that high school seniors are half-way between 8th grade and college seniors, and on any given day you can find them anywhere along that spectrum in terms of intellectual maturity. By 2015, the upper half of that spectrum had vanished. Looking back on it now, I would say that by 2015 the chronological age and the maturity age of young people had diverged. 17 is the new 15.
Substacks referenced above:
@
@
@
I don't really buy the "can't put the toothpaste back in the bottle" argument. I think that's more a preference for avoiding difficult work than a true statement. It seems to me a pro-marriage pro-natal strategy isn't that hard to come up with (more below).
Can government change behavior? Easily!
Let me give you an example. In 1900 cigarette sales were very low. And women very rarely smoked. By 1960 cigarettes sold per day had reached 11 per US adult. By 2010 that had fallen to 3 per adult and has fallen much further since.
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2021/07/Smoking-and-lung-cancer-mortality-US-only.png
So what draconian government measures did it take to achieve that?
1) It taxed cigarettes.
2) It banned certain kinds of advertising.
3) It sponsored public health awareness campaigns (many of which were lame, but it still worked).
Imagine in 1960 someone saying "everyone smokes, there is no way to put the toothpaste back in the bottle!"
It really wasn't that hard a thing to do. You just had to change the incentive structure.
And of course much of the TFR shortfall is due to current anti-natal anti-marriage incentives:
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/05/anti-natal-engineering
Let me lay out how you easily solve TFR issues.
1) End marriage penalties in both taxation and government benefits provision.
2) Pay families much bigger child allowances (provide double child allowance if married to a male who earns at least the equivalent of full time minimum wage in a year).
3) Make each child dependent increase the standard deduction in a scalar manner.
4) Re-jigger SS and Medicare taxes so that childless pay more and people with children pay less (this is a very fair way of doing it).
5) Stop subsidizing daycare over SAHM.
6) Provide total school choice, including paying cash directly to homeschool parents.
7) Stop subsidizing higher education and make alternative paths to career success more viable.
8) Some stuff about making housing cheaper.
9) Some stuff about making neighborhoods safer.
10) Vaguely, work from home seems to help with TFR for professionals so nudge in that direction.
The money for dramatically higher support for parents and marriage is there. Just think of what we spend per pupil on K-12 alone and imagine giving it directly to parents. Some of these suggestions help everyone equally and some scale to help the Middle/UMC more (where a lot of the shortfall in TFR is).
The blocks are cultural and political. Low natality women and other childless groups would lose out. Perhaps most importantly the K-12 educational establishment would lose out.
It's fear of taking these groups on at the ballot box, as well as a general elite fear of being "judgmental" about what is and isn't a superior lifestyle choice that is the problem. As a result we HIGHLY SUBSIDIZE childlessness and as a result we get more of it.
One of the factors that distinguishes the current generation of teenagers from those of three decades ago is their level of exposure to adults. When I was a teenager (a long time ago, I must confess), most of us had to work, either part-time during school or full-time during summer. This gave us the opportunity to interact with adults other than our parents and learn from their experiences and perspectives. However, many of today’s teens do not get a job until they finish their education. I think that working with and negotiating with a variety of adults at an early age is essential for developing maturity and independence.