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France's baby bust

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Re: France's baby bust

#41

Post by b800h »

swarnie wrote: post #23
langsoul-com wrote: post #6

The book, "shall the religious inherit the world" is relevant. I'd be interested what happens when general birthrate declines and a religious group, that massively encourages tons of children, take larger voting percentages.

I understand this is an America-centric forum but does religion play a major role in politics in the rest of the western world? I'm counting back though prime ministers and i can't recall one who made religion a major part of their platform in my lifetime.

If you mean British Prime Ministers, then we have for a long time been allergic to the discussion of religion in British politics; but that goes hand in hand with British reserve. Not a uniformly wonderful thing, to be honest. If the Bishops in the House of Lords were less timid we might get some better debates on moral matters.

Re: France's baby bust

#42

Post by yobbo »

GDP in "real dollars" is irrelevant here. Any such measurement can't correspond to something meaningful.

Rather "annual calories from agriculture per capita" would reveal much more of the reasons behind this and other upheavals in Europe during the period.

There were climate/weather changes (not well understood or appropriate to research in light of current climate changes) in Europe during 1500-1850, which caused starvation, upheavals, migrations, wars, and so on. They did not affect all areas simultaneously in the same way.

Re: France's baby bust

#43

Post by spongeb00b »

immibis wrote: post #38
notyourday wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens in the next 100 years?

We increase the human population by another 100x in the never-ending quest to increase GDP, then we run out of resources and die. Dolphins become the most intelligent life on the planet.

"Thanks for all the fish"

Re: France's baby bust

#44

Post by b800h »

dmurray wrote: post #36
swarnie wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand this is an America-centric forum but does religion play a major role in politics in the rest of the western world? I'm counting back though prime ministers and i can't recall one who made religion a major part of their platform in my lifetime.

I don't see American presidents making religion "a major part of their platform" either. They get some photo ops in church just like British leaders, and they side with their voters on things like abortion, which breaks down roughly along religious lines without being explicitly so. But a major policy decision directly targeting religion? The closest I can think of in the US is Trump banning immigration from majority…

US political debates are being driven by religion all the time - abortion for example. That's a much bigger deal in the US.

That said I'd argue the culture war is quasi-religious, and it's being fought equally across the Anglosphere and beyond.

Re: France's baby bust

#45

Post by throwaway4aday »

ookdatnog wrote: post #30
4gotunameagain wrote: post #4

So, the demographic transition took place exceptionally early in France, but why? In my research, I argue that the diminished sway of the Catholic Church, nearly 30 years before the French Revolution, was the key driver of the fertility decline. It more and more seems like "traditional", conservative societies are more successful on aggregate. If they are beneficial to the individuals comprising them, this is a matte…

I'm not sure how you're getting to this enormous generalization. Seems to me that for the past century or so, liberal societies have been the dominant societies on the world stage. Which conservative, traditionalist societies are you thinking of that are more successful or have "higher fitness" than liberal societies? When I think of an archetypal "conservative, traditional" society, the first countries that spring t…

The United States was a conservative country at least until the 1960s

Re: France's baby bust

#46

Post by dopidopHN »

hardlianotion wrote: post #39
immibis wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We increase the human population by another 100x in the never-ending quest to increase GDP, then we run out of resources and die. Dolphins become the most intelligent life on the planet.

What dolphins?

Fine, rats if dolphin are gone

Re: France's baby bust

#47

Post by AdrianB1 »

maelito wrote: post #22

> she declined over the next 250 years to be just another European power. Why would we want 300 millions inhabitants in France ? That's what we would have with the density of the Netherlands. Why couldn't France be on top of leisure, urban transports, ecology, natural ecosystems, technology, political innovation, and even military defense, with 70 million inhabitants ? Worlwide politics are biased, always considering…

I did not read the article as "we want 300 million in France", but a study on demographics and the number is just a projection of a data point a few hundred years ago to compare with current number.

Re: France's baby bust

#48

Post by hinata08 »

twelve40 wrote: post #25

Interesting. Also funny that this pioneer of the child-free movement has actually the best fertility rate in Europe currently. Not by much, and still in the negative, but.

it's pretty easy to have children in France, like you have typically 25 + 9 paid days off per year (I personally can't use so many, being a company drone. So I have to take days off to see friends and family)

And it's ok to leave work on time to take care of your children _your coworkers understand that they are more important to you, and they make you happy.

You get a lot of assistance and encouragement from both the local governments and the social fabric. Like there are a lot of clubs to have children to do sports. They're managed by all the parents, by cities, schools,... So finding a hobby for your children isn't so hard.

middle class and low income families can get a lot of subsidies to help them pay for a lot of stuff for their children (including the (in)famous allocations familiales, and 'allocation de rentrée scolaire', that are just spent of flat screens according to right wing ppl)

And you can leave your children at some kindergarten or at they grandparents when you need.

So you can have children without being crazy rich like in the USA, or without being a Rabenmutter like in Germany, and you have time to take care of them.

Re: France's baby bust

#49

Post by Aaargh20318 »

jstanley wrote: post #27
eastbound wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, why would we want to overpopulate? The whole premise is wrong. We need to weigh less on the environment, and currently farmers are receding in France, and it’s the first profession for suicide; All tells us that the next generation will be full-urban, which is an extremely bad thing. Of course, empires with more dense populations have more ability to dominate others, at least thanks to the variety of skills and…

> why would we want to overpopulate? Half the reason we got out of the Malthusian trap is that we finally got enough people that specialisation and economies of scale start to pay off. Wanting to reduce the global population is like saying you want to eliminate economies of scale, which would make life harder for those who remain, not easier.

Our current economy is a pyramid scheme on a gigantic scale and dependent on an ever growing population. Since we live on a planet with a finite amount of resources we know infinite growth isn’t sustainable. If we don’t intervene at some point the whole system will inevitably collapse. The longer we wait, the more difficult it will be. Unfortunately we live in a gerontocracy where our leaders don’t care about what happens in the future since they’ll be dead in a few years anyway.

Re: France's baby bust

#50

Post by AdrianB1 »

pfdietz wrote: post #15
langsoul-com wrote: post #6

The book, "shall the religious inherit the world" is relevant. I'd be interested what happens when general birthrate declines and a religious group, that massively encourages tons of children, take larger voting percentages.

The assumption that religion is something that people stick with is dubious, though. In the absence of coercion people will tend to abandon religion. Look at what's happening to Christianity in the US.

I thought the same, but real life experience shows that in my country (Romania) there is an increase of religion with age, especially for women; in other words, most women start being religious when they age and these days most of the religious traditions are maintained and transmitted by old women. I know many women that were secular in their 20-30, become religious at 50 and are regular churchgoers at 70. My mother used to be a secular feminist engineer 40 years ago, she is none of these today.

As a country we were over 50% secular 30 years ago, the last census tells over 90% declared to be religious (census is wrong, but how wrong?).

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