[@ChrisWillx] The Real Reason Birth Rates Are Falling - Lyman Stone

Link: https://youtu.be/xv4Y0eXCcFI

Short Summary

Okay, here's the summary and takeaway from the transcript:

Number One Takeaway:

Cultural influence plays a significant role in fertility decisions. People are heavily influenced by what is considered "normal" within their social circles, and this can lead to trends both upward and downward in birth rates.

Executive Summary:

This video discusses a variety of complex factors contributing to declining fertility rates, including housing costs, career aspirations, and male income relative to potential spouses' fathers' incomes. The speaker argues that cultural norms and perceptions of parenthood strongly impact people's decisions about having children and that these norms can be influenced. Furthermore, it suggests policies to influence status hierarchies like making test scoring of firstborns lower or banning childless musicians from performing publicly.

Key Quotes

Okay, here are five direct quotes from the transcript that I found particularly insightful or interesting:

1. "So, a lot of people said, 'Okay, but walkable to what? There's no bars. There's no restaurant in the neighborhood. What are you walking to?' And I was like, I mean, 90% of the time when we walked somewhere... most of the walking we did was not walking to what? It was walking to who, right? We're like, 'Oh, we're going to go to a neighbor's house and the kids are going to play at the neighbor's house. We're going to go and visit someone.'" This challenges a typical, consumption-oriented view of walkability and highlights the importance of social connection within neighborhoods.

2. "But developmental idealism introduces the idea that there actually is a long run trend that your life progresses linearly not cyclically... because there's this developmental thing, you really need to make big investments early in life and postpone things that impede investment making. Most notably family." This quote explains a shift in perspective around life goals and timelines and how this impacts decisions like family formation.

3. "The strongest relationship is when people get more access to mobile phones and to the internet, they're more likely to adopt concrete discrete preferences. Not necessarily lower ones, just more concrete ones...cell phones drive this sort of concretization of preferences." This highlights the counterintuitive impact of technology on family planning, where it reinforces set ideas of what to want in life.

4. "Across centuries of data on mating behaviors we see that there's almost no hypergamy. That is women do not marry up if you compare their husbands to their fathers. Okay? They marry up if you compare their incomes to their husbands, but they don't marry up if you compare their husband's income to their father's income. Women match to husbands that share their father's socioeconomic status." This introduces a new and somewhat counterintuitive idea about what kind of mate women will select.

5. "Like you are engaged in the central civilizational task. Your husband is just paying for it. Um uh but that's not how we think about it because most of us today conceive the central civilizational task as market remunerated work, right?" This quote touches on the perceived value of work in comparison to childcare and the lack of appreciation for the civilizational importance of raising children.

Detailed Summary

Here's a detailed summary of the YouTube video transcript, presented in bullet points:

Neighborhood Design and Walkability:

• The conversation starts with a disagreement on Twitter about the desirability of a Phoenix neighborhood.
• The speaker defended the neighborhood, citing the presence of parks, the absence of major highways, compact lots, and a relatively high population density (9,000 people per square mile).
• The speaker considered the neighborhood "relatively walkable."
• Critics argued Phoenix isn't walkable due to the extreme heat and the lack of destinations like bars and restaurants.
• The speaker argued walkability isn't always about destinations but about walking to people (friends, neighbors) and facilitating social interaction within the neighborhood.
• Personal experience, especially having children, changes perspectives on walkability (e.g., stroller accessibility matters).

Population Density and Fertility:

• Population density is correlated with various social and economic indicators.
• Denser areas tend to have lower fertility rates.
• The link between density and fertility isn't simple. It's not just people per square mile.
• Crowded housing (small houses compared to the number of occupants) is a negative factor for fertility.
• Townhouses with treelined sidewalks can offer high density while still being family-friendly, providing a garage, parking, and somewhere to put the stroller.

Housing Preferences and Family:

• Surveys show people visualize single-family homes when envisioning their family life.
• Building apartments almost exclusively isn't aligned with the ideal housing for raising families.
• Parks are great amenities but can become disamenities if not well-policed, leading to safety concerns for families.

The Cost of Housing and its Impact:

• The high cost of housing is a real barrier to fertility.
• Expensive housing prevents young adults from moving out of their parents' homes, which impacts marriage and fertility rates.
• People want to have a family (spouse, kids, and a suitable residence), not just cheap apartments.
• Daybreak, Utah, is presented as an example of dense, affordable single-family housing that can work for families.
• Soviet-era apartments are given as an example of how attachments to single-family homes might schematically break down.

Reasons for Not Having Kids:

• Common reasons for not having kids include the cost of housing, loss of leisure time and hobbies, and not meeting the right person.
• Lack of personal freedom and disruption to lifestyle are significant factors.
• There's a sense that having kids at certain stages of life can be seen as low status or not "normal."

Developmental Idealism:

• The concept of developmental idealism suggests life progresses linearly, requiring investment early and postponing family.
• Social media and observing others' conspicuous consumption make it feel like having kids means missing out on more.

Mobile Phones and Fertility:

• Access to mobile phones and the internet leads to more concrete fertility preferences, with people stating specific desired numbers of children.
• Cell phones also reduce the flexibility people have towards family life. Western media influences inflexibility.
• Social media can reduce the likelihood of intending to have larger families.

Status Hierarchies and Fertility:

• Altering status hierarchies can influence fertility.
• The example of the Georgian Orthodox Church leader offering to personally baptize thirdborn children demonstrates how changing the perception of status can increase fertility rates.
• Women's education and workforce participation didn't decline in Georgia after the increase in fertility.

Intentions vs. Desires:

• Women often desire to have more children than they actually intend to have. Western women say they want ~2 to 2.5 children, but intend for 1.2 to 1.7.
• Mental illness, lack of relationship history, and poor work histories can contribute to this gap.

Sources of Fertility Preferences:

• Fertility preferences are not genetically determined.
• They come from the socializing environment and positive experiences with family life.
• Horizontal culture (influence from peers) is more impactful than vertical culture (parental influence).
• Exposure to people with larger families increases the desire to have more children.
• Fertility behaviors can be contagious.

The Experience of Parenting:

• Parenting is often perceived as harder than it actually is.
• Having children tends to increase fertility preferences.
• Fertility declines are primarily driven by fewer first births. Those with one child often have more.

Easy to Flex Lifestyle:

• It is easier to flex (or flaunt) a childless lifestyle on social media. The inertial position here is to have no children.
• The benefits of having kids are hidden behind closed doors.

Male Socioeconomic Status:

• Young men's earnings haven't grown significantly in recent decades.
• It's not income relative to women that matters, but young men's income relative to older men and particularly the fathers of the women they want to marry.
• Women seek insurance against income volatility, particularly the disruption caused by having children. They desire to be insured, and that is very different from economic provision.
• The comparison is to what the woman observed her father (and the fathers of her peers) providing. The potential male suitor doesn't compete with other men, but rather with their prospective wives' fathers.
• The speaker jokes about rich fathers hiding their wealth from their kids to avoid ruining their marriage prospects.

Acceptance of Male Failure:

• Society is more accepting of men falling behind than women.
• There's a tendency to blame men for their own failings.
• More socially acceptable pathways exist for women to exit the labor market.
• Welfare systems are often designed around the needs of single mothers.

Men as Insurers vs. Providers:

• The historical norm of women not contributing to household subsistence is a relatively recent development.
• Women have always provided a substantial share of household labor.
• The "insurance" men provide is against income volatility caused by pregnancy and childbirth.
• It is not the case of wifey not being able to survive without hubby. Wifey needs hubby because his kids have ruined her livelihood.

Social Ineptitude and Different Social Spheres:

• Young men and women often inhabit different social spheres, online and in person.
• This can lead to misunderstandings and different definitions of appropriate behavior (e.g., around sex).

The Korean Case:

• Korea's extreme situation is attributed to the country's export-led growth model, which suppressed consumption and promoted hard work over family life.
• Women did well in school but faced limitations in the workplace.
• K-pop, a state-sponsored initiative, created a culture of childless celebrities.
• These circumstances have resulted in atypical, progressive attitudes among young Korean women.

What Can Korea Do?:

• There is an imbalance between the school and the working world. Women who succeed in school find that they run into a glass ceiling in the work place. The working norms are still set for men.
• Implement policies to advantage second-born, third-born, and fourth-born children, and penalize firstborn.
• Have government take a stake into the companies of K-pop stars. All performative music must be done with a child to be qualified as K-pop.
• The status system must be changed.

The Double Shift Myth:

• Married moms and dads report virtually identical combined hours of household and non-household work.
• Women report slightly more leisure time, but the difference is trivial.
• The perception of a "double shift" for women often stems from focusing on household chores while ignoring paid employment.

Satisfaction in Work:

• Female-dominated jobs tend to be more personally satisfying.
• Activities involving care of children are often reported as providing high life satisfaction.
• Society needs to do a better job of creating narratives that give long-run meaning to parenting.

The Reverse Matilda Effect:

• Women are already expected to make these kinds of contributions. If women can do it, it is seen as less important.
• If a woman wants to stay at home, the response often will be "I'm just a mum."
• When women lean into the level of attention that they give to raising their kids.
• Human brain defaults, humans were conformists, conformity is pleasant and soothing. We have the capacity to outsource for the wisdom of the group.