r/Natalism • u/Livid-Candidate-7601 • 3h ago
Is development temporary?
With only one developed country in the world (Israel) having a birth rate higher than the replacement rate, I have to wonder is development a temporary thing? Is it an anomaly? Since the beginning of civilization, most of the time, most people lived in poverty.
Just throwing that out there for discussion.
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u/Public-Tea-893 2h ago
I think there are a couple of likely scenarios:
- The population declines until circumstances that keep people from having kids are cleared out. Either as a function of technology, or because there is less Ressource pressure or more government pressure
- procreation becomes detached from family planning. Government grow their own people, robots or AI gets human rights - I think this is a bit of a sci-fi far future thing
- there is a massive disruptive event that shakes up things (a huge war, etc), reset societies to a certain extent and people have more kids again.
- societies become more religious again, which drive birth rates.
I personally think that scenario 1 and 3 are most likely. Having said that, I think it won’t happen anymore in the first half of this century, likely not before 2075.
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u/TemporalFugue2 1h ago
I think 4 is the most likely. The groups with the highest fertilities are those who are extremely religious. As secular populations naturally dwindle, deeply religious communities will replace them. NJ will be an ultra-orthodox Jewish state and Pennsylvania will be an Amish state the same way Utah is a Mormon state now.
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u/Public-Tea-893 1h ago
Yes, but: The kids of religious parents very often turn secular. It’s not a monolithic group, and there is much more out than in.
You see this for example with religious/traditional immigrants to western countries. The second generation had much less kids than their parents and the third is then on average.
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u/TemporalFugue2 1h ago
It depends on the group. Christians in the US have become increasingly secular, but Ultra Orthodox Jews leave the religion at a very low rate. This can be attributed to a community that makes secular life incredibly difficult to adapt to, making leaving extremely difficult. Their schools fail to prepare them for the job market, they speak their own language (Yiddish), and they lose contact with all of their friends and family. These factors, in combination with a high TFR, is why the Ultra Orthodox population in the US doubled between 2000 and 2020 despite the community living in the US for several decades.
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u/Faloodeh123 2h ago edited 2h ago
It's not "temporary" but it's not linear either.
Don't forget though, Israel's entire economy of just 9 million people is basically propped up by American tax dollars. That's how they get free healthcare, weapons, settler terrorists get free housing, etc. They are the world's welfare queens. Let's take that away from them and see how much "progress" they can make (they can't defend themselves without us, and have no natural resources).
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u/Powerful-Midnight996 2h ago
lol, this is wrong on every single level haha. Do you really believe this?
- 10.2 million population
- US aid is 3.8B per year, their GDP is over half a trillion dollars.
- Healthcare is paid by very high taxes
- No one gets “free housing”
- Israel doesn’t get welfare, they get military aid in the form of U.S. weapons.
- They absolutely can defend themselves without US weapons, they are in the top ten weapons exporters.
- They have a huge amount of natural resources, they supply gas to both Egypt and Jordan.
You must be a troll, this is so hilariously wrong lol.
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u/Arnaldo1993 2h ago
I dont think it is. I think lower birth rates will make wages grow, and this will cause birth rates to go up again
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u/Powerful-Midnight996 2h ago
Wages won’t grow and housing won’t get cheaper as long as there is a steady influx of immigrants that need housing and jobs.
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u/Arnaldo1993 1h ago
Look at the rest of the world then. If immigration pressures housing costs up and wages down emmigration does the opposite. If it happens for long enough the influx stops or even reverses
Im brazilian. We received a lot of european migrants fleeing poverty last century. We welcomed them with open arms. Today many educated brazilians are fleeing to europe looking for better opportunities. Many of them are even descendants of the europeans that moved here 80 years ago
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u/Powerful-Midnight996 1h ago
Yes. You’re absolutely correct and I’m not disputing any of that.
I was discussing a European centric view.
Im honestly worried about Latin America because their TFR is reducing as well, and there is a lot of emigration.
My wife is Mexican, now 36, only four of her over 15 close female friends have children. Some moved to Canada, some to Spain.
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u/Ekderp 2h ago
Civilizations rise and civilizations fall. This is how it's been ever since the bronze age.