# Is There Any Practical Way to Increase the Birthrate? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 6, 2025, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655 "2025-01-06T20:41:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 58
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1141 "2025-05-18T02:10:12Z")
> [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > This is the money quote. It seems to me that if women “just don’t want to.” There;s no arguing with it. As @DemonTree and others alluded to above, it comes down to culture. What people value and desire comes down to cultural norms, and many modern societies just don’t particularly value having kids anymore very highly. I gotta say, it’s not a mindset I really understand. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, because I think @Alessan alluded to the same thing earlier, when he said something like “what good is a high paying job without a family to support it with” - I can’t find the exact post to quote it, but it was earlier in this thread. But that really resonated with me. I’ve never considered not having kids; for as long as I can remember, my main goal in life was having kids who I can give the best life I can. Other goals, like doing well in school, were instrumental to that task; I wanted to do well in school so I could get the sort of job that lets me support a family. Etc. That said, another notable thing from the report: > [@puzzlegal](#): > > For one thing, a lot of my generation worried about overpopulation. If, somehow, the US starts to feel underpopulated, and the world looks to be improving, i suspect the fertility will increase all in its own. I _really_ don’t think that very many people are not having kids because they are “worried about overpopulation”. I suspect that _very few_ people actually give much if any thought to future problems like that when making life decisions. And the report linked backs that up, with only 13% of childless people citing worries about the state of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1142 "2025-05-18T02:16:08Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > There isn’t some natural factor where women become baby-crazed when the fertility rate drops too much. I specifically cited two examples of factors that drive that equilibrium – reluctance to have children because of anticipation of future environmental decay (which is alleviated in both the “anticipation” sense and the actual phenomenon sense by population reduction) and anticipation of inability of the next generation to afford their own homes (which is alleviated by reduced demand, and thus lower prices, as a result of reduced population). ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1143 "2025-05-18T02:26:08Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > reluctance to have children because of anticipation of future environmental decay (which is alleviated in both the “anticipation” sense and the actual phenomenon sense by population reduction) My gut said this would be nelegible, and the stats bear this out, with only 13% of childless respondents citing this concern. > [@Steve\_MB](#): > > anticipation of inability of the next generation to afford their own homes (which is alleviated by reduced demand, and thus lower prices, as a result of reduced population). I didn’t even see that on the list. I don’t think these are concerns normal people have when having kids. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1144 "2025-05-18T02:30:00Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > a rapid decline is a huge problem not just for humanity but the ecosystem as well, and that SK and a few others are going to face some extremely serious challenges, and so every country should be paying _very_ close attention to what they do and how they got there so that they don’t face the same problems. First off, why the ecosystem as well? Not disagreeing, I can make up a why myself, but I must have missed that argument. I do not think there is much disagreement here that rapid decline is a major problem for individual economies, because of that demographic pyramid, and a global rapid decline would also be even more … challenging. There is also not much disagreement here that practical interventions are not likely to make _huge_ impacts on birthrates. Some. Maybe. And some agreement maybe that immigration can help offset the population pyramid impacts for some countries with some … okay maybe one poster … concerned about negative impacts of such. And bit of agreement that keeping members of our society healthy and functional as they age can help too. And increases in per capita productivity can help. There is a position that ongoing population growth ad infinitum is A Good Thing and no worries about how much waste we create and damage to ecosystems. Geoengineer our way out of climate change, more people will mean more technology, which means more happiness! No problems. If you don’t want to see ever increasing human population size you must want a return to a time before modern sanitation systems. _That_ got some pushback. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1145 "2025-05-18T02:55:42Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > First off, why the ecosystem as well? Not disagreeing, I can make up a why myself, but I must have missed that argument. As societies lose productive capacity due to a shrinking population, they will do whatever it takes to maintain the standards of living they’ve come to expect, including exploiting the environment in more and more destructive ways. It’s a lot easier to keep the lights on with coal than with solar. The supply chain is _much_ shorter. Without advanced excavators and the tools to find rich veins of pre deep below the earth, we resort to techniques like _mountain ruining_: > **[Ruina montium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruina_montium)** > > Ruina montium (Latin for "wrecking of mountains") was a mining technique in Ancient Rome described by Pliny the Elder, who served as procurator in Spain. It is thought to draw on the principle of Pascal's barrel. Miners would excavate narrow cavities down into a mountain, whereby filling the cavities with water would cause pressures large enough to fragment thick rock walls. > In Natural History, Pliny writes: > Gold in our part of the world \[...\] is obtained in three ways: in the detritus of riv... Things like environmental impact study or mine reclamation are _luxuries_, luxuries that our _incredibly rich_ society can afford. A society with less people and less surplus isn’t going to have time to worry about those things; they’ll be worried about immediate survival. > [@DSeid](#): > > There is a position that ongoing population growth ad infinitum is A Good Thing and no worries about how much waste we create and damage to ecosystems. Geoengineer our way out of climate change, more people will mean more technology, which means more happiness! No problems. If you don’t want to see ever increasing human population size you must want a return to a time before modern sanitation systems. Either you’ve misunderstood my position, or you’re strawmanning it. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1146 "2025-05-18T03:10:46Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > As societies lose productive capacity due to a shrinking population An argument that incorporates its conclusion into its premises is not a very persuasive one. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1147 "2025-05-18T03:31:09Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > which is alleviated by reduced demand, and thus lower prices, as a result of reduced population Well, you can claim that. But in practice, what seems to happen in places like South Korea and Japan is that as rural/suburban communities shrink, they are simply abandoned over time rather than seeing new demand due to low prices. The youth still end up in cities where they can find jobs and there are still people still around. This is hardly unique to them. Whenever people complain about high housing costs, they don’t mean that there is no cheap housing whatsoever. They mean there’s no cheap housing in good areas with jobs and nearby amenities. And they’re right to complain! Even free housing in a ghost town is not attractive. Maybe this will turn around when the outlying areas are almost completely abandoned, and even the urban centers start declining. We’ll see. I wouldn’t want to bet on that, though. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1148 "2025-05-18T03:33:03Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > An argument that incorporates its conclusion into its premises is not a very persuasive one. People produce things. Fewer people produce fewer things, all else being equal. If you’re really questioning that premise, I don’t know what to tell you. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1149 "2025-05-18T03:34:14Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Things like environmental impact study or mine reclamation are _luxuries_, luxuries that our _incredibly rich_ society can afford. No, things like that are necessities. Ignoring environmental impact is why the former Fertile Crescent is now largely desert, and why entire island communities have died out when their food supply did. Just because people decide to ignore consequences, that doesn’t mean the consequences will ignore _them._ ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1150 "2025-05-18T03:45:16Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Not disagreeing, I can make up a why myself, but I must have missed that argument. **Babale** put it pretty well. I’ll just reemphasize that due to demographics, it takes a long time for population to meaningfully shrink even after birth rates go down. So there will be a period where actual demand for electricity and other things will stay nearly constant but the human resources to maintain these things shrinks. So, as **Babale** suggests, we’ll switch to cruder and more exploitative technologies. Maintaining the environment does have a cost, and people will almost certainly choose to maintain their standard of living at the expense of the environment. The thing is, we do have an alternative, and that’s a rapid switch to clean energy. Solar especially. And solar is cheaper _as long as we maintain the high-tech factories that the current industrial base enables_. If that goes away, solar is no longer attractive (consider how it was in 1970). And thus we have no choice but to go back to coal or worse. So I think it’s very important to maintain the current high-tech economy since I think it’s the only thing that will actually enable a transition to sustainable energy. I think China is making a huge bet on this. They know their own demographic problems. They have the resources now to convert their economy–building more solar, nuclear, grid interconnects, etc. If they can build things out now while they have a chance, and invest in automation, they might be able to ride out the decline in a few decades. It’ll be easier to maintain these things than build them. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1151 "2025-05-18T04:20:49Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > > [@Steve\_MB](#): > > > > reluctance to have children because of anticipation of future environmental decay (which is alleviated in both the “anticipation” sense and the actual phenomenon sense by population reduction) > > My gut said this would be nelegible, and the stats bear this out, with only 13% of childless respondents citing this concern. My cite is me and essentially everyone i knew at college. Not one of us had more than two intentional pregnancies. Because it felt irresponsible. And we knew our friends would judge it so, as well. Don’t look at the people who don’t want kids, look at the people who did want kids, but didn’t have very many of them. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1152 "2025-05-18T05:57:48Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I don’t know what to tell you. Clearly you don’t know what to tell me in response to my pointing out that “all else being equal” is the “assume we have a can opener” step in your argument. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1153 "2025-05-18T09:29:18Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > [@Babale](#): > > > > Of the Western countries that adopted these principles early enough to gain that initial advantage, it is - of course - the most populous one that has achieved the greatest technological and economic development. That being the United States. > > And, well, so what? Even if I bought that, much of that is due to it extracting wealth from the rest of the world; not some virtue of its own. And most people only gain minor benefits from it, I don’t benefit from some right guy having nicer toys than the rich guys in some other country. Much less the people in other countries we’ve been exploiting to support our lifestyle. There’s current debate over whether the European colonial empires were a net negative financially, considering all the costs of maintaining armies, navies, and administering the colonies. (The taxes Britain tried to levy on the US colonies were to pay for the expense of defending them in the Seven Years’ War.) The actual profits came from the trade the empires enabled, and that has only continued to increase since they ended. The benefits were not distributed evenly, to say the least, but this rapid technological development really did generate more wealth: world GDP has been rising exponentially since about 1800. * * * > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No, things like that are necessities. Ignoring environmental impact is why the former Fertile Crescent is now largely desert, and why entire island communities have died out when their food supply did. Yes, but the point is those people _ignored environmental impact anyway_. Because people who are focused on immediate survival don’t think about long-term consequences, if they even have the time to spare on understanding them. Addressing these things is treated as a luxury even if it is in practice a necessity, so we should try to ensure we have the capacity for luxuries. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1154 "2025-05-18T09:39:45Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Yes, but the point is those people _ignored environmental impact anyway_. Because people who are focused on immediate survival don’t think about long-term consequences, if they even have the time to spare on understanding them. Except we are also more and more deciding to ignore environmental consequences, while most of those societies were not, if fact so on the edge of survival that they needed to ignore the present. It’s a matter of culture, not necessity. And the “We must BREED!” crowd tends to be _much_ less interested in preserving the environment, as we are seeing in this very thread. Their long term plan seems to be to turn the world into Trantor or Coruscant; a world-city where nature is dead. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1155 "2025-05-18T10:19:01Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I’d avoid a time of famine, disease, or great wars. I’d prefer a society with less inequality than we currently have. I definitely don’t want to be on the short end of that stick and don’t want to living a life of luxury at the expense of exploiting others. Best if it is a time of emerging new ideas and standards of living rising. So I’ll land on classical Greece. Democracy an emerging concept, not one in retreat. Great thinkers coming up with amazing new ideas. Sounds good. Something like 30% of the population were slaves. And rather ironically, women had no right to vote or own property, and were almost universally expected to marry and have children; things we’ve all agreed we want to avoid in our own societies. * * * > [@Babale](#): > > > [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > > > This is the money quote. It seems to me that if women “just don’t want to.” There;s no arguing with it. > > As @DemonTree and others alluded to above, it comes down to culture. What people value and desire comes down to cultural norms, and many modern societies just don’t particularly value having kids anymore very highly. Yes. People’s preferences and ambitions don’t exist independently of society. > [@Babale](#): > > I gotta say, it’s not a mindset I really understand. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, because I think @Alessan alluded to the same thing earlier, when he said something like “what good is a high paying job without a family to support it with” - I can’t find the exact post to quote it, but it was earlier in this thread. But that really resonated with me. I’ve never considered not having kids; for as long as I can remember, my main goal in life was having kids who I can give the best life I can. Other goals, like doing well in school, were instrumental to that task; I wanted to do well in school so I could get the sort of job that lets me support a family. Etc. Yeah, this wasn’t my experience at all. The prevailing attitude was that having kids was something you should only do if and when you had ticked a bunch of boxes first: career, marriage, owning a home, and at least a few years of having fun and enjoying life. Plus for the wealthier, experiences like foreign travel and volunteering, that were supposed to contribute to making you a more well-rounded person. Children were seen as an optional extra rather than a priority. But I agree with @puzzlegal that worries about overpopulation contributed to these cultural beliefs. There’s this attitude that it’s selfish and irresponsible to have lots of children, even if you are able to care for them. (I think I was the only person in my family who was happy when my sister told us she was having a third, which is pretty sad.) I’ve seen so many young people on social media say they are planning to adopt, or that it’s better to adopt if you want to be a parent, so you aren’t contributing to overpopulation. Governments realised the lower number of kids saved them money in the short term by reducing the dependency ratio, so they encouraged these attitudes rather than trying to combat them. This is hopeful in one way, since it suggests if we tried to reverse these attitudes, it could actually make a difference. Getting climate change under control, and birth rates continuing to fall towards replacement in poor countries (by improving healthcare and education) is probably a prerequisite for this, though. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1156 "2025-05-18T11:08:57Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And the “We must BREED!” crowd tends to be _much_ less interested in preserving the environment, as we are seeing in this very thread. Their long term plan seems to be to turn the world into Trantor or Coruscant; a world-city where nature is dead. That’s not something I want. I’d be happy with half the population and everyone having a first world standard of living. It’s correct that there are scaling effects - consider obvious ones like Hollywood: the cost of producing a blockbuster does not depend on the available audience, while the returns sure as hell do - but there are an awful lot of people who barely contribute to the modern economy, either as producers or consumers, so we could probably maintain current levels of technology with a somewhat lower population. I just don’t think we can get there from here. Low fertility in the most developed, productive countries, and among the people who contribute the most to productivity in all countries, are not a recipe for increasing development and productivity in the world as a whole. It’s more likely to accelerate the decline. And even if we do reach this goal, we’ll be faced with the same problem of below replacement birth rate everywhere, so why not try to find ways to address it now, while there is still time and before countries like South Korea virtually cease to exist? Same with ways to encourage and help older people continue producing and contributing to society. That’s a great idea, but we mostly aren’t doing it. Short term thinking dominates. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1157 "2025-05-18T12:58:38Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > If they want to emulate to EU levels they need to rapidly change the expected roles of fathers and mothers in their society. > [@DSeid](#): > > Let me be very clear: I see that as the only solution that _could_ actually make a difference on fertility rates; I do not see it as one that actually has _much_ of a chance of happening on any short time line. And I certainly do not claim to understand the culture enough to have any suggestions as to how to even attempt to facilitate that cultural shift. That said other cultures have shifted, so I submit that it may at least be _possible_. That someone who is unfamiliar with a foreign culture sees only one solution to a complex problem, and that this one solution must be implemented urgently provides no confidence in the accuracy of the assessment. It’s not surprising that an unfamiliarity with a culture leads a person to only see a singular cause, _especially_ if that problem aligns with one’s own values. We are more enlightened, so the solution we see is superior to ones that may actually be effective for that culture. But carry on. Do tell us what we in East Asia must do. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1158 "2025-05-18T13:41:33Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Except we are also more and more deciding to ignore environmental consequences, while most of those societies were not, if fact so on the edge of survival that they needed to ignore the present. It’s a matter of culture, not necessity. This is pretty disconnected from reality. Governments across the world are spending far _more_ time and effort regulating industries for environmental purposes than ever in the past. Even in the US, where Trump is trying to take a wrecking ball to that world view, we are far ahead of where we were a few decades ago. So we are certainly _not_ “more and more deciding to ignore environmental consequences”; we care about environmental consequences far _more_ than any past civilization. And no, Native Americans were not Wood Elves nor Disney Princesses who were magically In Tune With Nature. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Their long term plan seems to be to turn the world into Trantor or Coruscant; a world-city where nature is dead. [Citation needed] ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1159 "2025-05-18T14:29:05Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > And no, Native Americans were not Wood Elves nor Disney Princesses who were magically In Tune With Nature. Humans are thought to have been at least partially responsible for the extinction of megafauna in North America. The Maori hunted the Moa to extinction in New Zealand (and the eagle that used to prey on them also went extinct). There’s nothing new about lack of environmental awareness. AFAIK, it _is_ quite novel to care about nature for its own sake, rather than as something useful to humans. I’m not sure if any other society has had the luxury of doing so ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1160 "2025-05-18T15:22:32Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > But carry on. Do tell us what we in East Asia must do. You know? My first knee jerk reaction to this criticism the _first_ time it came around was to mea culpa. But this second time? It begins to come off more like people who say someone who has never had a disease themselves cannot diagnose or treat it. Haven’t had ADHD? How dare you have an opinion about it. Not obese? Your statements are automatically dismissed. Argue with what you see as the flaw in that analysis, which is based on the data provided in a cited article, instead of my alleged Western superiority complex, maybe? The correlation at least is strong between which aspects cultures that have dropped off the cliff demographically share, and which ones have dropped off more modestly. And the data is clear to date that _other_ interventions tried in multiple cultures are marginally effective at best. A Dixie cup used to fight off the incoming tide at South Korea depressed levels. If you have knowledge about why that analysis is incorrect because of some complexity and specialness of Korean culture that I am ignorant of then _please do share_. Reasons why methods that have been ineffective elsewhere will work there? Reasons why the fertility drop off the cliff correlation of economic growth being mismatched with role expectations is not actually a major causative factor? An alternate hypothesis even? And to reduce my ignorance: is there a specific name for the fallacy you’ve engaged in? It is not _ad hominem_ really but that’s close. It is one that occurs with medical and mental health conditions with some regularity … “if you don’t have my condition you can’t understand it so I won’t engage with the content you say.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655.md?page=57) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655.md?page=59)