# 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:** 69
**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:** [June 14, 2025, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1361 "2025-06-14T02:50:27Z")
Huh, i don’t think of “asshole” as a gendered insult. But i had envisioned a male supervisor. Do you know if she’d ever been pregnant? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2025, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1362 "2025-06-14T02:52:40Z")
No, but a previous poster referred to her as a “dick,” and I don’t typically apply the term “asshole” to women. Not saying some women can’t be assholes. I have no idea if she’d ever been pregnant. I couldn’t have gotten out of that place any faster. They were vegan to Q-Anon pipeline for sure. ---
**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:** [June 14, 2025, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1363 "2025-06-14T12:49:22Z")
There have been good discussions here on recent attitudes and economic factors, but there may also be some value on taking a [broad historical perspective](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4847a1.htm#:~:text=Family%20size%20declined%20between%201800,first%205%20years%20of%20life.) on family size: this is a very long term trend and overall when family planning is possible many who would have otherwise had many kids do not, with few blips the other way. > [@](#): > > Family size declined between 1800 and 1900 from 7.0 to 3.5 children (4). . … by 1933, the average family size had declined to 2.3 children. … > > … Family size increased from 1940 until 1957 ([Figure 1](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4847a1.htm#fig1)), when the average number of children per family peaked at 3.7 (14,15; CDC, unpublished data, 1999). In 1960, the era of modern contraception began when both the birth control pill and intrauterine device (IUD) became available. These effective and convenient methods resulted in widespread changes in birth control (16). By 1965, the pill had become the most popular birth control method, followed by the condom and contraceptive sterilization (16). In 1965, the Supreme Court (Griswold vs. Connecticut) (17) struck down state laws prohibiting contraceptive use by married couples. > > … The most important determinant of declining fertility in developing countries is contraceptive use, which explains 92% of the variation in fertility among 50 countries (29-31). Overall fertility declined by approximately one third from the 1960s through the 1980s, from an average of six to four children per woman (31), with dramatic decreases occurring in some parts of the world (e.g., 24% decline in fertility in Asia and Latin America, approximately 50% in Thailand, and approximately 35% in Colombia, Jamaica, and Mexico). As fertility declined in developing countries, the infant mortality rate decreased from approximately 150 deaths per 1000 live births in the 1950s to approximately 80 per 1000 in the early 1990s (2,3). Among married women of reproductive age in developing countries, 53% plan the size of their families (32); 90% of these women report using modern birth-control methods (e.g., female sterilization, oral contraceptives, and IUDs) (31). With rare exceptions, when effective contraception is available and culturally acceptable fertility dramatically decreases. It seems that there is from a broad historical perspective no _major_ change in what is _wanted_ by women in terms of family size. ---
**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:** [June 14, 2025, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1364 "2025-06-14T12:54:45Z")
One might summarize by saying evidence suggests that people want sex more than they want children. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2025, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1365 "2025-06-14T13:25:31Z")
Who knew?! ---
**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:** [June 14, 2025, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1366 "2025-06-14T13:39:21Z")
The practical point though is that the wringing of hands looking for explanations like media portrayals of kids negatively, etc., is perhaps misguided as a cause. Family size desire (including zero as an option) may not have changed much over time, in particular the desire to not have kids on the younger side or bunched close together may not have changed much. The ability to implement smaller numbers and starting later is the change and hopefully there is no going back from that. There _is_ possible ability to allow extending the option on the higher side, with help to extend the age of fecundity. And it is worthwhile I think to make a climate change analogy: it may be _less_ about mitigation at this point than adaptation. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1367 "2025-06-15T01:51:31Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > > [@DemonTree](#): > > > > If we want more kids, then parenthood should be something you choose to opt out of, not opt into. > > That’s a big if (and i disagree with it) but i agree, that’s what worked in the past to keep up birth rates With the caveat that what actually worked to keep up birth rates in the past was that it was so difficult for most people to “opt out of” parenthood. In particular, if you were an average young woman in most societies, you had very little choice about whether or not you would get married. And once you were married, you generally had approximately zero choice about whether or not you would have sex. Before reliable contraception, if you had sex you had approximately zero choice about whether or not you would get pregnant. So it isn’t just that parenthood was the default, but that it was a very heavily normalized and enforced default. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1368 "2025-06-15T02:18:02Z")
Yaay @Kimstu! An uncomfortable truth, but a true truth nonetheless. And very well explained. As @puzzlegal said a few posts ago, the actual desire for kids is small. The desire for sex is … larger. And as @DSeid said, we really ought to change our focus now from mitigation to adaptation. When humans of both genders have agency and have contraception, the natural fertility rate is somewhere south of 2.0. Celebrate that, and make it work. The other alternatives are unacceptable. ---
**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:** [June 15, 2025, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1369 "2025-06-15T03:34:24Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Yaay @Kimstu! An uncomfortable truth, but a true truth nonetheless. And very well explained. Yes, and that’s what i intended with my comment, but i wasn’t nearly as explicit. People had kids because it was really hard to opt out. When you have to opt in, many folks choose not to. The population decline is slow in many first world countries. It’s still positive on a global basis. We aren’t going to run out of humans any time soon. And it’s very hard to predict far into the future. Maybe children will become more valuable and people will choose to have more. Maybe we’ll all be wiped out by an asteroid hit and all this worry will irrelevant. ---
**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:** [June 15, 2025, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1370 "2025-06-15T04:21:26Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > People had kids because it was really hard to opt out. _Women_ had children because they weren’t allowed to opt out. Men could choose not to have sex, or not get married. Women were slaves in all but name and had nearly no rights; men on the other hand were considered to _literally_ have a right to force sex on their wife. She was his property, after all. And our society never developed any customs for _convincing_ women to have children since there was no point; not when their men could legally just solve any refusal by beating her until she submitted. It’s not a coincidence that as soon as women were allowed _any rights at all_ the birth rate started dropping. They were never given any reason _to_ have children, after all. ---
**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:** [June 15, 2025, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1371 "2025-06-15T04:36:20Z")
I mean, there have always been reasons for women to want children. Some are societal, like needing a son in case you ever need to be represented in court. Some are practical and partially societal, like needing children to care for you in old age. Some are sentimental, like enjoying children and wanting to spend a lot of time caring for your own kids. I wanted kids because i like having a close family, and wanted to be have a shot at continuing to have a family after the older generation died off. ---
**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:** [June 15, 2025, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1372 "2025-06-15T04:39:26Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I mean, there have always been reasons for women to want children. Some are societal, like needing a son in case you ever need to be represented in court. Some are practical and partially societal, like needing children to care for you in old age. But that still all boils down to one form of coercion or another; it’s about making _not_ having children dangerous. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1373 "2025-06-15T08:56:56Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Men could choose not to have sex, or not get married. A woman in the U.S. could always choose to not get married. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > men on the other hand were considered to _literally_ have a right to force sex on their wife Marital rape became illegal in most of the countries of the world between 1920 and 2013. There were early feminists in the nineteenth century who demanded that marital rape should be illegal. They also demanded that a woman should be allowed to walk away from a marriage without the permission of her husband. ---
**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:** [June 15, 2025, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1374 "2025-06-15T09:17:37Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > > Men could choose not to have sex, or not get married. > > A woman in the U.S. could always choose to not get married. Not really. The jobs available to women were limited. It could be difficult for a woman to open a bank account or get credit in her own name. Single women were mostly either heiresses or impoverished. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1375 "2025-06-15T09:29:29Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Not really. You have an odd definition for “not really”. The percentage of women who never married in 1900 was 31%. They were not all heiresses or impoverished. It was accepted that some women would never marry, and there were jobs they could have which would all them to live without being impoverished. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1376 "2025-06-15T10:04:44Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > And it’s very hard to predict far into the future. Maybe children will become more valuable and people will choose to have more. Maybe we’ll all be wiped out by an asteroid hit and all this worry will irrelevant. To me, the most likely future developments are; the development of artificial gestation systems, so women need not be inconvenienced by pregnancy if they don’t want to; if (instead) they do wish to have a pregnancy, medical advances will make this low-risk and as inconvenient as possible. It may even be possible for males to give birth (I’d say we are about a hundred years away from this). Increased leisure time will allow more people the opportunity to care for children, as will working from home. And life expectancy will probably increase over time until humans are living for centuries, and are fertile for much of that time. Even if the population declines over the next century, as looks likely, eventually we will have an increasing population again - full of fit and fertile 150 year-old people with time on their hands. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1377 "2025-06-15T10:18:59Z")
Okay; maybe these suggestions do not fall into the category ‘practical ways to increase the birthrate’, but we really don’t have to worry too much about a global population crash for at least a hundred years, by which time some or many of these advances will have been made, or our civilisation will have collapsed. Worrying about declining populations among particular ethnic groups is just racism. Who cares if white people disappear; they’ll all go eventually, thanks to interbreeding. A couple of hundred years from now, anybody will be able to have any colour of skin they like. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1378 "2025-06-15T10:31:50Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > _Women_ had children because they weren’t allowed to opt out. Men could choose not to have sex, or not get married. It was also a hell of a lot easier for men to either abandon their children or simply never acknowledge them if they occurred outside of wedlock. > [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > The percentage of women who never married in 1900 was 31%. They were not all heiresses or impoverished. It was accepted that some women would never marry, and there were jobs they could have which would all them to live without being impoverished. Funny that - my grandmother was a single mother in the 1920’s. Sure, she had a job - and despite doing the _exact same work_ as men in the accounting firm she was openly and legally paid significantly less than them (despite supporting two boys and her widowed sister) and was openly and legally told she had NO chance of promotion or advancement because she was a woman. So yeah, women _could_ get a job that would enable them to support themselves, perhaps even support a family, but don’t downplay the steep disadvantage women had back then _merely because they were women_. The message was clear: you should not be here. My grandmother was lucky - she had an education. A lot of women didn’t, because the attitude was that it would be wasted on a woman who would just get married and have kids and not use that education. So yes, _some_ single women weren’t impoverished… but the odds of single women being poor were significantly higher than it was for single men. Add in complications like an absent husband (for whatever reason) leaving a woman to support not only herself but others and the chances of poverty go up even further. There’s a reason that society used to describe a family without a father as _broken_. They didn’t function as well as families with one. ---
**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:** [June 15, 2025, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1379 "2025-06-15T10:49:15Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > And as @DSeid said, we really ought to change our focus now from mitigation to adaptation. When humans of both genders have agency and have contraception, the natural fertility rate is somewhere south of 2.0. Celebrate that, and make it work. The other alternatives are unacceptable. What is this defeatist attitude? Misogyny is ‘natural’, xenophobia and racism are ‘natural’, homophobia is ‘natural’. Imagine if we’d thrown up our hands and said there’s no point even trying to change them? Having 7 or 8 kids each was natural, and we didn’t shrug our shoulders and say we just have to live with a rapidly and exponentially growing population - instead we funded and still fund programs to lower birth rates in developing countries. And not just by providing contraception, but also by changing factors known to lower birth rates, like encouraging more education for girls, and sometimes even by using coercive measures. What we know is that fertility rates are low and dropping in particular societies, which are historically exceptional in multiple different ways, and after prolonged exposure to concerns about over- rather than underpopulation. Alongside that, rates of marriage are falling, the number of young people who are single is rising, loneliness is increasing, and the average person has fewer friends. People in Western countries are not just having fewer children, but also less sex. There are many good things about our current societies, but we are becoming increasingly disconnected from each other, and that’s bad for everyone. We should be trying to change these negative trends. Emphasizing the importance of relationships - of all kinds, not just romantic - over work and consumption would be a good start. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655/1380 "2025-06-15T10:49:50Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > It may even be possible for males to give birth (I’d say we are about a hundred years away from this). We’re actually probably already there - uterine transplants are a thing. There are several dozen people in the world born from a uterus transplanted from its original owner into another women who subsequently carried a pregnancy to term and gave birth. It’s tricky and success not guaranteed, but really there’s no reason you couldn’t transplant a uterus into a man at this point. Sure, there’s juggling anti-rejection drugs and hormones, and a Cesarean birth would be mandatory but they’re considered mandatory for a transplanted uterus anyway. We are at the “not can we but should we?” point on this. > [@eburacum45](#): > > Increased leisure time will allow more people the opportunity to care for children, as will working from home. “Increased leisure time” has been predicted for the future since the 19th Century. When is it getting here? The only significant increase in leisure time was the 40 hour work week brought in by unions in the early 20th Century, and due to corporate structures that only applies to the lowest peons, management is often subjected to longer weeks, and the higher up in management the longer the weeks. This is a factor in why higher status people, particularly higher status women, have fewer children - less time outside of work. Even worse if both parents are climbing the corporate ladder. > [@eburacum45](#): > > And life expectancy will probably increase over time until humans are living for centuries, and are fertile for much of that time. That might require genetic engineering of a sort I’m not sure we capable of right now. There seems to be a hard limit of human lifespan of around 120 years. We know ways to improve the _healthspan_ - the portion of that maximum lifespan that are healthy and the person fit and capable of taking care of themselves - but not the maximum lifespan. As far as extending fertility: the hormones needed for that also, over time, increase the risk of cancer and that applies to both men and women. Granted we can do more for cancer than in the past, but treatment is not fun and not recommended for bucket lists. Would it be worth longer fertile years if that virtually guaranteed everyone remaining fertile into their 80’s or 90’s would have cancer requiring treatment in order to make it to that maximum lifespan? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655.md?page=68) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-practical-way-to-increase-the-birthrate/1012655.md?page=70)