# Leave the birthrate alone **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 15, 2026, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286 "2026-04-15T12:30:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 16
**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, 2026, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/307 "2026-06-14T04:56:03Z")
Highest since they started recording in 1900. The decrease in overdose deaths a major contributor. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2026, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/308 "2026-06-14T05:06:05Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > The decrease in overdose deaths a major contributor. Yes, AFAICT drug overdose is counted among “unintentional injuries”, which is the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer. Lowering that incidence noticeably decreases mortality. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2026, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/309 "2026-06-14T13:51:35Z")
And in any event “life expectancy _at birth_” (emphasis mine) includes infant and early childhood death and so is irrelevant to discussions of aging. ---
**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, 2026, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/310 "2026-06-14T14:17:29Z")
You can follow life expectancy after age 65 numbers. Those obviously fell during Covid but have now recovered. Two interesting bits about those figures: The income disparity in them is widening. Gains are concentrated in the wealthier group And women’s disability-free fraction life after 65 has stagnated while men’s has improved. > **[Disability-Free Life Expectancy Over 30 Years: A Growing Female Disadvantage...](https://www.urban.org/research/publication/disability-free-life-expectancy-over-30-years-growing-female-disadvantage-us-population)** > > Older women in the United States have long enjoyed an advantage over men in the number of years lived without disabilities. Results in this study of mortalit… ---
**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, 2026, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/311 "2026-06-14T16:55:03Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > And women’s disability-free fraction life after 65 has stagnated while men’s has improved. Given the changes in male employment between our generation, our parents’ generation, and the one before that, I’m not surprised to see male disability happens less often and later. Lot fewer men digging ditches with shovels, mining coal with a hand-held jack hammer, etc. Plus the absolute crash in the percentage of men who’re farmworkers in 1910 vs 1950 vs 1980. _Relatively_ speaking, the nature of women’s employment has changed little. maybe pink collar has turned to white for many women, and fewer toil in sweatshops, but the overall pattern of women employed in long term body-breaking labor has remained pretty constant. And relatively low. ---
**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, 2026, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/312 "2026-06-14T16:58:00Z")
IMO childhood & young adult obesity and their lifelong consequences for those cohorts is going to be the big story affecting how well or how long the next crop of over-65s fare. Most of those folks are (WAG) \< 35 right now. ---
**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, 2026, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/313 "2026-06-14T17:19:42Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Lot fewer men digging ditches with shovels, mining coal with a hand-held jack hammer, etc. Good point. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > IMO childhood & young adult obesity and their lifelong consequences for those cohorts is going to be the big story affecting how well or how long the next crop of over-65s fare. My ideal means to address that issue would have been a systems approach to nutrition and activity from early childhood on, and I still believe that such is important. Nevertheless the onset of GLP-1s era, the wider acceptance of considering established obesity as a chronic disease to be managed, and their likely coming down in cost over the next years, can’t help but alter the likely future burden of obesity as a contributor to shortened life expectancy and shortened healthspan. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2026, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/314 "2026-06-14T18:53:41Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Plus the absolute crash in the percentage of men who’re farmworkers in 1910 vs 1950 vs 1980. Very often their wives, and children of whatever gender, were farmworkers too. If it was their own farm or a relative’s, often the women weren’t in the statistics — the farmer’s wife wasn’t listed as a farmer, but as a housewife — but that didn’t mean she wasn’t doing farmwork. Or, for that matter, that the housework of 1910, or to a somewhat lesser extent of 1950, wasn’t hard on the body. ---
**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 14, 2026, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/315 "2026-06-14T21:00:40Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Or, for that matter, that the housework of 1910, or to a somewhat lesser extent of 1950, wasn’t hard on the body. Not the way farmwork was, and is. [Farms are dangerous places](https://extension.missouri.edu/news/farming-the-most-dangerous-job-in-the-us), full of sharp tools, big animals, powered machinery and heavy weights. > Each year, more people die while farming than while serving as police officers, firefighters or other emergency responders. > > The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a rate of 23 work-related deaths per 100,000 workers in the agricultural industry. That is seven times higher than the national average for workers. Sure, housework can be hard work especially without modern technology. And occasionally dangerous with things like burns and cuts. But it’s a lot less likely to _literally_ crush you or rip your arm off. ---
**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, 2026, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/316 "2026-06-14T22:06:59Z")
Life threatening burns were common for both housewives and farm wives. Farm wives also did things like milk the cows and were certainly at risk from “large animals”. The whole family worked together to harvest the wheat with sharp blades, too. You need to make hay while the sun shines, after all. It’s very much an all hands on deck activity. ---
**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 14, 2026, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/317 "2026-06-14T23:32:15Z")
Yeah, yeah, men aren’t allowed to have virtues and dying more often looks like a virtue to some people. It’s not like men actually count as _people_ after all, so a woman cutting her hand on a knife is as bad or worse than a man being crushed to death under a tractor. It’s not like he was a dog or something like that deserving of sympathy. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2026, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/318 "2026-06-14T23:33:00Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Not the way farmwork was, and is. [Farms are dangerous places](https://extension.missouri.edu/news/farming-the-most-dangerous-job-in-the-us), full of sharp tools, big animals, powered machinery and heavy weights. I am entirely aware of that. I am a farmer. I knew people who were farmers as far back as the 1920’s and ‘30’s, as well as plenty of other people who are farming now. None of that means that women don’t, and didn’t, do farmwork. We most certainly do. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2026, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/319 "2026-06-14T23:43:52Z")
Though burning to death was associated with the clothing that women were required to wear > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a rate of 23 work-related deaths per 100,000 workers in the agricultural industry. That is seven times higher than the national average for workers. Wow. That’s about 30% worse than the current American rate for maternal death in childbirth (17.9 deaths per 100,000). ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2026, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/320 "2026-06-15T00:17:19Z")
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**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2026, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286/321 "2026-06-15T00:18:33Z")
**Moderating:** This is not an omnibus thread. The farmer hijack and many other issues means it is time to close this mess. If this thread does reopen, unlikely, @Der_Trihs you are banned from it. You’ve already had a warning in this thread and modnotes. Your last post is off-topic and questionable in every way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-birthrate-alone/1029286.md?page=15)