Why does total fertility rate drop to 2-3 when medicine becomes competent

[Hedda_Rosa]

@Guinastasia

Yes, but Sam was talking about a time when infant and child mortality rates were much higher-most people expected to lose at least one child. It was still painful, but it wasn’t unexpected.

Oh I’m with him - and you - on the not-unexpected thing. But Sam did say the pain probably would not be as great (I’m picturing dad busily chopping wood and saying to mom “Oh heckfire we lost one? Well at least we got us eight more!”) and I’m curious to know of any research that bears that out. I just don’t think it is true that knowing some of your many children will die means they are any less valued when alive or mourned when dead.

[Rhubarb]

<snip>

@Sam Stone

Economics. Children have become net drains on a family, instead of a net benefit. In my grandparents’ day, having kids meant having extra workers on the farm. Kids started pulling their own weight *very early in life. Even the five year olds were expected to carry out their share of farm chores (collecting eggs in the morning, feeding chickens, etc). Kids were driving tractors and combines by age 12.

In my family, we started on the tractor at age 7 or 8.

Wesley, you are not the first person to notice the correlation between education/affluence and fertility rates. If you haven’t already, read the short story “The Marching Morons” by C.M. Kornbluth (or whatever his real name was).

As many others have already stated, if you could reliably choose how many children you would have, it would appear that two or three is plenty. The availability of easy, effective birth control meant that you could space them conveniently and stop when you felt like it, and access to quality medical care would insure that your children survived to adulthood.

So why is 2 or 3 enough? Because in addition to the economic reasons already pointed out, raising children is a lot of work, 24/7/365 for twenty to twenty-five years. It is certainly worth it, but after the second or third child comes along, most couples tend to opt for quality of life over quantity of life. In times when large families were the norm, it was also the norm for the older children to help care for the younger ones because Mom and Dad were worn out from raising the older ones. Plus, it helped prepare the older children to be parents themselves.
Naturally, there are many individual exceptions to the above, but the fertility rates would suggest that it is true in the aggregate.

[Lynn_Bodoni]

@Wesley Clark

Evenso, why do they all fall into the same region of 1-3? There are 100 countries that have birth rates lower than repopulation rates of 2.1.

Uganda has a 6.7 rating and I know there is alot of promotion of things like condoms there due to AIDS.

Uganda seems to have a very bad record when it comes to women’s rights:

Covering Camilla... - Women's eNews

The Human Rights Watch report says that HIV/AIDS programs focusing on fidelity, abstinence, and condom use do not account for the ways in which domestic violence inhibits women’s control over sexual matters in marriage. The U.S. government has proposed a dramatic increase in such programs as a way of combating AIDS in Africa.

Programs focusing on fidelity, abstinence, and condom use minimize the complex causes of violence, and incorrectly assume that women have equal decision-making power and status within the family.

http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/08/uganda081303.htm

In a society where women are still valued as property, and do not have equal decision-making powers and status within the family, the existence of rape and brutal attacks on them by their spouses has become a stimulant for HIV/AIDS infections.<snip>The study sampled 120 women living with HIV/AIDS and showed that many of the women are particularly vulnerable to being infected with the disease because they lack the authority to refuse sex with their husbands or to insist on the use of condoms.

http://ww4.aegis.org/news/ips/2003/IP030902.html

When women can’t refuse sex, or can’t insist on safe sex, then they’re likely to have more pregnancies, wanted and unwanted.

[TokyoBayer]

@Twiddle

Might be a tangent here, but I take a bit of issue with this statement. This comment would suggest that parents of large familes don’t distinguish each child as a uniquely valued individual. I would be very surprised to find that there is any research to support that. If you are aware of a study that finds having many children means less attachment to each individual child I’d be curious to see it.

Twiddle

I couldn’t find a reference for a quote I remember from the Falklands war, so you have to go by my memory here. A British officer said that they had to change tactics in the war to mimimize the number of dead. He attributed that to families having only one son, so that you couldn’t have has many losses. While losing children is really hard, if you have eight vs. one, there has to be a difference.

[Sam_Stone]

@Twiddle

Might be a tangent here, but I take a bit of issue with this statement. This comment would suggest that parents of large familes don’t distinguish each child as a uniquely valued individual. I would be very surprised to find that there is any research to support that. If you are aware of a study that finds having many children means less attachment to each individual child I’d be curious to see it.

Twiddle

I don’t think that parents of large families love each kid any less, but there is certainly a difference in impact if your only child dies vs one out of eight. They may both be as painful, but the aftermath is very different. In the latter case, you still have a family. In the former case, your family is gone. I think that’s a pretty big difference. I know some people who’s lives were nearly destroyed by the loss of their only child. Divorce in such situations is fairly common.

And with two children, a big difference is that if you lose one, the other sibling is suddenly alone. With eight kids, the siblings still have each other to lean on for comfort and support. The family remains intact.