Last week I posted TUJ's first guest post on increasing smart fraction fertility. Here's installment two:
In order to understand how to correct, via public policy, our currently abnormal Western demographic trends one must look at demographic cycles through the prism of history. Historically, Western fertility can be divided into two periods. The first period begins with the rise of Ancient Greece and concludes with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. This period is demographically notable because relative peace and prosperity during this timeframe strongly correlated with high birthrates and eugenic fertility; which is to say, the upper classes were able to out reproduce the lower classes. For the sake of demographic analysis I will dub this era, “Historically Normal Fertility” or “HNF” for short.
The second demographic phase begins with the Industrial Revolution and lasts until today. I will refer to this era as, “Historically Abnormal Fertility” or “HAF”. This cycle is notable because, despite unprecedented periods of wealth and (compared to previous times) long stretches of peace, this time period has seen low birth rates and dysgenic Western fertility as occurred prior to the Industrial Revolution.
Low birthrates in our age of unprecedented Western opulence is a baffling phenomena because it goes so strongly against the history of HNF. Historically, wealth correlated with strong birthrates, especially among the most talented. It is well known among demographers that wealthy areas of the West, such as 18th century Colonial America (which was arguably one of the richest places on earth at the time) and prosperous Renaissance Italy experienced healthy birthrates among the upper classes.
The pattern of Western population booms during times of comfort and success started to rapidly break apart in the mid 19th century and the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Many industrialized nations began to see fertility stagnation despite an unprecedented expansion of economic activity. Furthermore, the segment of society which logically should have seen the most favorable demographic response towards this new era of wealth, the Western upper classes, started to trend towards lower fertility rates than the lower classes.
Francis Galton was among the earliest statisticians to see this trend and statistically document it. Galton was interested in this trend, in part, because it defied the logic of what previous generations would have expected. In earlier times, the greatest minds would have presumed that the economic benefits of the Industrial Revolution would have spurred a spectacular increase in Western fertility. That population stagnation occurred instead of a baby boom greatly puzzled Galton and still mystifies demographers to this day. From the mid 19th century to the 1920’s fertility in the most economically advanced Western powers such as America, and particularly France, witnessed formidable declines in births. This birth dearth even preceded the economic calamity of the Great Depression which further reduced fecundity.
The fertility downturn became so pronounced by the affluent early 20th century that president Theodore Roosevelt implored American women to retain their traditional role as homemaker
Since Roosevelt was speaking about low fertility in an age of ubiquitous cultural conservatism it at once becomes obvious that HAF is not being spurred on by sexual hedonism and women’s liberation. If feminism and hedonism are not the culprit behind low fertility, then why did the mid 19th century witness such low fertility in an age of rapidly increasing living standards and income?
The dysgenic fertility trend Galton, Teddy Roosevelt and their contemporaries worried about was directly caused by the economic alteration of entire nations through the rise of the modern economy. Specifically, Western women had fewer children because:
1) The Industrial Revolution created numerous job opportunities for women that were previously unavailable when most people were employed on farms and the average person was quite fortunate to survive past the age of 35.
2) Because of these new and profound levels of wealth and job opportunities, Western women were no longer dependent on their husband and large brood of children for day to day survival.
The second point in particular is crucial to grasp. Prior to the 19th century, women could not dream of becoming independent of their spouses, children, and other family members for day to day survival because life was so harsh, short, and unforgiving. The reason feminism did not exist prior to the late 19th century was simply because all but the wealthiest heiresses were hopelessly incapable of surviving financially and physically without a large nuclear family. When the Industrial Revolution came to the fore, the need for women to maintain large families and depend on their husbands for financial and physical support was greatly ameliorated.
Because of the tremendous prosperity and new niche job opportunities the Industrial Revolution spawned, the link between day to day survival and the need for women to depend on men was largely severed. Put simply, modern French women can live quite luxuriously without ever needing to commit to a man and family because they do not have to rely on a husband and children just to survive to 30. Instead, Western women are perfectly free to pursue their personal whims, interests, and desires; an advantage their female ancestors in 14th century France most certainly did not enjoy.
With women’s newly discovered economic independence and new labor market niches to explore there then came organically and inevitably the subsequent demand from Western women for political, sexual, and social independence beginning with the early feminist movements of the mid to late 19th centuries.
Now, a conservative upon reading this may despair that since economic modernity is the true culprit behind Western fertility declines that there is no way to return to an HNF scenario without abandoning modern capitalism and material comfort.
Fortunately, there is no need to choose between dysgenic fertility and modernity. As I will demonstrate clearly, there is a further and more specific cause behind dysgenic fertility: Delayed fertility.
The rest of this essay shall go on to demonstrate that the most successful and highest IQ white women in particular have lower than desired fertility because they are delaying having children when they are the most fertile i.e. their early 20’s. However, after their late 20’s, high IQ and economically successful white women have higher birthrates than lower class white women because high housing values, high IQ, and housing income all positively and significantly correlate with Historically Normal Fertility.
34 comments:
Maybe if more of the smart faction stopped writing such long blog posts and comments, we wouldn't have this problem. Hello people, you are't getting paid for this and this isn't going to be a great talking point on your next date.
Yes, please go make some babies if this concerns you so much. Why are so many HBD bloggers single and childless, yet the first to complain about the decline in the "right" fertility?
And why does Al Gore fly around in a jet to tell us all to reduce our carbon footprints? Clearly, the key to reversing global trends is not trying to influence people, it's taking individual action!
despite unprecedented periods of wealth and (compared to previous times) long stretches of peace, this time period has seen high birth rates and eugenic Western fertility
Is this sentence missing something? Shouldn't that be low birth rates?
JGP
The first two anonymous posters are nihilists.
TUJ is writing about an interesting topic of which the causes are unknown and academics silent. What's not more interesting than the root cause of low birth rates in the developed world?
If that doesn't get your attention, than please move on to more important topics, like the next episode of the HBO series of the moment. Good grief.
Mulling about the problem isn't going to do anything. Go make it socially desirable for college educated women to have lots and lots of babies and then work later.
Is this sentence missing something? Shouldn't that be low birth rates?
Yes that should be "low birthrates and dysgenic fertility."
Fixed it.
"there is no way to return to an HNF scenario without abandoning modern capitalism and material comfort."
^^I suppose that explains why Amish and Hasidics have such high birth rates. And to a lesser extent, Mormons. The less focused they are on modern materialism and capitalism, the more children they have. These are the white Americans of the future.
David Comings, a human geneticist, discussed this phenomenon in his masterpiece 'The Gene Bomb'. Not only are low-IQ women having more kids, they also have a faster breeding cycle. Education is one of the big culprits in his view. Women stay in the educational system longer and delay having kids. I am glad that The Undiscovered Jew is highlighting this cataclysmic trend which will have devastating repercussions for the future if it continues uninterrupted.
OneSTDV -- Victor Davis Hanson among others has written of Greece and Rome's demographic decline, particularly among the upper classes, but also lower classes, during their downfalls. He cites Greek texts lamenting the empty countryside shortly before Philip's take-over that would have supported hundreds of families. Similarly, Rome's wealthy families collapsed first, and then the plebians. Indeed both Rome and the Greek City-States instituted Bachelor taxes and tried to promote marriage, while affluence and relative freedom allowed Greek and Roman women freedom from marriage and family.
Moreover, women have a built-in "thug attractiveness factor" in which they will, if at all possible, have as much testosterone in their babies fathers as they can get, subject to acceptability per socio-economic status, unless constrained.
This makes among other things high IQ in men fairly disgusting, for most high IQ women, because it correlates nicely with reduced testosterone, the same way low IQ does. The sweet spot for male testosterone levels maxing out is average IQ. Women find "retards and geniuses" equally repellent, sexually.
"Moreover, women have a built-in "thug attractiveness factor" in which they will, if at all possible, have as much testosterone in their babies fathers as they can get, subject to acceptability per socio-economic status, unless constrained."
Some women do, but most do not. Women almost universally like strong men who form their own opinions and fight for what they believe in.
Whiskey, I see you and many other men promulgate this view and it saddens me to no end as I think it is poisonous.
Remember the "diversity" in human biodiversity. I feel that when men say, "women like thugs" they're saying, "the women I'm most attracted to like thugs and reject guys like me". I also wonder if men are universally inclined to see women as malevolent when they've been rejected.
My own husband is so much like many of the guys here, like Whiskey, but yet so different. He's a nerd (albeit a tall, good-looking one) who loves his video games and computers, and works in the tech industry. Constitutionally, however, he is incapable of whining and he is fearless about standing up to others. Many women have found him attractive and have tried to seduce him despite being a married man. He is also not a thug in the least.
And here's the thing, most of the guys in his field, wherever he's been, are happily married with kids. Asian wives are overrepresented, of course, but Asian women relate to and love that type of man more than the average white woman (and vice-versa).
Anyways, good post. I just found out I was pregnant two weeks ago so I'll be commenting less as my emotions can be too much sometimes.
I see that some men here (and many at Roissy's) complain about women liking the "thug" factor in men over intelligence.
However, few men seem to be complaining about men's preferences (e.g., preferring hot women over smart women).
I just found out I was pregnant two weeks ago so I'll be commenting less as my emotions can be too much sometimes.
On the contrary, you should post more on the internet when you are overwhelmed by hormone induced mood swings.
Hysterical commentary makes blogging much more entertaining and attracts web traffic.
Underachiever said: "I see that some men here (and many at Roissy's) complain about women liking the 'thug' factor in men over intelligence.
However, few men seem to be complaining about men's preferences (e.g., preferring hot women over smart women)."
Yeah. No kidding. All you guys out there should do MEN a favor and mate with smart but perhaps not so "hot" women so as to reduce the numbers of stupid women in the gene pool. Then, in future, there won't be as many stupid women going for the thugs all the time.
Do your sons and grandsons a favor -- break the circle already, wouldya?
(Note: This is not a personal rant, 'cause I'm happily married to a so-called "beta" male. ;-) )
Having kids is expensive. Making having babies more affordable results in an increase in the numbers of babies a woman has.
France is a good example -- they have managed to raise their fertility rate to one of the (the?) highest rates in Europe through various financial incentives for having babies. And, before you ask, it's not just the immigrants in France having babies. The fertility rates for native French and immigrants is now neck-and-neck. (Now, all they have to do is get the immigrants to go back to where they came from and they'll be all set!)
A better solution, of course, would be to get the government out of peoples' personal lives altogether (or, as much as possible). Rather than having government incentives, people should just be left alone to do what comes naturally. Less government and less regulation would mean better economies for the people -- and that would mean more babies.
"However, few men seem to be complaining about men's preferences (e.g., preferring hot women over smart women)."
Quiet underachiever, don't expose our hypocrisy.
I would say it is not a matter of absolute female income, relative female income potential.
Some examples:
Iran is poor, but has had drastically reduced fertility as women have entered the work force and become literate.
In Mexico, middle class women have low birthrates because in its economy, which is like a low-rent version of the American economy, women can make almost as much as men.
In the USA, Mexican American women make much less than MexAm men because their niche is construction labor and other very physically taxing work like slaughterhouses.
Sicko showed some of the benefits France showers on new mothers as part of its natalist policies. They include free maid, childcare, and laundry service.
I think Scandinavian countries have the same. The lowest birthrate countries in Europe tend to have weak or corrupt governments that are too ineffective to have pro-natalist policies, like Italy, Spain, and Eastern Europe.
The low German birthrate I can't explain.
PS: My captcha word verification below is "manclit."
Another reason for high white French fertility is that they have a mandatory 35 hour work week.
This reduces income inequality and allows people to have time for reproduction without falling behind the competition at work.
Free college education also helps. An American family with a college bound 14 year old may decide to not have more children to be able to afford this expense.
Eileen: I like your comments, you should post more often!
"Yes, please go make some babies if this concerns you so much. Why are so many HBD bloggers single and childless, yet the first to complain about the decline in the "right" fertility?"
I think this is a legitimate point. I am a casual reader of HBD blogs, and I have long suspected that most HBDers are childless. I am a twenty-something married man of average intelligence with two children (going on three). I am not intelligent enough to be in the vanguard of either the HBD or white nationalist scenes, but I feel that people like me are actually DOING what more intelligent people only talk about.
Also, as a non-religious Utahn, the effects of Mormonism on birthrates and general cultural healthiness are readily apparent to me. To put it simply, I think that Mormon's just might turn out to be the saviours of the white race.
Bob said: "Eileen: I like your comments, you should post more often!"
Well, I would certainly like to comment more, but first I have to clean all the coffee off my keyboard after I spat it out reading your "manclit" comment! :-))
Yeah, well I'm a former Mormon from a well-known high-IQ family in Utah and I'm not sure civilization is worth saving if it is going to be run from Salt Lake. ;)
I have four kids, by the way, so I'm keeping up the good fight.
KM
One problem that higher-IQ women have that relates to the delay in marriage is that the pool of potential husbands from which we have to choose is smaller than those of more average, or even below average, IQ.
From what I can gather from comments on various HBD websites, plenty of smart guys are quite happy to marry a woman of lower IQ than their own, especially if she's "hot". I've even seen some say that high IQ in a woman is over-rated or unncessary (although I have a hard time understanding those points-of-view).
For women with a higher than average IQ, it's haaaaard to find a husband. There's no possible way in the world we would want to marry a guy who is dumber than us. Good lord! What a horrible thought. What on earth would you talk about?!
I, myself, was fully resolved never to get married unless I found the right guy, and he would have to be relatively smart. Didn't find him until I was 28 -- but luckily I did find him! :-)
This has delayed marriage in a couple of women I know, as well as myself. There's just no way we could settle for a man that we would look down upon through life.
Eileen,
High IQ women are at a bit of an advantage because there are is a higher ratio of high IQ males to females because men have higher IQ variance than women.
The Undiscovered Jew: "High IQ women are at a bit of an advantage because there are is a higher ratio of high IQ males to females because men have higher IQ variance than women."
True. In looking for a long-term mate, high IQ women do have an advantage compared to high IQ men.
My point was that we are at a disadvantage compared to average- or lower-IQ women. Fewer men for us to choose from compared to them (if we don't want to marry intellectually beneath us, that is), so it's easier for lower-to-mid-IQ women to find a husband (if that's what they're looking for at all!) than it is for us.
Just another obstacle blocking the early marriage/reproduction of high IQ women.
"Specifically, Western women had fewer children because:
1) The Industrial Revolution created numerous job opportunities for women that were previously unavailable when most people were employed on farms and the average person was quite fortunate to survive past the age of 35.
2) Because of these new and profound levels of wealth and job opportunities, Western women were no longer dependent on their husband and large brood of children for day to day survival."
Yes, and tack onto these causes the fact that urbanization and industrialization transformed the act of raising a child from being a financial asset to a liability.
The causes of the collapse of marriage and the decline of fertility are material, not ideology. The posters on MRA/HBD/PUA sites that endlessly bitch about feminism credit it for being far more powerful than it actually is. We can observe a similiar decline in fertility and collapse of marriage in countries where feminism has not been influential, such as east Asia, Russia and even certain Muslim countries. Most people are apolitical and non-ideological. Even if you actually could succeed in destroying the chimeras of liberalism, leftism, feminism, etc, the world would look much the same as it does today.
The causes of the collapse of marriage and the decline of fertility are material, not ideology. The posters on MRA/HBD/PUA sites that endlessly bitch about feminism credit it for being far more powerful than it actually is.
I have to defend the PUAs a little bit.
The Roissysphere never claimed to be number crunchers. They blame feminism for the end of traditional sex roles because that is what every other conservative leaning pundit says caused the fall in fertility.
The Roissysphere focuses on picking up chicks, not detailed policy analysis. Because they don't claim to be serious policy thinkers I they should be cut much more slack compared to other mainstream conservatives when they sensationalize and bullshit about social policy.
In general, religious people have large families. In general, secular people have small families. But in general, secular people are liberal creationists. HBD is a third position.
I just found the Religiosity Rate for 41 Countries from the 2005 World Values Survey.
I also have data on their TFR, Per Capita Income, and whether they are White, Muslim, or Mongoloid (there weren‘t enough black countries in the sample to make including that as a dummy variable worth the trouble).
So I decided to do a Multiple Regression, and interestingly enough, I found that there appears to be almost no correlation between Income and TFR once you adjust for Religiosity and Race/Religion:
Ind. Var. R Squared
White -12.20%
Muslim -0.07%
Mongoloid -1.60%
Religiosity +31.10%
Income +1.40%
The other thing I found most interesting is that even after adjusting for Income and Race/Religion, the % of people in a Country who are very Religious has a strong correlation with Total Fertility.
Also I find it fascinating that a Country being Muslim appears to have no effect on TFR except through the medium of making the Country more Religious.
Also it is depressing to note that there is evidently something about White People and/or White Culture that depresses Fertility.
Undiscovered Jew, how does this finding of there being no correlation between income and fertility once you adjust for the rate of religiosity square with your theory?
Is it that it isn’t the income available to the average citizen that matters, but rather the income available to the average female citizen relative to the amount of income available to the average male citizen?
Thinking about it though, there could be a threshold effect where Per Capita Income has an independent effect on Fertility only in cases where the income is above a certain threshold (perhaps a threshold reached in Europe with the Industrial Revolution), with no further effect from further increases in income.
The thing is that my above study only includes 2 Countries from the really poor Continent, Africa, and thus it's possible I missed something like that going on.
Anyone have a source of religiosity by Country for more than just the 41 Countries I got which took the 2005 World Values Survey?
Undiscovered Jew, how does this finding of there being no correlation between income and fertility once you adjust for the rate of religiosity square with your theory?
It has no effect on what I'm going to demonstrate.
I'm finishing up Part III and should have it ready to go by tomorrow.
Part III will explain everything.
Chris wrote:
Specifically, Western women had fewer children because:
1) The Industrial Revolution created numerous job opportunities for women that were previously unavailable when most people were employed on farms and the average person was quite fortunate to survive past the age of 35.
Ah, a variation of what Carolyn Freeman Travers calls the 'Dead at Forty' myth. In fact, the average person who made it to 35 could actually expect to live into their 50s or 60s.
"Average life expectancy at birth for English people in the late 16th/early 17th centuries was just under 40 –39.7 years. However, this low figure was mostly due to the high rate of infant and child mortality – over 12% of all children born would die within their first year. A man or woman who reached the age of 30 could expect to live to 59. Life expectancy in New England was much higher, where the average man died in his mid-sixties and women lived on average to 62. ...
"The common idea is that people reached old age much earlier age than today, generally some time in the mid-30s. This is based on a misunderstanding of the term 'average life expectancy at birth.' As with the mean average height, the figure was arrived at by adding up the ages at death of a reasonable sample of the population, and dividing that figure by the number of people counted."
http://www.plimoth.org/discover/myth/dead-at-40.php
The causes of the collapse of marriage and the decline of fertility are material, not ideology.
The causes include both material AND ideological factors, among others. Although divorces are up and fertility down overall, there are still substantial variations. Mormons, for example, are more financially well off than the U.S. average, both male and female Mormons are even more educated than average, and at the same time their birthrates are higher than average. The effect is even more true the more conservative the Mormons are. To some extent this is also true among various Christian groups vs. secularists, etc.
Most people are apolitical and non-ideological.
I would strongly agree that many more factors must be considered beyond politics and ideology but this is a ridiculous extreme. Most people are affected by ideas and view the world through an idea-matrix that they will often simply take for granted. I.e., a worldview. Just because they assume it's based in 'common sense' does not mean their worldview is inevitable.
Even if you actually could succeed in destroying the chimeras of liberalism, leftism, feminism, etc, the world would look much the same as it does today.
Huge non sequitur. Even if what you said about most people were true, most power is not even concentrated in the hands of the masses. (Indeed, if it were true that most people are simply apolitical it COULD NOT be.) Ever hear of elites? Intelligentsia? Think tanks? Elite universities?
There are, for example, material incentives for allowing mass immigration, but there are also disincentives. In the 1920s immigration was severely restricted - both nativist elites and masses were behind that policy. Ideology most certainly played a role in changing this - many people who support open borders, "diversity," etc., are going against their own class AND ethnic interests. To pretend that the ideas taught in schools and universities etc. don't matter in shaping attitudes and behaviors is ludicrous.
The world could easily have looked very different with different ideologies predominating. Ideas continue to matter; they're more than likely to be important factors in major changes in the future. I would agree if you'd said that ideology ALONE matters little, but it is important as part of a greater equation.
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