The Population Gap - Markets are killing us?

[Shimbiris]

It's kinda funny reading the comments section and seeing all the people in there droning on about their own agendas rather than actually watching the documentary. The research in this film lays out something genuinely shocking around the 40-minute mark: birth-rates aren’t collapsing because parents are having fewer children. In country after country (Japan, Italy, Germany, South Korea etc.) the people who do become parents still average roughly the same family size as in the 1970s at about 2-2.5 or so kids per mother which is ironically the "replacement" range economists are always going on about. What’s changed is the share of people who never have children at all. An explosion in childless people, not shrinking family size among parents is what’s driving global fertility down.

And what’s even more interesting is that these spikes in childlessness line up with major economic shocks: the 1970s oil crisis, the Asian financial crisis, the 2008 crash. Each time, huge numbers of people get financially wrecked or spooked, decide to “wait,” and end up pushing family formation past the biologically easy window. By the time they feel “ready”, it’s too late. This basically implies that a large portion of childless adults are not childless by choice at all; they intended to have kids, but economic insecurity and postponement boxed them out. And biology, especially for women, doesn’t care about recessions or recovery cycles.

This lines up well with the survey statistics they share (most people wanting babies) and what I’ve seen in my own lived experience. I’ve been on dating apps here in New England and the UAE, and being a data nerd, I casually tracked how many women had “Don’t want kids” in their profiles. It was small; maybe like 1 in 10 or so. Across ethnic groups and both countries most women still wanted children, as far as I could see. So all this loud online doomer talk about “nobody wants kids anymore” never made sense to me, especially when it didn't seem to hold true even in a liberal bastion like New England. Yes, dating apps have selection bias as they attract people actively seeking companionship, but they’re also where a large chunk of young adults now meet partners, including religious folks, so the signal isn’t meaningless in my humble opinion. Plus, my IRL experience was the same; I admit it's entirely anecdotal and poor form but I just don't tend to meet many people who say they don't want children. At my workplace alone I think I met two people in like 20 or more?

Seeing this documentary finally put the pieces together for me. It’s not that society is suddenly full of child-hating pessimists or that “careerism” has made an entire generation sterile-by-choice. That crowd is just louder online than they are numerous, in my humble opinion. Hilariously, even in this documentary they let that sort of crowd talk a lot despite the statistical realities on display. Most modern people do want children. What’s killing their chances isn’t ideology; it’s the constant economic shocks, instability, and delayed adulthood baked into our modern system. In other words, the bankers did it. Kkkkkkkkkk.


@Idilinaa @Mohamedamiin120 @Thegoodshepherd

 

[Mohamedamiin120]

I have not watched this documentary, nor have I really engaged with capitalist explanations for the decline of the birth rate due to how outlandish they are most of the time.

But from your explanation of it, it is (at least on the surface) pretty analogous with socialist explanations of the phenomenon. This team really did their work- not surprised that the comments are mentally ill because if we are being honest with ourselves this is a topic fascists are obsessed with.

Finally the actual material factors behind it have been shown, and not just spewing culture war nonsense. First time in years since something good was added to the convo.

 

[Mohamedamiin120]

I have not watched this documentary, nor have I really engaged with capitalist explanations for the decline of the birth rate due to how outlandish they are most of the time.

But from your explanation of it, it is (at least on the surface) pretty analogous with socialist explanations of the phenomenon. This team really did their work- not surprised that the comments are mentally ill because if we are being honest with ourselves this is a topic fascists are obsessed with.

Finally the actual material factors behind it have been shown, and not just spewing culture war nonsense. First time in years since something good was added to the convo.

I will watch it when I get the time and come back with a response, hopefully it's as good as my expectations.

 

[Shimbiris]

I have not watched this documentary, nor have I really engaged with capitalist explanations for the decline of the birth rate due to how outlandish they are most of the time.

But from your explanation of it, it is (at least on the surface) pretty analogous with socialist explanations of the phenomenon. This team really did their work- not surprised that the comments are mentally ill because if we are being honest with ourselves this is a topic fascists are obsessed with.

Finally the actual material factors behind it have been shown, and not just spewing culture war nonsense. First time in years since something good was added to the convo.

Yeah, probably to get a reaction out of people and get some engagement even the documentary itself, as you will see, engages in a lot of culture war baiting by showing people who are "careerist" stereotypes and things like that here and there but it doesn't let go of the general statistical crux which is that people keep leaving having kids for later due to economic hardships and downturns as well as how long it takes to become "established" in capitalist society only to find that when they're finally ready it's just too late.

The economic downturns are the craziest. Around the 42–43 minute mark you can see that in Italy, childlessness jumps from about 1 in 30 women in 1974 to about 1 in 5 just three years later after the 1973 oil crisis, and then reaches roughly 1 in 3 by 1990; all while the average number of kids per mother barely changes. A huge portion of that whole cohort basically lost their “vitality window” for having kids, and by the time things felt stable again, it was biologically too late. A sad throughline throughout the doc is that most people, even the “careerist” types they clearly included for culture war baiting, keep saying they do want kids. It’s constantly unintentional childlessness, driven less by some sudden hatred of family and more by how messed up and unstable the global economy is.