Worldwide Decline in Birth Rates

[Fidel_Castronaut]

According to a longitudinal study in the Lancet:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46118103

The study, published in the Lancet, followed trends in every country from 1950 to 2017.
In 1950, women were having an average of 4.7 children in their lifetime. The fertility rate all but halved to 2.4 children per woman by last year.

But that masks huge variation between nations.

The fertility rate in Niger, west Africa, is 7.1, but in the Mediterranean island of Cyprus women are having one child, on average.

Advanced economies are seeing almost universal decline whereas it’s the opposite for LEDCs.

Edit: link to published article (open access) https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lance...5/fulltext

[Duty]

Pope Francis: not having children is selfish

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Well pope Francis can suck my balls.

Or send a load of priests to at least try and fondle them. I know they’re pretty experienced at that.

[Duty]

I like how he appears to be acknowledging the Catholic church's vilification of contraception is falling on deaf ears, for the most part. Also his own hypocrisy at being celibate (apart from the choir boys, of course).

[Fake Messiah]

Yeah, Pope is against low birth rates and contraception because Catholicism and Christianity are threatened by low birthrates. That is why many of the Christian religions are so focused on the question of when life begins. Abortion and birth control limit the potential hosts to be infested by the religion virus. Catholicism thrives in a sex-negative environment. Protestants also create a sex-negative environment. Islam is among the most sex-negative religions. Sex-negative religions seek to control all aspects of sexuality; from masturbation to the role of women; from conception to sexual pleasure. The measure of sex negativity is the degree of sanction for violation.
Can you imagine the Catholic religion as sex-positive? Could you imagine Pope Francis & Benedict, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Billy Graham, etc., carrying a sex-positive message of openness, sex as pleasure to be enjoyed to please yourself and your partner or partners as long as it is consensual and safe? I don’t think you will hear those sermons soon.

And yes, birth rates are on decline for an average married woman in 17th century America gave birth to 13 children.

[Little lunch]

Worldwide decline in birth rates?
Come on fellas, looks like we've got some work to do.
It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

[onlinebiker]

Misleading crap.


Declined birthrate - AND - EVER INCREASING POPULATION.

[The Grand Nudger]

Due to offsets in fertility, and increased survival rates, yeah.  These studies (and this is just another study in a long line of studies that have shown the same thing over and over again) aren't "misleading crap" they help us to define and describe the causes of our population growth (and decline).  

The long and short is this - populations in underdeveloped areas breed to exploit those areas (and, to an extent, because there just isn't much else to do..lelz).   Populations in developed areas have no need to do so, and gain nothing by increased breeding.  We spontaneously self control, and the number of kids we actually have is almost entirely determined by how many we want.  So, while it may seem counterintuitive, handing out condoms in africa..for example..doesn't actually produce the sort of effect we might desire.  It's a good idea, it slows the spread of infection (which increases survival rates.........which contributes to pop growth) - but if we really wanted to axe pop growth globally..we would pour money into the development of third world countries and accept every immigrant flooding in to first world countries.  

This works on two noted trends.  The profoundly low fertility rates in developed nations (and thus the need for immigrant labor, lol)...and the tendency of immigrants to naturalize with respect to their new home (even down to fertility rates) within a few generations at most.

Employment, the data suggests..is the most effective form of population control, lol.

[Silver]

I saw someone elsewhere attempting to link the low birth rate to The Handmaid's Tale.

[CapnAwesome]

Because birth control is awesome. Having sex and not having kids is the tits.