The econtalk podcast did a deep dive into the fertility crisis recently, and later on I dug deeper into the topic with claude in research mode. I had always thought people were having less children because they value them more in modern times (“children are precious”), but this doesn’t match the data in recent times. You often hear dropping male fertility as the cause but this also doesn’t match the data all that strongly. You also hear that people can’t afford children anymore and while there is some truth to that, you also see the fertility drop in places where this isn’t the case.

What does match is people partnering later and less often (the loneliness epidemic) and thereby delaying children. Once a woman starts she follows the same path as before for their age bracket, but starting later runs out the clock on their fertility. We went from 3 as the standard to 2 as the standard, and more women ending up with one or none, making 1.4 the new “default” total fertility rate. There are many theories for the causes of the global trend, and some cultures buck the trend (the Amish are on course to become a powerful voting block in a few decades), but there seems to be no theory that the data is a strong fit for.

All attempts so far by governments to reverse the trend have failed. Some countries spent multiple gdp points on fertility, and only saw minor gains.