Why is Europe losing the will to breed?

Irish Praetorian

RayCun wrote: »

We're the native Americans now? Sense of proportion, ever heard of one.

If you look at the complaints about irish and Italian immigration, they touch exactly the same points.
Different race
Different culture
Different religion
Congenitally incapable of living up to the demands of civilized, democratic society.

Those complaints seem ridiculous now, because now we don't see the societies as particularly different, but people were losing their minds about the collapse of white civilization.

And in 100 years, people will be saying "sure Syrians are practically European, another religion of the book, language has many connections to European languages, of course integration was possible. But these Chinese, they have nothing in common with us! "

People are people.

So we're just sidestepping the native American point? A straightforward case of one group physically displacing another in the manner you have in mind and your only response is 'come now have a sense of proportion' ?

I've seen many of the same complaints at the time, the Catholic clergy played a significant role in those fears and the prospect of Catholics being loyal to a foreign faith rather than their fellow citizens is about as far as you can draw the comparison. Key fundamental differences remain;

The US is no longer the wild unsettled land ripe for toiling in the fields or struggling in the factories, simply having unskilled labour is no longer a guarantee of a decent standard of living.
The prospect of people coming from abroad with nothing on their backs and gradually working their way up the ladder to buy that 40 acres makes no sense in a society where education, health and social welfare are considered public matters and public expenses.
The advantages of cultural proximity and a shared religion should not be ignored. You know as well as I do the problems that occurred when various migrant groups moved to America, with the benefit of these - that you now want to suggest we will get the same results with vastly different people is taking too much of a leap.

People are indeed, people, and they often want different things. We cannot be so arrogant to presume that everyone is looking to carve out a little slice of middle class Western life with all the trimmings.

RayCun

Irish Praetorian wrote: »

So we're just sidestepping the native American point? A straightforward case of one group physically displacing another in the manner you have in mind and your only response is 'come now have a sense of proportion' ?

"in the manner I have in mind"?

I'm sidestepping the native american analogy because I'm scarleh for ye :pac:

The native americans faced
an epidemic of diseases to which they had no resistance
an invading culture which was far more technologically advanced
a wave of immigration which was explicitly, from the start, intended to create a different society - either a colony or a new country

The first is not true here.
The second is not true here.
The third is only true in the fevered imaginations of people who insist there are no-go zones in London where Sharia law is enforced. You know, morons.

So if you want to keep up this comparison, fine. Let me just get my popcorn.

Irish Praetorian wrote: »

I've seen many of the same complaints at the time, the Catholic clergy played a significant role in those fears and the prospect of Catholics being loyal to a foreign faith rather than their fellow citizens is about as far as you can draw the comparison.

Yeah, that was another reason why people were wailing about Catholic Irish and Italian immigrants, and it was, again, nonsensical.

Irish Praetorian wrote: »

Key fundamental differences remain;

The US is no longer the wild unsettled land ripe for toiling in the fields or struggling in the factories, simply having unskilled labour is no longer a guarantee of a decent standard of living.

Wild, unsettled land? What happened to those natives you were so worried about a minute ago?

But how is this relevant? The argument then was the same as the argument now, those people don't fit.
No-one was saying, "well, they may be ignorant, superstitious, and practically coloured, but we can guarantee them a decent standard of living so that's all fine and dandy!"

The prospect of people coming from abroad with nothing on their backs and gradually working their way up the ladder to buy that 40 acres makes no sense in a society where education, health and social welfare are considered public matters and public expenses.

You know people migrating to Ireland can often speak English, and have useful skills, right?

And you know none of this mattered to people who were anti-immigration in the US?

The advantages of cultural proximity and a shared religion should not be ignored. You know as well as I do the problems that occurred when various migrant groups moved to America, with the benefit of these - that you now want to suggest we will get the same results with vastly different people is taking too much of a leap.

Cultural proximity and shared religion are relative. We may say today that protestants and catholics are practically identical, so naturally they would get along eventually. (that's always true, everywhere, right?)

From the point of view of a 19th century US WASP, the differences were an enormous chasm. If you'd have said he was basically the same as some Paddy just off the boat clutching his rosary beads, he'd have laughed in your face or punched you. Or some wop who stank of garlic? Neither of whom could even speak the language? Definitely a punching.

People are indeed, people, and they often want different things. We cannot be so arrogant to presume that everyone is looking to carve out a little slice of middle class Western life with all the trimmings.

We pretty much can, you know. Sure, you get holdouts, Orthodox Jews in New york, or the Amish in Pennsylvania, but usually people end up blending in to the same melange.

To go back to the starting point of this discussion - women like to have the same opportunities for education and work as men, they want the same rights as men, they want control over their fertility. That is a tide that can't be resisted for long, and it is a tide that fundamentally undercuts some societies.

Rezident

Yes it's true, my wife and I would love to have loads of kids (she always said she wanted six) but even with both of us working in Dublin we'll be lucky if we can afford 3 and perhaps 1 or 2 will be more realistic.

Having lots of kids is a luxury for the megarich and, of course, the people who get everything for free, appreciate nothing and and contribute less. The parasites whose 'jobs' are making false legal claims and pushing up our insurance premia.

NiallBoo

It's not purely a matter of rural planning/one-off houses.

Urban planning is even worse.
Sprawling semi-D estates kill the benefits of living in a town/city.

It's having such poor urban planning that cause one-off houses to become relatively more attractive, and thus causes them to be built.

(It is of course a complete false economy with increased travel costs, lost time, lack of facilities and government money eaten up providing services at an astronomical cost)

Johnboner

Should open up breeding camps if it's such a problem. Ireland is heavily behind most others European countries in terms of population, one solution to that is opening breeding camps throughout the country, since abortions are illegal it would increase our population significantly and we would catch up to other countries in EU in terms of population density.

222233

Isn't contraception great, preventing all those unwanted pregnancies... which probably explains the lack of breeding.

Dr Crayfish

Rezident wrote: »

Yes it's true, my wife and I would love to have loads of kids (she always said she wanted six) but even with both of us working in Dublin we'll be lucky if we can afford 3 and perhaps 1 or 2 will be more realistic.

Having lots of kids is a luxury for the megarich and, of course, the people who get everything for free, appreciate nothing and and contribute less. The parasites whose 'jobs' are making false legal claims and pushing up our insurance premia.

Having more than 1 or 2 kids should be discouraged on this packed Earth.

Emme

Dr Crayfish wrote: »

Right but why don't they live in towns or villages? Why the need for horrible mansions to be plastered all over what should be scenic areas? The work involved in hooking up water and electricity alone to these places must be an awful trek.

Why don't they live in communist bloc style high rises? In fairness those houses are not mansions. They are more like cottages. In rural Ireland people who live in houses like this paid to build them there. They often built their houses near elderly family so they are in a position to take care of them when the need arises.

On the other hand these houses might not belong to commuters. They might belong to city dwellers who use them as a holiday home or weekend cottage.

Irish Praetorian

RayCun wrote: »

"in the manner I have in mind"?

I'm sidestepping the native american analogy because I'm scarleh for ye :pac:

The native americans faced
an epidemic of diseases to which they had no resistance
an invading culture which was far more technologically advanced
a wave of immigration which was explicitly, from the start, intended to create a different society - either a colony or a new country

The first is not true here.
The second is not true here.
The third is only true in the fevered imaginations of people who insist there are no-go zones in London where Sharia law is enforced. You know, morons.

So if you want to keep up this comparison, fine. Let me just get my popcorn.

A few problems here with your analogy;
The epidemic of disease you speak of had come and gone long before the foundation of the United States as a sovereign nation. We can still see sporadic outbreaks of disease but not as part of the great wave of death that followed the Spanish conquest of the South. Securing land along the Mississippi Valley and further West had to be done the old fashioned way, reservations and raids.

As for your points applying here or not, again I must question your version of the situation in the UK at the moment. The 'great solitudes' as one commentator put it, of segregated communities living entirely separate lives within the same country do in fact exist, in order to discount it you would have to discount everyone from 'Tommy Robinson' on one end to Trevor Philips on the other, and I don't think you can get two men with more diverse opinions than that.

Yeah, that was another reason why people were wailing about Catholic Irish and Italian immigrants, and it was, again, nonsensical.

Again it's as far as you can take the comparison, we've about 200 years to see how it all pans out.

Wild, unsettled land? What happened to those natives you were so worried about a minute ago?

As I said before, raids and reservations

But how is this relevant? The argument then was the same as the argument now, those people don't fit.
No-one was saying, "well, they may be ignorant, superstitious, and practically coloured, but we can guarantee them a decent standard of living so that's all fine and dandy!"

The relevance is that migration to the US in the 1800s was not one where you could make an argument that an individual migrant represents a net cost to the state. The strongest argument you could make is that they might under cut local labour costs, but you couldn't make the case that they would potentially be a financial burden on the state, which in today's system you can.

You know people migrating to Ireland can often speak English, and have useful skills, right?

And you know none of this mattered to people who were anti-immigration in the US?

Indeed and that might be a point worth making if I was making a categorical 'NO IMMIGRANTS' declaration, but I am not.

Different people were worried about different things, workers in the North-Eastern cities worried about their wages being depressed, Evangelicals worried about the rise of 'Popery' - my point is essentially the same as above, you can make an economic argument about migration being a state burden nowadays that you couldn't back then.

Cultural proximity and shared religion are relative. We may say today that protestants and catholics are practically identical, so naturally they would get along eventually. (that's always true, everywhere, right?)

From the point of view of a 19th century US WASP, the differences were an enormous chasm. If you'd have said he was basically the same as some Paddy just off the boat clutching his rosary beads, he'd have laughed in your face or punched you. Or some wop who stank of garlic? Neither of whom could even speak the language? Definitely a punching.

This is actually an interesting point and one that I suspect in due course (a few decades, maybe centuries) it will turn out as you see it, with more and more people from presently devout parts of the world shifting away from their faith in the way that we've seen in Europe over the past century or two. My issue is, what are we supposed to do in the meantime? Do you propose for example, someone who comes to this country thinking homosexuality is an abomination and gay people should be put to death either legally or illegally should be treated the same way as say a gay person fleeing Iran? Do we as a society simply concede the issue and content ourselves that their great grand-children might not share those same despicable views?

Try as I might, I have great difficulty finding a precedent for the kinds of problems we're seeing in Europe at the moment, namely religious fundamentalist groups undertaking violent acts in the hope of bringing about their own vision of utopia. The best I can come up with is the Fenian invasion of Canada or the ephemeral Mormon state of 'Deseret' in what is now Utah. But in both cases we're way past the total body count. So that leaves us back to the initial proposition, do we simply accept anyone and hope their grand kids aren't so bad?

We pretty much can, you know. Sure, you get holdouts, Orthodox Jews in New york, or the Amish in Pennsylvania, but usually people end up blending in to the same melange.

Would we even need to go so far to see differences persisting over the generations? I mean take for example Canada, nothing has managed to displace the Quebecois identity despite nearly two and a half centuries under Anglo rule. Spain might be another example, the Catalan and Basque identities are still in rude health some 500 years after the Union of Crowns. Heck even Britain has to deal with resurgent Welsh and Scottish national politics. So I think it's fair to say ethnic identities have some longevity to them. Now as for wider notion of what we might call European liberalism, that's not really permeated much beyond Europe or the American continent if you want to look at things like representative democracy, freedom of speech, sexual tolerance - you can of course speak of great exceptions like Japan, India, parts of south East Asia. However it remains to be seen whether this is simply the slow march of everyone towards 'progress' or whether we have a China style scenario where people are happy so long as they are left alone and in a decent state of living. I think that's the most fascinating question at this point.

Arcade_Tryer

Johnboner wrote: »

Should open up breeding camps if it's such a problem. Ireland is heavily behind most others European countries in terms of population, one solution to that is opening breeding camps throughout the country, since abortions are illegal it would increase our population significantly and we would catch up to other countries in EU in terms of population density.

Or encourage more inward migration.

oneilla

fg1406 wrote: »

Also why is it always the mothers!!
.

Sweden addressed this by introducing a considerable level of paternity leave meaning that many more men took time off work to care for their kids.

764dak

There was a thread a few years ago about adult children and rent. Most insisted that adult children should pay rent to help out with expenses and so on. But most seemed to not notice that the parent wouldn't have to worry about expenses if they didn't have children in the first place.

IvyTheTerrible

764dak wrote: »

There was a thread a few years ago about adult children and rent. Most insisted that adult children should pay rent to help out with expenses and so on. But most seemed to not notice that the parent wouldn't have to worry about expenses if they didn't have children in the first place.

Well because it wasn't a sensible argument for two reasons: First, they already had the child (and no time machine), and second, a lot of those adult children were conceived when access to contraception was limited.

CalamariFritti

IMO the declining birth rates in the west are a product of the economical polices implemented in the last 30, 40 years.

We have had technological advances that increased productivity in multiples, we have far more people with 3rd level education, workplaces have become much more efficient in every way, but we're not using it right. We just keep inventing new ways of making ourselves even busier. The latest something something report on some bollixology topic that we convince ourselves is so important and challenging and interesting. In my arse it is. Fine tuning the hamster wheel, the rat race machine. That's all it is.
We have less spare time than ever, we're still working 40 hours a week if not more, career in the hamster wheel ueber alles. A house or a car now costs costs a much bigger multiple of a household income than it did in 1970. Raising a child is deemed the most important thing you can do with your life but yet it is financially more prohibitive than it ever was.

The point is that with all those advances in technology and society we should have moved on, we should have more resources available to us, more time to ourselves, better education, a better society. But in reality we're struggling to thread water.

So where did all the benefits of those advances go? Could it be that they went to those 1% that today own 80 or 90% of the planet's wealth instead of improving everyones life?

JupiterKid

Ireland is NOT a rural country, and has not been since the 1971 census. That census recorded over 50% of the population living in urban areas for the first time. Today, that figure is close to 70%. One of the reasons why Ireland is more rural than other European countries is our disastrous laissez faire one-off rural housing culture.

But that is changing - over the next 30 years nearly all employment will be in the cities and larger towns. I see rural depopulation, happening for decades, accelerating greatly.

fg1406

Dr Crayfish wrote: »

Come back to us in 5 years and tell us if you have kids or not, I wouldn't be surprised at all if you do.

If I remember to! I have a low chance of conceiving naturally due to gynae issues which I discovered about 18 months ago. I was told I could potentially conceive naturally following a surgical procedure but I've opted not to have said surgery as I don't want to increase my low chances of having a child

Dirty Dingus McGee

JupiterKid wrote: »

Ireland is NOT a rural country, and has not been since the 1971 census. That census recorded over 50% of the population living in urban areas for the first time. Today, that figure is close to 70%. One of the reasons why Ireland is more rural than other European countries is our disastrous laissez faire one-off rural housing culture.

But that is changing - over the next 30 years nearly all employment will be in the cities and larger towns. I see rural depopulation, happening for decades, accelerating greatly.

Nearly all employment currently is in cities and larger towns.

Emme

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

Nearly all employment currently is in cities and larger towns.

For now. Jobs are being lost in larger towns and cities other than Dublin. The only place that seems to get more jobs is Dublin.

ToddyDoody

Did you know that once upon a time Europe was desolate and the middle east was a much more hospitable civilisation.

wakka12

Also this may not be a completely new phenomenon. Birth rates were below replacement level in most european countries before ww2 for a long time, particularly in places like Germany, and only picked up after the war and then all slowly declined again until present day. Birth rates rise and fall throughout the course of civilisations

super_furry

Think the main thing in Ireland is cost. Two parents working is an absolute necessity to get a mortgage in this day and age meaning that childcare and creche fees are also a necessity. Having two kids in creche costs the same as a mortgage so it comes down to a case of not being able to afford more.

BlinkingLights

Emme wrote: »

For now. Jobs are being lost in larger towns and cities other than Dublin. The only place that seems to get more jobs is Dublin.

I'm not sure where you're plucking those stats from. The majority of job growth is in the cities. There's been huge job growth in Cork for example and also Galway and Limerick.

You'll always get more job growth in bigger hubs when you're looking at industries like IT and banking. They need to be in clusters where they can attract employees. You simply can't attract the right mix of people to a small village somewhere -particularly when you're looking for high skills, languages etc ... they're not the kinds of jobs just anyone can fill.

It's absolutely inevitable that Ireland will become more urbanised and probably around two or three major hubs with a couple of smaller ones. That's completely normal and how modern economies work and have worked since the dawn of the industrial revolution and even going back to Ronan times.

Rural places and smaller towns are going to have to find their respective niches. Trying to scatter companies to the four winds isn't possible and is becoming less and less possible the more specialised the jobs become.

Ireland isn't a low cost manufacturing destination. So the days of the big multinational setting up in a small town to make mixers or assemble boxes is long over.
We need to adapt and the main area we should be looking at is agri food and getting way up the value chain with branded exports developed by Irish companies.

That and tourism.

Some small places have also done very well as rather cool business incubator hubs - look at what's going on in Skibbereen

Hexen

CalamariFritti wrote: »

IMO the declining birth rates in the west are a product of the economical polices implemented in the last 30, 40 years.

Kind of, but it's important to keep in mind that for Western Europe, at least, fertility transition [switch from high to low fertilty] was evident in some regions and cohorts from the late 18th century and had taken place throughout the rest of Western Europe and the US by the late 19th century. Post-war was when most developing countries started to experience fertility decline.

There was a short-term uptick against this general trend in Europe and the US during the two wars and, especially, after WWII until the mid-1960s. There's no consensus on the causal factors but it seems plausible that this was linked to economic factors. However, it might be important to view these short-term upticks in the context of the longer-term historical trend.

Currently, 46% of the world population live in regions of low fertility (below replacement level); a further 46% live in region of intermediate fertility (areas which have already experienced fertility decline and total fertility is between 2.1 and 5; remaining 9 % live in high fertility areas (limited experience of fertility decline).

Either way, fertility transition - while attributed to many different factors and models (social development being key) - appears pretty much a global phenomenon and may well be irreversible. We'll still have population growth of course - mostly in Africa - with the current population rising from 7.3 billion to about 11.2 billion by 2100 according to median projection (it could be significantly higher or lower).

CalamariFritti

I don't have hard facts on that, but Waterford seems to be on the up too. In the IT sector there's now real competition again over staff with several new or growing companies in the mix. There will be a big new pharmaceutical factory opening this year across the road from Genzyme. Not sure what the story is for low skilled jobs but overall it feels like the rot has stopped.

ScumLord

CalamariFritti wrote: »

IMO the declining birth rates in the west are a product of the economical polices implemented in the last 30, 40 years.

There's only one reason birth rates go down in a stable country. Women aren't having as many babies.

Women in the west aren't having as many babies because they're doing other things, they have careers and birth control. Now rather than suffering as many babies as their husband can put in them they're planning and focusing their efforts on few children had over a longer period of time.

Educating women and getting them into the workforce is the only thing that's reduced birth rates in certain Indian provinces.

Rather than back peddle and make our women focus on having babies again over having a life we should be doing everything in our power to encourage women's rights in other countries.

riclad

Wages are not rising, house prices are going up,the economy is unpredictable.we Are only beginning to see jobs being lost to robots, automation.Brexit and trump are signs of lower class or working people getting angry and frustrated with the rich elite .
Unless you are rich on a high salary ,it hardly makes sense to have more than one child.millions of people work in the transport, trucking industry,
what will those people do when their jobs are taken over by self driving cars and trucks. They can, t go to china and work in a factory .Big companys can move anywhere and pay 1 per cent tax.Who will buy their products when 50 per cent of jobs are automated .
Women in western countrys do not have children unless they fell secure and confidant.
We could end up like japan where many women don,t get married or have children.Things will get worse before they get better , unless there is some major change made to the way the economy works .

CalamariFritti

@ScumLord

I guess there are many factors and I shouldn't blame everything on politics but the thing you describe applies probably more to Ireland than it does to other countries in Europe. A lot of women in Europe did not experience the pressures that still applied to Irish women in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Like get married and be forced to give up your job by law. And other things that sound pretty medieval to us even now which is only 30, 40 years later. I think those pressures were fairly unique within the western European sphere and they were down to economical and religious factors. And it goes without saying that its a good thing they are now removed.

Times were different too for those European women in the 70s and 80s, but not anywhere near what Irish women experienced. And yet birthrates have come down big time in Europe, a couple doesn't even have 2 anymore leading to a demographic problem. Which is what this thread is about. So OK women in Europe haven't as many kids as they used to, like the Irish women, but women in Europe didn't experience the same liberation process in that timespan, so why is it that European women have fewer kids?

Irish women or I should say couples and European ones have pretty much the same starting point now. And all I hear from people on this very boards is I can't afford to have kids. Or I can have 1 or 2 but then I have to stop working cos it doesn't make sense with child care costs. So we have created an environment where women and couples have an actual choice, but the choice has been once again removed due to prohibitive costs. 40 years ago you could apparently have 6 on one income no problem.

We have privatised everything and everything is under scrutiny of having to be profitable and consequently it costs a fortune to put a child into creche. Surely that is a political choice we have made.

RayCun

40 years ago you could have six on one income, and a very different standard of living.
My father was one of seven kids, living in a small three bedroom council house.
Even when I was a kid, I had friends who slept three to a room.
Holidays abroad were unknown, even holidays in Ireland were much rarer, and expectations much lower.

There's nothing wrong with deciding that you'd rather have a smaller family and a higher standard of living.

I think if people are talking about not being able to afford more kids now, you have to bear in mind that, by the same standards, people couldn't afford more kids then either.

ScumLord

CalamariFritti wrote: »

@ScumLord

I guess there are many factors and I shouldn't blame everything on politics but the thing you describe applies probably more to Ireland than it does to other countries in Europe. A lot of women in Europe did not experience the pressures that still applied to Irish women in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Like get married and be forced to give up your job by law. And other things that sound pretty medieval to us even now which is only 30, 40 years later. I think those pressures were fairly unique within the western European sphere and they were down to economical and religious factors. And it goes without saying that its a good thing they are now removed.

I don't know about that, maybe the UK, France and Germany but Places like SPain still to this day treat women as second class citizens in the eyes of the law and it's probably similar in a lot of Catholic countries. If a woman's husband dies without a will in Spain the wife has zero rights to anything, only the children have any rights. This means a woman would have to go to children (which could hate her) and beg to be allowed stay in her own house.

I remember when eastern European women first came to Ireland I was surprised by how traditional their values were.

On paper rights are also very different to the real world. While it was possible for women to avoid the family life it wasn't expected and women would be ostracised for being different. We can still see the afterglow of female oppression today with comments like "well it's no wonder she got raped with the skimpy thing she was wearing".

No doubt Irish women were treated no better than dogs by Irish institutions in the past, but it wasn't hugely better in other parts of the world.

222233

riclad wrote: »

We could end up like japan where many women don,t get married or have children.Things will get worse before they get better , unless there is some major change made to the way the economy works .

Maybe women just don't want to have children? Why does it have to be a question of affordability, maybe it's just that women aren't afraid to focus on for example a career than being the barer of children because she is expected to.

Before it was a case of you get married, your expected to have a child and that ethos took a very long time to die off. Even if you didn't want children you'd probably get pregnant anyway because their was either no contraception or for religious reasons you weren't allowed to use it and your sole purpose in life was to be a mother/house keeper.

I actually think the decrease is a really positive change in society, people have to really think before deciding to have children, consider if they can afford children and consider if they actually want children - that's a good thing.

mariaalice

There is another point that is being missed, getting married and setting up a home was seen as the mark of adulthood so individual in a society with less choices had an imperative to get married and have children it gave them status. In today society there lots of ways of attaining adult status with out having children and forming a household.

It funny how exceptions change, working with someone who is married and having her third child aged 29 the amount of comments that were along the line of ' she is only 29 you know' There seem to be this bizarre view of being married and having children in your twenties as somehow being trapped.

BrokenArrows

Its pretty obvious the reason why everyone isnt churning out 4 child families anymore.

Take a look at the way the world used to work.
1. Man works.
2. Man pays for house which he alone is able to afford.
3. Woman stays at home and takes care of the house
4. Woman has kids.
5. Man pays for kids which he alone can afford.

Then the world changed.
Women no longer wanted to be just the stay at home wife. They wanted to have a career and equality so it became common for a lot of families to have two people working.

For a very brief period of time these two worker families had loads of money.

Then the economy caught up. The prices of everything rose to match the money that the majority had.
So houses required the income of two people, not just one.
Child minders prices rose as demand rose.
Cost of general stuff rose too.

So now most modern families are both out working all day and will usually decide not to have kids until 30's. At that point they can have 1-2 and even then its financially stressful unless they were both high earners.

The majority of people who manage to churn out a bunch of kids tend to be those who are ironically, poor. They qualify for all the social benefits that are available allowing them to focus on having kids, which allows them to increase their social welfare income. Not to say they are wealthy, but just have lower standard of what they want from life (Quality of house, cars etc) and tend to value family over career.

The other problem is housing is seen as an investment which the government should protect. Falling house prices is a good thing, but the world sees it as a bad thing.
In any other market people would be jumping at the chance to build houses and meet the demand, but restrictions were put in place to stop the demand being met and keeping the prices high.

AnGaelach

Johnboner wrote: »

Europe is one of the most overpopulated regions in the world in terms of density. Of course they are stopping breeding due to not enough space. Ireland is exempt as millions died during the famine, but other countries kept breeding and breeding non stop until ridiculous levels of density. So why being less populated is a bad thing I have no idea.

Absolute nonsense. Overpopulation is when an area can no longer support the population. Are you really trying to tell me Europe's resources are being strained among so many of us, yet we're relying on immigrants to keep the worker dependent ratio steady? Don't make me laugh.

Europe has a high density (if you live in the cities, but you can always move into the countryside and commute) but it certainly isn't overpopulated or anything like it.

Population density isn't at all relevant to this discussion. Are you going to tell me North Korea is better than South Korea because the place is less dense?

AnGaelach

ScumLord wrote: »

We can still see the afterglow of female oppression today with comments like "well it's no wonder she got raped with the skimpy thing she was wearing".

... What sort of people do you socialise with?

Hexen

AnGaelach wrote: »

... What sort of people do you socialise with?

Danny Foley case ...

ScumLord

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Then the economy caught up. The prices of everything rose to match the money that the majority had.

I wonder is that true though. There's way more things to buy now than there was even 30 years ago. Phones, TVs, consoles, etc.. All they've really done is create more products to soak up that extra income, but we give it to them for shiny things, they don't steal it from us.

AnGaelach wrote: »

... What sort of people do you socialise with?

Mostly After Hours.

daithi7

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Its pretty obvious the reason why everyone isnt churning out 4 child families anymore.

Take a look at the way the world used to work.
1. Man works.
2. Man pays for house which he alone is able to afford.
3. Woman stays at home and takes care of the house
4. Woman has kids.
5. Man pays for kids which he alone can afford.

Then the world changed.
Women no longer wanted to be just the stay at home wife. They wanted to have a career and equality so it became common for a lot of families to have two people working.

For a very brief period of time these two worker families had loads of money.

Then the economy caught up. The prices of everything rose to match the money that the majority had.
So houses required the income of two people, not just one.
Child minders prices rose as demand rose.
Cost of general stuff rose too.

So now most modern families are both out working all day and will usually decide not to have kids until 30's. At that point they can have 1-2 and even then its financially stressful unless they were both high earners.

The majority of people who manage to churn out a bunch of kids tend to be those who are ironically, poor. They qualify for all the social benefits that are available allowing them to focus on having kids, which allows them to increase their social welfare income. Not to say they are wealthy, but just have lower standard of what they want from life (Quality of house, cars etc) and tend to value family over career.

The other problem is housing is seen as an investment which the government should protect. Falling house prices is a good thing, but the world sees it as a bad thing.
In any other market people would be jumping at the chance to build houses and meet the demand, but restrictions were put in place to stop the demand being met and keeping the prices high.

Yup, pretty much agree with all of that.

And as another poster posted earlier in this thread, to address the anomaly between lower class women having loads of kids, at the apparent expense of middle class women who can't afford to have any (or just a few), the tax social welfare system should be changed to apply tax credits for things child related like child minding, creche, etc and also to taper off benefits for social welfare recipients after 3 or4 kids say, which should result in the working mums& couples having to pay less taxes and also reduce demands on services e.g. GPs, for their kids, etc.

But, it would take an intelligent and very brave politician to promote such tax & social welfare changes, and that politician is now a rare species, probably extinct!!

laugh

Interest, the thing that has fucked humanity more than anything else.

JupiterKid

ScumLord wrote: »

I don't know about that, maybe the UK, France and Germany but Places like SPain still to this day treat women as second class citizens in the eyes of the law and it's probably similar in a lot of Catholic countries. If a woman's husband dies without a will in Spain the wife has zero rights to anything, only the children have any rights. This means a woman would have to go to children (which could hate her) and beg to be allowed stay in her own house.

No doubt Irish women were treated no better than dogs by Irish institutions in the past, but it wasn't hugely better in other parts of the world.

Are you sure about the situation in Spain? Spain has a very progressive constitution and for instance full equality for gay people. I find it hard to believe that Spain, the most socially progressive country in Southern Europe, treats its women as second class citizens. Greece or Turkey perhaps, but Spain?

ScumLord

JupiterKid wrote: »

Are you sure about the situation in Spain? Spain has a very progressive constitution and for instance full equality for gay people. I find it hard to believe that Spain, the most socially progressive country in Southern Europe, treats its women as second class citizens. Greece or Turkey perhaps, but Spain?

My mother lives in Spain, women have no rights if their husband dies. A friend of hers had recently been threw it. There's a lot of those hangups left in Spanish law. It's still a very catholic country.

Carlos Orange

After reading the people with dogs thread I'm willing to assume it is because pets are supplanting the role on children in some peoples lives.

Carlos Orange

ScumLord wrote: »

My mother lives in Spain, women have no rights if their husband dies. A friend of hers had recently been threw it. There's a lot of those hangups left in Spanish law. It's still a very catholic country.

Is there something discriminatory or it just that children/parents (which can be either gender) are given priority over the remaining spouse (which again can be either gender). If the house were in both peoples name then they still own their 50% from what I can see.

Hexen

daithi7 wrote: »

[...] to address the anomaly between lower class women having loads of kids, at the apparent expense of middle class women who can't afford to have any [...]

Kind of backwards. Fertility differential is a function of income distribution. Despite a lot of variation, generally, the wealthier you are, the fewer kids you have (time-cost of having kids is relatively higher) and the more you invest in (and can invest in) the education of those children. Likewise, the poorer you are, the more kids you have and you tend to invest less in the education of those children. Greater equality (esp. in terms of education) tends towards a greater convergence in the fertility rates across social classes.

ScumLord

psinno wrote: »

Is there something discriminatory or it just that children/parents (which can be either gender) are given priority over the remaining spouse (which again can be either gender). If the house were in both peoples name then they still own their 50% from what I can see.

I'll have to look into it more, maybe you're right. It was a conversation I had in Spain about a similar thing happening in Portugal, maybe there are other factors in play like not being married.

Hexen

psinno wrote: »

Is there something discriminatory or it just that children/parents (which can be either gender) are given priority over the remaining spouse (which again can be either gender). If the house were in both peoples name then they still own their 50% from what I can see.

Specified laws of succession refer to the rights of the spouse, not women. And, yes, descendants and ascendants are given priority. Think rights of usufruct remain for spouse (1/3 to 2/3).

Spanish Succession Laws stipulate that both descendants (children or grandchildren) and ascendants (parents or grandparents) will inherit with priority over a surviving spouse. They are entitled, by law, to inherit fixed shares of the estate. Spain’s Civil Code dates back to the nineteenth century and needs to be brought up to speed with modern times.
Source

Hexen

ScumLord wrote: »

I'll have to look into it more, maybe you're right. It was a conversation I had in Spain about a similar thing happening in Portugal, maybe there are other factors in play like not being married.

Cohabitation = no rights in Spain

AnGaelach

laugh wrote: »

Interest, the thing that has fucked humanity more than anything else.

Cool soundbit, where did you get it?

ligerdub

ScumLord wrote: »

I'll have to look into it more, maybe you're right. It was a conversation I had in Spain about a similar thing happening in Portugal, maybe there are other factors in play like not being married.

A fairly important distinction in fairness, and does suggest that it's not discrimination based against women.

Potential-Monke

I'm not reading the whole thread, just adding my 2 cents. Why should we have children? I'm 33 and sick to the teeth of explaining to people that i don't want kids. My mind hasn't changed with the years, and the look on my siblings faces is enough to put anyone off kids. They love them and all, but they're not for me. There are less kids being born because people now realise that having a child is not the be all and end all. Yes, it's stupid money to raise a child today. I have no kids, i'm selling my house, and i still can't afford holidays, i cannot even imagine how depressed i'd get if i threw a kid into the mix.

Hexen

Potential-Monke wrote: »

I'm not reading the whole thread, just adding my 2 cents. Why should we have children? I'm 33 and sick to the teeth of explaining to people that i don't want kids. My mind hasn't changed with the years, and the look on my siblings faces is enough to put anyone off kids. They love them and all, but they're not for me. There are less kids being born because people now realise that having a child is not the be all and end all. Yes, it's stupid money to raise a child today. I have no kids, i'm selling my house, and i still can't afford holidays, i cannot even imagine how depressed i'd get if i threw a kid into the mix.

I don't think anyone is saying you should have kids but low fertility rates in Europe do pose a set of problems just as high fertility rates in Africa pose a different set of problems. Some seem to think that different economic conditions or policy incentives might encourage European 'breeding' although this seems unlikely. The other option is immigration into Europe but this poses other problems for people. The original article from which this discussion is derived is quite mad.