These countries tried everything from cash to patriotic calls to duty to reverse drastically declining birth rates. It didn’t work.
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If history is any guide, none of this will work: No matter what governments do to convince them to procreate, people around the world are having fewer and fewer kids.
In the US, the birth rate has been falling since the Great Recession, dropping almost 23 percent between 2007 and 2022. Today, the average American woman has about 1.6 children, down from three in 1950, and significantly below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 children needed to sustain a stable population. In Italy, 12 people now die for every seven babies born. In South Korea, the birth rate is down to 0.81 children per woman. In China, after decades of a strictly enforced one-child policy, the population is shrinking for the first time since the 1960s. In Taiwan, the birth rate stands at 0.87.
The problem with dogs and cats as a child replacement is you usually outlive them.
I can live with that, atleast I can take care of them until the end. And it’s not like life is certain, I can die before them.
I can live with it too. I have twice now. But it is a very difficult heartbreak. I haven’t had one of them for 13 years and I got her when I first moved out of my parents’ house, so she was with me my entire adult life until she died. I still miss her.
That can happen with kids too, and it’s far worse. At least with pets you know they’re only going to live around ___ years.
True. Outliving my daughter is my greatest fear.
And your daughters I guess would be extatic to know you’ll one day ditch them to be on their own after making them?
Most children outlive their parents and I’m not sure why you think I don’t care what she will feel.
That’s not a con… why would you make someone exist so they can experience your old age and death. That’s fucked.
I said nothing about a con.