Are women done with men?

[aasdfadsf]

2. The real problem in Korea, other East Asian countries, and also most Western nations is overwork.

If that were the case, I would expect there be to be a correlation between a country's average number of hours worked and the fertility rate, but just doing a spot check I'm not really seeing it.

That's a very good point. No one seems to know why some rich countries have such extremely low fertility rates or what to do about it, assuming anything should be done about it. It seems to have something do to with cultural expectations about what young people are supposed to do with themselves, but "avoid having a family" is usually not what any culture explicitly tells people, it just throws up economic and other barriers. But I'm going to stick with saying it's not because women stopped wanting to fuck men or vice versa. I will die on that hill!

[BECABECA]

2. The real problem in Korea, other East Asian countries, and also most Western nations is overwork.

If that were the case, I would expect there be to be a correlation between a country's average number of hours worked and the fertility rate, but just doing a spot check I'm not really seeing it.

That's a very good point. No one seems to know why some rich countries have such extremely low fertility rates or what to do about it, assuming anything should be done about it. It seems to have something do to with cultural expectations about what young people are supposed to do with themselves, but "avoid having a family" is usually not what any culture explicitly tells people, it just throws up economic and other barriers. But I'm going to stick with saying it's not because women stopped wanting to fuck men or vice versa. I will die on that hill!

…or we’re seeing the effects of the western diet and work lifestyle on libidos. Stress, inflammation, and obesity all have negative effects on libidos, so it wouldn’t be that far off to conjecture that population-wide average libidos are lower in these modern times.

[LennStar]

I am sure the men are happy to hear that ;)

The thing is that there is no single (or even a small list of) reasons for people not having children. It's always a very complex thing, and the reasons for the the many Japanese herbivores might be vastly different to those reasons in e.g. Germany.

Countries with robust supports for families have much better economic mobility as well, so if what we want is to support individual goals, having better policies for families is actually the way to go. In places with minimal family supports, people are A LOT more dependent on supports from family, which essentially predestines a lot of folks to their outcomes.

That is definitely a part of it. My cousin has 3 children and they very definitely would not have 3 if there weren't grandparents a 10 minute stroll away. It's simply having a safety net (and someone you can shove off the small ones for a day or two if you need the pause) that changes a lot in the mind of people.

I blame the nucleisation of the family a lot for declining birth. There is a reason why a saying like "it takes a whole village to raise a child" exists. There used to be grandparents, uncles, cousins all around you. Getting banned from a place was a really hard sentence, sometimes considered harsher than death.
Raising children used to be, at least in some ways, a lot easier in the past. Not to mention the financial calculation.

[YttriumNitrate]

That's a very good point. No one seems to know why some rich countries have such extremely low fertility rates or what to do about it, assuming anything should be done about it. It seems to have something do to with cultural expectations about what young people are supposed to do with themselves, but "avoid having a family" is usually not what any culture explicitly tells people, it just throws up economic and other barriers. But I'm going to stick with saying it's not because women stopped wanting to fuck men or vice versa. I will die on that hill!

I'm certainly not going to argue that people these days are somehow less horny these days. ;-)

Just looking at the macro-scale data it seems that there are only two things that cause a birthrate to be above the replacement rate: A) Poverty and B) Certain Religions. Everything else (e.g., free child care, maternity leave, etc.) doesn't seem to move the needle. Israel and Saudi Arabia are the two interesting countries in that they are the only ones I would consider "rich" that also have a high birthrate.

[LennStar]

I'm certainly not going to argue that people these days are somehow less horny these days. ;-)

Too bad, because that is likely the case. Being out and about, doing honest work, makes you happier. And being happier make you generally more horny.

But again, there is a myriad reasons. On some of them even the "conservatives" are right, like the easy access to porno. On the other hand that also means a lot less rapes, so I am happy with that specific.

Personally I also think there is some sort of auto-regulation going on. People feel that they have overstepped the boundaries of the system called earth and are reluctant - even if totally subconscious - to put more stress on it. Or maybe it's just being in gigantic cities that is detrimental to putting out more children.
Just my purely inscientific musing.

[Metalcat]

That's a very good point. No one seems to know why some rich countries have such extremely low fertility rates or what to do about it, assuming anything should be done about it. It seems to have something do to with cultural expectations about what young people are supposed to do with themselves, but "avoid having a family" is usually not what any culture explicitly tells people, it just throws up economic and other barriers. But I'm going to stick with saying it's not because women stopped wanting to fuck men or vice versa. I will die on that hill!

I'm certainly not going to argue that people these days are somehow less horny these days. ;-)

Just looking at the macro-scale data it seems that there are only two things that cause a birthrate to be above the replacement rate: A) Poverty and B) Certain Religions. Everything else (e.g., free child care, maternity leave, etc.) doesn't seem to move the needle. Israel and Saudi Arabia are the two interesting countries in that they are the only ones I would consider "rich" that also have a high birthrate.

Just to clarify an earlier post of mine. I never cited policies that support families as anything that increases fertility.

I simply said that policies that support children and families and not discriminatory against child free folks because whether we grow up to have children or not, we all start out as children and policies that support families are more equitable for all children.

I must certainly was not commenting on policies and fertility rates. Just to be clear.

Even as a child free person, I wish there were more supports for families so that fewer children experienced shitty fucking childhoods. Y'know, as someone who had a shitty fucking childhood and who works with a lot of folks who had shitty fucking childhoods.

Child free folks don't benefit from the children of our society getting fucked over.

[Sandi_k]

The economists and demographers I work with say that the closest correlation for declining birth rates is....more educational attainment for women.

[jrhampt]

I don’t think libido has much to do with fertility.  The beauty of contraceptives is that we have effectively de-coupled libido from fertility, allowing us to have much more and better sex without undesired results.  My libido is certainly fine but I don’t have any kids.  Women are expected to enjoy sex now vs in the past when the female orgasm was considered a myth, sex was a duty (and most women had childre in much greater numbers).

[oldladystache]

For a farming family children are an asset. They start helping out as early as 5 or 6. My dad was running his dad's farm from the time he was 12. His older sister helped their mom with the housework and helped care for the little ones. They had 9 kids and were wealthy.

For city people the kids are a burden until they are launched, and often beyond.

[Villanelle]

Okay, I'm going to say this just not having read the thread but only replying to the OP:

1. Men and women are never going to get tired of having sex with each other. That's obviously not the issue.

2. The real problem in Korea, other East Asian countries, and also most Western nations is overwork.

3. We, as mustachians, must understand that what we stand for is that too much work is bad. It drives people nuts. Work exists only to accomplish goals.

4. As such, there needs to be a cultural change such that having a family should never be considered a goal that is secondary to work. If it's not for you that's fine, but work-culture should be re-organized such that the things that really matter should come first. Everything we're arguing about, everything we think that matters, is that you aren't your fucking job.   

Okay, this is not an original observation. But still. Korea and Japan have TFRs under 1.0, this is not a matter of people not liking sex. That cannot be the explanation.

While I think there's some truth in thise, I think it grossly underestimates (or just flat-out ignores) the gender dynamics at play.  If we made having and raising children easier (especially on women, who bear the brunt of the difficulty from conception on) yes, more people might want to have babies.  if they only had to work 35 or even "only" 40 hours a week, the idea of caring for a helples human might be less daunting.  But even if family wasn't "secondary to work", a woman who knows she's taking on 75% of the child-rearing and other emotional labor in the relationship is still likely to strongly consider skipping procreation.

And per your point 1, she can have a lot of sex with almost no chance of getting pregnant, if she so desires.  (As can a man, of course.)  So we have to look at the reasons why she might want to keep the sex and skip the pregnancy.  And I think that's far more than just society pressuring people to put work first. 

Men may not want to admit it, but I think the biggest factor in many women not wanting to have children is the way they know it will affect their life and lifestyle, in ways much more intense and invasive than for most men.  (yes, not all men, not all relationships, blah blah.) IOW, if men wnt women to keep having their babies, they need to make it a less unattractive prospect, and that means doing more of the work.  That has nothing to do with societies expectations of employment priorities, and everything to do with the staggering number of men who still say the are "babysitting" their own child if the mom is off doing something else--either work or pleasure. 

[jrhampt]

And per your point 1, she can have a lot of sex with almost no chance of getting pregnant, if she so desires.  (As can a man, of course.)  So we have to look at the reasons why she might want to keep the sex and skip the pregnancy.  And I think that's far more than just society pressuring people to put work first. 

Men may not want to admit it, but I think the biggest factor in many women not wanting to have children is the way they know it will affect their life and lifestyle, in ways much more intense and invasive than for most men.  (yes, not all men, not all relationships, blah blah.) IOW, if men wnt women to keep having their babies, they need to make it a less unattractive prospect, and that means doing more of the work.  That has nothing to do with societies expectations of employment priorities, and everything to do with the staggering number of men who still say the are "babysitting" their own child if the mom is off doing something else--either work or pleasure.

Yep.  It turns out that women are rational human beings who have no more “nurturing instinct” than men do.  It was a nice story they told about us so they could excuse foisting off all the work onto us.  But surprise!  When you give us the choice and one choice has staggering downsides to it, we make the logical decision.

[aasdfadsf]

I'm not aware of any evidence that people are less horny today than they used to be, but even if they were, that wouldn't explain falling fertility rates very well. Humans still tend to have vastly more sex than necessary for procreating. I suppose that if people were even hornier, then all else being equal, there would be a marginal increase in unplanned pregnancies, and that might lead to a higher fertility rate. But the effect would be very small, since unplanned pregnancies tend to displace planned ones, and that's not how we'd want to address the issue anyway. 

[deborah]

Friends have told me that it’s often difficult to get their husbands to agree to have another child, and that it can take some time to get that agreement. As a result, these women have less children than they would have liked.

[Villanelle]

Friends have told me that it’s often difficult to get their husbands to agree to have another child, and that it can take some time to get that agreement. As a result, these women have less children than they would have liked.

In some ways, I feel like this is the other side of the same coin.  As women push for men to be even slightly more involved in child-rearing, men find children (or additional children) less appealing than when their major contribution was 15 minutes of rolling around naked.  When they actually have to change diapers and wipe tears and remember doctors appointments and drive to dance classes and attend spelling bees and leave work for school fevers, it doesn't sound great to them, either.

I know that's not the only reason a men (or women) wouldn't want kids or would limit the numbers.  But it would be nearly impossible to convince me that's not part of it in many cases. 

[twinstudy]

Okay, I'm going to say this just not having read the thread but only replying to the OP:

1. Men and women are never going to get tired of having sex with each other. That's obviously not the issue.

2. The real problem in Korea, other East Asian countries, and also most Western nations is overwork.

3. We, as mustachians, must understand that what we stand for is that too much work is bad. It drives people nuts. Work exists only to accomplish goals.

4. As such, there needs to be a cultural change such that having a family should never be considered a goal that is secondary to work. If it's not for you that's fine, but work-culture should be re-organized such that the things that really matter should come first. Everything we're arguing about, everything we think that matters, is that you aren't your fucking job.   

Okay, this is not an original observation. But still. Korea and Japan have TFRs under 1.0, this is not a matter of people not liking sex. That cannot be the explanation.

There is no rule that 'family has to come first' [in this context, family specifically meaning child-rearing]. For many, that will be their credo - but it shouldn't be a policy goal. Some people really like work, and they should be allowed to indulge in that. Others may have no passion for work but may also not want children, for whatever reason. That should be normalised. Attempting to structure all of society around the needs of people with children is discriminatory for those who choose to not have or who cannot have children.

I do think too much work is bad, but it's an individual choice - same as having a family.

As a child free person, I actually disagree. I firmly believe that we need policies that support families and children. We really, really need healthy families and the countries that have a lot of policies to support them tend to have better outcomes overall.

I may not have children, but I was a child.

Countries with robust supports for families have much better economic mobility as well, so if what we want is to support individual goals, having better policies for families is actually the way to go. In places with minimal family supports, people are A LOT more dependent on supports from family, which essentially predestines a lot of folks to their outcomes.

So if you want a society where individuals have more freedom and flexibility to choose their professional outcomes, it's statistically better to be born in a place where parents are heavily supported.

It's important to think of family supporting policies as being *for* people who have children, and more as policies for supporting the development of children, which impacts absolutely everyone, universally, making them the fairest policies that exist.

I see it as two separate things. Yes, we should support the development of children, and in particular, make sure that children have robust safety frameworks. Things like mandatory parenting classes, vouchers for low-income parents, tuition vouchers and free gifted and talented screening for all children. So that all kids have an opportunity to succeed. You definitely want society investing in early childhood education. It's much more efficient to give benefits in kind (or provide direct services to children via the education/health system) than to provide financial incentives to parents.

[aasdfadsf]

That's a very good point. No one seems to know why some rich countries have such extremely low fertility rates or what to do about it, assuming anything should be done about it. It seems to have something do to with cultural expectations about what young people are supposed to do with themselves, but "avoid having a family" is usually not what any culture explicitly tells people, it just throws up economic and other barriers. But I'm going to stick with saying it's not because women stopped wanting to fuck men or vice versa. I will die on that hill!

I'm certainly not going to argue that people these days are somehow less horny these days. ;-)

Just looking at the macro-scale data it seems that there are only two things that cause a birthrate to be above the replacement rate: A) Poverty and B) Certain Religions. Everything else (e.g., free child care, maternity leave, etc.) doesn't seem to move the needle. Israel and Saudi Arabia are the two interesting countries in that they are the only ones I would consider "rich" that also have a high birthrate.

Interesting observations. Looking at Israel, it's TFR is 2.9, which is certainly very high amongst "rich" nations. But I suspect most of that is from the ultra-orthodox who also don't actually work or serve in the military (I think they recently tried to change that law, and it caused a huge row, and I'm not sure where that stands).

Saudi-Arabia's TFR is 2.3, which is above replacement but just barely. And about 40% of that country's population is immigrants (mostly East Indians I think) and it's likely that it's amongst the immigrant population that represents the higher birth rates.

Another interesting case is France. They have actually gone pretty much all-in on trying to boost birth rates and have a very generous welfare system for kids and families. TFR=1.8. Below replacement, but not by that much. But it is better than most other Western European nations (Italy 1.3, Spain 1.3, Germany 1.5, you get the idea) and the USA (1.7).

I'm not pointing these things out to argue about anything, I just find it really interesting. The explanation for why fertility rates have cratered seems hard to pin down. You'd think in a naive way that being richer would lead to more babies, but it always and everywhere does the opposite.

I also think that low fertility rates have become something of moral panic, often with a twinge of racism thrown in, and it's actually not that big of a deal -- it will take a long time before underpopulation is worth caring about, but if it keeps goes down enough it really will be a serious problem in some nations (South Korea is 0.9 for crying out loud).

[aasdfadsf]

Riffing a bit on what I mentioned in the last post, having actually thought about this (because what I think is something you should totally care about), the best explanation I can come up with is that in rich nations, it becomes possible for the average person to improve their social status through material means, something that historically speaking was impossible until recently. And if there's one thing that humans will always do, other than fucking, it's chasing social status. Most of us do this our whole lives without truly understanding that this is actually what we're doing.   

This I guess is what I was getting at with trying to blame things on "overwork", which was correctly pointed out as being oversimplified at best. I do think though that people intuitively go through life trying, reasonably as it seems, to have more income and being able to buy shit to show off to people, to improve their class status, to make themselves higher up in the rat race of society. Children are absolutely a drag on that. Just delaying children really helps you in that regard.* It automatically sets up a situation in which having kids really knocks the drive to be what your psyche is telling you to be. Lots of people end up having kids anyway, but that itself becomes something of a lifestyle choice, something that you sacrifice to do, something that may or may not fit in with your social climbing.

I don't have any solution to this, even assuming my explanation isn't horseshit. But I do think that trying to disentangle the drive for social status from material wealth is...maybe a start?

*I'm a good example; my wife and I were 40 when we started having kids, we both had advanced degrees, ongoing careers, financial stability, blah blah blah bullshit. But we do have two irritating, expensive, and wonderful kids.

[Raenia]

Friends have told me that it’s often difficult to get their husbands to agree to have another child, and that it can take some time to get that agreement. As a result, these women have less children than they would have liked.

In some ways, I feel like this is the other side of the same coin.  As women push for men to be even slightly more involved in child-rearing, men find children (or additional children) less appealing than when their major contribution was 15 minutes of rolling around naked.  When they actually have to change diapers and wipe tears and remember doctors appointments and drive to dance classes and attend spelling bees and leave work for school fevers, it doesn't sound great to them, either.

I know that's not the only reason a men (or women) wouldn't want kids or would limit the numbers.  But it would be nearly impossible to convince me that's not part of it in many cases.

I think this is definitely part of it for some people. It certainly may work out that way for me. We'd always planned on having two, but seeing how difficult it is with one, DH is now thinking one is enough. I'm leaning that direction as well, though I may change my mind in the next few years. Similar for a cousin - they wanted a ton of kids (like, 4-5), and now that they have their first, the husband is pushing for maybe only two.

[RetiredAt63]

I'm going to toss something a bit weird in here.  I was at DD's last night for dinner and grand-child was all whiny - calmed down later but a real pain at first.  I couldn't help but think that it is much harder to be a parent who isn't using harsh physical control to rear a child, because it is easy to spank and terrify a small child into submission, to send them to bed without dinner, etc., relative to being firm but not coercive and physically abusive.  I can see it in how my parents were raised, how I was raised, how she was raised and how grandchild is being raised.  And it was accepted by society, when I was a child spanking was totally acceptable and the strap was still (rarely) used in school.  Now legally that is child abuse. 

So basically it is just plain harder to raise a child now, because we don't take the easy way out. 


As a biologist I always think of reproductive strategies - r type or K type.  Lots of offspring with very few resources allocated to each one (r type), or few offspring with lots of resources allocated to those few (K type).  If an organism has X amount of resources, how will those resources be allocated?  It's complicated and  there are lots of nuances (simply being a placental mammal tips an animal way over to K type, but then compare a mouse to an elephant).  But generally we seem to be shifting more and more to the K type style of reproduction, lots of resources used for each child.  And that makes sense - if child mortality is high, you want to have lots of children in hopes that a few survive (basically on the r type end of the human reproductive strategy).  If child mortality is low, you don't need to churn out lots of babies to have a few survive, you have a few, and you have them later when you will have more resources available.  Because if everyone is only having a few and providing lots of resources, your child's main struggle in life will not be against the elements (disease, weather, food availability), it will be competition with others.  So more education, etc. is needed to be sure your offspring will be successful.

That makes the more educated women=fewer babies situation make sense.  If both parents are working, there are more resources for the few children they have, and those children are better prepared for a world of competition with their peers.  And society used to expect men to prepare for their working lives (education, training), and women to prepare for their homemaker lives.  Now women are also doing the prepare for working life education, and that takes longer, so they have babies later.

Just to point out, K type means the population tends to stay at about its carrying capacity of its environment.  K type species adjust reproduction to not go over the carrying capacity in the long term.  Right now the human world population is way over the carrying capacity of the planet, so adjusting birth rates down makes sense - we may be responding to the signals our overcrowded environment is sending us.  Look at Calhoun's rats and mice.


I could be way off base, I'm sure the social scientists are coming at this from a very different viewpoint.

[LaineyAZ]

Retiredat63,
your explanation about lower fertility rates makes a lot of sense. 

Add in another off-the-wall data point:  the popular TV show "Teen Mom" is said to be credited with reducing teen pregnancy because it showed that after the fun of the baby shower, reality kicks in after the baby arrives. 
Teen viewers saw that waking up night after night with a crying baby plus struggling with finances and an immature partner and disapproving and/or unhelpful parents and family members = not fun.

[Log]

Riffing a bit on what I mentioned in the last post, having actually thought about this (because what I think is something you should totally care about), the best explanation I can come up with is that in rich nations, it becomes possible for the average person to improve their social status through material means, something that historically speaking was impossible until recently. And if there's one thing that humans will always do, other than fucking, it's chasing social status. Most of us do this our whole lives without truly understanding that this is actually what we're doing.   

This I guess is what I was getting at with trying to blame things on "overwork", which was correctly pointed out as being oversimplified at best. I do think though that people intuitively go through life trying, reasonably as it seems, to have more income and being able to buy shit to show off to people, to improve their class status, to make themselves higher up in the rat race of society. Children are absolutely a drag on that. Just delaying children really helps you in that regard.* It automatically sets up a situation in which having kids really knocks the drive to be what your psyche is telling you to be. Lots of people end up having kids anyway, but that itself becomes something of a lifestyle choice, something that you sacrifice to do, something that may or may not fit in with your social climbing.

I don't have any solution to this, even assuming my explanation isn't horseshit. But I do think that trying to disentangle the drive for social status from material wealth is...maybe a start?

*I'm a good example; my wife and I were 40 when we started having kids, we both had advanced degrees, ongoing careers, financial stability, blah blah blah bullshit. But we do have two irritating, expensive, and wonderful kids.

Coming from this perspective, and acknowledging that countries that have offered lots of material incentives for having kids haven't really moved the needle, it then follows that if one is interested in increasing fertility rates, the answer is to increase the status associated with having kids, and make it more low-status to be childless.

If you assume that JD Vance is terminally online in weird pro-natalist bubbles, it's easy to see how he thinks his "cat lady" comments might be a winner. Pro-natalist people are basically trying to create that culture, where being a childless cat lady is very low status. So instead of MAGA, JD Vance's rallying cry is... MBACCLSA? _{(Make Being A Childless Cat Lady Low Status Again)}

[aasdfadsf]

I find most pro-natalist people to be insufferable (Vance's comments being exemplary of why). I don't even think their underlying motivation is about improving fertility rates or even the joy of having kids, I think it's more about elevating their own power and status by dumping on others. And what I said earlier about the twinge of racism...ooh boy, you'll find it there.

There must be healthy ways to encourage parenthood without being an asshole about it.

[Morning Glory]

Why not first try to keep existing children alive instead of encouraging/forcing people to create more?

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/us-kids-dying-higher-rates-wealthy-countries-why-rcna159757

[dividendman]

I find most pro-natalist people to be insufferable (Vance's comments being exemplary of why). I don't even think their underlying motivation is about improving fertility rates or even the joy of having kids, I think it's more about elevating their own power and status by dumping on others. And what I said earlier about the twinge of racism...ooh boy, you'll find it there.

There must be healthy ways to encourage parenthood without being an asshole about it.

Here's a good way - adopt kids that are already out there from the US and other countries. Make it easy. Also... if we're worried about the population generally, let in a bunch of immigrants.

[jeninco]

I find most pro-natalist people to be insufferable (Vance's comments being exemplary of why). I don't even think their underlying motivation is about improving fertility rates or even the joy of having kids, I think it's more about elevating their own power and status by dumping on others. And what I said earlier about the twinge of racism...ooh boy, you'll find it there.

There must be healthy ways to encourage parenthood without being an asshole about it.

Here's a good way - adopt kids that are already out there from the US and other countries. Make it easy. Also... if we're worried about the population generally, let in a bunch of immigrants.

Hahahahaha, you missed the entire manufactured emergency that exists because it's not the "right kind" of babies, ie white christian ones (preferably the kind that women were pressured into having, and had to give up good jobs for, but that's a different thread).

I generally think it's a bit of a "just so story", but I rather like the K-type explanation. Our first kid was high-energy, and it took a LOT of work to do a good job parenting. When I compare how we did with that kid with how my parents did with my brother (who is still recovering from his upbringing at age 50) I'm really happy with our choices -- but it meant we didn't do a lot besides work and raise kids for a solid 6-10 years there. (He wound up with a sibling who wasn't nearly as much work to raise, but still took work.)

Even in retrospect, I don't see a way to have raised them through those first 10 years that didn't involve me working part-time (which was what happened: it worked out really well for our family) : they were both the kind of smart, engaged, high-energy kids who needed to have their primary caretaker be generally as smart as they were and also be more mature and have a combination of an encyclopedic knowledge base and the ability to learn stuff quickly (and sometimes demonstrate how that is done). DH  was working full-time but was still very heavily involved in parenting.

Also, to answer part of the initial question, DH had an offer to do a post-doc in England when the first kid was maybe 1-ish. When we talked about it, I told him we could go, but we weren't going to have a second kid if we did: I would be basically stuck in an apartment in some little university town with a very high-energy toddler and no support system, and the weather where we'd be going would suck for 9 months of the year. And he'd be working 50-60 hour weeks. That's the kid of situation that leads to not having more children. (Reader, we stayed in our bike-friendly location with adequate supports and a strong pre-school program and 350+ days/year of sun.)

[Captain FIRE]

Falling birth rates are due to many factors, including:

Decrease in financial incentives:
- A change from kids as income producers (working on the farm) to income losses (costs of raising: food, shelter, and in modern times, daycare, college) decreases financial incentive/necessity to have kids
- More kids survive their infancy/childhood, so there's less need of having "spares" to do the above work

More options, for women in particular:
- Contraception, which allows people some level of control over reproduction
- Higher cost of living today. People want to launch their kids well, so many families that in the past would have have more than 2 kids, stop sooner because they feel they can't afford more kids without compromising what they want to give their children (see above food, shelter, but particularly daycare and college). [Note: I wrote this before @RetiredAt63's post which explains this issue well, I just didn't get around to finishing my post until now.]
- People want to hit certain milestones before they have kids (e.g. get a house) which are more difficult to achieve nowadays than it was for their parents given sky rocketing costs of mortgages/student loans v. income increases
- Rise in women's rights, so they are allowed to own property, get a bank account and credit card, get a job. With this freedom, they are not solely dependent on marrying a man - young - to take care of them financially, but can get a job.
- Rise in women working also means parents are exhausted from working and taking care of families, so might choose to have fewer kids.
- Rise in women attending college and postponing kids/marriage for school/career. Delays in becoming pregnant may may mean some people never have kids or have fewer than desired as their fertility declines.
- It's becoming more socially acceptable to choose not to have kids. People no longer date in their small area of birth, so it's also easier to find like minded partners.
- Fewer people are "in the closet". Kids don't really happen accidentally in same sex relationships.

Other:
- General decline in religious belief. Some major religions discourage or prohibit contraception use (that incidentally would decrease the number of followers...).
- Belief the world is overpopulated with detrimental effects (e.g. climate change) and desire to avoid adding to the overpopulation
- Past government policies impacting desire to have kids (e.g. some women negatively impacted by China's prior one birth policy aren't willing to have kids now)

[spartana]

^^^ I'll add to that list to say that many women now have the opportunity to have more adventurous jobs then ever before. Jobs that may take them away from home weeks or months at a time or are in dangerous conditions. The field reporters in war or disaster zones. Doctors and nurses and first responders doing the same. The Politicians floating between cities. The Military members. The ships crew. The engineers working a multi months long projects in remote areas. The field scientists doing the same. The pilots. The astronauts, who's 2 week tours turn into 2 or 3 months (help me Elon Musk. You're our only hope ;-)).  Even regular business travelers who are away from home constantly. Etc.

Men have traditionally done those jobs  AND been able to have kids because they have had a female spouse to take care of the kids and do most if not all of the domestic chores. Now that women want to partake in those kinds of fields Too they often have to make a choice between career and kids - even marriage - because there aren't that many men who'll want to be full time (often solo) caregivers to even one child let alone multiple children. Or even be married to a woman with that type of job.

[LennStar]

Or give birth. I daresay that women who are on a ship for 4 month in a row don't particularily want to get pregnant.

Anyone knows if polyamorous people have more children?

[spartana]

Or give birth. I daresay that women who are on a ship for 4 month in a row don't particularily want to get pregnant.

They'll eventually take you off but I imagine it could be pretty rough until then. Morning sickness AND sea sickness at the same time. Fun! At least getting pregnant is something you.can avoid. "

U.S. Coast Guard policy is that no pregnant service member shall deploy or remain aboard a ship, including small boat duty, beyond her 20th week of pregnancy"

[Captain FIRE]

Yeah I interned in an admiral's office one summer in college, and a woman had been moved there temporarily because she was pregnant. She was not a particularly dedicated or smart employee and it was clearly a placement because they had no where else suitable to put her and not because she was good in that job.

[spartana]

Yeah I interned in an admiral's office one summer in college, and a woman had been moved there temporarily because she was pregnant. She was not a particularly dedicated or smart employee and it was clearly a placement because they had no where else suitable to put her and not because she was good in that job.

She was probably disgruntled because she didn't want to work in an office setting or for an admiral. I'd probably whine badly if I had to do that.

But yeah, you know when joining the armed forces or a similar type of job, you'll have to serve in places or at times that make it hard to have and to raise kids - especially if your spouse has the same type of career or not interested in being a full time caregiver (and solo caregiver often) and/or a "trailing spouse" who's alone for months at a time. I had required sea duty for  3 years in order to advance up the food chain a bit so if women like me wanted to do certain types of work, or advance further, that often meant giving up having kids. Unless a partner was willing to do the childcare/homecare stuff and put aside their own career goals and advancement.

[Captain FIRE]

Maybe, but she didn't seem to grasp basics. As a dependent, even *I* knew that if you take M/F off, the S/S in between also count as PTO days. I remember she was upset she couldn't take a 4 day weekend off, because she only had two days. The manager patiently explained several times that she COULD have a 4-day weekend, if she did Th/Fri or Mon/Tue off. (I don't remember her going anywhere special that the specific days actually mattered, she just didn't seem to grasp how the rules worked.) I think she told me she was also somewhat in trouble for having a relationship with someone on her ship, though it wasn't fraternization with an officer.

We didn't see the PAC area admiral too much. He was fine. Mostly dealt with the chief of staff (captain).

[spartana]

Maybe, but she didn't seem to grasp basics. As a dependent, even *I* knew that if you take M/F off, the S/S in between also count as PTO days. I remember she was upset she couldn't take a 4 day weekend off, because she only had two days. The manager patiently explained several times that she COULD have a 4-day weekend, if she did Th/Fri or Mon/Tue off. (I don't remember her going anywhere special that the specific days actually mattered, she just didn't seem to grasp how the rules worked.) I think she told me she was also somewhat in trouble for having a relationship with someone on her ship, though it wasn't fraternization with an officer.

We didn't see the PAC area admiral too much. He was fine. Mostly dealt with the chief of staff (captain).

She sounds like a bad worker - military or civilian! I did a very short TDY stint as an Admirals driver while waiting for my new ship I'd bevstation on to return from patrol and, while an interesting experience and super nice guy, it definitely wasn't a 9 to 5 weekend off kind of gig. I hated it but it had some serious perks.

[Captain FIRE]

Admirals can be interesting for sure. I stayed with the 2nd? and 5th? grade kids for a week for one admiral when I was on summer break over college, and the Admiral and wife were on a trip. Those kids were the ones to introduce me to Harry Potter, which initially entailed a complicated explanation of quidditch. :) The Admiral before him had a kid my age and I think they thought I was a good influence on him. (We both moved there after high school, and was off at college most of the time so we didn't know each other well.) Another three star Admiral invited me to read a book in his garden anytime, and asked my dad after me for a while in his morning Captains briefing.

I can totally socialize with them. But I don't think I'd ever want to work for one of them.

[spartana]

Admirals can be interesting for sure. I stayed with the 2nd? and 5th? grade kids for a week for one admiral when I was on summer break over college, and the Admiral and wife were on a trip. Those kids were the ones to introduce me to Harry Potter, which initially entailed a complicated explanation of quidditch. :) The Admiral before him had a kid my age and I think they thought I was a good influence on him. (We both moved there after high school, and was off at college most of the time so we didn't know each other well.) Another three star Admiral invited me to read a book in his garden anytime, and asked my dad after me for a while in his morning Captains briefing.

I can totally socialize with them. But I don't think I'd ever want to work for one of them.

Baby sitting an Admirals kids? YIKES! I need some serious hazard duty pay for that LOL. I don't remember if my admiral guy had kids but his wife would nab me to help her sometimes for party prep for some fancy shindigs they had. Which was both horrible since I was a ships engineer wannabe and wanted to be on boats and ships not making flower arrangements but also great because...food!  As an 18 year old working class girl recently out of boot camp it was all a huge eye opener for me.

The interesting thing (and along the lines of this thread) is that years later a woman rear admiral was in that position (commander of the whole Pacific area up to Japan) and it sounded like her DH was a civilian who supported her career and all the years and things that went with it. Don't recall if they had kids but I don't think so. Regardless he was willing to sacrifice his own career goals to support hers. I think if more men were willing to do this - or at least make compromises to support their spouses and shoulder some of the domestic burdens - more women would be happy to marry or stay married.

[Ron Scott]

….he was willing to sacrifice his own career goals to support hers. I think if more men were willing to do this - or at least make compromises to support their spouses and shoulder some of the domestic burdens - more women would be happy to marry or stay married.

I agree with you on this. In fact, I think it would be quite difficult to argue the contrary.

A different still but interesting question would be whether a man who was a domestic type at heart, had no interest in working for money especially if his wife had a good salary, but who was willing to assume household and child rearing duties, would find himself to be an attractive husband to the average woman.

You can look at this in another way, as a thought experiment:
Can you envision a future in which half the people who work as a stay-at-home-parent/homemaker are men and half are women, and would that be a future you’d like to see come to fruition. And if not, why not?

[jeninco]

….he was willing to sacrifice his own career goals to support hers. I think if more men were willing to do this - or at least make compromises to support their spouses and shoulder some of the domestic burdens - more women would be happy to marry or stay married.

I agree with you on this. In fact, I think it would be quite difficult to argue the contrary.

A different still but interesting question would be whether a man who was a domestic type at heart, had no interest in working for money especially if his wife had a good salary, but who was willing to assume household and child rearing duties, would find himself to be an attractive husband to the average woman.

You can look at this in another way, as a thought experiment:
Can you envision a future in which half the people who work as a stay-at-home-parent/homemaker are men and half are women, and would that be a future you’d like to see come to fruition. And if not, why not?

Sure -- makes perfect sense to me. Seriously, why not? People who want to super-achieve professionally should be enabled to do that, and people who want to help make the community (and families) function should ideally be able to do that.

 Although I'd actually prefer a more flexible world, where parents can alternate staying home/working, and where the "staying home" person can work a job that's appropriate to them part-time when kids get out of the stage where they require 100% supervision to not kill themselves. I've had a lot of fun doing technical work 25% - 30% time while still being able to volunteer in the kid's schools, coordinate household stuff, be very available to the kids, etc. etc. And situations where both parents work 75% can also work pretty well.  And there are times where almost everyone needs to work less: newborn in the household, hospice care for a loved elder, partner needing significant medical care...

[spartana]

….he was willing to sacrifice his own career goals to support hers. I think if more men were willing to do this - or at least make compromises to support their spouses and shoulder some of the domestic burdens - more women would be happy to marry or stay married.

I agree with you on this. In fact, I think it would be quite difficult to argue the contrary.

A different still but interesting question would be whether a man who was a domestic type at heart, had no interest in working for money especially if his wife had a good salary, but who was willing to assume household and child rearing duties, would find himself to be an attractive husband to the average woman.

You can look at this in another way, as a thought experiment:
Can you envision a future in which half the people who work as a stay-at-home-parent/homemaker are men and half are women, and would that be a future you’d like to see come to fruition. And if not, why not?

I personally wouldn't want a full time domestic DH/partner and prefer to do that kind of stuff together - as well as the "traditionally male" kinds of chores like yard work, vehicle and home maintenance and repairs. And not having kids meant there really wasn't much domestic chores anyway so just did that stuff together or took care of our own "messes".  But I can see many women who are embroiled in their careers and striving for advancement by working long hours or travelling etc that having a full time person doing all the domestic chores along with childcare pretty attractive. Although I believe most women still find an equal partner (job wise, interest wise, money wise, and chore wise) to be more attractive than a full time domestic DH. But that's me and maybe other women would like that in a partner.

But really the issue isn't full time worker verses full time domestic. t's often about 2 career couples and/or families where one is expected to do more caregiving and/or make more career sacrifices because their job is seen as either less important or merely because of gender.

ETA: If I were a man I wouldn't find a woman who wanted to be a full time caregiver/housespouse attractive either. Not that there's anything wrong with that but it wouldn't be a personality type that I'd find appealing in a romantic partner.  Maybe some (many?) men feel that way. And of course on the flip side how many women are attracted to men so dedicated to their jobs that they are spending all their time involved with work related things? Working 60 70 hours a week, endless work related travel, constantly on zoom or so meetings, etc that have no time for their spouse or kids? That's not a very attractive quality to many women either I would imagine - including me.

[Poundwise]

- People want to hit certain milestones before they have kids (e.g. get a house) which are more difficult to achieve nowadays than it was for their parents given sky rocketing costs of mortgages/student loans v. income increases

I think that this is a major, major factor in declining birth rates in some countries.   However, there are outliers like Nigeria (lowest in home ownership, top 10 in fertility) and China (highest in home ownership, bottom 10 in fertility).

Urbanization also seems to be correlated. East Asian countries/territories like S. Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. have very low home ownership, and very high urbanization. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ownership_rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fertility_rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_sovereign_state#List

I'm not too worried. When people set their minds to it, they can increase the population pretty quickly.

[RetiredAt63]

- People want to hit certain milestones before they have kids (e.g. get a house) which are more difficult to achieve nowadays than it was for their parents given sky rocketing costs of mortgages/student loans v. income increases

I think that this is a major, major factor in declining birth rates in some countries.   However, there are outliers like Nigeria (lowest in home ownership, top 10 in fertility) and China (highest in home ownership, bottom 10 in fertility).

Urbanization also seems to be correlated. East Asian countries/territories like S. Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. have very low home ownership, and very high urbanization. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ownership_rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fertility_rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_sovereign_state#List

I'm not too worried. When people set their minds to it, they can increase the population pretty quickly.

It's why my age group is called the Boomer generation - our parents decided to have lots of babies.    ;-)

[spartana]

- People want to hit certain milestones before they have kids (e.g. get a house) which are more difficult to achieve nowadays than it was for their parents given sky rocketing costs of mortgages/student loans v. income increases

I think that this is a major, major factor in declining birth rates in some countries.   However, there are outliers like Nigeria (lowest in home ownership, top 10 in fertility) and China (highest in home ownership, bottom 10 in fertility).

Urbanization also seems to be correlated. East Asian countries/territories like S. Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. have very low home ownership, and very high urbanization. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ownership_rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fertility_rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_sovereign_state#List

I'm not too worried. When people set their minds to it, they can increase the population pretty quickly.

It's why my age group is called the Boomer generation - our parents decided to have lots of babies.    ;-)

Do you think young women today would be as willing to start having more babies even if we were inn serious population decline? Just based just on this thread I don't  think so. Maybe very high earners who could out source childcare for multiple kids but I don't know how many women (and men/couples)  would give up their careers or downshift in order to have boomer-levels of babies voluntarily.  Plus some of us enjoy being miserable childless cat ladies (and cat dudes lol).

[Captain FIRE]

I think if more men were willing to do this - or at least make compromises to support their spouses and shoulder some of the domestic burdens - more women would be happy to marry or stay married.

Agreed. Or simply SEE the work even exists. It's something we've struggled with in our household. There's the issue that the mental work in our household is not deemed actual work. (Guess who does the mental work, healthcare visits for the kids, school issues, Christmas/birthday present buying for the kids, kids friends, nephews, etc.) I'm thinking of getting a cleaner again (had one for about 2 years after my first kid was born) so the chores will be merely a ~70/30 split.

The Admiral's kids were actually shockingly well behaved and great to be around. I was quite surprised too (and wouldn't have agreed otherwise). :) Older daughter had a prosthetic arm, so needed help putting it on/taking it on, but otherwise they were very self-sufficient so it was about feeding them, playing games with them, and adult in the house, and not about doing every little thing for spoiled brats who don't listen. Now that I think on it, they must have been actors...

Although I'd actually prefer a more flexible world, where parents can alternate staying home/working, and where the "staying home" person can work a job that's appropriate to them part-time when kids get out of the stage where they require 100% supervision to not kill themselves. I've had a lot of fun doing technical work 25% - 30% time while still being able to volunteer in the kid's schools, coordinate household stuff, be very available to the kids, etc. etc. And situations where both parents work 75% can also work pretty well.  And there are times where almost everyone needs to work less: newborn in the household, hospice care for a loved elder, partner needing significant medical care...

This would be amazing. I'd love a world where my spouse and I can both work 75%, and then ramp back up to 100% later if we wanted to.

[Poundwise]

- People want to hit certain milestones before they have kids (e.g. get a house) which are more difficult to achieve nowadays than it was for their parents given sky rocketing costs of mortgages/student loans v. income increases

I think that this is a major, major factor in declining birth rates in some countries.   However, there are outliers like Nigeria (lowest in home ownership, top 10 in fertility) and China (highest in home ownership, bottom 10 in fertility).

Urbanization also seems to be correlated. East Asian countries/territories like S. Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. have very low home ownership, and very high urbanization. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ownership_rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fertility_rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_sovereign_state#List

I'm not too worried. When people set their minds to it, they can increase the population pretty quickly.

It's why my age group is called the Boomer generation - our parents decided to have lots of babies.    ;-)

Do you think young women today would be as willing to start having more babies even if we were inn serious population decline? Just based just on this thread I don't  think so. Maybe very high earners who could out source childcare for multiple kids but I don't know how many women (and men/couples)  would give up their careers or downshift in order to have boomer-levels of babies voluntarily.  Plus some of us enjoy being miserable childless cat ladies (and cat dudes lol).

The Mustachian community is self-selected for people who have the ability to detect that they've had enough. We have off switches.  The general population may not have as much of this sense of satiety.

I think that if life were easy enough that you could buy a home and cover the necessities on a single or even just 1.5 incomes, young women would be okay with bigger families.  After suffering as a parent in an NYC rental, I moved to a suburb where people have yards and kids walk to school.  No longer did I have to waste my time watching the kids playing in the playgrounds... I could just tell them to play outside in our yard. I didn't have to carry strollers up and down subway stairs, or worry about applying for nursery school, elementary school, middle school and high school. No more yelling at the kids to stop running because it disturbed the downstairs neighbors. Easy.

Definitely the average size of families here is bigger than my old city neighborhood, where you needed superhuman strength to raise more than one child. But even here you don't see families with more than 3-4 kids, because there is this anxiety that you had to send kids to college in order for them to launch well. But if a 4 bedroom house were more affordable, and an average student could still find a job that supported a family,  I could see women opting to have bigger families. Once you have two kids, having more doesn't really make that big a difference. :) And there's a pretty strong competitive drive to have kids... I notice that people with kids get wistful or even envious when another family has a younger baby (and I'm talking about a moderate or left leaning population, no tradwives here.)

Anyway, my guess is that once a population drops enough for young families to live comfortably, they'll have more kids.

[spartana]

- People want to hit certain milestones before they have kids (e.g. get a house) which are more difficult to achieve nowadays than it was for their parents given sky rocketing costs of mortgages/student loans v. income increases

I think that this is a major, major factor in declining birth rates in some countries.   However, there are outliers like Nigeria (lowest in home ownership, top 10 in fertility) and China (highest in home ownership, bottom 10 in fertility).

Urbanization also seems to be correlated. East Asian countries/territories like S. Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. have very low home ownership, and very high urbanization. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ownership_rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fertility_rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_sovereign_state#List

I'm not too worried. When people set their minds to it, they can increase the population pretty quickly.

It's why my age group is called the Boomer generation - our parents decided to have lots of babies.    ;-)

Do you think young women today would be as willing to start having more babies even if we were inn serious population decline? Just based just on this thread I don't  think so. Maybe very high earners who could out source childcare for multiple kids but I don't know how many women (and men/couples)  would give up their careers or downshift in order to have boomer-levels of babies voluntarily.  Plus some of us enjoy being miserable childless cat ladies (and cat dudes lol).

The Mustachian community is self-selected for people who have the ability to detect that they've had enough. We have off switches.  The general population may not have as much of this sense of satiety.

I think that if life were easy enough that you could buy a home and cover the necessities on a single or even just 1.5 incomes, young women would be okay with bigger families.  After suffering as a parent in an NYC rental, I moved to a suburb where people have yards and kids walk to school.  No longer did I have to waste my time watching the kids playing in the playgrounds... I could just tell them to play outside in our yard. I didn't have to carry strollers up and down subway stairs, or worry about applying for nursery school, elementary school, middle school and high school. No more yelling at the kids to stop running because it disturbed the downstairs neighbors. Easy.

Definitely the average size of families here is bigger than my old city neighborhood, where you needed superhuman strength to raise more than one child. But even here you don't see families with more than 3-4 kids, because there is this anxiety that you had to send kids to college in order for them to launch well. But if a 4 bedroom house were more affordable, and an average student could still find a job that supported a family,  I could see women opting to have bigger families. Once you have two kids, having more doesn't really make that big a difference. :) And there's a pretty strong competitive drive to have kids... I notice that people with kids get wistful or even envious when another family has a younger baby (and I'm talking about a moderate or left leaning population, no tradwives here.)

Anyway, my guess is that once a population drops enough for young families to live comfortably, they'll have more kids.

Yeah being able to have some additional space and place for kids to play safely would make having more kids appealing if you wanted more. Money and having the option to increase  family size can go hand in hand I'd imagine. Although lots of wealthy people don't seem to have more kids.

I also think having strong support from others, whether family or friends, make it easier to have more kids even for lower income people. I lived a large Asian- American community for many years and, while they didn't have that many kids, they had strong support for the working parents and often lived in large multi - generational family groups. Saved for college and to help fund the kids futures. I see the same in the larger Hispanic communities here in the metro LA area and many there do have lots of kids - but lots of help both financially and physically - even though it's not always men helping with the domestic chores (although that's changing) but are working hard to earn an income. 

[LennStar]

It takes a whole village to raise a child.
The Western ellbow core family society has forgotten that, and that is a huge factor. As said before with the Asien and Hispanic families, knowing that there will be help takes away a lot of anxieties

[jnw]

I am a woman and done with Trump, go Kamala! :)

[Metalcat]

….he was willing to sacrifice his own career goals to support hers. I think if more men were willing to do this - or at least make compromises to support their spouses and shoulder some of the domestic burdens - more women would be happy to marry or stay married.

I agree with you on this. In fact, I think it would be quite difficult to argue the contrary.

A different still but interesting question would be whether a man who was a domestic type at heart, had no interest in working for money especially if his wife had a good salary, but who was willing to assume household and child rearing duties, would find himself to be an attractive husband to the average woman.

You can look at this in another way, as a thought experiment:
Can you envision a future in which half the people who work as a stay-at-home-parent/homemaker are men and half are women, and would that be a future you’d like to see come to fruition. And if not, why not?

I personally wouldn't want a full time domestic DH/partner and prefer to do that kind of stuff together - as well as the "traditionally male" kinds of chores like yard work, vehicle and home maintenance and repairs. And not having kids meant there really wasn't much domestic chores anyway so just did that stuff together or took care of our own "messes".  But I can see many women who are embroiled in their careers and striving for advancement by working long hours or travelling etc that having a full time person doing all the domestic chores along with childcare pretty attractive. Although I believe most women still find an equal partner (job wise, interest wise, money wise, and chore wise) to be more attractive than a full time domestic DH. But that's me and maybe other women would like that in a partner.

But really the issue isn't full time worker verses full time domestic. t's often about 2 career couples and/or families where one is expected to do more caregiving and/or make more career sacrifices because their job is seen as either less important or merely because of gender.

ETA: If I were a man I wouldn't find a woman who wanted to be a full time caregiver/housespouse attractive either. Not that there's anything wrong with that but it wouldn't be a personality type that I'd find appealing in a romantic partner.  Maybe some (many?) men feel that way. And of course on the flip side how many women are attracted to men so dedicated to their jobs that they are spending all their time involved with work related things? Working 60 70 hours a week, endless work related travel, constantly on zoom or so meetings, etc that have no time for their spouse or kids? That's not a very attractive quality to many women either I would imagine - including me.

I was the head of a professional organization for women who owned clinics, so a lot of very high earning women who worked very long hours and many of them had stay-at-home husbands doing the bulk of the domestic labour.

It was not at all unusual in my circles.

A lot of the other women were married to fellow medical professionals or lawyers, and the gender bullshit persisted, they were always doing more of the domestic labour either mental or physical or both, so it's no surprise that at that level of work and income, it becomes more attractive to have a partner who can ease that workload.

I found this especially common among female surgeons. They particularly had very little interest in being married to anyone who would take anything away from their careers, only support them.

[Ron Scott]

….he was willing to sacrifice his own career goals to support hers. I think if more men were willing to do this - or at least make compromises to support their spouses and shoulder some of the domestic burdens - more women would be happy to marry or stay married.

I agree with you on this. In fact, I think it would be quite difficult to argue the contrary.

A different still but interesting question would be whether a man who was a domestic type at heart, had no interest in working for money especially if his wife had a good salary, but who was willing to assume household and child rearing duties, would find himself to be an attractive husband to the average woman.

You can look at this in another way, as a thought experiment:
Can you envision a future in which half the people who work as a stay-at-home-parent/homemaker are men and half are women, and would that be a future you’d like to see come to fruition. And if not, why not?

I personally wouldn't want a full time domestic DH/partner and prefer to do that kind of stuff together - as well as the "traditionally male" kinds of chores like yard work, vehicle and home maintenance and repairs. And not having kids meant there really wasn't much domestic chores anyway so just did that stuff together or took care of our own "messes".  But I can see many women who are embroiled in their careers and striving for advancement by working long hours or travelling etc that having a full time person doing all the domestic chores along with childcare pretty attractive. Although I believe most women still find an equal partner (job wise, interest wise, money wise, and chore wise) to be more attractive than a full time domestic DH. But that's me and maybe other women would like that in a partner.

But really the issue isn't full time worker verses full time domestic. t's often about 2 career couples and/or families where one is expected to do more caregiving and/or make more career sacrifices because their job is seen as either less important or merely because of gender.

ETA: If I were a man I wouldn't find a woman who wanted to be a full time caregiver/housespouse attractive either. Not that there's anything wrong with that but it wouldn't be a personality type that I'd find appealing in a romantic partner.  Maybe some (many?) men feel that way. And of course on the flip side how many women are attracted to men so dedicated to their jobs that they are spending all their time involved with work related things? Working 60 70 hours a week, endless work related travel, constantly on zoom or so meetings, etc that have no time for their spouse or kids? That's not a very attractive quality to many women either I would imagine - including me.

I was the head of a professional organization for women who owned clinics, so a lot of very high earning women who worked very long hours and many of them had stay-at-home husbands doing the bulk of the domestic labour.

It was not at all unusual in my circles.

A lot of the other women were married to fellow medical professionals or lawyers, and the gender bullshit persisted, they were always doing more of the domestic labour either mental or physical or both, so it's no surprise that at that level of work and income, it becomes more attractive to have a partner who can ease that workload.

I found this especially common among female surgeons. They particularly had very little interest in being married to anyone who would take anything away from their careers, only support them.

I think there are many men who really have no interest in a career or even dealing with the hassle of 9-5 at all, and would be more than happy to be stay-at-homes, supported by a highly-paid wife so long as she makes a commitment to getting the family to FI on her paycheck.

[jeninco]

<snip, because this is getting really long>

I think there are many men who really have no interest in a career or even dealing with the hassle of 9-5 at all, and would be more than happy to be stay-at-homes, supported by a highly-paid wife so long as she makes a commitment to getting the family to FI on her paycheck.

Sure, but it's not about "not having a career", it's about doing close to a regular day's worth of work every day, just in a way that's invisible to most of society. Maintaining a house and a family and a relationship and raising kids is not just something you do when you get around to it.

One of my BIL's didn't want to work, but also didn't want to do the work of being a primary caretaker for the home and his daughters.  You can't do nothing -- it's just that what you're doing is a lot less likely to get approval from society.

[spartana]

….he was willing to sacrifice his own career goals to support hers. I think if more men were willing to do this - or at least make compromises to support their spouses and shoulder some of the domestic burdens - more women would be happy to marry or stay married.

I agree with you on this. In fact, I think it would be quite difficult to argue the contrary.

A different still but interesting question would be whether a man who was a domestic type at heart, had no interest in working for money especially if his wife had a good salary, but who was willing to assume household and child rearing duties, would find himself to be an attractive husband to the average woman.

You can look at this in another way, as a thought experiment:
Can you envision a future in which half the people who work as a stay-at-home-parent/homemaker are men and half are women, and would that be a future you’d like to see come to fruition. And if not, why not?

I personally wouldn't want a full time domestic DH/partner and prefer to do that kind of stuff together - as well as the "traditionally male" kinds of chores like yard work, vehicle and home maintenance and repairs. And not having kids meant there really wasn't much domestic chores anyway so just did that stuff together or took care of our own "messes".  But I can see many women who are embroiled in their careers and striving for advancement by working long hours or travelling etc that having a full time person doing all the domestic chores along with childcare pretty attractive. Although I believe most women still find an equal partner (job wise, interest wise, money wise, and chore wise) to be more attractive than a full time domestic DH. But that's me and maybe other women would like that in a partner.

But really the issue isn't full time worker verses full time domestic. t's often about 2 career couples and/or families where one is expected to do more caregiving and/or make more career sacrifices because their job is seen as either less important or merely because of gender.

ETA: If I were a man I wouldn't find a woman who wanted to be a full time caregiver/housespouse attractive either. Not that there's anything wrong with that but it wouldn't be a personality type that I'd find appealing in a romantic partner.  Maybe some (many?) men feel that way. And of course on the flip side how many women are attracted to men so dedicated to their jobs that they are spending all their time involved with work related things? Working 60 70 hours a week, endless work related travel, constantly on zoom or so meetings, etc that have no time for their spouse or kids? That's not a very attractive quality to many women either I would imagine - including me.

I was the head of a professional organization for women who owned clinics, so a lot of very high earning women who worked very long hours and many of them had stay-at-home husbands doing the bulk of the domestic labour.

It was not at all unusual in my circles.

A lot of the other women were married to fellow medical professionals or lawyers, and the gender bullshit persisted, they were always doing more of the domestic labour either mental or physical or both, so it's no surprise that at that level of work and income, it becomes more attractive to have a partner who can ease that workload.

I found this especially common among female surgeons. They particularly had very little interest in being married to anyone who would take anything away from their careers, only support them.

Even as a relatively low earning person I wouldn't want to be married to someone who took away from that career, or expected me to do more than my fair share of domestic work, just because I wasn't high income. I liked what I did, wanted to do that regardless if my pay was less then my spouse, and I expected him to support that and me as I did him and his career (the workaholic SWAMI).

But because we didn't  have kids and lived a pretty easy minimalist life I couldn't imagine that either of us would ever need or want SAHS. We each took care of our own personal stuff and shared taking care of our joint stuff. He bought presents and mailed cards etc for his family as I did mine. He bought his own clothes and whatever's. He did his own laundry. Cooked meals. Did dishes. Cleaned house. Etc just as I did. It was all super easy and neither of us had a problem saying "no" if we didn't want to do something. Obviously having kids makes that harder to do and adds a lot more work. As a single or even partnered person I was fine with having one can of Spaghetti-os to eat and one pair of clean undies left and could put off food shopping and laundry another day. Can't do that with kids!