The Family That Does Not Reproduce Itself

Abstract

Mean family size in the industrial nations is less than the 2.1 children per couple needed for the population to remain constant over the long run. The countries of Western Europe have a mean family size of about 1.61 children per couple with West Germany as low as 1.42 Japan at 1.71 Europe as a whole at 1.9 and the US at 1.85. The decline of births is related to 1) contraception for the 1st time controlled by women; 2) womens employment outside the home; and 3) the democratization of decision making within couples. Work opportunities for women lower the birth rate but they do so by freeing women from the dictatorship of men. The activity of child rearing is compared with other uncompensated activities that occupy peoples leisure on the one hand and with paid work in the other hand. Clerical work womens current alternative to the 19th century factory has agreeable social elements combined with tolerable and limited duties. Staying home with children can be lonely 7 days a week; it lacks crisp challenges and interpersonal relations. If parents do not spend their money and time producing children they can apply both money and time to the purchase and use of dazzling array of other goods. Children are no longer investments in the traditional sense because 1) children are in large part no longer formed by parents but by television schools and peer groups; and 2) parents rely on their own savings and the state to provide for their old age. A feature of earlier high fertility was the inculcation of differentiated gender roles starting long before marriage. Women has few choices beyond raising children. The spread of high-fertility cultures did not need to be planned by anyone; sheer aithmetic worked at 2nd remove to make male dominance universal. This article argues that under modern conditions there will be few children.