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| Europe |
| Eurostan is Toast |
| 2009-05-07 |
| Posted by:Mercutio |
| #10 Very true ed. In rural America where I've been the past couple of years the cost of living is laughably low but the employment prospects are grim and have faded much faster than the economy as a whole. There's a view that's prevalent among a significant fraction of very young adult women here (those who are not college material and / or those choosing to remain here) that having a baby is a way to get out of one's parents' house and a way to put a roof over one's head and food on the table. Thus I think it's fair to say that the availability of a social welfare benefit has decreased employment (or at least the drive to be employed), increased single motherhood, increased voluntary poverty (a tough cycle to break once one is in that loop), decreased marriage, etc. It's really difficult from a local perspective to view welfare policies as doing much social good. An aside: a local attorney moved back here after years in DC recently to coordinate welfare programs: the county population is around 10,000 for which there are in excess of 100 separate welfare programs. The mind fairly boggles. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2009-05-07 16:54 |
| #9 In the US receiving welfare is a designation of poverty, so it isn't surprising the recipients behave as if they were poor. The primary criteria for welfare is having children w/o a mother and father in the household. For many of our underclass, it is a method escaping even poorer situations and looking for a job w/ zero skills. |
| Posted by: ed 2009-05-07 15:29 |
| #8 I throw these thoughts out for what they are worth: Historically the poor have produced more offspring in the hope that some of them would have the innate ability to escape the situation of their birth... and perhaps bring the rest of the family along... while the well off have had fewer but invested more resources in each. In the US receiving welfare is a designation of poverty, so it isn't surprising the recipients behave as if they were poor. In Europe, welfare recipients are taught to view themselves as employed by the state to not work, so they have few children just like their employed equals. The norm in agricultural societies is nine children per mother, according to all I've read. The Baby Boom 3-5 child families were a significant reduction of that, the replacement level of two children we were were taught was the only moral and responsible choice was a response to the understanding of Malthusian imperatives current starting in the 1970s. That the understanding did not take into account the changes wrought by the Green Revolution does not change the morality of the choice that so many made in the West, trying as best as they knew how to be responsible parents and responsible residents of the only planet we've got. But knowledge accumulation proceeds apace, and I've strongly suggested to my various daughters that currently the responsible choice is to have at least three children, preferably four or five, on the grounds that we can well afford to feed and educate them, and it would not be fair to split the cost of supporting so very many retirees among fewer -- the burden per child would be too high. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-05-07 14:19 |
| #7 My mom had 3, the wife and I have 2 and are working on a third. We waited 6 yrs after we were married to be financially and more importantly emotionally stable to have our first. As long as there is a welfare carrot the poor and ignorant will spew out kids at the rapid rate. Too many people I know have this entitlement mentality that the gov't will support them if they get pregnant. Person A, Person B as Wilkow would say. |
| Posted by: Andy Ulusoque aka Broadhead6 2009-05-07 13:03 |
| #6 This is a great example of the parasites ("looters" in Ayn Rand's parlance) killing the host (the productive who are forced to subsidize them). It seems that the farther one is down the socioeconomic food chain one is the more likely said person is to have children, and probably at a very young age, while I've worked with an awful lot of young professional two-income couples who put off having children, sometimes forever, while they tried desperately to build up what they believed to be a sufficient financial cushion to allow them to do so. I'd hypothesize that the larger, more inclusive and more expensive a nation's social welfare net the less likely the citizens of that nation who are forced to support said net are to have enough children to maintain their nation's population. There's probably a nice thesis or dissertaion in there somewhere though I doubt it would end in a degree from most liberal arts colleges. ;) |
| Posted by: AzCat 2009-05-07 12:21 |
| #5 I forgot to add..... "A woman's right to choose." |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-05-07 09:36 |
| #4 Can all be reversed if we can convince the Mooslims to use birth control pills, same-sex unions, insist on two income households, buy houses they cannot affort, matching BMW's, second houses, family tax disincentives, etc. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-05-07 09:35 |
| #3 societies |
| Posted by: Jumbo Slinerong5015 2009-05-07 05:46 |
| #2 Gotta love this type of mindset. Now not only do the members of successful socieites have to work hard enough to save for their own retirement and to provide for their own children, they have to give birth to enough children to care for the rest of the failing world as well. |
| Posted by: Jumbo Slinerong5015 2009-05-07 05:44 |
| #1 What is it about countries that become properous that causes so many of them to drop to unsustainable fertility levels? I don't get it. Even Israel is becoming conservative religious because the other don't/wont/can't breed in sufficient numbers to survive. My parents had four children. I have one and I don't understand why my case become common. |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2009-05-07 02:37 |