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saw Prof Claudia Goldin give a public lecture on why the fertility rate is dropping; the tl;dr according to her is that it's difficult for a woman to tell in advance if a man will help enough with childrearing to avoid fucking over her career. men need more credible commitment to being good dads.

she specifically thinks it's about the uncertainty between actual good dads and not good dads, which is a very microeconomics way to look at decisionmaking. but also specifically not "greater autonomy => less fertility" as a mechanical relationship. many women report wanting more kids than they have

did she give examples of this cross culturally? I'd expect it to be variable, though it seems like a difficult thing to measure

she really didn't get into policy suggestions much, in the lecture or AFAICT the working paper it was based on. i'm sort of extrapolating myself. the model she's using is a very stripped down one that does not incorporate cultural elements in any way yet.

she also specifically noted her own ambivalence about the fertility rate and thinks we have no way of deciding that a given population size is the correct one. she's not really advocating for greater fertility, just studying mechanisms.

my thread is a very minimalist sketch of an already compressed public lecture based on this working paper, probably you'll find more answers in the attached PDF than by asking me lol bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.harvar...

The thing about childrearing in this context is it’s not about being ‘good with kids’, it’s about there being no question that you wouldn’t do your equal share of ALL the increased domestic and mental labour that comes with having children.