In my new column in Taki’s Magazine, I review a new academic paper hypothesizing that the steady fall in the birthrate might be due in part to the steady rise in racial diversity:
The U.S. total fertility rate briefly exceeded the replacement rate of 2.1 babies per woman’s lifetime during the Housing Bubble of 2006–2007 but has since dropped steadily, hitting a new record low of 1.62 in 2023. Total births fell 2 percent last year to under 3.6 million, the lowest total since the Birth Dearth of the 1970s:
Now, two finance professors, Umit G. Gurun and David H. Solomon, have posted a preprint of their paper “E Pluribus, Pauciores (Out of Many, Fewer): Diversity and Birth Rates.” They suggest there may well be a causal connection between the two major demographic trends of the age: the growth in diversity and the decline in fertility:
In this paper, we document a new and important stylized fact linking the central demographic changes of our time. Women living in areas of higher racial diversity robustly have fewer children.
I think it’s female reproductive suppression. No conspiracy needed.
Women are by far the biggest influence on other women’s actions. They have been playing intrasexual status games forever, but having children no longer boosts a woman’s status, so they don’t.
What's the source on the professor's coke zero quote or is it a joke? Because nothing showed up when I searched for it.
I think it’s female reproductive suppression. No conspiracy needed.
Women are by far the biggest influence on other women’s actions. They have been playing intrasexual status games forever, but having children no longer boosts a woman’s status, so they don’t.