Divorce rates are down, but so are marriage and birth rates. The "cultural norms" are "adapting," but don't appear to be adapting in a direction that combines modernity with population stability in a steady state.
Much of "the west" is now dependent on people from more traditional cultures (in Europe, Muslims, in the United States, Latinos). That's not an anti-immigration rant (I'm a Bangladeshi immigrant to the United States). My point is that anything we call a "successful culture" should probably be self-sustaining in the steady state. If divorce rates in the west are declining mainly because nobody is getting married (and nobody is having kids) then you don't actually have a successful culture. It might be great for all the freedoms it provides, but on its own it will cease to exist eventually.
In a way it's a sort of arbitrage. If everyone in the world acted like Germans, it would be nice for a while, but humanity would cease to exist. There is an illusion of sustainability that is being provided by people from traditional cultures--with their traditional views on marriage and child-rearing, etc.
To make matters worse, we now have instability in the wrong direction: population is predicted to grow for 50-100 years still, peaking at 11 billion.
The other variable is resource consumption per capita, both will need to go down after the current spurt to counter severe overpopulation problems globally.
> I also approach this problem as a regional economist specializing in migration, so I also think of the American population issue through the lens of population density comparisons.
Here’s the same view from Matt Yglesias, solidly left-wing journalist: https://wdet.org/posts/2020/09/24/90064-vox-matthew-yglesias...
Also Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-malthus-is-st...
There was also a semi-hidden system of forced labour for those women that did have children out of wedlock. The "mother and baby" homes. The amount of abuse involved was horrific and the country is still untangling and confronting it decades later.
Be wary of changing a system where the abuse is borne silently because there is no way out for one that makes it visible and thinking that is worse because just now you can see it.
Divorce rates are on their way down in the West. The transition period is definitely rough, but eventually the cultural norms adapt.
I would be interested to see if you canvas the views of Bangladeshi women on the comparative systems.