I'm not sure what your point is here. I simply mean that e.g. during the stone age most children died early, so you needed to have more of them.

Then I obviously misunderstood you, sorry for the confusion.

Genuinely interested, could you share some academic literature on the subject?

The newest I immediately remember is this: https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol40/2/

Here is a blog post of the author in case the above is not readable for you: https://www.niussp.org/article/gender-equality-and-fertility...

This study is in the context of previous assumptions of a U-curved relationship: low equality == high birth rates, medium equality == low birth rates, high equality == high birth rates. That study shows that the last part doesn't seem to be true.

Thanks!

Poverty can probably actually lower birth rates by forcing women into the workforce. If a parent is at home, the marginal cost is a lot lower for another child than it is if people are paying for childcare.

Direct correlation of female workforce participation and poverty shows no trend: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/female-labor-force-partic...

The macro trend of poverty <> birth rates points in the opposite direction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility

Data points on the very poor end are all over the place, though.

The high workforce participation -> low birth rate correlation is definitely visible over time: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fertility-and-female-labo...