If it's a sign of fertility and abundance that fertility rates are falling, how do you explain that fertility rates are falling in the poorest areas of Africa, too?[1]

[1]. https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-acr...

Even the poorest areas of Africa are considerably wealthier than they were 30 years ago. While the West, and the U.S. in particular, was immersed in post-Cold War glow, then 9/11, Iraq, 2008 crisis, ISIS, etc, the erstwhile non-industrialized world was wholly transformed.

France was still pretty poor in the 18th century with a falling fertility rate...

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/frances-baby-bust#:~:text=U....

The one child policy played a big role as well

Between countries, fertility is associated with poverty. But within countries, it’s the opposite. Higher fertility comes along with wealth and well-being. So if the rich, educated people in your advanced society are not reproducing, that’s a bad indication.

> But within countries, it’s the opposite. Higher fertility comes along with wealth and well-being

[citation needed]

Lot's of people get that backwards. Because people have money and could afford a lot of children, doesn't meant they want a lot of children. Once they have become used to a certain lifestyle, the money can be freedom, in terms of having less responsibilities and living carefree. Having children can negate the free time or lifestyle they want to live.

> historic trend line as evidence

What history? The last 50 years or so? That's barely a recollection of yesterday's meal by anthropic standards.

You're confusing westernization for wealth. The two are correlated as a matter of history, not fact.

Yeah when it falls from 10 kids per couple to 2-3. But not when it falls below 1, which is what happened in South Korea:

"Kim, a product designer and art instructor, calls her hopes of one day having children "just a fantasy" — especially now, when housing costs are soaring, the job market is oversaturated and marriage rates are plummeting."

Doesn't sound like wealth and abundance to me.

Kim would not have been literate and utterly dependent on marriage to survive not that long ago. Now she is a web designer and has choices .. in dating, housing, etc.

Complaints are not desperation.

From 1960 to 2021 the population of South Korea increased from 25 million to 52 million people ... 107% in 61 years!

Over 80% percent of Koreans live in larger cities now, just mind-boggling urbanization.

Below a certain amount of wealth, you need kids to take care of you when you are older. Within a certain range (and better safety nets for elderly than for children), you can take care of yourself but not kids. Above that range, you can have kids aplenty.

Does Kim have her own job? Does she get to choose her own dating partners? Does she have to settle for some drunk guy who beats her? Does she worry about going hungry?

Kim has wealth and abundance. She just refuses to make the sacrifices necessary to have children like people did in the old days, where women didn't work and were basically property of their husbands.

The "problem" these days is that women want to be treated as equals and have a nice life and be able to control the direction of their lives, instead of just marrying whatever shitty guy they can get just so they can survive. The byproduct of that is that the birthrate is much, much lower.

Said sacrifices were made by a whole lot of servants, not wives if they could help it. (Almost slaves.) Even poorest used to have help, and parents on hand to help with raising the kids too.

And in Korea in particular, the villages were partly communal. Cities are hyper individualistic. People who moved to cities do not have access to their parents or other villagers for help.

State cannot fully cover this problem without extra manpower or even more advanced tech solutions that do not exist. Especially when people who have the most problem are the poorest.

Putting it onto one woman is extremely miserable and unfair. Changing the structure of a society to not have this problem is hard too. Money cannot patch a problem of massive lack of manpower and said manpower being expensive. Not quickly and not cheaply, anyway.

Well we can't go back to living in villages unless we want to regress to a Medieval standard of living or worse. People have been living in cities for many centuries; remember Rome? And there's nothing forcing peoples' parents from living in cities, and in many older cities you'll see plenty of elderly people, since it's the best place for them to live since it has easy access to medical care.

While aspects of what you are saying is true, arguably, South Korea's problems are deeper than that. Choices are also limited by tremendous amounts of nationalism, racism, and xenophobia. This goes way deeper than people know. South Koreans are not really free to socially associate, date, or marry who they want. They can be ostracized or shunned for doing so, and this can have very restrictive barriers and limitations. Few have the personality or character to overcome this. What's acceptable can create such a narrow range of choices, on top of just female hypergamy or materialism, that few can ever attain this.

And for nationalist (to be polite), it can be very acceptable that their "race" dwindles to the very few, as long as it's "pure". For those not familiar with that brand of nationalism (to be polite), this can include other Asians who are not Korean or don't "look" Korean.

> Strongest causation factors are urbanization and female education/employment.

There's a general trend, yes, but the details are important. The total fertility rate for native-born American women was near replacement as recently as 2008.

That's great, we should all stop having children so everyone can be richer. Maybe the last person on earth would reconsider if they want to split their wealth with anyone or if they want to die as the richest of all time.