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So this is interestin'... Births are lower than they've been since the late 1970s


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Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, Js1 said:

India you either get

Priyanka Chopra - Wikipedia

or

Indira Gandhi: Biography, Indian Prime Minister, Assassination

I'm not saying she's hot, but I've seen Indian women that are about 100x worse than that second lady. But good point, we're going to need some cultural pictures to debate here.

I visited Copenhagen about 15 years ago, in the middle of the wintertime. 20-30 degree weather. The river was frozen. And still a ton of hot AF tall blond women wearing sun-dresses and skirts peddling their asses to wherever the hell they were going. Fucking paradise. 

Edited by SydneyCarton
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Posted

This was done about 12 years ago. It includes many of the countries y'all are arguing about and figured it'd be good for some Surly science.

FaceResearch.org has published the results of a recent experiment where experimental psychologists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland have combined the faces of women around to world to approximate the "average face" of each country. Using a modern version of the technique that Sir Francis Galton pioneered in the 1800's, multiple images of faces are aligned and composited together to form the final result.
https://fstoppers.com/portraits/average-faces-women-around-world-2944?page=2

average faces of women around the world

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Posted
16 hours ago, Rimbo said:

For reasons unrelated to anything, I was in a discussion today and learned that locally, preschools are struggling to get full enrollment. Which reminded me that I'm Gen X and that this can be a problem if kids aren't born. So I looked it up.

image.thumb.png.3883205a19de1b9260e0868a8ce612c5.png

Kids aren't being born.

It's not as bad as that extreme low point, the nadir of Gen X when Nicole and I managed to scream our way out of our mothers' guts, but it's low.Note that this is the absolute number of births, not even the birth rate. Which is as you'd expect.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

image.thumb.png.8f4a3e09242b7ea9f733bf129bfe5cb8.png

 

The rate is abysmal, as you'd expect.

Anyway. Pretty dang interesting to me that the actual number of births is so low. This will have some pretty severe economic implications a quarter of a century from now.

But we're already seeing it affect preschools.

IMG_5632.gif.1087b923ef539f080b7e8a8ad69fa601.gif

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Posted
40 minutes ago, bolverk said:

This was done about 12 years ago. It includes many of the countries y'all are arguing about and figured it'd be good for some Surly science.

FaceResearch.org has published the results of a recent experiment where experimental psychologists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland have combined the faces of women around to world to approximate the "average face" of each country. Using a modern version of the technique that Sir Francis Galton pioneered in the 1800's, multiple images of faces are aligned and composited together to form the final result.
https://fstoppers.com/portraits/average-faces-women-around-world-2944?page=2

average faces of women around the world

 

Is that the average face of the top 50 most attractive women from that country?

Because walking around much of THIS country, here's the average face composite:

drunk honey boo boo GIF

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Posted
4 hours ago, chainsaw said:

1280px-US_incarceration_timeline-clean.s

 

A normal 1970s/1980s-style latch key kid upbringing, in today's world of mass-surveillance, NextDoor Karens, and hall monitors, is completely impossible. Society is no longer accustomed to seeing children under the age of 10 wandering the neighborhood unaccompanied. People are being arrested for leaving their children at home while running errands. Technically illegal, I suppose. But look at how much our prison population has jumped over the last 50 years. It's never been easier to get convicted of a crime.

Are you arguing that the reason why the number of people incarcerated in this country has dramatically increased since 1980 is because of ten-year olds roaming neighborhood streets? That makes absolutely no sense.

Posted
Just now, HornOnTheBayou said:

Are you arguing that the reason why the number of people incarcerated in this country has dramatically increased since 1980 is because of ten-year olds roaming neighborhood streets? That makes absolutely no sense.

I'm saying it became a for-profit industry with for-profit incentives to overcriminalize everything, including the incidental behaviors of lower- to middle-class families. In the 1980s, a kid could roam around and do some stupid shit in the woods, get hurt, and nobody gets arrested. Today? It would be non-stop local news outrage slop, social media pile-ons, and almost certainly jailtime for the parents.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, gofuckyourself said:

 

Is that the average face of the top 50 most attractive women from that country?

Because walking around much of THIS country, here's the average face composite:

drunk honey boo boo GIF

 

I think the appeal lies in their being composites that create facial symmetry and smooth out (erase?) any signs of deformity, illness, idiosyncratic shit, other particulars, etc. Plus, the "models" are all supposedly the same young age (youth has its own inherent beauty), and I have no idea how they were selected or how many faces were used in each composite. Also, there aren't any fatties because there aren't any Americans.

Are we still giving out grants to academics? Because I'd happily volunteer to update this study to replicate its findings, for the science, of course.

Posted
1 hour ago, bolverk said:

This was done about 12 years ago. It includes many of the countries y'all are arguing about and figured it'd be good for some Surly science.

FaceResearch.org has published the results of a recent experiment where experimental psychologists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland have combined the faces of women around to world to approximate the "average face" of each country. Using a modern version of the technique that Sir Francis Galton pioneered in the 1800's, multiple images of faces are aligned and composited together to form the final result.
https://fstoppers.com/portraits/average-faces-women-around-world-2944?page=2

average faces of women around the world

Poland looks like she's really disappointed in me, and maybe a bit disgusted with me.

That checks out.

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Posted
25 minutes ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

Are you arguing that the reason why the number of people incarcerated in this country has dramatically increased since 1980 is because of ten-year olds roaming neighborhood streets? That makes absolutely no sense.

You know how, in political debates, candidates will talk about their talking point that is vaguely related to the question asked, rather than answering the question that's asked? That's kinda what chainsaw is doing; trying to bring a favorite talking point into a topic where it doesn't belong with some kind of vague linking.

Incarceration rates and birth rates aren't (yet) related.

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Posted
24 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Poland looks like she's really disappointed in me, and maybe a bit disgusted with me.

That checks out.

I feel the same about Hungary. She looks disgusted, but also a bit bemused. I bet she's into some really kinky shit.

Posted
18 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

You know how, in political debates, candidates will talk about their talking point that is vaguely related to the question asked, rather than answering the question that's asked? That's kinda what chainsaw is doing; trying to bring a favorite talking point into a topic where it doesn't belong with some kind of vague linking.

Incarceration rates and birth rates aren't (yet) related.

Would like a Freakonomics episode on the impact on future crime rates obtained by putting more offenders in prison during prime reproductive years. 

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Posted
Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

Would like a Freakonomics episode on the impact on future crime rates obtained by putting more offenders in prison during prime reproductive years. 

Star Trek Doctor GIF

 

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Posted

I just saw a video saying Korean women are sticking to the 4B movement with the goal of making the country extinct in 100 years. Good luck, ladies.

Posted
42 minutes ago, DaysOff said:

I just saw a video saying Korean women are sticking to the 4B movement with the goal of making the country extinct in 100 years. Good luck, ladies.

whereas the actual numbers are declining

Posted
46 minutes ago, DaysOff said:

I just saw a video saying Korean women are sticking to the 4B movement with the goal of making the country extinct in 100 years. Good luck, ladies.

To really nuke the birthrates, combine a relatively high level of education and economic options for women with a retrograde and sexist domestic culture like SK and parts of Eastern/Southern Europe. 
 

Highest levels are in undeveloped places where women are treated like property. 

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Posted
4 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Highest levels are in undeveloped places where women are treated like property.

You know, until recently that used to be less ironic.

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Posted (edited)
11 hours ago, gofuckyourself said:

This is pretty simple.

Tone Loc releases Wild Thing in late 1988.

Birth rates have their last notable peak in 1990.

Science.

Sure, some biologists and scholars still try to tout the "Take My Breath Away" effect of 1986.

But come on, we know it's Loc.

You may be on to something that Wild Thing eventually led to a decrease in the birth rate, but perhaps for the wrong reason. While many people see it as an anthem for promiscuous sexual relations (or "doing the wild thing"), it could also be seen as a warning for the dangers inherent in such relationships. Perhaps Wild Thing  led to fewer people engaging in sexual intercourse because they worried about accidently ending up in a sexual situation with a prostitute or with a potential paramour's mother. Mr. Loc explored this same theme in his seminal masterpiece, Funky Cold Medina, which warns listeners that too much medina could led to sexual attention from animals or unwanted same-sex partners.

Edited by HornOnTheBayou
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Posted
50 minutes ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

You may be on to something that Wild Thing eventually led to a decrease in the birth rate, but perhaps for the wrong reason. While many people see it as an anthem for promiscuous sexual relations (or "doing the wild thing"), it could also be seen as a warning for the dangers inherent in such relationships. Perhaps Wild Thing  led to fewer people engaging in sexual intercourse because they worried about accidently ending up in a sexual situation with a prostitute or with a potential paramour's mother. Mr. Loc explored this same theme in his seminal masterpiece, Funky Cold Medina, which warns listeners that too much medina could led to sexual attention from animals or unwanted same-sex partners.

American Psycho Point GIF

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Posted
1 hour ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

You may be on to something that Wild Thing eventually led to a decrease in the birth rate, but perhaps for the wrong reason. While many people see it as an anthem for promiscuous sexual relations (or "doing the wild thing"), it could also be seen as a warning for the dangers inherent in such relationships. Perhaps Wild Thing  led to fewer people engaging in sexual intercourse because they worried about accidently ending up in a sexual situation with a prostitute or with a potential paramour's mother. Mr. Loc explored this same theme in his seminal masterpiece, Funky Cold Medina, which warns listeners that too much medina could led to sexual attention from animals or unwanted same-sex partners.

CHIEF

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Posted
13 hours ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

I'm all for fewer humans. Shoulder shrug.

 

12 hours ago, Helobious said:

 

/rant, it’s also not 1955 anymore and it’s pretty annoying to hear people talk about population decline like it’s any kind of problem. There is zero negative to it. We have AI, we have robotics and other automation. We don’t need as many people as we once did for economic production.

The social safety net programs in much of the western world depend demographically on young workers paying for old farts.  There are some negatives.  

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Posted

Yeah, that whole scheme was poorly thought out. It's just another example of the previous generations kicking the can down the road. It should be pretty clear to anybody who  has a working brain that populations cannot expand indefinitely without running out of resources. I understand that the concept of conservation was still in its infancy when a lot of programs like social security were established, but it's kind of a basic concept that resources are limited, and that was pretty well established economic theory by the time. 

Our whole idea of how to run social programs needs a massive overhaul, and relying on immigration (don't get the idea that I'm not pro immigration) to fill that stop gap is just further kicking the can down the road. And that's not to mention the fact that the countries immigrants come from are facing the same problem, so we are just exasperating their own issues with birthrates. 

Posted
You may be on to something that Wild Thing eventually led to a decrease in the birth rate, but perhaps for the wrong reason. While many people see it as an anthem for promiscuous sexual relations (or "doing the wild thing"), it could also be seen as a warning for the dangers inherent in such relationships. Perhaps Wild Thing  led to fewer people engaging in sexual intercourse because they worried about accidently ending up in a sexual situation with a prostitute or with a potential paramour's mother. Mr. Loc explored this same theme in his seminal masterpiece, Funky Cold Medina, which warns listeners that too much medina could led to sexual attention from animals or unwanted same-sex partners.

You know, I feel like there has been a rise in admitted homosexuality (at least from what I vaguely recall hearing about when I was a kid), which would most likely cause a few less births. It ain’t the reason you’re seeing that many less though
Posted
6 hours ago, Jkwellborn said:


You know, I feel like there has been a rise in admitted homosexuality (at least from what I vaguely recall hearing about when I was a kid), which would most likely cause a few less births. It ain’t the reason you’re seeing that many less though

You're not a dick, so I am going to take this at face value, but I think that's a right-wing bullshit talking point.

The nature of homosexuality is that the percentage or proportion of homosexuals has probably remained steady throughout human history, so you've always had those "non-breeders."  Why would "admitted" make any difference?

The nature of society pushes some closeted homosexuals into hetero relationships that produce children.  But I also imagine that this is the same as it ever was.

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Posted
9 hours ago, bschoolprof said:

 

The social safety net programs in much of the western world depend demographically on young workers paying for old farts.  There are some negatives.  

The olds need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, or something. 

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Posted
9 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

You're not a dick, so I am going to take this at face value, but I think that's a right-wing bullshit talking point.

The nature of homosexuality is that the percentage or proportion of homosexuals has probably remained steady throughout human history, so you've always had those "non-breeders."  Why would "admitted" make any difference?

The nature of society pushes some closeted homosexuals into hetero relationships that produce children.  But I also imagine that this is the same as it ever was.

I can't even imagine why he'd bring it up in the first place if "it ain’t the reason you’re seeing that many less fewer [births] though."

Posted
23 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

You're not a dick, so I am going to take this at face value, but I think that's a right-wing bullshit talking point.

The nature of homosexuality is that the percentage or proportion of homosexuals has probably remained steady throughout human history, so you've always had those "non-breeders."  Why would "admitted" make any difference?

The nature of society pushes some closeted homosexuals into hetero relationships that produce children.  But I also imagine that this is the same as it ever was.

I don’t know enough about the psychology of orientation or demography to pronounce whether or not there is a significant impact on birth rates and whether being gay holds steady across space and time. (And neither of those things has a bearing on the inherent rights and dignity of gay people).

I do strongly question your last paragraph as someone who knows about history and human demography. The categorization of people into a gay, bisexual, or straight orientation, and the choice to engage in exclusively gay relationships (or choose to withdraw from sexual relationships entirely) is fairly unique to highly individualistic, modern Western or Western European societies. 
 

Ancient Mediterranean cultures did not see a tension in men expressing strong sexual preferences for other men and maintaining sexual and intimate romantic relations with other men while at the same time entering into heterosexual marriages for the express purpose of producing biological offspring and property transmission— which is something that most gay men today do not do. All of the men in the “Theban Sacred Band” either had or would have wives and children in addition to their ackotowleged maker partners. 

Modern Afghanistan is full of men who prefer sex with other men (or teen boys) and yet still maintain heterosexual marriages for similar purposes and who would deny that their actions are homosexual or that gayness exists in Pashtun culture. 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I don’t know enough about the psychology of orientation or demography to pronounce whether or not there is a significant impact on birth rates and whether being gay holds steady across space and time. (And neither of those things has a bearing on the inherent rights and dignity of gay people).

I do strongly question your last paragraph as someone who knows about history and human demography. The categorization of people into a gay, bisexual, or straight orientation, and the choice to engage in exclusively gay relationships (or choose to withdraw from sexual relationships entirely) is fairly unique to highly individualistic, modern Western or Western European societies. 
 

Ancient Mediterranean cultures did not see a tension in men expressing strong sexual preferences for other men and maintaining sexual and intimate romantic relations with other men while at the same time entering into heterosexual marriages for the express purpose of producing biological offspring and property transmission— which is something that most gay men today do not do. All of the men in the “Theban Sacred Band” either had or would have wives and children in addition to their ackotowleged maker partners. 

Modern Afghanistan is full of men who prefer sex with other men (or teen boys) and yet still maintain heterosexual marriages for similar purposes and who would deny that their actions are homosexual or that gayness exists in Pashtun culture. 

Fair enough, but still seems to be about same as it ever was as those departures from western "norms" would seem to be even more long-standing.

I actually originally wrote that society "sometimes" pushes homosexuals into hetero relationships with the notion that not all societies do this, as you demonstrated.

Finally, I suppose the more recent acceptance of homosexuality in some societies might make it less likely that they engage in hetero relationships that produce children, but I'm guessing the fraction of that is vanishingly small.

Posted
20 hours ago, CHIEF said:

My son has a group of five friends that are married with children, all in their mid-20s. As of now, two couples are divorced. The husbands lost half their shit, and are on the hook for well over a decade of child support. Both of the husbands now have had to move back in with their parents to make ends meet. With divorce rates at 50%, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to know you don't want to get yourself into that situation. Both situations, the wives cheated, but still ended up with half of everything and a paycheck.

CHIEF

 

19 hours ago, Schulz2.0 said:

Divorce rates for Millennials are below Boomers and Gen X.

 

19 hours ago, Celery Man said:

well see now I'm wondering if it's normalized for time married, although I would assume it is, and I bet if you peeled the layers back that there may be some cutural generational stuff but that there is a corresponding "more divorces for people getting married young, and millennials get married older" thing at the bottom of it.

The divorce risk for a married couple is around 42-43% today and, contrary to general public perceptions, has steadily decreased since the late 80s. Put another way, 57-58% of marriages last until death. Getting married younger is a risk factor for divorce, but only up until a certain age-- between 30-32-- after which, the risk of divorce starts to increase again. It's also worth noting that this doesn't hold for some groups of young people, such as religious, educated, and people committed to the institution of marriage. For them, getting married younger (say around 21-23) doesn't impact their risk of divorce. 

The other side of this conversation, however, is more bleak. A significant contributor to the decrease in divorce has been the rise in cohabitation as an alternative. Those who marry now are opting in to marriage and are therefore much more likely to be committed both to the institution of marriage and their partner. Unfortunately, those who cohabitate instead still have children at pretty high rates and have MUCH higher relationship dissolution rates than those who are married. Practically speaking, there's not much of a difference between a divorce and a cohabitation dissolution, especially from a child's perspective. It's actually probably worse because of the multiple transitions and less clear norms, laws, and boundaries that typically result from a cohabitation dissolution. This is actually a huge part of the big sort that has occurred. More educated people are unlikely to witness families endure these cycles of instability and more likely to marry and stay married, while those with lower education are much less likely to ever be exposed to a healthy marriage during their entire childhood.

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Posted

Someone mentioned up thread that the reduction in teen pregnancy accounts for the majority of the decline (at least in the US), and I’ve wondered if the way it might reverse is if life expectancy and fertility range increase.  If people start staying healthy well into their 80s on average, then you might see more people having more kids in their late 30s and into their 40s.  My wife and I stopped at 2 because I felt like I was too old to have more; I didn’t want to be in my 60s with a kid in high school.  If I felt like I could count on being healthy/active into my 80s and could count on not succumbing to major age related decline in my 50s and 60s, I would have had at least one more kid.  
 

I think there’s enough wealth/technology to mitigate almost all of the risks associated with population decline.  Obviously at some point extinction becomes a concern but that’s a ways off.  The next 20 years are going to be crucial as humanity has to navigate population decline, AI/robotics advancement, wealth inequality, and climate change.  The most high ceiling/low floor time in human history.

Posted
2 hours ago, bolverk said:

I can't even imagine why he'd bring it up in the first place if "it ain’t the reason you’re seeing that many less fewer [births] though."

we've been through this, in this thread, with a different poster

Posted
24 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

we've been through this, in this thread, with a different poster

Good chance I missed it if it was a poster I've got on ignore.

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Posted
On 12/18/2025 at 11:56 AM, CHIEF said:

My son has a group of five friends that are married with children, all in their mid-20s. As of now, two couples are divorced. The husbands lost half their shit, and are on the hook for well over a decade of child support.

Do they want a cookie for financially supporting their kids, which is like the bare minimum in being a father?

I would laugh at any man who complained about paying child support. That's their responsibility.

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