where have all the babies gone?

I’m more and more convinced that to a surprising extent social and cultural change is downstream of technological change. Demographics provides a startling instance of this.

Everyone agrees that fertility rates have plummeted and everyone has a theory as to why this has happened. Maybe it’s a conspiracy theory by malevolent groups seeking to destroy Western Civilisation, maybe people aren’t having children because they can’t afford them, maybe it’s because of the materialism and emptiness of modern society, maybe it’s the fault of feminism, maybe it’s because of the decline of Christianity, maybe it’s because of modern popular culture.

None of these theories stands up to close examination. The problem with all of them is that the sharp decline in birth rates was already evident in the 1870s. The second quarter of the nineteenth century was a watershed moment in western demographic history. Birth rates fell sharply in western Europe and they have never recovered. None of the popular theories can possibly explain this.

My theory is that birth rates have fallen because women just aren’t that much into having children. And that if they are able to have very few children they will in fact choose to have very few children. If they are able to choose the number of children they will have then the overwhelming majority will choose one or two, most likely one. Many will choose none.

What happened in the 1870s is that suddenly women could choose how many children to have. Modern effective inexpensive methods of contraception were widely available by this time, and equally importantly information on how to use these methods successfully was widely available. Prior to this time birth control existed but it was extremely inconvenient, only moderately effective and drastically reduced sexual pleasure. Such artificial methods as existed (such as condoms) were expensive and not widely available. Information on birth control techniques was for most people unobtainable. All that changed in the 1860s and 1870s. Suddenly the technology for easy birth control was available, and people took advantage of it with enthusiasm.

Another major technological change happened in the early 1960s. The contraceptive pill was even simpler, even more convenient, even more effective and it had zero effect on sexual pleasure. Perhaps even more crucially, the contraceptive pill was something over which a woman had complete control. Earlier methods were either impossible or difficult to practise without the knowledge of the male partner. But a woman could, if she chose, use the contraceptive pill without needing to let her partner know anything about it.

Suddenly it became even easier for women to choose to have even fewer children, and they readily took advantage of the new technology.

What all this means is that there is one overwhelmingly dominant reason for low birth rates – women in general want very few children. Most women still like kids and they still want the joys of motherhood but one child or at most two is sufficient to satisfy those longings.

What this also means is that any efforts to reverse the decline in birth rates are certainly doomed to failure. Economic incentives may have a very small but insignificant effect. Making family formation more affordable by making housing more affordable may have a very small but insignificant effect. Propaganda campaigns to encourage child-bearing may have a very small but insignificant effect. But all these efforts will come up against the intractable problem that women are having very few children because they want very few children.

Does this mean that we really are doomed? Maybe, maybe not. In the very long term other factors may balance out the low birth rates. Factors such as radical life extension. Assuming such a thing is possible – at the moment it’s pure science fiction but in a century or so who knows? Perhaps artificial wombs will provide an answer. Maybe Huxley’s Central London Hatchery will become a reality.

Incidentally my arguments about the momentous demographic revolution of the second quarter of the 19th century are based on Michael Mason’s superb and magisterial 1994 book The Making of Victorian Sexuality, which I highly recommend.