This One Graph Changed Everything I Thought I Knew About The Birth Rate Collapse

The Discord URL: https://discord.gg/27eJzt2n

In this eye-opening episode, Malcolm and Simone dive deep into the startling data behind America's plummeting fertility rates. Analyzing a graph synthesized from multiple studies, they uncover a little-known fact: the lion's share of the fertility decline is occurring among women under the age of 24. The couple explores the implications of this finding, discussing how the normalization of contraception, declining teen pregnancies, and a lack of understanding about peak fertility windows have contributed to the current crisis. They also touch on the cultural shift towards delayed marriage and childbearing, and how this has led many women to miss their biological window for conception. Malcolm and Simone then turn their attention to a thought-provoking article by Reagan Artin's Gray, which proposes a controversial solution: paying people $511,000 for each child after their second. While acknowledging the potential effectiveness of such a policy, they argue that it is politically unfeasible and could incentivize the wrong demographics to have children. The conversation then shifts to the importance of targeting productive, taxpaying individuals in any pronatalist policy. Malcolm and Simone discuss the pitfalls of simply increasing population without considering the economic and social impact of those additional citizens. They also touch on the role of immigration in bolstering a nation's productive workforce. Finally, the couple proposes an alternative solution: offering tax breaks and special societal status to families with three or more children. Drawing parallels to the treatment of veterans, they argue that individuals who make significant sacrifices for the state, such as raising large families, should be recognized and rewarded accordingly. Throughout the episode, Malcolm and Simone challenge conventional wisdom about fertility decline, explore the complex interplay of cultural, economic, and biological factors, and offer a nuanced perspective on one of the most pressing issues facing developed nations today. Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction to the surprising data on America's fertility collapse 02:14 - Breaking down the fertility graph by age group

Malcolm Collins: , [00:00:00] Simone, today we are going to have an episode that I think our audience is going to really like, because I saw a graph today that did more to explain falling fertility rates in the United States than any other graph I've seen.

Like, I think this is actually. The key graph and understanding functionally what's going on with demographic collapse, and it touches on a trend we had seen when we were talking about Latin American statistics, but I had never seen it so clearly argued was an American statistics.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Now, this graph was actually put together by a sub stack writer named.

Reagan Artin's gray you can find it at Reagan's sub stack is, is the name of the sub stack. And it's an article she put together. Can we afford to buy marginal babies? And I want to go over the arguments. Made in this piece because they're actually pretty interesting arguments and definitely worth engaging with.

But I, I [00:01:00] think that she comes up with a rational argument in the piece. Like it's a good argument, right? Or the best I've heard in terms of a policy solution. I just don't think it could ever get past with existing political climates. But what was really interesting and I don't need, because she didn't seem to realize in the piece that no one had put together this information before.

At least two that we've seen. Yeah, she put together like five different information sources. So this came from NHS birth rates. This came for Osterman, Michael J. K. at all births, final data from 2021, Hamilton beat. Well, anyway, just like a bunch of different studies. And then through synthesizing all of these studies, you get this graph, which we are putting on the screen here and which Simone, you are looking at right now, I assume.

Yes, sir. Okay. So what was your read of what's happening in the graph? Cause I remember it was wrong and I want to see how you got this wrong read. Cause

Simone Collins: it was wrong. What I saw from this was that [00:02:00] we are seeing the same thing that we have always been seeing, which is that women in their twenties have been delaying fertility more and more and more.

Oh no, I see. Yeah, I see where I was misreading it because I thought in the past women in their thirties were making up for it.

Malcolm Collins: No, no. And they aren't. What's fascinating about this graph is it divides fertility of women in the United States into four groups. Age brackets. Age brackets. Age brackets.

Yes. 20 to 24, 25 to 29, 30 to 34, and 35 to 39. What is fascinating is that only one of these groups is declining in fertility. If you were looking only at the 30 to 35 women. Their fertility has actually gone up a bit over time.

Simone Collins: Same with 35 to 39. Same with 35 to 39. Anyone over 30 is having more, a higher fertility rate on average now.

25

Malcolm Collins: to 29 has [00:03:00] gone down marginally, but only marginally. It could be a statistical error. All of the fertility collapse in our country is coming from women under 24 years of age. The

Simone Collins: lion's share, at least. The 20 to 20, 25 to 29 range went down from, you know, Around 2.1 to two, which is non-trivial, like just under two.

Okay. But what we see from 20 to 24, is it going from just under 2.1 to 1.8? A pretty big drop?

Malcolm Collins: I'd argue it is trivial. It isn't non-trivial. It, it is trivial in the world of fertility collapse. A 0.1 decline in a period of like 10 years is basically irrelevant. The vast majority of the decline is, is, is coming from this incredibly young group.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: They went from just below 2. 1 to 1. 8. There's certainly, yeah, the youngest, the youngest 20 somethings that used to be having kids are taking the lion's share of this.

Malcolm Collins: Well, [00:04:00] this is fascinating. And there's another thing you may not have noticed here. If you add up these groups, they then don't match to the overall fertility decline.

There is additional fertility decline that is not being captured in these statistics.

Do you see that? Okay. Do you see the dotted line? Yeah. Okay. That's the total TFR, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. The total TFR Shouldn't be able to go below the lowest of the indicator groups. Yeah, I don't get that Okay, so there's two things that could be causing that. It could be women under 20 have maybe just completely disappeared as a fertility group, which we actually know is true.

Teenage pregnancies are way down. Yeah. So teenage pregnancies, it could also be as we know, people like to fiddle with fertility data to make it not look as extreme as it [00:05:00] is. Right. But all of the trends here are basically the same. So I don't think we need to read too much into this. The core answer here is that the thing that is causing fertility collapse in our country.

is women under the age of 24 not having kids. Yeah. Which

Simone Collins: is like what everyone's been saying is happening in Latin America.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. In Latin America, we knew that this is where fertility collapse was coming from. And you can see the, our Latin Americans going extinct video that we put out because their fertility collapse is way faster than the United States fertility collapse.

And they'll likely be below us, Latin America in terms of average fertility rates by the end of the decade. But yeah, so this is really interesting if you're thinking about solutions and it actually leads to a different solution than the one that she proposed, but I suppose it's one solution that you and I need to, like, seriously discuss

Simone Collins: teen pregnancy, making it, bringing it back,

Malcolm Collins: not teen pregnancy, but.

Do we advocate younger motherhood, like younger [00:06:00] women going back to these earlier ages of first fertility, like, should we make that a key advocacy position in terms of alerting people to this data, or is it about better

Hmm.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, I think

Malcolm Collins: I think a lot of this is women don't understand when their peak fertility period is because it's very

Simone Collins: poorly. Yeah. And then they missed their chance like that. Really? The if we were looking at this graph and people planned properly, we'd see a much bigger spike. in the 30 something range of people having kids because they will have frozen eggs, they will have planned adequately.

And that's what's going on. It feels wrong to encourage really young pregnancy and people just don't feel ready yet. But,

Malcolm Collins: but here's what I think is happening. Here's the gist of what's causing fertility collapse from this graph. Okay. Is that people are Two things. One is, is I think there's just fewer teen pregnancies.

It used to be that [00:07:00] some communities were able to motivate a high fertility for their population through utilizing people with low amounts of self control. A great example of this is some cultural groups historically were known for their high fertility rates as we've talked about a lot because they banned condoms, and they banned abortions, and so when people had sex, they had babies, and that caused these groups to have higher fertility rates.

These are the groups that fertility, that have their fertility rates collapsing the fastest. And, in part, it's because I don't is using condoms. Like I think that condoms are just so normalized now across the world that they are playing a pretty big role here where you know, they tell their kids don't use condoms, but their kids are still doing it.

And I think that the lack of teen sex, which has also declined dramatically in the past 10 or so years, people who aren't aware of this, like it's like just dropped like a brick. It is, is. Also leading to this. So the communities that sort of cheese [00:08:00] their fertility rates by getting people who did not plan to have kids to have kids, this strategy isn't functioning anymore.

And I never really was okay with this strategy to begin with. Right. It

Simone Collins: seems non consensual. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It reminds me about the fertility conference and natalism conference. And again, at the conservative conference that we were speaking at, somebody was mentioning banning condoms, right. As like a mechanism of getting fertility rates up.

And I'm like, but we don't want those kids. Like, we don't want the kids who are being had accidentally by people who don't want them and don't feel ready to raise them. Exactly. Like, that seems like a mistake. So, what we have to do is up the pressures which appear to be constant. Throughout this period, which, which is what's really interesting is these middle aged parents are not falling in terms of their fertility rates, right?

So the pressure for people who wanted to have kids to have kids seems, you know, just as big now within the United States as it was in the 1990s, which is really [00:09:00] fascinating. Which I think goes against a lot of the intuitions that people had. I mean, it's a little bit less, but it's, it's about the same.

No, the, the. What I suspect is happening overall is that if we were to make a chart people are just pushing back when they plan to have kids like women specifically by about eight years. I think on average, they're pushing back when they would have had kids if it was 20 years ago, about eight years now in terms of their planning.

And a lot of them, and this is something we see that I doubt we saw historically as much because we keep seeing these among our friend groups. A lot of them just then aren't having kids because they hit the end of their biological window. Because they don't know when the end of their biological window is.

They come and they go, Oh my God, I'm 42 and I can't have kids. And it's like, yeah, I mean, duh, nobody told you this. They're like, but 42 is young. And I'm like, Not

Simone Collins: reproductively speaking, sadly. Not

Malcolm Collins: reproductively speaking, yeah. And, and it's because they [00:10:00] haven't thought through the various stages.

They're like, we'll talk to like 28 year old men who are like, yeah, I'm beginning to think seriously about getting married and stuff like that. And it's like, bro, thinking seriously about getting married is something you do in your early twenties, not late twenties. If you want to have a large family. And they're like, but that's so young.

And it's like, no, society has just historically. No, that wasn't so young. The age of average first births in the 1970s in the United States was 21 average. That meant half of women below

Simone Collins: that. But I also think that men at that point didn't have as high of expectations, nor did women, of course. And that caused people to be more pragmatic about the marriages they formed, that they weren't trying to marry supermodels slash super successful people in their careers.

I think maybe part of what's going on with this, and bear with me, because I'm not going to articulate it particularly well, is in the past, we had more people blindly getting into it and then figuring it [00:11:00] out as they go along. And I'm talking about both marriage and having kids. Whereas now people are only willing to do it when fully educated about it and actually ready, which is not

Malcolm Collins: practical.

That makes a lot of sense, which is why our school system, we teach a lot on sort of life stages, life strategy rearing kids. We have courses that you take on every stage of like raising children at different stages and knowing the current research on all of this. And it's something that's just not covered at school.

It's like, this is something you do not begin to think about. Think about until after you have a stable career, definitely not until after college. And that's just not, you know, it wasn't the way that I was taught or my brother was taught. It was, you're supposed to find your wife in your undergrad. And if you haven't done it by then, you should be seriously panicking.

Which I was when you met me you know, I was just out of my undergrad and I was like, I, I had really tried in my undergrad to find a wife and I couldn't find one. And I knew that you know, really your last sort of shot as graduate school [00:12:00] is what I told you because I, I thought you, you are basically deciding to be in like the way that I'm going to raise my kids and I think the way that people should be approaching this psychologically speaking is culturally embedding in somebody that if they are still an old maid, i.

e. not partnered, you know, this used to be a really scary thing in society by the time they finished their education they will not find a partner or they will not have kids. They have basically committed to themselves that they are not having a family. Which is really interesting because, you know, we have friends who are in like orthodox religious communities who understand the need to have kids and they're like older, like 31, 32, but they're like, ah, I can do it later.

And it's like, you really can't. Like, you should be pants on fire doing nothing but looking for a spouse right now.

Simone Collins: I mean, I do think men have a little more flexibility there. And even in the past, the reason why women became very concerned was that men of any age were always looking for the youngest women, like early twenties, [00:13:00] very late teens.

So they knew that once they were past that zone, even if there were many eligible men available, They were just going to be looking to a younger demographic. Whereas now we like to fool ourselves into thinking that men are still more interested in like people their age, which is not. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So now let's talk about her article, which is really interesting to me.

So basically the position it takes, which is interesting is we shouldn't try to pay people to have babies. We need to pay for marginal babies by that. What she means is there's no point in paying for the kids who would have been had anyway. We need to pay for the kids who otherwise wouldn't have been had.

She's like, you could do something like state backed IBF, which she estimated would be around But she didn't see it as having a major impact on fertility. Then she's like, okay, well, let's do the mass and see what you actually could pay people. Because she goes against our stance. She doesn't think that religion is the only way to solve this.

Or, or we use religion as court, shorthand for extreme [00:14:00] cultural changes and supporting high fertility cultural groups.

Simone Collins: Well, I know the argument that she makes to be a little bit more pointed with it is that in the past, large governing structures, and she includes the Catholic Church as an example, have in the past successfully changed marriage patterns and infertility, so there's no reason to believe that government policy could not also do that.

And. She does cite our arguments around religion, but points out that, and also cites Robin Hanson saying this, it is difficult to create a sustainable new subculture. And we totally agree with that. I think we also wouldn't disagree with the fact that the Catholic church has significantly changed marriage patterns in the past.

And that from a top down perspective, you absolutely can change. Fertility. Our argument is that governments as they exist today simply don't have the political appetite to be able to invest in the way you have to invest. This is

Malcolm Collins: what we need to point out here. So we actually, I actually agree with her piece.

Like a lot of the [00:15:00] times I'll read political pieces about how this could be fixed. I agree that if she could get her policy proposal passed, it would work. Right. And so what her policy proposal would do is give people 511 K per kid. I think it's after the third kid. Or after, no, it's after the second kid.

Yeah. I think

Simone Collins: it's for three plus

Malcolm Collins: kids. Yeah, you get over half a million dollars. Now one, I think that this is what is interesting about this proposal and what makes me like it so much is I think it's realistic. I think that 500k really would push people to have kids. I think it, it does this marginal thing of only targeting these really high fertility families and doing so in a way that is economically meaningful to them.

And it does so in a way with math, hold on Simone before you counter with math that works, like, like, that is economically viable for a country to undertake. Political appetite wise, I think it's completely insane that this would never pass. And, and I'll [00:16:00] let you get to your point really quickly, but I want to point out what, like, how I know this would never pass.

Korea, right now, has a way worse fertility situation in the United States. So if I always point out for every 100 Koreans, even at their current fertility rate, there would be around six great grandchildren. Yet their fertility rate is falling super fast. Year over year, it fell 11. 5 percent this last year.

And they're already in a situation where there's probably nothing they could do because 60 percent of the population is over the age of 40 already. And they just now got past 22, 000 in subsidy per kid. She needs an order of magnitude higher subsidy to make this work in a country that is in absolute death throes at this point.

And that is much more politically conservative than the United States and that recognizes this as a national issue. They haven't been able to get that passed anything close to that past. Like it just seems like a complete political fantasy to me, but I want to hear your [00:17:00] thoughts. Someone, you had something that you wanted to say.

Simone Collins: I agree. It's a fantasy. And I also question It's efficacy in bringing in wanted Children, because it is very tempting to take 500, 000. And I think it would incentivize a lot of families to have kids that are not necessarily wanted or loved as much as the money is. I'm much more in favor. And what I think would be more palatable, but still isn't going to pass would be a tax break or tax waiver.

Two families that have three plus kids, like you don't pay any income tax or anything else, and what this also does is families that are already relying on a ton of state services, et cetera. They're not going to be incentivized to have more kids that they cannot necessarily take care of because. What does a tax break mean to them?

They're not paying any taxes or they're paying very little. Well, I

Malcolm Collins: think that this is very true. And it's something that freaks out a lot of people when you point this out, but 500, 000 doesn't have the same value to everyone in a population. It has a differential value to your [00:18:00] least productive cultural groups.

And even if I discount all of the heredity of, of, of various things that are tied to the economic productivity of an individual, if we're just talking culturally speaking, okay. People will admit that culture is passed down to people's kids, and people then should also be willing to admit, if they're like, logical, sane people, that The less productive cultural groups are going to be differentially rewarded by these systems and the kids that they have are not going to be as economically relevant as the average kid in her calculations.

And therefore, when we say, Oh, what is it?

Simone Collins: The point I'm also making too is even if we want the best outcomes for people who do rely on government payments for things like childcare or even just food, even if they're not having kids, whatever it might be medical care. You want to, the, the point of why governments need to encourage pronatalism is because they need to produce more taxpayers.[00:19:00]

If governments only produce more non tax paying, very low earning citizens. Their infrastructure is still going to crumble. They're still going to be politically unstable. They're still going to have pension fund nightmares. What you need is high taxpayers. And so any government incentive to have kids should disproportionately incentivize those most likely to pay a ton of taxes,

Malcolm Collins: which this does the exact opposite if they

Simone Collins: were to give subsidies of 500, 000, that's why like payouts are not only Not only it's, you know, to get to the 500, 000 that you need, it's impossible to get there.

But then once you do get there, you're incentivizing the wrong group of people to have more kids because you're not going to solve the problems that the government's trying to solve. Anyway, you're not just stupid legislation to pass. Like I wouldn't pass that legislation if I, Were in an elected position that had power.

You

Malcolm Collins: literally run the pronatalist movement and you wouldn't vote for this. But it's, it's, it's actually really important to note how [00:20:00] severely bad this would be. Because you sort of touched on it, but I really want to highlight. If you are only like, if, if you keep the U. S. Popular. Let's say double the U.

S. Population size, right? But you have only doubled the that through increasing the number of people on welfare. You have done nothing. You have made the problem infinitely worse. Yeah. And

Simone Collins: Prenatalism is not about more people. It's not about spamming the world with people at all. I need to

Malcolm Collins: be clear about statistics.

If somebody's parents are on welfare, there is a higher probability that they will be on welfare. A dramatically higher probability. This isn't some, like, loose correlation. And we're not saying you don't need to even presume some sort of genetic link here. Even if it's merely cultural, the number is going to be way, way higher.

You have not made, you have, you have done the opposite of fix the problem with this sort of prop policy proposal. You have made the problem much, much worse. And [00:21:00] so you've kept the population stable, hooray, but you've made the problem worse. Yeah.

Simone Collins: The government needs cash cows, not cash drains. Yeah. I, I,

Malcolm Collins: and this is one of those things where like, you know, if we're talking about the prenatal movement, I would always rather have a, a, an additional productive immigrant in this country than an additional kid who is going to grow up and live off of the state.

100%.

Simone Collins: Yeah. An additional natively born native, like, you know, 17th generation American, whatever. Right.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that is, that is like, it's interesting that people like, Oh, they're prenatalism. No, no. I just care about the productivity of an individual. And, and, and, and, and so, I'm pro. The immigration of productive individuals when they're, they're heavily vetted.

And I think that those individuals are something that we as a country should potentially even pay for in terms of advertising, in terms of how we go out and get them. Because productive people are the thing that's becoming scarce in this world. It's one of the

Simone Collins: things that undermine governmental [00:22:00] and infrastructure and pension stability.

It is not. It's not a lack of people, it is a lack of, a lack of tax paying people, which is probably why people are freaking out so much about refugee influxes in various nations, right? Because they're realizing that, Oh my gosh, wait, so all these people here that we thought we're going to help things like we're, no, we're just paying for them and not paying for anything.

So who's going to pay for the stuff? And you have to have someone pay

Malcolm Collins: for the stuff. And then we've got to talk about the next stage of this, which is, which is sorry, where was I going with this? Oh, yes there is a solution inspired by her argument that I think could work. Now, I don't think it could pass office, but it could work.

The solution is to create not just like you said, basically you don't have to pay taxes kid number three and up. And, and I think or maybe have some sort of incremental, like you pay 20 percent less taxes per kid after your second kid. And then I think that once you reach kid number three or four, you should achieve some special societal status, similar to like a war [00:23:00] hero or a veteran in our society.

Simone Collins: Like those Russian medals of honor for mothers.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, essentially you get special parking everywhere you go. Oh, sweet.

Simone Collins: on airplanes. Yeah. Priority line in the DMV. That would be so

Malcolm Collins: cool. When you go to airports, they have special lounges for you. Very similar to what we do as veterans. Or they could just, yeah,

Simone Collins: they could just use military lounges.

So it's all veterans and people with way too many kids.

Malcolm Collins: It might actually be a good idea to loop it directly into the veteran thing. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Use the

Malcolm Collins: infrastructure. But because you are, in a big way, somebody who has lived your life for the state. Yeah,

Simone Collins: and maybe even kind of ruined your body for the state.

Ruined

Malcolm Collins: your body for the state, undergone some risk for the state. Yeah, no, I mean, somebody who's had like six or seven kids yeah, I absolutely think that they have, in our current world, Made a sacrifice for the state that is equivalent to the well being of the state of most veterans. And that might be a really scary position to take politically, but I think most veterans would probably agree that Well,

Simone Collins: female [00:24:00] voters would freaking love that.

Come

Malcolm Collins: on. Well, no, no, the female, like, hardcore conservatives and natalist mothers Oh, yeah, I guess that one's really for kids. Does eight cats count? Why don't cats count? There was that famous article where the woman was really mad that The Miss Manners article. Had given what was it? Article?

Simone Collins: Miss, it was a Miss Manners.

Malcolm Collins: Her

Simone Collins: mother had given some kind of either inheritance or she'd written, obviously, the one of this woman's sister's children into the will. And she was deeply disturbed that, Her own cat, she was childless herself, was not also written into the will because she loved her cat just as much, presumably, as her sister loved her child.

Why should this cat receive nothing when this useless child is receiving so much? Seemed unfair to her. So I Told her

Malcolm Collins: this, this article also touched on something that's really important to touch on. And we haven't highlighted it since the whole beginning [00:25:00] of this movement, but it's actually, you know what?

I think it's a different episode. Cliffhanger. I'm going to do it, but I'll mention what the topic is. Okay. She mentions that the post that was sort of the kickoff of the prenatalist movement was made on an EA forum and it was heavily

Simone Collins: downvoted. No, no, no. She's Malcolm. She's referring to the post that we made.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, I made the post that came before any of the major articles on prenatalism that came before the prenatalist. org website. Yeah. That was the first major position piece we made. Yeah. And it is worth noting because now we are having EA people go into prenatalism as if it's a mainstream EA cause and it's just really interesting to me.

Simone Collins: That could be fun. Yeah. All right.

Malcolm Collins: So let's do that piece next. Okay.

Simone Collins: Awesome. I love you and you're beautiful. I love you too. Before we get into that.

Malcolm Collins: Sorry

Simone Collins: for taking so much of your time. You know that, that scene from The Princess Bride in which the Dread Pirate [00:26:00] Roberts is Falling down a hill and he says, and then princess buttercup comes after him. I feel like that's how I move around our house. I'm just like,

Malcolm Collins: everything. She is so clumsy and, and ungraceful, which is not true.

You're the very picture of womanly grace

Simone Collins: who fell up the stairs on her way to begin podcast recording. You had to fill up the stairs again on her way into the master bedroom to do podcast recording.

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