>>2830747>Scandinavians are higherHigher than Ukraine, Poland and Spain for sure, but even then it’s the median as far as the European continent goes. If anything, the cases of Israel and France are more interesting given their higher TFRs compared to the median for developed countries (although Israel is such a shithole the only permanent immigrant residents are Arab and African Jews and some Slavs lying to be Jewish to get on welfare, and also western Jewish sex offenders escaping to Israel to escape prosecution), and even then you’d have to ask who does the breeding in the first place. In Israel the demographic growth is mainly driven by the Jewish sects that are exempt from service in the IDF and are a drain to Israel, so they’re the low human capital. It’s hard to say for France as the French government refuses to collect ethnic census after such censuses aided the Holocaust in France, but I wouldn’t be surprised if black and Arab peoples were the main reason for France’s fertility growth.
Another interesting tidbit about France is that in the interwar period the government spent a shitton of cash to get the frogs to pump out babies to no avail, but the country saw its highest TFR in contemporary history only in the aftermath of WW2 during the baby boom.
In a sense, the siege mentality from that likely contributed to the rise in TFRs despite needing decades for both Britain and France to return to normalcy as rationing continued way longer after WW2.
>>2830751Funny you mention Tunisia as here in Italy I hear the Tunisian petit bourgeois at my university bragging about how “European” and progressive their country is after their Arab spring relative to other MENA countries. Quite insufferable on that front.
You may find this interesting though:
https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/editorial/news/rise-fertility-rate-concerning-4037296Apparently Bangladesh became one of the first global south countries to reverse its declining TFR to above replacement level. How?
Apparently during the covid-19 lockdowns, people in general lacked access to proper healthcare, and that also included pubescent women and their contraceptives. The end result of locking people in their homes has been a rise in teenage pregnancy rates that contributed to a large portion of the TFR increase in the country.
That would confirm my thesis:
- Access to contraceptive pills is more consequential to birth rates and TFRs than access to abortion
- The global fertility crash is more related to a general decline in teenage pregnancy rates, late marriages, and increasing access to simpler contraceptives.
In fact, Afghanistan is the only non-African country in the world with Africa-level TFR, and Afghanistan is also a country with perennial civil war, a quasi-feudal system, promotion of early marriages, and lack of contraception for females of breeding age. All perfect conditions for a high TFR.
I’ll end this post by stating that, IMO, the crash itself isn’t really the issue so much as the transition stage as our economies are both intertwined and predicated on a model of infinite growth. A transition to a more localised and less globalised economic system that involves depopulation of the great cities won’t just reduce human capital but also cause great pains. It’ll be a difficult and painful transition phase for sure, and one that will set back human civilization to boot.
After all, human innovation took place in the world’s most urbanised places, which is why the great reversal coincides with the rejuvenation of Europe’s urbanised centres, especially in coastal regions.