this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2025
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Breaking news (piefed.cdn.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 week ago by LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone to c/comicstrips@lemmy.world
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[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 86 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (8 children)

I do think that the Nordic countries show pretty well that even if you treat your population well and put quite a lot of effort into helping the population with child rearing, it seems like women just don't want to have many children in modern society, even before everything became doom-and-gloom.

Maybe that's just how it goes when you let people decide for themselves. Or maybe modern, capitalistic society is just not conducive to childrearing, and no amount of state support for young families, kindergartens etc. is going to change that.

[–] Eq0@literature.cafe 67 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I read this article recently and you might find it interesting as well: Commodification of housing and fertility rates

TL,DR: high housing prices delay and reduce fertility rates.

In this context, Nordic countries are not much better than the rest of the developed world (don’t like this descriptor, but I can’t come up with a better one)

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's today, though. As an example, Sweden's fertility rate has been around 2 since the 1930s. That article didn't mention when housing started being such a big issue, but I assume it wasn't the 30s and not the 50s or 80s, either.

[–] EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 week ago

The 30s would be in the upswing after the Great Depression, which hit the entire world hard, and right in the middle of WWII. Post WWII was incredibly hard on almost every European country, as well. The founder of IKEA was inspired during the reconstruction period by Swedish socialists and a simple idea: that everybody deserves to be able to afford furniture. Before IKEA, the Swedish were largely using hand-me-downs of generational pieces or improvising wooden shipping boxes into tables and chairs. True furniture was generally custom pieces made for the wealthy by artisans. IKEA is still banned to this day from buying materials (like lumber) from a number of Swedish companies because they were black marked for providing affordable furniture to the masses by outsourcing the assembly labor to the customer with their innovative flat pack design. Much of Europe in the Cold War was massive concrete prefab buildings because the need to build large-scale housing quickly was so dire. Many cities were practically levelled by the air raids.

On another note, I think a lot of the conversation on the topic of birth rates ignores or under-values the impact of sex ed, safe sex, and the rise of accessible home entertainment. Teenage pregnancies dropping has had a major impact on the birth rate, as has the reduction in accidental pregnancy. Combined, they probably make up a lion's share of the difference between the present and a century ago. There's a reason that so many people are born in the summer/fall, and it's because 9 months before - in the winter - people are cooped up inside more and have less options for things to do for fun, which leads to more "Netflix and chill" and more accidental pregnancies as a result.

[–] slaacaa@lemmy.world 55 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It’s almost like we shouldn’t structure our society around endless growth, including the population

[–] Roidecoeur@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

It's true that "unchecked growth is the motto of the cancer cell".

And that nature's program has predation/feeding upon itself as its prime mechanism of survival, which runs on boom and bust cycles. For example, when conditions allow for echinoderm populations to explode everything that feeds on echinoderms is having a pleasant and easy time of living "high on the hog". But when that overpopulation inevitably leads to collapse(bust) due to resource depletion, plague, environmental/social dysfunction and disorder, etc, that's when all the beings whose existence depend(ed) on the pleasant and easy times of abundance get to see the real cost/bill of having profited from that oh so very temporary abundance.

Homo sapiens can attempt to structure their societies any which way that suits them based off of the conditions they're dealing with at the time. But unless they somehow graduate from animal-hood, or at least attempt to transcend being slaves to their instincts, they're destiny as animals will remain unchanged.

Yet i optimistically happen to see that a percentage of our species choosing not to reproduce(even for selfish reasons) is a good indication that some of us are able to control/deny the impulses of the body as a means of damage control. These things have been observed and studied for some time now, and fall under the categories of 'Malthusianism' and 'social decay'

[–] itkovian@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago

Thank you. Demanding women to make more babies is sexist. But, this is what happens, when governments focus shit like productivity, gdp, etc. These are such terrible metrics.

[–] b3an@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago

There has been strong social support systems in Finland for example, but even there birth rates here have been falling. I can tell you that when you have an aggressive neighbor pushing a war right next door, job prospects are uncertain, inflation is eating away at wages, and social safety nets are being cut or dismantled, it fundamentally changes how people think about having children. That kind of instability and uncertainty about the future makes starting a family feel like too big a risk for many people.

I can also add that Trump is also screwing over the planet with his damn tariffs. This has caused variation in availability and fluctuations in pricing. It’s also continuing greedflation.

We hear about it every day. Now, let’s see how women feel about cranking out more tax payers.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm from a Nordic country: we've seen a clear birth rate decline since COVID and especially since 2022 with Putin's invasion and the war.

We got messages from our daycare that they have to make adjustments because there are so few children etc. So it might be several factors, but the uncertain world right now is definitely a huge factor.

Especially since COVID and the war sent inflation and prices spiralling out of control, with food and housing prices soaring, making having children a fiscally irresponsible thing to do.

We had our first child and signed up to buy an apartment right before COVID. Those interest rates were not what I had planned for. Like, quadrupled.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Sweden's fertility rate hovered around 2 since the 1930s. It picked back up a little in the 50s, but even then the highest value was around 2.4, and it dipped below 2 in 1970. So doom and gloom and all that, but even in the (relatively) good times, they barely went above replacement level, and under it as soon as contraceptive pills became available. Overall they did manage to stay at a higher value than other countries like Germany, so the effort is clearly paying off, but I think this still clearly shows that people just don't want to have a lot of children in modern, capitalistic society even when the circumstances are good.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Right, I'm just saying that it's even worse with the events of recent years. It's even made the news here on several occasions, so doom, gloom, and the effect it has had on the economy, very much has affected things, like I said. I have first hand experience. It's not been nice.

[–] porkloin@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Childbirth seems decidedly not chill. Maybe women just want to chill

[–] unconsequential@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 week ago

Nordic countries are also “highly” educated in the traditional sense, and part of that education has long been hammering home how having children is socially irresponsible in a global context. So, I’d say it’s less about social support or their own immediate environment and more about decades of Western culture and academia actively telling them to not reproduce or risk being seen as, or simply feeling like, bad global participants.

Also, economic security, women’s access to healthcare and early sex education contribute to their ability to follow through on that ideological shift. There’s no religion telling them to procreate but a whole lot of social cues instead telling them it’s selfish and potentially harmful to their own livelihoods, and the planet’s welfare, to do so.

[–] LemmingOnTheEdge@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Everyone wants to speculate as to why women don't want to have children. I'm not an expert, but hear me out. What if we just ask them? Not just why, but if. Do we actually know that they don't want to, or are there other factors we haven't considered preventing them from having children.

[–] DasFaultier@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago

Heretic! If we allow them to have their own opinions (on childbearing no less!), then what's next? Giving them the right to vote?!?

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 week ago

I imagine that women "feel" the future and while there might not be crisis in nordic countries today, there might be in the coming decades. Our world is changing so rapidly, and humans live for 80 years; can you really say confidently that no major changing in living conditions to the negative are going to happen within your potential child's lifetime?

[–] salacious_coaster@infosec.pub 56 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Don't forget the backsliding civil rights and ecological doom

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I’m hung up on the fascism. Call me picky 🤷‍♂️

[–] IhaveCrabs111@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Everyone here is being so negative. The rich are far richer and more powerful than ever. Y'all need to practice gratitude.

[–] Zink@programming.dev 27 points 1 week ago

Let's try to convince everybody you must have a traditional looking family from a 50s TV show. Like it's a religious caliber requirement.

Oh but number must go up, so we're gonna put every economic stress we can on them to make that impossible.

And we might screw up some childhoods and send some adults over the edge. It's a real shame. But hey let's find that silver lining: cheap prison slave labor! Number go up again!

[–] InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

All the local over the air news stations in my area...

(super cheery voice, on the verge of giddiness) Tonight we learn more from local investigators about the tragic bus accident that left 14 orphans dead and 10 others in critical condition. (almost laughing, kind of giggly voice) So tragic.

But first, who will Mandy pick tonight on The Surrogate Show, find out at 9 p.m. right here on channel 8 WPPV-TV. And stick around to meet the Dachshund that adopted an abandoned baby squirrel and find out what you can do to help support her family.

[–] LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 week ago

I want to hear more about the Dachshund and squirrel

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 1 week ago (9 children)

I made this diagram a while ago:

Basically, human labor is required to make the economy grow, but to sustain it doesn't need so much labor.

That's like when you're building a house, a lot of working hours goes into building it (10 men for 1000 hours each), but sustaining it can be done by a housewife in her spare time after she took care of children all day. (I'm deeply sorry about the gendered language but i feel it gets the point across more clearly - maintenance requires significantly less work than building something in the first place.)

This leads to the following phenomenon:

As time goes forward, we have more resources available due to better automation (consider farming robots) but at the same time there's less demand for human labor also due to automation.

This changes the way that society operates significantly. And it also makes it very displeasant for the people who only identify through the labor they produce to have children, because these children will have a difficult time finding meaningful employment.

Note that this phenomenon takes decades to roll out, but that's also the time in which children would grow up, so it matches on the timescale and that's why it's relevant.

[–] Brahvim@lemmy.kde.social 8 points 1 week ago

PS the word "homemaker" exists. ...Just wanted to tell you!

[–] seggturkasz@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm genuinely curious, where are theses numbers from? Could you please cite the source of your graphs?

[–] snekmuffin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

it doesn't seem that they are based on any data, it just illustrates their point

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

yep

[–] seggturkasz@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No offense, but it is very misleading. I'm not necessarily disagree what you are saying, but my first impression was that it is based on data, and you know, not just your opinion.

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago

huh i guess i could have presented it in another way, but i'm not sure how exactly.

[–] TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz 2 points 1 week ago

Graphs without axis labels 💀 what do the numbers mean

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[–] asg101@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 week ago

Anyone who understands global warming feedback loops would not have to ask that question. It is clear that the predator class is incinerating the planet to line their pockets and that is not going to end well for most of us.

[–] plyth@feddit.org 11 points 1 week ago

Wait till people fully realise that retirement isn't secure. Then the third world retirement patterns will be back in style.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

It’s not just more people choosing not to have children at all. People who want to have children are having a lot fewer. In my grandparents’ time families would have 10+ and sometimes 20+ children. Now even having 4 kids is considered a lot!

[–] betanumerus@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I have no words for this headline. "Breaking news" with nothing else. I mean, wow.

So perfect that all news stories should have this headline right?

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

More of a title than a headline, really

[–] GoldAxolotl@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Like Broken 💔 News?

[–] AeonFelis@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I prefer Borking News and it'd just be videos of dogs.

[–] resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yeah, ladies, what are you up to?

Is parthenogenesis no longer an option?

[–] somerandomperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 week ago

Gee, I wonder why? What could it possibly be?

(/s)

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