CarpeVinum Thu 13-Jun-13 14:03:15
"Yet the sharp contrast in support systems may have had the inintended consequence of rendering the British far more supceptable in increasing numbers to a romanic outlook when creating children, compared to the cold, hard logic typically practised by Italians. (with their low birth rate and low abortion rate, likely due to no expectation of substantial state support when things go bent)"
Do we know that this is actually cause and effect though?
The low Italian birth rate is a recent thing. In the first half of the 20th century, not to mention the 19th Italians were known for their large families. Are you saying there was some kind of welfare system encouraging these families? And that birth rates went down because welfare was cut?
If not, how can we possibly know what effect cutting welfare would have in the UK?
Otoh during the second half of the 20th century, Sweden was known for its high welfare- and its low birth rate.
Even today, large families are very much a rarity in the UK as well as in other Western countries. This is why they become almost freak shows in the press or on television: we wouldn't find this mum so alien if she was in any way the norm.
The countries which do still have high birth rates are the ones with virtually no welfare.
My own feeling is that people have large families when there is a cultural expectation that women will spend all their life child rearing. Either because this is a respected position in that society or (as in some poorer areas in the UK) because women do not see themselves as having any chances of succeeding elsewhere. Or occasionally, as feelger reminded us, because individual women are controlled by men who do not want them to succeed elsewhere.