It is harder to have a family the more intelligent you are?

[TheTribe]

I remember reading that more intelligent women are not having children. Is this choice or not do you think? Should we be encouraging smart people to have children in some way? I saw idiocracy...

www.mic.com/articles/58579/women-without-children-aren-t-selfish-they-re-smart

@SummerSeasoning - it depends on who is creating the society and what the goals are. Intelligence isn’t genetic, though I’d wager more intelligent parents are able to teach their children more.

*not more intelligent than other species

Jeez, I should stop typing on my phone!

Intelligence isn’t genetic. It's partly genetic, although the impact compounds beyond that, it's true.

DontMakeMeShushYou I wouldn’t want to veer into forbidden thoughts territory! I better desist - that way can only lead to hitler and the nazis right?

I think/hope we can do better than descending to nazi eugenics though. If you opt for pregnancy screening you are utilising such technology but have a choice as to how you proceed regardless of the results.

V interesting thread 👍

Anecdata alert based on my case study of 2 families.

Both mums have PhDs and 4 children.

I know I and a good many friends had abortions in the 80’s because we were too good for babies. We were at Uni and going to persue stellar careers. Which frankly as someone that preferred travelling I didn’t.

After a surprise baby in my 30’s retraining at Uni and having a career, I now realise that was bollocks. Clever women can have children, careers and whatever else they want ( with the exceptions mentioned on “ what changes when you have kids” thread).

Im not sure if anyone has ever compared career progression (take earnings as a proxy) vs IQ for men and women. I'd bet that there is a greater correlation for men than for women.

I think this is a really interesting point. Although, I’m wondering how well correlated earnings and iq are to begin with.?

Btw, the study did measure actual iq I think. So it’s higher IQ that is correlated with less children.

Interesting topic and one that’s quite apt for me

I am the breadwinner and at the point of discussing if we stick to one or try for a second child

The money we would lose out on me being out of work for another maternity leave would affect us and will delay further career growth.

The statistics about education and birth rate are probably more about the changes in local economy than anything else. These are societies that were historically dependent on self-sustenance farming (which took many hands) to be transformed to more factory work. Moreover if we take this idea a step further, the oversaturation of degrees in Western society means that jobs with very low pay now require a degree. I remember getting hundreds of applicants for a personal assistant job in central London that only paid £16k, and that job required a degree. Life has only become harder for the formally educated unless they have set themselves apart by pursuing STEM. STEM applicants more often then not did not have degrees, but they pursue careers that take a high level of intelligence like software development. These "uneducated" developers were bringing in starting incomes anywhere from £30k-£50k. They got jobs based on portfolio and/or certification/licence.

Bleh. Really intelligent women figure out how to have a good career AND have kids. It’s the stupid ones that can only do one or the other.

Anecdata stands for sod all at the population level.

The observed, global relationship between women's educational levels and the fertility rate is a solidly negative correlation. As education goes up, the number of children goes down.

Of course there are individuals who are very smart and have 8 kids.

Of course there are individuals who are not intelligent and who have no children.

No-one is saying if you are smart you must have no or a few children and if you are stupid you must have a tonne.

I think we'd all agree that if you smoke you're much more likely to get lung cancer. That doesn't mean that you WILL get lung cancer, nor that if you don't smoke you will be immune from it. It's the same here.

RaggeddeeAnn

Well said.

Lockheart exactly. Hopefully everyone gets that on this thread.

Hmm that is an interesting premise RaggeddeeAnn but would imply that smart women want to do both or that it is intrinsically more intelligent to do both... any studies to support that?

I don’t think formally educated women are less likely to have children, there are some very intelligent, clever people who are pretty stupid! and it works the other way as well someone less formally educated can be very smart and savvy, what I think comes into play here is “emotional” intelligence, that is what has bearing on your life choices, not formal qualifications.

Im not sure if anyone has ever compared career progression (take earnings as a proxy) vs IQ for men and women.

OK, I admit, I've not even bothered to google, but ... how could you think no one's ever compared these things?

Some people are showing themselves up with their inability to grasp what ‘at population level’ means.

As recent research has shown intelligence is failling between generations for the first time within the same family lines, I don't think we're headed towards Idiocracy of just less than smart people reproducing. There is now speculation that some health regulations and increased nutrition in previous generations may have reduced previous hindrances to intelligence (lead, malnutrition), and now with those out of the way there may be newer hinderances we do not know of that are causing an impact on the latest generation. Even at most, genetics is meant to play something like 50% of someone's intelligence, that's a lot of room for environmental factors and we're unlikely to have uncovered all of them yet.

I have no idea if being smarter makes it harder to have a family. I know in many generations past when it was less of a choice (though a larger percentage of the population did not than is usually described, even in medieval time periods there is evidence of around a third of women not having kids), many adults - of either sex - self medicated their way through it which may have started as a smart choice but likely damaged intelligence along the way.

I was certainly not educated out of having kids, but as I spent most of my childhood being told I shouldn't have kids, maybe I was educated/intelligent enough to be contrary and as many girls are raised to see children as expected, being educated/intelligent enough to be contrary would mean not having them.

Interesting thread. I think what is very telling is that successful career women (who are presumably intelligent) with 2 or more children are the exception rather than the rule, but the same is not true for men.

155 IQ here at some point, possibly 135 nowadays.

I wanted a career and a puppy. Just that. I ended up with a child, who I have raised mostly single handedly, who has obviously had a huge impact on any career decisions and has forced me to work on environments that may not offer much intellectual stimulation but that provide the blessed flexi time I so much need to raise my son.

I have felt incredibly frustrated and castrated working in those environments but I have never found the problems raising my son presents boring, he is an absolute challenge and puzzle, the constant and fascinating provider of questions and problems to solve, whether the problem is sorting a broken heart, baking a cake without egg, gluten or milk, dealing with complex health problems, helping him find strategies to deal with his dyslexia, or keeping him alive through a myriad of challenges, he is absolutely fascinating.

I have enjoyed the challenge of raising him up so much, I am already suffering from peri empty nest syndrome and he is not moving out any time soon. 😁

I think it's also to so with class. In my experience more highly educated upper class women have multiple children ad they are so well versed in managing staff and delegating childcare due to their own childhood experience. Not something that would come as naturally to a successful well educated woman from a different background.

Personally, I am very analytical and think that having a third child would tip the balance too much away from a career.

I had a friend who used to say this, it still annoys me I didn't pull her up on it. I am clever, well qualified, earning well and happily married with dc, how dare she try to put me down and imply I'm less intelligent than she is? A total insult

OK, I admit, I've not even bothered to google, but ... how could you think no one's ever compared these things?

I can find many links between IQ and career progression (as you'd expect) but not one that specifically quantifies an compares it for men and women.

@gingerbreadsprinkle triggered much? No, no “gotcha” moment suggested or implied - clearly not as petty as you assume.
And I’ve worked in the industries you suggested for 15 years; but understand how they work in the UK, which your posts implied you did not.