The correlation between smartphones and delayed reproduction part 2

[Quietterry]

Last thread ran out of pages.

It would appear the birth rate in India has also decreased when it used to be super high (hence having a billion people)
CRED founder Kunal shah seems to agree internet may have played its part.

As for the posters adamant that nothing had changed in the uk in the last 25 years and claiming they didn’t know anyone who had children at 25 back then. Here’s some statistics for you:

United Kingdom (England and Wales): Exact cohort data tracks that 33% of women born in 1972 (who turned 29 in 2001) had at least one child by age 25. For the cohort turning 25 exactly in 2001 (born in 1976), childbearing hit a generational low point, where fewer than 30% of women had given birth by their 25th birthday.

So if nothing had changed about 60 out of 200 people I went to school with would have had kids by now

Then I’d call it the one and only benefit of smart phones! The world is overpopulated, Britain is massively overpopulated. We need fewer humans.

Also correlation does not causation make. Perhaps it’s something to do with the misogyny men are spreading all over the internet and accessing via smartphones. The misogyny was always there, just under the skins of men, it’s merely coming out at the moment. Weirdly women don’t find it attractive.

Of perhaps it’s the access to information on the shit state we are in as a species. Which is a good thing, circling back to overpopulation.

Why this push for women to have more babies??

I do agree, you see a lot of incels blaming the declining fertility rate on women but so many of these same young men who hold these views spend hours every day gaming

Lower birth rates correlate with better education and information which is likely happening in India over the last few decades

social media’s unrealsistic lives probably doesn’t help - social isolation

income inequality- especially when it’s so visible with TV and social media will also have a huge impact

people expect to have a 3 or 4 bed house for 2 kids, not 4 kids in one bed

climate change makes the world too uncertain and scary - birth rates fall during dangerous times and that’s where we are

so smart phones - no
simpistic explanations- no

People point fingers at a multitude of supposed causes for the declining birth rate but I think pinning it on smartphones is a bit of a stretch. Improved education for women, cost of living are far more likely to be important factors in my view.

Like PPs I struggle to see how its a bad thing that fewer women under 25 are having children. All things being equal, having children really young hugely limits women's opportunities and there is consistent data that suggests that societies are generally wealthier when women delay childbearing a bit.

Plenty of people do make a good job of it but by and large having children when you're barely out of childhood yourself isn't something to aspire to.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing, people can do what they want of course. I’m 25 with a 9 year so when I had her I was really young but after almost ten years I’m genuinely surprised barely any of my peers have kids yet.

I'm not sure how smartphones are some kind of birth control device! Far more likely it's the prevailing attitude we need less people 'because of the planet' or the economic costs of having a family, climate change, or the many reasons why women just don't want to have kids.

We don't need 'fewer humans', though. Humans have an expiry date, to put it bluntly. If the reproductive index drops below 2.1 then in a few hundred years we'll cease to exist. In many countries (like Japan) this is where it's headed. Humanity is headed towards extinction and not with a bang, but with a whimper, if this carries on.

Nobody is saying that nothing has changed. People are saying that it's nothing or little to do with smartphones. It's increased education, greater female attendence at university, greater costs of home ownership, greater costs in actually having a child, declining fertility rates - lots and lots of other factors. You can't just pin it down to "smartphones caused it".

This is thread two. On thread one there were plenty of posters adamant that nothing one they knew had children before 25, 2-3 decades ago.

I do agree it’s probably a mixture of different factors but think smartphones play an understated role too

Can you pls link to thread 1?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5542765-why-does-barely-anyone-my-age-have-kids?page=40&reply=152953113

Why do you think it’s smartphones over cost of living?

Here are some additional correlations for you to consider:

https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

We had one girl in my year at school who had a baby at 16.

The next baby I knew of being born from the year group, was after that baby had turned 16.

And people realising they have choices and having children isn’t an inevitability or an automatic part of being an adult any more?

That site's hilarious! Thank you so much, @BrookStreamRiverlet !

The iPhone didn't come out until 2007 so clearly this trend started before smart phones!

I would say the bigger driver is more people staying in education for longer as it means they don't reach a stable position that many want before bringing children into the world

My mum born late 50s left school at 14 she had her first at 23, by this time she had been working full time for 9 years, own her own home and was married. My sister born early 1980s went to uni and entered the workforce at 21. She had her first child at 29 - 8 years after she started work by which point she had her own home and was engaged. I went to uni, did a 4 year course followed by a PhD I didn't leave uni until I was 28. I had my first child in 2020 which was 8 years after I graduated from my undergraduate by which point I had been in my relationship for 15 years and we had a home and a life together.

Exactly.

OP, I think you’re also very confused by statistics work if you’re treating 200 people you were at school with as some kind of representative sample. And you’re still trying to normalise your own choice to have a baby when you were still a child yourself. I think this is a bee in your bonnet precisely because of that.

I’m not trying to normalise my own choice. 16 is too young I’ve done a good job but most people wouldn’t have at that age.
I just expected more of my peers to have had babies at 23-25.

Was it a conscious choice to have a baby or an accident? I think it's unusual to be planning a baby at 16yrs even for my generation (nearly 48yrs), lots had babies in their 20s but only one girl planned one at 16yrs.

Personally I think it's a good thing. My daughter is nearly 19yrs and in the states working with horses for the whole summer before heading to uni. I don't think having a baby at 25yrs is even on her radar as she's having to much fun.

Do you have a link to the article, because a causation has not been demonstrated in your post?
You could say the fall in birth rates maybe due to climate changes over that period of time, increase in the number of coffee shops and all manner of other things that have increased.
Smartphones came out after 2001.

And it’s nothing to do with the fact people mortgages are 2k a month and nursery is 2500 a month…..meaning they literally can’t afford to have kids

Give over. You just look daft now. It's not the smartphones. It's your misunderstanding of statistics and the like.

Smartphones can be a vehicle for improved education (and greater access to feminist ideas, or at least higher expectations of men).

But yes, fundamentally I agree. Smartphones are just a tool. It's really no mystery at all that improved education and more options for women leads to fewer of those women choosing to have children.

The human race is on the downward bit of the curve, towards our eventual extinction. It’s the circle of life, but we’ve peaked and heading down the other side. We’ve had our time, as the dinosaurs once had theirs.

You can if you're a teenager living at home on benefits.