This post really bothered me for some reason. First, it makes grand assertions and then contradicts itself. Even the "Psychology Today" article it used is not fully fleshed out. Here is the concluding paragraph:
"So do children contribute to our happiness? A recent study examined the link between having children and happiness from two sur…
This post really bothered me for some reason. First, it makes grand assertions and then contradicts itself. Even the "Psychology Today" article it used is not fully fleshed out. Here is the concluding paragraph:
"So do children contribute to our happiness? A recent study examined the link between having children and happiness from two surveys completed by almost 120,000 people (Herbst & Ifcher, 2016). They identified two trends: First, compared with nonparents, parents are becoming happier. Second, nonparents are increasingly reporting lower levels of happiness.
Some other studies are now beginning to show that having children may actually produce a happiness surplus."
Not exactly what he implied it said.
Secondly, what we know about fertility in the US is mischaracterized. The drop in fertility started in 2008, merely 15 years ago. Long after those large families disappeared from sight. The drop was because a larger amount of women chose to forego childbearing. If we want to know why our fertility dropped, we need to examine those women, not the population. Existential crisis is not the answer. Neither is overall happiness of the entire population.
Something cause a smallish group of women to forego child bearing..........percentage of women age 45-49 that have had children going from 90% to 84.6%..........that needs to be fleshed out.
This post really bothered me for some reason. First, it makes grand assertions and then contradicts itself. Even the "Psychology Today" article it used is not fully fleshed out. Here is the concluding paragraph:
"So do children contribute to our happiness? A recent study examined the link between having children and happiness from two surveys completed by almost 120,000 people (Herbst & Ifcher, 2016). They identified two trends: First, compared with nonparents, parents are becoming happier. Second, nonparents are increasingly reporting lower levels of happiness.
Some other studies are now beginning to show that having children may actually produce a happiness surplus."
Not exactly what he implied it said.
Secondly, what we know about fertility in the US is mischaracterized. The drop in fertility started in 2008, merely 15 years ago. Long after those large families disappeared from sight. The drop was because a larger amount of women chose to forego childbearing. If we want to know why our fertility dropped, we need to examine those women, not the population. Existential crisis is not the answer. Neither is overall happiness of the entire population.
Something cause a smallish group of women to forego child bearing..........percentage of women age 45-49 that have had children going from 90% to 84.6%..........that needs to be fleshed out.
This is a much better discussion on the issue: https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/the-wests-fertility-crisis?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=828904&post_id=137662764&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1oa580&utm_medium=email
Dave, Thank you for the link. It was a very interesting article!