As I have written in prior posts, Russian demographics continues to improve as it has throughout the Putin era (Russian Demographics in 2019).
Life expectancy is going up very rapidly, constituting a new record of 73.6 years as of the first eight months of this year. Deaths from external causes continue to plummet, including homicide rates, which will probably fall below American levels this year for the first time since the late 1980s. Deaths from external causes, and abortion rates, also continue to converge to “normality”.
But the one big exception in this otherwise positive picture is fertility rates, which have plummeted from a post-Soviet high of 1.78 children per woman in 2015 to 1.58 in 2018, and are set to drop below 1.50 this year.
Now in fairness, this is a worldwide trend, which demographics blogger Cicerone has chronicled on Twitter. Its causes are unclear. Even so, the fertility retreat in the post-Soviet world has been particularly abrupt, having already annulled about half the recovery relative to the post-Soviet nadir in Russia and Belarus (and almost completely so in the Ukraine).
If this continues, then Russia’s future population trends will hew to my (modified) “Low” prediction from 2008, which sees a stagnation/slight decline in Russia’s population through to 2050.
That said, I will continue to maintain that this is a temporary reversal, at least in Russia’s case, on the basis of two pieces of evidence.
1. Russia’s fertility preferences remain relatively high compared to other European countries.
A year ago, I wrote a history of Russian fertility preferences. I have now become aware that the Levada Center has also been carrying out polls on this topic, and the latest data have desired Russian fertility creeping up to late Soviet era highs (2.63 children per woman as of October 2019). This is in sync with a 2018 poll from VCIOM that suggested Russians desired 2.57 children per woman, up from 2.32 children in 2014 according to data from the same polling outfit.
Here is the updated dataset of all the polls on Russian fertility preferences that I have gathered to date (“W” refers to women only).
| n | M/W | Source | Year | Real TFR | Expected TFR | Ideal TFR |
| W | V.A. Belova | 1969 | 1.99 | 2.21 | 2.69 | |
| – | WVS | 1992 | 1.55 | 2.72 | ||
| 1980 | – | Levada | 1995 | 1.34 | 1.28 | 2.12 |
| 2105 | – | Levada | 1996 | 1.27 | 1.63 | 2.11 |
| 2022 | – | Levada | 1997 | 1.22 | 1.59 | 2.07 |
| – | WVS | 1997 | 1.22 | 2.33 | ||
| 2107 | – | Levada | 1998 | 1.23 | 1.54 | 2.19 |
| 2085 | – | Levada | 1999 | 1.16 | 1.36 | 2.21 |
| 2107 | – | Levada | 2000 | 1.20 | 1.55 | 2.17 |
| 1600 | – | Levada | 2001 | 1.22 | 1.52 | 2.43 |
| 1600 | – | Levada | 2003 | 1.32 | 1.57 | 2.19 |
| 1600 | – | Levada | 2005 | 1.29 | 1.83 | 2.46 |
| 700 | W | Rosstat | 2005 | 1.29 | 1.73 | 2.28 |
| 700 | – | Rosstat | 2005 | 1.29 | 1.82 | 2.41 |
| 1000 | W | Rosstat | 2009 | 1.54 | 1.72 | 2.28 |
| 1000 | – | Rosstat | 2009 | 1.54 | 1.81 | 2.31 |
| 5,000 | W | Rosstat | 2012 | 1.69 | 1.92 | 2.28 |
| 5,000 | – | Rosstat | 2012 | 1.69 | 1.92 | 2.29 |
| – | VCIOM | 2014 | 1.75 | 2.32 | ||
| W | Rosstat | 2017 | 1.62 | 1.88 | 2.15 | |
| – | Rosstat | 2017 | 1.62 | 1.88 | 2.16 | |
| – | VCIOM | 2018 | 1.58 | 2.57 | ||
| 1600 | – | Levada | 2019 | 1.50 | 1.82 | 2.63 |
And here is that table in graphical format:
Observations:
(1) There is a strong r=0.82 correlation between actual fertility rates and expected fertility rates in any one year, with the former typically being around 0.2 children lower. Surveys in the past decade have typically placed expected Russian fertility at 1.8-1.9 children per woman, so we shouldn’t expect it to fall much below 1.6 children per woman for long.
(2) There is a moderate r=0.51 correlation between actual fertility rates and ideal or desired fertility rates in any one year, and the gap between them is much larger. That said, there is still a clearly visible pattern. The gap tends to hover at around 0.7 children (which is not dissimilar to most European countries). After having remained at ~2.7 children per woman during the late Soviet era, when the fertility rate was near replacement level rates, it collapsed to ~2.1 children per woman by the late 1990s. However, it subsequently crept back up to ~2.4 children per woman, and now seems to be approaching late Soviet era rates of 2.6 children again. This suggests that a recovery to at least 1.8 children per woman can be reasonably expected.
This is very good relative to most other Western countries. The only major West European countries with similar rates, at least in the early 2000s, were Ireland (2.61) and France (2.54), which enjoyed TFRs of ~1.9 children per woman during that same period. This also describes the US, which had a TFR of ~2.0 children per woman back around 1990 when it last had an ideal fertility rate of ~2.6 children per woman (as of 2012, this was down to 2.37 children).
2. The average birth sequence statistics suggest that there is currently a strong trend towards birth postponement.
Here’s a short explanation of the concept:
An even more accurate measure of long-term fertility is the average birth sequence (средняя очередность рождения, henceforth ABS), which gives for any one year the mean order of all newborn children (for instance, if women in a previously entirely childless country all decided to give birth in a given year for some reason, the TFR would leap up to a very high level but the ABS would equal exactly one). Looking at these different fertility patterns, it emerges that in the 1980’s, Soviet fertility was not as high as implied by the TFR – not was the 1990’s collapse as apocalyptic as some would have it. Or in other words, many gave birth in the 1980’s because of the social benefits of perestroika and many postponed it in the 1990’s because of the economic crises. The effect on deeper generational fertility patterns was much more modest – a drop of just 0.2 children.
In the long-term, the TFR will, on average, approximate to the ABS, after subtracting the percentage of women who don’t have any kids at all. This is a problem in places like Germany, where those who do have children have quite a few, but a substantial proportion of women don’t have any at all. And this is probably going to become more and more prevalent in the West in line with the promotion of the environmentalist “childfree” ideology. However, this is not a big issue for Russia, where “childfree” ideology is not prevalent and the female childlessness rate is well below 10%.
The following table (h/t stranger233) displays Russia’s ABS from 1980-2018.
As we can see, the Russian ABS was at 1.8 children per woman during the 1980s, declined to 1.6 children per woman during the 1990-2000s, but recovered to 1.8 children by 2014 and has since risen to almost 2.0 children. The discrepancy between this figure and Russia’s TFR of 1.5 children per woman means that there is currently a strong trend towards postponement of births. This is logical, since the average age at first childbirth in Russia is still much lower than in Western Europe – about 25.5 years, versus 31 years in Italy and Switzerland, which have some of the oldest ages at first childbirth. It is probably not ideal for it to go higher, since it limits ultimate possible fertility, and pregnancy becomes more difficult and dangerous after 35 years. But it is a worldwide trend and likely inevitable.
Now subtract the ~10% of women who won’t have any children, and we may reasonably expect the long-term Russian fertility rate to return to 1.8 children per woman.
Indeed, it may well even go higher for some time, as it did during the late Soviet era, e.g. when the current trend of birth postponement halts or reverses and the backlog of postponed births gets balanced (as happened in the 1980s, see right). Conveniently, this should happen during the 2020s and 2030s, when the percentage of Russian women of childbearing age will reach a temporary nadir (due to the fertility collapse in the 1990s).
Now this is not absolutely guaranteed to happen, e.g. if said birth postponements turn out to be terminal. But historically, more than 90% of Russian women have ended up giving birth, and the latest Levada poll suggests there’s no sociological shift away from that pattern; only 1% of women say childfree is ideal, while only 8% say they don’t expect to have any children. This figure is perfectly in line with longstanding trends.
Consequently, I assess that Russia’s long-term TFR is likely to remain at no less than 1.75 children, which coupled with positive life expectancy and immigration (300,000 yearly) trends should see Russia’s population – adjusting for any territorial changes – eking out an absolute increase between 2010 and 2050.
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
If you are new to my work, start here.
where those who do have children have quite a few, but a substantial proportion of people don’t have any.
Assuming that you are correct and the “breeders” will inherit the earth, do we know what other differences and traits come along with that designation?
E.g., here: http://www.unz.com/akarlin/people-of-walmart/
Turok has also suggested it will select against people interested in status games: http://www.unz.com/akarlin/alexander-turok-on-the-age-of-malthusian-industrialism/
TFR is a useful statistic but you wisely point out it isn’t a perfect indicator. It’s a snapshot that assumes women aged 20 today will act like women aged 35 today, in 15 years when the 20 year old is 35.
The main thing Russia has in her favor on this matter is a government that doesn’t hate the people, and sees fertility as strategically important. When I watch Россия 24 I notice that there’s an abundance of interviews with women holding infants. The camera holds for a second on a contented slaviс child. Like every domestic story they show a woman with an infant. Maybe I am seeing benevolent conspiracy where there is none but I’m going to say this is a result of state policy.
America manages the media to demoralize and humiliate the population. Who cares about the people after all, we can, and are always importing new units. Russia manages the media to subtly pressure native women into replicating their genes and fulfilling the greatest human calling on this earth.
You guys are going to break 2.0 I know it. It’s just a matter of the right people making it a priority.
One last thing I will say on this is that Moscow is not a baby friendly city at least within the line 5 metro. How the hell are you supposed to get a stroller down all those stairs? The cult of the ребёнок should emanate outward from the center
There will be a total remodeling of the personality distribution as we adapt to industrialism. The ‘meek’ will inherit the earth.
You should see some of the family sizes they have among American Orthodox Christians. 7,9,11! Are numbers I have seen repeatedly. Moreover these are high IQ people, a little odd but very smart and productive. Similar story with the Catholic zealots and various other religious types. Religious people are quietly building up the demographic head of steam to take Darwinian advantage of all these calories.
Not in this but an interesting comparison, UK life expectancy has gone down 3.6 years for new borns in 2019 compared with 2014. That is huge and I haven’t seen a clear explanation. Some of it may be people who immigrated as adults dying younger due to harsh living in their countries of origin. (Romanian Gypsies, Albanians,Bangladeshis). Our obesity problem in Brexit voting commmunities is also catching up with the US. Nevertheless, The official explanation is a rise in the strength of flu in 2016 and 2017. This was however world wide. I caught the flu(s) which nearly killed me (triggered heart artery blockage – kicked off when I went jogging after apparent recovery) in Russia. It was viscious. It should have shown in Russian figures.
I have always caught flu after having the vaccine. So I have had it annual. Presumably a weakened immune system. I haven’t had the vaccine since. No flu. 15 years of vaccination must have left me resistant to most annual strains. I cannot recall if Russia produces and offers flu vaccines. Ukraine famously didn’t during the Mexican flu outbreak. The Tamiflu scandal.
There are actual reasons for TFR falling in the West, it’s not such a big mystery.
Feminism and “equal” rights (as opposed to fair rights; men and women are dissimilar biologically and therefore NOT equal in their biological, social and family roles). In a nutshell, women going to work, getting obsessed with career, not having the energy or desire for caring for children in addition to all that guarantees a sick society and low TFR.
Economical reasons. Easily observable in Russia in the ’90s: not enough money for having children turns off from having children. European costs of living are high, but having children may drive costs through the roof, especially later on in the US where education is superexpensive.
“Environmental” brainwash and combined anti-family brainwash of child-free, homosexual and promiscuous life instead of family care and caring for family. There is a backlash from careless parents here too: Stressed working, unloving parents (especially women) breed mentally ill, disaffectionate children. As the saying went, unloved kids grow into unloving adults.
Yes actual fertility rate has been quite steady for years, just the change in timing creates clickbait and media hysteria, because they conveniently obsess about every year’s total fertility rate.
Decline in fertility rate has happened for cohorts born across the years 1940-1970. After that it is stabilized.
As you imply later, there isn’t “fertility retreat”, there wasn’t “recovery” and there wasn’t “collapse” before, and there is not now “recovery being annulled”. That is the popular media narrative. It is more likely we are seeing just some noise from changes in timing.
Fertility rate in Russia, has been around 1,6 for women born since 1970. A significant (but not that significant compared to some other countries’) fall has been between women born in 1955-1959 and women born from 1965 – after everything is stabilized.
https://i.imgur.com/AjfZKxw.jpg
As we extend this below beyond 1970, we will see that fertility decline has subsequently paused for Russia for cohorts born since 1970. Moreover, it can be noted fall in fertility of cohorts between 1940-1970 not such a large fall compared to some other countries.
https://i.imgur.com/3ShLAn5.jpg
Very interesting table: do we have anything for 2019?
Stable-below-replacement, sure.
Most women in the west have never heard of “childfree” before, they don’t have kids because they simply don’t want to, regardless of what they say. This is not the result of any ideology; women are simply taking the path of least resistance and noone is finding a way to change that.
Saying “I’d like to have 2.5 kids” in a questionnaire is different from saying “I want my belly to distend further forward than my nose and get an injection in my spine to relieve the pain of having my abdomen sliced open while fully conscious, for the sake of having a son that may well grow up to be like LoutishAngloQuebecker”.
What about without any additional Russian territorial gains?
Offtopic – population pyramids from a Korean YouTube, which is posted by stranger233’s blog.
Between China and India. They think India’s population will surpass China’s around 2023-24.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqHZRwVU_0E
And between Japan and Korea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olOiUc6U80Q
They think Japan will only have 74 million people by 2100 – hopefully Japan does not respond to this stupidly by allowing immigration. For the world’s most unique culture to survive, it’s essential they will be strict about this topic and stop any more immigration (without immigration, a mere fall in population by itself will not be all bad – you can imagine how beautiful the nature and ecology will be in Japan in 2100, and per capita GDP and standard of living will be extremely high, as national income is divided by the smaller population).
National income and GDP are a byproduct of population age, and GDP per capita is merely a statistic that does not reflect the generational distribution of wealth.
Japan’s economic miracle was produced by a large number of 20-40 year olds. There will not be an equivalent number of such people in 2100, and it is therefore impossible for them to generate that level of wealth, which today is largely in the hands of people in their 70s and 80s. Young people have never and will never see a dime of the wealth created in the 1980s. Japan has one of the highest levels of child poverty in the developed world, and its young people don’t buy stocks, bonds, cars or houses, because they have no money to spend. Japan is already sliding back to the level its population growth and wealth distribution command: the fourth world level.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/17/japans-rising-child-poverty-exposes-truth-behind-two-decades-of-economic-decline
I have seen Japan’s rural areas and they have too many trees, wild vines, shrubs, etc. It is ugly and terrifying. Everything is covered in a sickly green moss. It’s nearly possible to walk around in the hills out there because the tree cover is just too dense. It does not resemble anything that humans ever coexisted with. There is also a growing problem nationwide of wild hogs and bears attacking and killing people. When you don’t breed, that’s what you get. A monstrous encroachment of wildlife on a dead society. Only “doo doo people” who used to be considered witches view this as a good thing. You have to be truly empty minded, vapid, homosexual, and insane, to think that anything good can ever come from population shrinkage.
http://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/world-fertility-2010-2015-2019.jpg
Karlin, how much of Russia’s birth rate is composed of Caucus peoples’, Muslims, other Asians and etc?
Contemplating such a thing similarly for Serbia is the only thing keeping me from being fully optimistic about the steady but gradual increase in Serbia’s TFR. That is, much of it could possibly be due to Albanians, Muslims, gypsies, and etc. I would still hope the ethnic Serb TFR is rising, but the only truly promising thing is that Kosovo Serbs are having lots of kids way above the TFR of 2.1, even though this is something that is significantly under-reported.
Most of your post and arguments is a complete nonsense.
If you follow your own link
so, by “sliding back to … fourth world level” do you mean that Japan is sliding to the level of United States? Or that US is fifth world level with 17.3% of children experiencing poverty?
If you look up how OECD defines ‘experiencing relative poverty’ for a developed country
which doesn’t mean that Japan is sliding to “the fourth world level”. Switzerland can be two times richer than Sweden, but have higher percentage of those experiencing relative poverty.
If you look up real GDP per capita, Japanese figure is similar to France, UK, Italy and Canada.
As for young/old/population age. If you look up the video that compares Japan and Korea, as a group born during years with high TFR dies out percentage of elderly normalizes around 37-38%. Automation and robots will help 50% of productive population to take care of the rest 50% (old, young and freeloaders).
At the same time Japan enjoys:
– one of the highest standards of living
– one of the longest life expectancies 83.5 years vs 78.7 in the US
– one of the healthiest among developed nations
– one of the highest standards of education
– one of the lowest infant mortality rates 2 vs 5.7 in the US
– one of the lowest maternal mortality rates 5 vs 19 in the US
– one of the lowest crime rates
– one of the lower homicide rates 0.3 vs more than 5 in the US
One must ask the similar question that one asks regarding French, German or British birth dates, how many of these are racial Russian and how many are Russian as in Khabib Nurmagomedov is considered Russian?
Check out Israel they don’t have this phenomena, how strange…
This happened not simply because women have education now, as some like to argue. This is by design, this the direct result of jewish inventions such as feminism, Hollywood pop culture hedonism and jewish attack on all religious life in public.
Also @neutral –
Ethnic Russian TFR is 0.05-0.1 children lower than the RF average.
Fair enough.
How can you tell what the ethnic Russian TFR is though?
Thanks!
After following AK’s links and not liking what I saw, I definitely wanted a 2nd opinion.
Absolutely. Huge swaths of America are fourth world level, due in part to illegal immigration; the colonias of Texas and the southwest and the black shantytowns being the moat infamous examples.
https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2018-05-16/americas-third-world-border-colonias-in-texas-struggle-to-attain-services
Japan has no such immigrants or racial underclasses. They achieved America-level poverty as a monoracial state.
Aa we can see, my post is not nonsense, you are simply an emotionally disturbed individual who feels offended that Japan is a failure, so you lash out at me with anti-American propaganda, like a child who has had his toys taken away from him and can do nothing but squeal; as if I even care.
Bullshitter. Those countries have low gdp per capita of around 35,000 dollars. The USA is 59,000 and has much more affordable food, gasoline, rent, etc than all those countries.
Gdp alone tells us very little. Don’t be an oversimplistic moron.
Except robots don’t buy stocks, don’t own bonds, don’t buy cars or houses, don’t buy their nonexistant offspring an education, don’t hire people and don’t pay taxes.
“Old people to take care of” was never the issue of low birthrates. You need YOUNG PEOPLE to have an economy. Obsessing over old people’s care is the #1 mistake people assume on this issue. That is a peripheral problem. The 800 pound gorilla in the room is ECONOMIC ACTIVITY.
Bullshit. Japan is long lived due to their maternal genetics; Japanese people are actually extremely unhealthy and suffer disproportionately from heart disease, gastric cancer, cardiopulmonary disease and so forth, due to the high rate of tobacco consimption and salty fish products (loaded with mercury and PCBs). Optimal genetics and a good socialist healthcare system saves them from themselves.
The odds of being a victim of crime in the USA are about the same if your skin color is lighter than brown and you are a non-dumbass. The crime rate is decreasing in America.
What about immigration? Are these immigrants ethnic slavs from the former USSR?
Israel is basically a bunch of Amish Jews. Secular Ashkenazic Jews in the United States are the ones who contributed to feminism (which was created by frigid Anglo hussies).
Secular Ashkenazic American Jews have had the lowest fertility rate of any group in America, below replacement since the 1940s, and also one of the highest rates of outbreeding. They do not show any signs of ethnocentrism and there’s no reason to believe they will exist in pure form in 100 years.
Jews in Israel had no involvement with this nation’s affairs. They never contributed to feminism.
Countries like North Korea and Iran also have below replacement fertility, and had precisely zero influence from feminism or Jews, so you can take your low-t perilous antisemitic paranoia back to Stormfront. It was the girl next door and her punk father who facilitated this crisis.
One needs to be careful while interpreting the average birth sequence and deducting trends of fertility from it. While Anatoly is correct in pointing out that it doesn’t take trends in childlessness into account, there is another caveat:
Average birth sequence is dependent on the population composition of the women in childbearing age. Russia at the moment experiences a huge drop in women aged 20-29, thanks to low fertility in the late 1990s. Women aged 20-29 however are more likely to have a first child than older women, who might already have children. Since there are now many more women aged 30-40 or so than younger women, it is only natural that the average birth sequence rises or stays steady, despite overall fertility declining. So being careful, I wouldn’t bet too much on a rise of Russian fertility being set in stone. I don’t think it will drop further, but it also won’t magically increase beyond 1.8 either in the foreseeable future, unless something changes fundamentally.
The fertility rate is declining in places like India and Pakistan etc., because chronic malnutrition is limiting population growth. That’s not a good thing.
The fertility rate is declining in places like the United States and Western Europe, because mass immigration from places like India and Pakistan etc. has made it hard for the average person to raise a family and, like all rich countries, their natural instinct is to limit their number of children to that which they can REASONABLY (not just barely) support.
In the Great Depression the fertility rate of the United States declined. After things got better, the fertility rate increased. Now, thanks to mass immigration and ‘free’ trade, job prospects are not so good and the fertility rate is declining again. That’s not a problem, that’s adaptive.
The real answer is to let the people themselves decide how many children to have. What a concept.
Religious groups are often far harder working and more disciplined than atheist ones which often let’s them be more successful, but this doesn’t mean they’re high IQ
I find that very hard to believe.
Wild boars fear humans and seldom get aggressive. Most will run off the moment they hear your steps. The one unsettling thing with them is their bark at night, which sounds like something from a horror flick.
Sam typically exaggerates but there are records of pig attacks on people, and being intelligent creatures, they can learn from each other. That said, it is still unlikely unless they were provoked – the majority of hog attack victims are men who were trying to hunt them.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1150&context=icwdm_wdmconfproc
Wild hogs are extremely aggressive animals who routinely stalk and kill human beings in Japan and North America. They are more aggressive than pit bulls and go straight for the legs — then the jugular once you’re grounded. They’re actually more likely to kill you if you don’t provoke them. Don’t listen to anything the animal lovers tell you. Even domesticated pigs are quarrelsome and will kill when the opportunity arises.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/11/08/watch-unsuspecting-japanese-salaryman-taken-out-by-wild-boar-he-walked-work/
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/2136652/wild-boars-are-taking-over-japans-small-towns-and-residents-are
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/us/texas-woman-killed-feral-hogs.html
Agreed. But do the Japanese have a hard time figuring out how to use guns? Just SHOOT the boars. Either kill them or tranquilize them and move them to a wildlife preserve.
Now there’s an interesting paper, thanks!
It seems the best defense is to climb a tree or run for dear life (although boars are faster than humans, so you better have some head start!).
Read the paper Daniel Chieh linked to. Boar attacks are really very rare.
And for what it’s worth, I run into wild boars at least once a week when I stay at our house in the country, so I have a pretty good idea of how they act when they see humans.
Well the abstract of what you just linked claims that most weren’t hunting and appeared to be unprovoked.
One would expect hunters would be the majority of attacks (since they logically have the most contact with boars, being actively seeking them in their habitat). Since they’re not, that would seem to support the thesis that there is an increasing phenomenon of (seemingly) arbitrary gorings. The figure detailing a steady increase of attacks in urban areas up to the early 2010s also supports this.
Ah yes, I might have misread this part:
It still does say that it the single most common cause was because the animal in question felt threatened.
Doubtful, that would be a pattern if they were trying to eat humans. However, in the abstract I linked, the most common victims were male and it mentions no particular predation cause – predators go for females and children. There is indeed evidence of “anger” attacks, and I suspect that like crows, pigs are intelligent enough that they can display emotionally-guided behavior.
Its not that common at any rate, though, as I mentioned, it might be increasing if the attackers can pass on their knowledge.
I’d say that you are much more likely to die in a airplane crash.
In the abstract, dogs seem to fight them to the death to protect their humans often enough.
From a purely biologic and evolutionary point of view, birth control is poison to the human race.
I missed that. How lovely! Man’s best friend, eh?
What you keep forgetting is that your report only describes IDENTIFIED hog attacks. An unusual number of people in the United States have disappeared, more so than any developed nation, and the most common places for them to vanish include national parks and rural areas. A substantial number of these people have been killed and fully digested by wild hogs.
https://thoughtcatalog.com/emily-madriga/2017/09/heres-why-people-are-creeped-out-by-the-growing-number-of-missing-people-in-our-national-parks/
When wild hogs eat something, they eat it whole. Even the bones are consumed. Wild hogs are on tbe level of tigers in terms of fearlessness and will attack multiple armed men and motor vehicles/watercraft.
820 pound wild hog killed in Alabama:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-wild-hog-alabama-20170720-story.html
I’ve seen much bigger hogs in Minnesota. Wolves get eaten by them.
I don’t know why, but there was something very funny about the Japan video. Thank goodness the guy is okay.
They are the Terminators of the natural world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7dIHrLkZMc
I don’t think Tinder is the explanation. I think Tinder is part of the explanation. I think excessive smartphone penetration is the explanation. Most people are constantly on their phones and social media, and that’s having a depressing effect on fertility.
One simple effect is a disruption of circadian cycles, people don’t get sleep, as a result married people will have less sex despite wanting to conceive. (I read somewhere that it was estimated that some one quarter of all infertility cases are due to infrequency of intercourse.) Then they don’t even want to have children in the first place, as a result of being so super tired and not having any energy for such a big thing. This might actually be a delayed effect (after several years of sleep deprivation people’s energy levels finally sink to a level where they start to indefinitely delay having children), so does not have to immediately strictly correspond to smartphone penetration rates. (Smartphone net was also way slower a few years ago, people didn’t watch much videos there as quality was way worse etc.)
Another effect is that social media (which got really big over the past decade – maybe there’s a delay in its effects?) makes people underestimate their place in the social pecking order. (They see the best Instagram photos of others, and compare them to their own reality.)
And yes, Tinder might be a part of the picture.
It’s also possible that those microwaves really do have some detrimental effect on physical and/or mental health.
Smartphones might be the perfect storm with more than one mechanism to destroy fertility.
But it could be some other environmental reason, I just can’t think of anything else but smartphones and social media.
Let me highlight it for you again
You are clearly a total idiot, compare North and South Korean fertility, the South is a US puppet (which means it is ultimately a jewish puppet). As for Iran, it is hardly a secret that the jews have been waging an incredibly aggressive foreign policy to destroy Iran.
The secular Ashekanzi are spawned endlessly by the religious jew, so this theory that they are about to vanish is nonsense.
As for this, like I already said, you are a total idiot if you believe this bullshit.
This buffoon apparently missed my point about cost of living.
North Korea’s fertility rate is 1.9 (pitiful, below replacement)
South Korea’s is 1.17 (pitiful, below replacement)
South Korea actually looks to be in better shape than the North despite a lower birthrate, owing to better lifetime mortality statistics.
Jews are making Iranians breed below replacement since the 1980s. Sure. Antisemite = low t cuck.
Religious Jews in Israel have <95 IQs and completely lack the political and academic 'spark' that makes American Ashkenazim so special. They’re basically two different species as dissimilar from themselves as Australian British are from Australian Aboriginals, behaviorally and cognitively speaking.
“You are a total idiot” says the guy who lives in an abandoned toolshed. Somebody knows nothing about Jewish diversity and that somebody is you.
More stupidity. It is possible you come from a parallel universe where Israel does not get billions of money stolen from the US tax payers, because according to your solid logic there is no real relationship between jews in America and in Israel. They obviously also don’t have all those anti BSD laws in your universe either.
Vampires are responsible for even more perfect, undocumented attacks.
khabib looks white unless you suffer from colour blindness.
Or always hike with a slower companion.
Israel gets money primarily because of Protestant USA Christians. It was Ronald Reagan and his crack-addicted followers who started the billion dollar payouts to Israel.
However, most of the money actually goes back to the US government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel–United_States_relations#Reagan_administration_(1981%E2%80%931989)
I have met far more pro-Israel white Christians (i.e. bog standard Goyim in the South) than I have pro-Israel Jews. In fact, I have never met a pro-Israel Jew in my life. All of the American Jews I have ever known were anti-Israel, and I’ve lived around a lot of Jews.
You would probably realize the same thing, if you thought about it. Of course, you are unable to think about anything but Jews and your (circumcised) micro penis.
Wow…why does UNZ employ such an obvious liar as Karlin…?
His fantastic claims about total fertility rate in Russia are starkly at odds with published information, such as that available on wikipedia, which, in turn is sourced from the World Bank…
https://i.postimg.cc/yNGkg874/Russia-TFR.jpg
The World Bank data is based on numerous sources, including the UN, national census agencies etc…
Not only that but Karlin makes up his own charts based on various links in the Russian language…
For instance if we follow his link to the Levada Center [which is an ‘independent’ polling outfit in Russia]…we see this…
https://i.postimg.cc/brp8d7Sf/Levada-poll-Russia-TFR.jpg
So the ‘expected’ number of children in this poll is ‘1.8’ and the desired number is 2.6…
So where is Karlin’s number of 1.5…?
It is nowhere to be seen in that entire article he linked to as some kind of ‘citation’ for his completely made-up graph…
Here is the translated article…
This is just kindergarten-level deception that this clown is pulling here…what does this do for the credibility of this website…?
Btw…this is the standard go-to tactic of Karlin…the use of Russian-language links that say something completely different to what he claims…I could document this deception quite easily with his past ‘articles’…
Here is the concluding paragraph of that linked article…
Followed by a table…
https://i.postimg.cc/RVY8YrCC/Levada-poll-Russia-TFR-2.jpg
So it is clearly beyond doubt that Karlin is intentionally DECEIVING readers with regards to black and white facts…
How long is this clown supposed to keep getting away with this…?
Does UNZ take us for idiots that do not deserve basic respect…?
Does UNZ take us for idiots that do not deserve basic respect…?
I don’t believe that there is any question about that.
Why would AK want to fabricate information?
I can’t read Russian and don’t follow all of the graphs and spreadsheets, but I do follow his blog and it is pretty clear that, intellectually , he is a straight arrow.
–Attributed to Mark Twain
Look…did you even bother to read the translated article I linked to…?
Obviously not…because nowhere in there does it state Karlin’s number of 1.5 as the TFR for 2019…
In any case that is a POLL…this is not the same as statistical information such as gathered by the UN, World Bank etc…
And then you ask, ‘why would Karlin want to fabricate information’…?
That’s a good question…FOR KARLIN…not for me…only this pathological liar knows the reason why he does this…
I have already presented proof of him totally fabricating this 1.5 figure…and even more important, I have stated that this is the regular modus operandi of Karlin’s…to link to Russian language sites that, when translated, do not actually say anything close to what he claims they say…
Ask yourself this…why does he not link to the translated text…?…he’s never heard of google translate…?…if I can do it why can’t he…?
I can document this intentional deception with the untranslated links by the dozen literally…I have already done that for some of his more outrageous lies, but haven’t bothered to post this…because this nobody is not worth my time…
Remember the ‘article’ he wrote claiming Julian Assange tried first to get Asylum in Russia…?
PURE FABRICATION…
I raised the alarm at that point and Israel Shamir, who is a friend of Assange, stepped in and debunked the liar Karlin on his own thread…
But you can go on believing this ridiculous nobody who seems to have a need to spread false information about Russia [again for whatever reason…we can only speculate]…
It was used as a citation for the desired and expected, and matched that.
It was not used as a citation for the real TFR.
Why would anyone expect Levada, a polling agency, to be the source for the actual demographic data, rather than for opinions and expectations of people polled?
Are you that dense?
How so…ASSHAT…?
The figure of 1.5 is never mentioned in that link…the number for 2019 ‘expected’ is 1.8…
You are clearly an idiot…which you have proved many many times already…
Of course it isn’t. Levada is a polling agency, it’s not the Russian state statistical agency.
Yes, the people who were polled expected that the fertility rate would be 1.8.
But the actual fertility rate is 1.5.
Is that hard for you to understand?
Are you that dumb?
Says the moron who expected Levada, a polling agency, to be used as a citation for demographic data.
Look IDIOT…
Where is the source that the ‘actual’ fertility for 2019 is 1.5…?
Please give a link or STFU…
Also it was Karlin with his home-made tables and charts that listed LEVADA as the source…
You are quite the retard…
Says the moron who thought Levada, a polling agency, was used as a citation for demographic data.
And who thought that when people in a poll “expected” TFR would be 1.8, this was the actual TFR.
You then accused the author of being a liar, simply because you were too stupid to understand what you read 🙂
It isn’t Levada and only a fool would think that it was.
That fool is you.
Are you able to count to 3?
After the third paragraph there is a chart taken from Cicerone with the 1.5 (actually 1.49) TFR for 2019.
Here is the link:
https://twitter.com/Cicerone973
You are welcome.
He listed Levada as a source for expected and ideal TFR, which is what Levada polled.
You were too dumb to get that.
This was the link to Cicerone:
https://twitter.com/Cicerone973/status/1190287938908807170
I’m going to make it quite simple for you moron…since you are obviously quite mentally challenged…
Here is Karlin’s bullshit chart that he made up out of thin air, as seen in his so-called ‘article’ above…
https://i.postimg.cc/D0SQqCMj/Russia-TFR-2.jpg
You will note that he gives an ACTUAL TFR for 2019 of 1.5…and then links to the Levada site where we find NO MENTION of either ‘actual’ TFR or even the number 1.5…
So you tell me who is full of shit…and who is so braindead here that he decides to argue this…
Here is the translated link to Levada that the bullshitter Karlin ‘cites’ as a ‘source’ for his homemade table…
I already covered all this…but you are too dumb to follow…
NEXT…we can go through ALL of his links here and find the same result…there is NOTHING to support what he has put down in his homemade table about ‘actual’ fertility rate…
For instance in 2017…he links to Rosstat…here’s what you get when you follow that link…it’s nothing more than an index page…
The same for 2018…where he links to another polling outfit…VCIOM in this case…here’s what you get…NOTHING about ‘actual fertility rate’…
So why is he putting those Russian language links in there as some kind of bogus ‘citations’…hmm…?
Go ahead and answer me that Einstein…
And then we have this chart here…which MR BULLSHIT has labeled ‘Birth Data 2019’…
Where is the SOURCE FOR THIS…?
It doesn’t exist…it is all fabricated by the sick clown Karlin…
Your little jig here is quite pathetic…hard to believe that such morons haven’t yet eliminated themselves from the gene pool…
Wow…you are full retard…
A bloody TWEET from some anonymous ‘Cicerone’…?
And look…he’s got a whole 435 ‘followers’…whoever the heck this clown is…
And this is your accepted ‘source’ for Karlin’s bullshit…?
Reminds me exactly of his alleged ‘sources’ for the totally bogus Assange story and the Russian asylum…which ‘sources’ he ‘couldn’t reveal’…he actually started going into some spiel about how Ron Unz is a ‘great editor’ for giving him this ‘journalistic’ freedom…[I’m sure Mr. Unz is deeply gratified to have such a dolt in his stable…]
You need to go back and get your preschool diploma friend…
LOL, you keep broadcasting your own inability to read 🙂
So you can’t count to three, can you?
Can you at least count to 1?
Look at the first table. That’s where the actual TFR comes from.
Levada is the source for the 1.82 and 2.63, which are the result of opinion polls. Levada is a polling agency, not a demographic source.
Karlin’s chart put together the demographic data with actual TFR, with the polling data of what Russians think.
LOL, you went to all the links looking for demographic data (actual) when clearly those links were for polling data (expected and desired)?
No Russian is as dumb as you. You are probably an American boomer.
Unless you are a troll playing dumb. In which case – good job. You got me to make several posts.
Let’s review here shall we…?
The data for ACTUAL Russian TFR in 2017 given by the world bank and listed on wikipedia is 1.8…
But now some ANONYMOUS clown on Twitter puts up a chart SHOWING NO SOURCE NOR ANY LINKS TO ANY REPUTABLE AGENCY…that says the very next year Russia’s TFR is 1.5…?
And the incredibly gifted bullshitter Karlin uses this to cook up his own table with links to polling firms as the main source…?
And of course this is completely ‘clear’ to a profoundly retarded tree monkey like yourself…?
Am I on the right track…?
The total fertility rate was 1,58 in 2018 -Karlin was correct and reporting this reliably.
I think Karlin calculates himself because he is impatient to wait for the other media. But all media in Russia was then repeating the 1,58 number – so Karlin was obviously ok and he didn’t press the wrong button on his calculator when he made that figure.
However, some people like Karlin and Stranger233 blog he links to are more optimistic that it will be a higher number, based on slightly obscure indicators (public opinion surveys asking how many children people want, average birth sequence, etc). But saying the number will be much higher because of that, it looks a bit like people predicting the future stock market prices, from the yield curve – or perhaps tea leaves.
Look…don’t give me this bullshit about Russian media and blah blah blah…
Facts are facts…the latest confirmed figures are for 2017 and they are here…
Also the entire premise of this bullshit ‘article’ is nonsense…the Kremlin has been actively promoting bigger families and giving all kinds of subsidies to families with more than two children…this includes subsidized mortgage rates and even government paying off a portion of the principal…among other measures…
This active program has been quite successful and is why we are seeing an UPWARD trend in recent years…not down as this bullshitter is trying to claim…
Karlin is a total goof…that is beyond dispute…he writes total bullshit that he makes up out of whole cloth…why, if there were media reports about these things doesn’t he link to those…?
Why does he link to some obscure fool on Twitter…?
Why does he choose to write about the subject and then ignore the elephant in the room, which is the successful government program to increase births…?
This is complete bullshit…and you and the other losers that hang around on this ridiculous blog are pathetic…
Ron Unz needs to get rid of this bullshit artist…he has been exposed as a total liar on many occasions…
Some months ago he wrote some kind of bullshit about how ‘backward’ Russia was in ‘technology’…again putting up a whole bunch of Russian language links that didn’t support anything he claimed…
The whole bullshit was about some Russian tablets and smartphones and such ridiculous gadgets…as if that is the measure of any kind of meaningful technology…
A few months later Putin unveiled the Avangard missile…the world’s first hypersonic boost glide vehicle that skips across the top of the atmosphere like a pebble over a calm pond…this is a huge and real technology advance that has been sought for nearly 80 years…ever since German scientist Eugene Sanger came up with the ‘Silbervogel’ concept for a long-range rocket-bomber that could reach New York…
Look it up…
Recently the arms inspectors were given a peak at the Avangard silos as per the START agreement, as it has now been operationally deployed…
This is a huge technology milestone…not some bullshit about fucking phones and tablets…
There is also the world’s first operational scramjet engine in the Zircon missile…another huge leap forward in advanced propulsion…which will someday be used for civil aviation also…taking us around the world in a fraction of the time of today’s subsonic aircraft…
Karlin is full of shit…he does not have any qualifications or credentials in any of the subjects he chooses to scribble about…he is a disgrace to any website…
Naturally the losers flock to his nonsense…that does not surprise me at all…
He’s a paid shill. Don’t reply to him, ignore his posts. Any reaction at all to his drivel is only furthering his handlers’ agenda.
Laughable. You and FB are obviously paid Russian government trolls. And extremely psychologically torpid ones, at that. Russia’s government has to be able to afford better than this.
P.S. ignoring people never works and only empowers your opponents while weakening yourself. That’s the definition of “knowledge is power”.
Look…did you even bother to read the translated article I linked to…?
No.
You’re that fat no-neck fag that has a crush on AK that he wrote about some months ago, aren’t you?
Anyway, about his Russian links, we have ace Ukrainians in this comment section and they read Russian like it’s Ukrainian, so any sleight of hand with the language will not work.
There’s an easy test for shill detection: a shill’s performance is evaluated on volume. A shill therefore is in every thread making hundreds of asinine comments.
I’m posting very irregularly, same for ‘FB’ and most other posters.
As per your P.S. – one of the goals of shilling is to drown the conversation in asinine bullshit, and ignoring shills makes it harder for them to meet their volume and frequency quotas.
Ha ha…well…so Munchhausen Karlin is a magnet for Ukrainian orcs…?
Not surprised…[yet Karlin pretends he is pro-Russia…what a lousy act]
You’re obviously a nutcase…I don’t even read Karlin’s amateurish drivel…complete waste of time…I’ve only commented on a couple of his threads…I’m an aerospace engineer and pilot…have a look at my posting history here or my website…
Not surprised retarded little ‘iffen’ is two miles off the mark in his pathetic attempt at mudslinging…LOL
I spent some time last night wading through the recent post history of this clown ‘A&P’…what a joke…this sad clown lives on the Karlin threads 24/7…
Btw…little ‘iffen’…I notice you don’t address the substance of what I am complaining about here…which is intellectual dishonesty…
Obviously the Ukrainians don’t mind that Russia is being distorted from reality like a funhouse mirror here, by Munchhausen Karlin …so obviously they are ok with this blatant lying…
My question is why is Mr Unz okay with this…?
He purports to have lofty goals for this website, yet his writing stable consists mostly of bush leaguers…Karlin being the most unfit of the bunch…
Btw…little ‘iffen’…I notice you don’t address the substance of what I am complaining about here…which is intellectual dishonesty…
Comprehend much?
‘Nuff said.
Sure LOSER…
Keep following losers like Karlin and see how far that takes you…LOL
Thank you AP, and Dmitry & iffen, for holding the line.
Re-FB: Obviously the World Bank knows Russian statistics better than Russia’s own statistics agency, which had Russia’s TFR at 1.58 in 2018 (https://fedstat.ru/indicator/31517), and number of births declining by a further 8% as of Jan-Aug 2019 y/y from 1,078,126 to 994,306 (https://fedstat.ru/indicator/33555) which would indeed translate to a ~5% decline in TFR, i.e. to around 1.5 children per woman.
It is ironic how FB trusts the Zionist imperialist institution of the World Bank over based, sovereign Rosstat.
Here is this episode for anyone interested in following up on that: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/assange-clarifications/#comment-3157974
AK: Apart from confusing a polling agency for a statistics service, you are also apparently too stupid and/or impulsive to realize that you can click on the list symbol next to the dates in my links to select additional dates. Anyhow, while you are very free to engage in your barely literate spittle-flecked rants against me, you will no longer be doing so on my blog.
As always the PATHOLOTICAL LIAR Munchhausen Karlin points to a Russian language website that does not in any way say anything that he claims…
Here is a screenshot of his link for supposedly births in 2019…which is preceded by this sentence…
https://i.postimg.cc/cJzwtWc8/Registered-Births-Russia-2006.jpg
NOTICE…
This has NOTHING to do with births in 2019, but with births in 2006…
Here is the screenshot of his other link…
https://i.postimg.cc/NMy8dF04/TFR-2013-to-2015.jpg
No explanation needed…says right there…from the Russian state statistics agency [EMISS] we see the total fertility rate figures for the years 2013 to 2015…we see clearly the numbers are going UP…
What do either of these web pages have to do with Karlin’s REPEATED LIE about 1.5 TFR for the current year…
WHERE IN HELL IS THIS SHOWN ON THOSE TWO LINKS…
I rest my case…
KARLIN MANAGES TO INDICT HIMSELF BY HIS OWN OUTRAGEOUS LIES…
Just like with his completely made up Assange bullshit…it’s almost hilarious how he tries the same ridiculous fancy footwork of trying to muddle very simple issues of fact by deflecting to some completely irrelevant nonsense…as we have seen here…
This is a crying shame and a red face for Ron Unz…
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It is ironic how FB trusts the Zionist imperialist institution of the World Bank over based, sovereign Rosstat.
You tell’em, AK.
Like those Russkies ever fudged any numbers.
The Trench have a good term for returning post Imperial Russians from Central Asian and elsewhere. Pieds Rouges.
Yes there are but you’ve left out some of the most important. One of these is urbanisation. Urbanisation means a loss of any sense of connectedness to a local community or to society as a whole. Urban-dwellers are atomised individuals.
Too much education, especially for women, is another major factor.
Thirdly, too much emphasis on the fantasy of Romantic Love coupled with the idea of Great Sex as the prime indicator of Romantic Love. People now see marriage as an arrangement for short-term sexual and emotional bliss rather than a practical arrangement for life-long happiness and fulfilment.
FB has problems. I came across him on Saker’s blog. He worships Saker which says something.
FB clearly has severe emotional problems concerning his relationship with his father. He will never manage to please him so he is desperate to put down rivals. His commentary is destructive. Gerard is merely foul mouthed. FB is better blocked. He focusses on a point on which he is correct overextends it and doesn’t let go. He will never get well.
As the old joke goes, “Two friends go hiking in the woods and come upon a bear. The first asks frantically, ‘Oh God. How are we going to outrun the bear?’ Friend answers, ‘I don’t have to outrun him. I just have to outrun YOU.’”
I grew up in heavily Jewish areas in northern New Jersey, worked and lived in NJ and NY, now LA. Had secular and froomie Jewish friends and acquaintances throughout childhood, college, and grad school. Childhood classmate and playmate volunteered for the IDF after we got out of HS. Another childhood acquaintance went to live on a kibbutz. I passed notes in German / bad Yiddish with my flirty froomie lady friend in grad school. I had a boss who raised funds for Israel. Best friend here in LA is Jewish. So yeah, I know them well too. Had some great personal relationships but many absolutely miserable experiences, including repeated abusive work environments and betrayals, with our inbred chosen people.
My LA bud, and many many many other Jews of our acquaintance, are definitely pro-Israel. You may somehow know an utterly unrepresentative group of Jews, or perhaps Jews who live in the USA but not on the coasts (where I’ve mostly lived) for some reason are quite different in this regard. Or you’re trying to make people think that Jews in the USA don’t place their Jewish identity above their american one and don’t care about Israel at our expense when necessary.
Jews don’t do that.
https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/FT_19.04.29_TrumpIsrael_favor420px-1.png
I’m from a purely protestant area of the USA, and 50% of the bumper stickers in the midwest/south are pro-Israel. Protestant wbite Americans are the ones who put Jewish identiy above American identity. Not Jews.
Protestant wbite Americans are the ones who put Jewish identiy above American identity. Not Jews.
What’s it like to be ignorant?
It’s a part of their religious belief, not Jewish identity.
And they are real Americans. Look at the census and see where people claim American as their heritage.
Ok? That doesn’t change the fact that they’re putting Jewish identity above American identity. They support Israel more than they support themselves.
Southerners are un-American. They have historically been nothing but an antagonist to this country and seem to be biologically incapable of making good decisions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_ancestry
Tbe pro-Israel US policy was brought to us by Irish admixed protestant Christian “Americans” from the South and midwest, like Ronald Reagan (born in his mom’s apartment seated above a department store in rural Illinois). Not Jews.
“One last thing I will say on this is that Moscow is not a baby-friendly city at least within the line 5 metr”
In its defense, a recent survey that I saw on Domofond (Russian real estate site) did rate Moscow’s suburbs highly for child-friendly activities. Tons of entertainment, sporting, and educational options compared to other cities. Rostov, a city that I vastly prefer to Moscow, rated poorly in that respect.
I’m doing my part for Russia. One little Russian, three to four more in the plans. If only I could marry more than one, as my wife’s social circle includes a few cat ladies who are facing 33 with no partner and no plans for kids.
“Protestant wbite Americans are the ones who put Jewish identiy above American identity. Not Jews.”
As much as I like disparaging Jews every chance I get, why don’t you two stay on topic?
All that I will say is that the founding premise of Zionism (ala Herzil) is that Jews are loyal to their tribe, not the country that they happen to be infesting and undermining.
I used to think a lot about fertility, what is causing the collapse, and here’s my two cents.
I considered Jewish cultural influence, mainly modern liberalism, which takes culture from Trotsky and economics from the Anglo tradition, modern gadgets, feminism, but you can take any of these, or combine them, and you’ll see that attempting to universally apply them across the globe, in places where the fertility is below replacement, will hit too many contradictions.
Until I found a pattern.
My conclusion is that lower fertility is not determined by culture, but by convenience and the organization of society around life expectations, primarily the school->university->career->family pipeline. You have to enact laws to disrupt this pipeline, else all attempts, including very modest monetary incentives to parents and what not, will fail to reverse the trend.
Children are a burden, hence, an inconvenience, to material progression, and the will to comfort trumps ideology or ‘expectations’. People will balance material progression with the conscientious desire to have children, and in the end the former wins out in numbers large enough to collapse the fertility rate.
In the pre-industrial, pre-urban age, having extra hands to work the fields and take care of you when you’re old meant good investment, not a burden.
Intrusive solutions, with each helping to varying degrees, are: ban abortion completely, ban the pill, ban the condom, ban women from the workplace. Only banning women from the workplace would help comprehensively, but this is undoable.
The less intrusive solution which must apply regardless of sex is to prohibit university to the childless, or block them from pursuing certain job prospects, and having children will be no different than the exceptation most young people have that university is ‘mandatory’ if you want a decent job and material progression (what we call ‘career’). I can almost hear the counter-argument that it’s nonsensical to force people to have children to get higher education or work a certain job, but today higher education is so passé that a majority of grads will ultimately pursue unrelated careers, and where I live you must have an university diploma for an awful number of jobs, relation between your education and new job be damned. It’s pure credentialism, and replacing it with children is the way forward.
The government willing to enact such laws, making childlessness a burden rather than a boon to material progression, will solve the problem overnight.
REPLACE THE CREDENTIALISM, BABY BOOM NOW!
I wish Russians all my best.
I’ve noticed quite a few nice new playgrounds here in Moscow. They also have new elevators in several perekhods. Many of the stairs aren’t so steep so a father can easily carry a stroller down stairs.