I have been saying this for more than a decade. Conservative social programs, including abortion bans, don't raise TFRs, and on net, if anything, probably depress them (e.g. if it results in ostracism towards single mothers). If you want to raise fertility through radical politics you have to pretty much go full Taliban/Caesar's Legion.
I have some anecdata on Austria. The Catholic Church learned they are not winning this one, so they switched to supporting pregnant women. They have ads everywhere, "pregnant? need help? call here".
Georgia has one of the top birth rates of any of the depicted nations (I think top 2 or 3 depending on the source). Yet it also has a high abortion rate. So what gives?
As a father to Georgian children, I can say that despite a strong religious component to the culture here, there are lots of compulsory tests during pregnancy and abortion for things like Down syndrome and congenital defects is pretty strongly encouraged.
How often is this the cause for abortion? I couldn’t say, and there may not be statistics available, but I know anecdotally from friends in other countries that often there are little to no compulsory tests during pregnancy, and abortion is treated more or less as a solely personal decision. This might not show up in basic statistics, but should have some dysgenic (or eugenic) effect over time.
Georgia is about the same as Armenia and Azerbaijan. It's all one Caucasian bloc (1.5-1.6) with Russia's Islamic North Caucasus republics being a bit higher (1.8) and Chechnya being a sharp upwards outlier (2.5). But Chechnya is its own thing, a totalitarian de facto Islamist satrapy. There's nothing specifically Georgian, the Patriarch's activism spiked them up a bit some years ago (conservatives like Lyman Stone love to cite it) but that effect faded after a few years.
Georgian TFR was as high as 2.4 in 2015 and was above 2 until 2021. It has dropped to 1.8 but is still better than Armenia and Azerbaijan (by 0.1, not much but something, considering the gap has been consistent over the last decade or so). The population imbalance from the post-Soviet fertility crash is mostly over and the median age in Georgia is actually identical to the U.S. or Australia at ~38 years old (with a population pyramid that is mostly silo-shaped). Not ideal, but very good overall considering the level of development.
Besides abortions communist Romania banned all contraceptives. Still every new wave of regulations and controls had an effect on fertility limited to only 2-3 years.
As a Dutch former enjoyer of Polish women (aged 25-35 in 2020) as a passer-by (been fortunate to have spend a lot of intimate time with multiple women), I think there's I have an explanation for this.
There's something deeply toxic ingrained in male culture, I think partially ingrained in generational trauma.
A lot of the men are nihilist alcoholics (like their fathers before them), and the women tend to be heavily influenced by western progressivism.
Those two barely mix, and therefor don't procreate. Then there's the whole Schengen-migratory work culture so that's another lot of unavailable men.
I have been saying this for more than a decade. Conservative social programs, including abortion bans, don't raise TFRs, and on net, if anything, probably depress them (e.g. if it results in ostracism towards single mothers). If you want to raise fertility through radical politics you have to pretty much go full Taliban/Caesar's Legion.
Or make housing affordable by letting people build
I have some anecdata on Austria. The Catholic Church learned they are not winning this one, so they switched to supporting pregnant women. They have ads everywhere, "pregnant? need help? call here".
Georgia has one of the top birth rates of any of the depicted nations (I think top 2 or 3 depending on the source). Yet it also has a high abortion rate. So what gives?
As a father to Georgian children, I can say that despite a strong religious component to the culture here, there are lots of compulsory tests during pregnancy and abortion for things like Down syndrome and congenital defects is pretty strongly encouraged.
How often is this the cause for abortion? I couldn’t say, and there may not be statistics available, but I know anecdotally from friends in other countries that often there are little to no compulsory tests during pregnancy, and abortion is treated more or less as a solely personal decision. This might not show up in basic statistics, but should have some dysgenic (or eugenic) effect over time.
Georgia is about the same as Armenia and Azerbaijan. It's all one Caucasian bloc (1.5-1.6) with Russia's Islamic North Caucasus republics being a bit higher (1.8) and Chechnya being a sharp upwards outlier (2.5). But Chechnya is its own thing, a totalitarian de facto Islamist satrapy. There's nothing specifically Georgian, the Patriarch's activism spiked them up a bit some years ago (conservatives like Lyman Stone love to cite it) but that effect faded after a few years.
Georgian TFR was as high as 2.4 in 2015 and was above 2 until 2021. It has dropped to 1.8 but is still better than Armenia and Azerbaijan (by 0.1, not much but something, considering the gap has been consistent over the last decade or so). The population imbalance from the post-Soviet fertility crash is mostly over and the median age in Georgia is actually identical to the U.S. or Australia at ~38 years old (with a population pyramid that is mostly silo-shaped). Not ideal, but very good overall considering the level of development.
Besides abortions communist Romania banned all contraceptives. Still every new wave of regulations and controls had an effect on fertility limited to only 2-3 years.
As a Dutch former enjoyer of Polish women (aged 25-35 in 2020) as a passer-by (been fortunate to have spend a lot of intimate time with multiple women), I think there's I have an explanation for this.
There's something deeply toxic ingrained in male culture, I think partially ingrained in generational trauma.
A lot of the men are nihilist alcoholics (like their fathers before them), and the women tend to be heavily influenced by western progressivism.
Those two barely mix, and therefor don't procreate. Then there's the whole Schengen-migratory work culture so that's another lot of unavailable men.