Yes, North-western European culture is adapted to late marriage. Although the age of first marriage among females has never risen as sharply nor as high as over the last thirty years.
The main worry, though, is the proportion of women who never have children. That seems to be rising as sharply as the age of first marriage. (As with climate change, it is the rate of change that matters, not, within reason, the particular numbers at any one time.)
The rate of childlessness was almost the same thing as the proportion of never-married women before the development of the welfare state. Not so much any more perhaps, but there are other things driving childlessness now.
Stephen Shaw, in interviews about his research for his documentary "Birth Gap", found that the majority of childlessness was involuntary. It was due to women believing what they have been told since the 1960s, that "there is plenty of time to have children", "the twenties are for having fun; you can settle down later", and "career comes first", and similar masculine life-narratives.
In the current culture, with those narratives and a welfare state, one heritable characteristic likely to correspond with fertility is impulsiveness/poor planning ability.
Every graph included in this article shows age at first birth for women or first marriage to be older now than any other time. Your own data undermines your argument.
The Industrial Revolution marked a significant shift in the labor landscape, displacing skilled artisans of the late Middle Ages with low-skill factory labor. These artisans, who relied on guilds for training that could span 5-7 years, were supplanted by factories capable of employing individuals directly from rural areas with minimal prior training.
Before World War II, the Industrial Revolution was concentrated in a handful of countries, with estimates ranging from 7 to 10 depending on the definition used. Industrial technologies proliferated rapidly after WWII, particularly during the free trade era of the 1980s. This concentration meant that manufacturing and factory employment constituted a larger share of the economy in industrialized nations prior to WWII.
Post-WWII, economists have observed a phenomenon known as skill-biased technological change. This trend has led to a higher return on investment for education and career development, incentivizing individuals to delay marriage to capitalize on these opportunities.
> However, it also caused a selection effect as now everybody could succeed in this game.
I'm pretty sure you meant "not" instead of "now".
Yes, North-western European culture is adapted to late marriage. Although the age of first marriage among females has never risen as sharply nor as high as over the last thirty years.
The main worry, though, is the proportion of women who never have children. That seems to be rising as sharply as the age of first marriage. (As with climate change, it is the rate of change that matters, not, within reason, the particular numbers at any one time.)
The rate of childlessness was almost the same thing as the proportion of never-married women before the development of the welfare state. Not so much any more perhaps, but there are other things driving childlessness now.
Stephen Shaw, in interviews about his research for his documentary "Birth Gap", found that the majority of childlessness was involuntary. It was due to women believing what they have been told since the 1960s, that "there is plenty of time to have children", "the twenties are for having fun; you can settle down later", and "career comes first", and similar masculine life-narratives.
In the current culture, with those narratives and a welfare state, one heritable characteristic likely to correspond with fertility is impulsiveness/poor planning ability.
correct form is <people did not 'use' to>
I don't like it.
Actually correct form omits the "use(d) to". That's a spoken idiom but the construction is not used in non-dialect writing because it is clumsy.
"People did not marry early", or "Before the 1950s late marriages were the norm|common|customary".
28 and 25 is plenty early no?
Every graph included in this article shows age at first birth for women or first marriage to be older now than any other time. Your own data undermines your argument.
The Industrial Revolution marked a significant shift in the labor landscape, displacing skilled artisans of the late Middle Ages with low-skill factory labor. These artisans, who relied on guilds for training that could span 5-7 years, were supplanted by factories capable of employing individuals directly from rural areas with minimal prior training.
Before World War II, the Industrial Revolution was concentrated in a handful of countries, with estimates ranging from 7 to 10 depending on the definition used. Industrial technologies proliferated rapidly after WWII, particularly during the free trade era of the 1980s. This concentration meant that manufacturing and factory employment constituted a larger share of the economy in industrialized nations prior to WWII.
Post-WWII, economists have observed a phenomenon known as skill-biased technological change. This trend has led to a higher return on investment for education and career development, incentivizing individuals to delay marriage to capitalize on these opportunities.
What do you think of my hypothesis?
This is the pattern Gregory Clark describes in ‘A Farewell to Alms’.
There are two equalibria in a Malthusian world: high fecundity+high mortality, or low fecundity+low mortality.
The first pattern was observed in most of Africa, the second in Europe and East Asia.