Then there’s this -
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We also know that birth rates decline during periods of economic distress in societies. This is well known from studies of the depression and great recession.
Also, US birth rates (an advanced society) has a much higher birth rate than Europe and Japan. It’s not just having an advanced society.
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That’s part of it. But they also have very little autonomy in the classroom, little support for their work, and an overwhelming work load. Teachers have become stigmatized and blamed for literally all the problems with our public education system, when it’s often not their fault.
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And on top of everything else now they want us to start packing heat in case we are called upon to jump into antiterrorism mode.
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True that. My cousin started teaching in the public schools right around the time the active shooter drills were starting up-- well before Parkland or the latest Texas school shooting, mind you. The salaries were already stagnant with the workload increasing, and parents and community ready to sue teachers for just about any perceived offense at drop of a hat. She was wondering how the job could possibly become even more thankless. Then Parkland happened and the drills became a mandatory bi-weekly affair. Just when you thought the job couldn’t become even more miserable, it did.
Yep. Teachers are the lightning rod and scape-goats for all the blunders, corruption and mismanagement of the politicians and the failures of too many parents who find a convenient source to offload their frustrations. Hearing stories from my cousin who works in the public schools makes me wonder why anyone would take the job even for 6 figures, let alone the pittance teachers in the US are paid. Teachers in Europe esp. Scandinavia get a whole lot more and are treated a lot better.
“Also, US birth rates (an advanced society) has a much higher birth rate than Europe and Japan.”
That used to be true but not anymore. France and Ireland both have higher birth rates than the US, and the overall US birth rate is around the same as most of Europe. Also much of the higher US birth rate is just due to higher rates among Latinos which lately have been falling along with other groups in the country. When you compare the European descended white native born US birth rate with their counterparts back in Europe (roughly apples to apples), the US fertility rate is actually around the same or lower than much of Europe, and more importantly, the trendline for US TFR is actually headed sharply downward while it’s stabilized or actually doing up in much of Europe.
For example the native born birth rate in much of the Nordic country region is actually higher than counterparts in the US, and that has indeed been a result of the more family-friendly policies in Scandinavia providing affordable daycare, maternity leave and esp. universal health coverage so people don’t go bankrupt from giving birth with the potential for complications. The crisis in US student loans, now at $1.5 trillion plus crushing healthcare costs is only now reaching critical level, so we’re only starting to see the effects on societal scale. Although universal health care and affordable college don’t by themselves boost birth rate, they provide a safety net to ensure people are more confident about taking that step (and many American kids in fact are moving to Europe for exactly this reason). America lacks all of this even as economic security becomes more tenuous, so the current falling American birth rates are probably just the first few canaries in the coal mine of a much deeper demographic crisis starting to develop.
How empires rise. And fall.
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Yes, I’m aware. It has been true for a long time, however.
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