WTF
Edit: I wasn’t sure what I was appalled by at first but now I realize it’s that this fucking medal just encourages women to be treated no better than a prized heifer.
WTF
Edit: I wasn’t sure what I was appalled by at first but now I realize it’s that this fucking medal just encourages women to be treated no better than a prized heifer.
I think you’re forgetting the marital rape, financial dependence on men, lack of choice, sexist culture and general helplessness and misery of women involved in creating the ‘baby boom’.
Were those new problems that didn’t exist before the 50s?
Of course they did. But medical advancements have reduced infant mortality and increased life expectancy.
I think you misunderstood my point. Even with all material comforts and financial stability, what makes the original commenter think women will voluntarily choose to have children? The huge surge in population was not only because of government subsidies, but brutal repression and lack of any real choice women had. It is not natural – it was artificially created by a system of violent repression of women.
If it was due to reduced infant mortality then why didn’t the same pattern happen from 1800 to 1880? Infant mortality dropped from about 1/3rd to 1/5th dying before their 5th birthday. Fertility rate being fairly consistent around 5 with a slight (10%) increase for a few years around 1815 before going back to around 5.
Then fertility rates nosedive from 1880 to 1935 with a temporary increase (boomers are the peak of this) before dropping down again and continuing to where we are today.
I get it, people have been treated badly throughout history and it even continues today. But that isn’t the reason the boomers exist.
Except your point doesn’t contradict mine at all. The post-war economy offered a lot of job opportunities as well as social safety nets, unlike the 19th century. This was a factor, but it wasn’t the only factor. Because it was also a period with bad contraception. Soon after contraception became more reliable, fertility rates declined. If financial stability was the only factor, why did fertility rates decline as soon as women had the choice? The population boom was also stronger among Catholics. What explains that other than a misogynistic culture?
The fertility rates in Germany persist in being low despite the country having a decent safety net. Might be because women never really liked having children. Perhaps, just perhaps, having rampant marital rape has something to do with the baby boom?
So you think marital rape significantly increased specifically in the parents of the boomers, and was lower both before and after?
I have no idea why you have trouble comprehending that. You also conveniently skipped over my point on contraception and modern Germany.