Talk:Income and fertility

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kailynriedel. Peer reviewers: ACdenver6465, Lmart12.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:23, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Racism[edit]

Is no one else offended by the deeply racist and social-Darwinist rhetoric of this article?

the significance of physical and mental quality for survival declines, and the quantity type individual gain the evolutionary advantage

and really, this is the tip of the iceberg. The "quantity type individual"? Somewhere, Hitler is smiling...

Oh please, 'Hitler is smiling'? Get over yourself! Sometimes I think one of worst things Hitler did was give a get-out-of-jail-free card for anyone to use to supress legitimate scientific research by invoking his spirit. We are talking about a very narrow semantic interpretation argument, not herding populations into gas chambers on the basis of a theory of 'racial superiority' - the Hitler reference is insulting, hysterical and unjustified. 217.45.192.99 16:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This article is based upon some untested assumptions that are not stated in the article. They are
  1. . Poorer, less educated people are less intelligent than richer people.
  2. . The rising costs per unit child affects the super rich more than it does middle class and the poor.
  3. . That the average intelligence of successive generations is falling.
These assumptions are not confirmed.
  1. . Regression analysis shows a poor degree of fit between income, education and intelligence.
  2. . Rising unit costs of having children can be shown to have a greater impact in reducing middle class fertility than that of the very rich who generally have larger families.
  3. . Evidence from intelligence testing suggests that the average intelligence of successive populations is rising, not falling.
John D. Croft 03:29, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

John D. Croft 03:29, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I am also deeply offended by the racist rhetoric of this article. There is a lot of unsourced speculation here that needs to be deleted, and the whole thing needs to be rewritten for WP:NPOV. However, the demographic-economic paradox is a real concept that gets non-racist attention in sociology, (e.g. [1]) so I don't think this would pass AFD. The path to take here is ruthless deletion of unsourced claims.--Yannick 13:18, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Should be better now.--Yannick 04:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Eugenics as unethical, immoral pseudoscience[edit]

I am deleting this because it cites an article which does not support the statement. Nowhere does it claim that eugenics is a pseudoscience, and it only condemns coercive practices of the past rather than condemning eugenics as a whole, which could be construed to include things like designer babies and [[2]], which is not the intention of the article.Lysine23 23:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lysine23, thank you for your concern for accurate citations. We certainly need more of that on Wikipedia. However, if you read the cited source, you will find it clearly supports the claim that eugenics is widely condemned as an unethical and immoral pseudoscience. The label "pseudo-science" is used frequently, and Section V discusses the prenatal diagnosis and abortions that you bring up. I think I've addressed all your concerns, so I will put the statement and citation back in.--Yannick 04:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I did read the cited source. It claims that certain practices were pseudoscience, specifically something to do with assuming that blind couples would have blind children, but never gave a blanket condemnation of eugenics. Quite the opposite - read the last paragraph which specifically does not dismiss the early eugenicists, and leaves the question "three generations of ??? are enough" unanswered. But upon taking a second look at this article, I'm not sure how relevant it is anyway. You don't have to be a eugenicist to believe that heredity influences earning potential - to be a eugenicist, you have to go a step further and propose increasing the birthrate of the "worthy" or getting rid of the "unworthy." The cited source which supposedly shows that eugenicists claim the demographic-economic paradox is a problem does not mention eugenics or dysgenics, and is written by living economists from Hebrew University and Brown University who, if eugenics is an immoral pseudoscience, should consider a citation that implies that they are eugenicists libelous. Therefore, I have removed all reference to eugenics. Since the article doesn't mention anybody who actually advocates eugenics, it doesn't belong here. Of course, anybody is welcome to dig up somebody who actually propose sterilizing the poor (or whatever) and mention that this person's ideas are considered immoral,etc. Lysine23 05:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well if you want to delete the entire paragraph about heriditary income, I'm OK with that. It's a vestigial remnant from a time when this article was much more racist. (See discussion above.) But the paragraph is clearly about eugenics, even if the word itself is removed. It even refers to a "dysgenic trend", which is a clear giveaway. In the interest of WP:NPOV and avoiding weasel words, we need to specify as much as possible the source of controversial opinions, and their credentials. In this case, the belief that earning potential is hereditary is not held by "observers" in generals. It is a proposition of eugenicists and should be presented as such. That eugenics as an unethical and immoral pseudoscience is certainly a widely held view, and the Lombardo citation makes that quite clear. Even for the ridiculously literal-minded, the Lombardo aricle includes footnotes referring to "the now-discredited pseudo-science of eugenics". If you can find a better citation supporting the condemnation of eugenics, your help is welcome. As to the Galor and Moav paper, see my answer further below.--Yannick 06:13, 20 October 2007 (UTC)i[reply]
To be a "eugenicist" you have to support some sort of active program to increase the fertility of "good" people and/or decrease the fertility of "bad" people. Believing that income potential is hereditary (which lots of people do) does not necessarily require supporting such actions (which few do). It's like the difference between believing that guns increase murder rates and supporting gun control. But I agree that the current paragraph is lousy. I was planning to find better sources and rewrite it, but feel free to delete it.Lysine23 12:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Upon further investigation, I don't see where it says in the Moav/Galor source that the demographic-economic paradox threatens future growth. I think people are reading their own biases into these sources.Lysine23 06:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
True, they recognize western economic growth as stable. The Galor and Moav paper is lousy and the citation is not well placed. It's also a vestige from a more racist version of the article that I salvaged in an attempt to write for the enemy. It's a good example of claims that income is heriditary and that high fertility rates are a dysgenic trend that reduce income. Their particular views are somewhat different from the mainstream eugenics concerns about the demographic-economic paradox that I summarized. But there is no false claim here, and therefore no libel.--Yannick 06:13, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There was a false claim - that Galor and Moav are eugenicists.Lysine23 12:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Any claims of dysgenics should be based on citations from Institute for Scientific Information listed journals, not from the Quarterly Review of Economics, the Florida State University Law Review or similar sources, in my opinion. I've found very little scientific literature on dysgenics in human populations. The generation time is long, it is difficult to control for effects like extra-pair paternity, and ethical issues abound. The ISI lists 14,000 journals. If good sources cannot be found from among those journals, they probably don't exist. I don't think content based on other sources is credible. The ones I've seen are either speculative and unscientific, in support of a social or political point of view, or both, e.g., Richard Lynn and his collaborators. Walter Siegmund (talk) 08:26, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The article is actually from the Quarterly Journal of Economics[3], which is listed by ISI. The question is whether it belongs here at all, and if so, where. It's more of an explanation of why the demographic-economic paradox exists than a warning of the consequences of a "dysgenic trend."Lysine23 13:26, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, this is funny. I took a class with Prof. Galor. I believe that you are reading too much into a word he may have used. I downloaded the paper you are talking about and it seems very similar to what he wrote with Professor Weil (also Brown.) The only difference is that he is justifying some of the stuff using darwin instead of the more common rational approach.
His theory, concerning growth, has to do with human capital accumulation. In a nut shell, he notes that with the demographic transition parents had a greater incentive to focus on the quality of their children (eg invest in education) then on the quantity of their children. This was the result of many factors interacting together including but not limited to: higher probability of survival upon birth, better returns to human capital, and greater opportunity costs of raising children. It is in particular the higher returns to education that led "rational parents" to focus on the quality of their children and not the quantity. Since there are finite resources, this translates into parents having fewer kids in order to invest more in each kid.
This paper is pretty much doing the same, but he seems to abandon the rationality argument in favor of the darwin argument; when parents make the quantity quality decision. So, before it was the rational parents who made the decision between "quantity and quality". In this paper, however, they replace that with the following:
There exists "types" of individuals with distinctive preferences regarding quantity and quality in their offspring. That is to say, some individuals prefer to maximize the quantity of their children at the expense of quality, and others maximize the quality at the expense of quantity. This preference or trait, is hereditary according to their model. Then, there is a cost mechanism that 'rewards' their decisions.
In essence what they show is that in times when quantity is better (low technology farming societies) quantity is better so the individuals who prefer quantity outnumber those who prefer quality. But as we move towards the industrial revolution quality becomes more beneficial to the survival and reproduction of types so, in a self enforcing process, quality individuals become more and more common over quantity individuals. So we start with a population that has many who prefer quantity and we end with a population of many who prefer quality. Note that this is not to suggest that such traits are correlated with race and it is not meant to explain the higher income of some countries over others, it is mean to explain a possible mechanism that functioned at the end of the Malthusian period (roughly, think Industrial revolution.) So, this is something that took place within a population and it is not used to comment across populations. Also, it is all model, not empirics in terms of the "genetic" aspects.
Note that, for x or y reason, fertility rates are dropping much faster in developing countries today then they did in developed countries when they were at a similar stage in development. So, in the language of the model, the selectivity for quality focused individuals seems to be more acute.
Yet, it is not a good idea to draw parallels between the development in developing countries today and the development in developed countries. One reason is that developed countries today exert too much influence because of their developed status and everything it entails. The reason why they manged to develop first does not have to be racial, it may be "luck" as "Guns Germs and Steel" points out. Let me know if you have any questions. I will try to read the paper more closely since its almost 4:00 a.m. and I am busy packing. I will be back tomorrow for further discussion. Ciao, Brusegadi (talk) 08:01, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't eugenics related issues be placed in the eugenics article? The eugenics article clearly states Eugenics is a social philosophy, which seems to be a long standing consensus, with a mention further down the article that some consider eugenics a pseudoscience. Trying to incorporate controversial/disputable claims in (barely) related articles looks like tendentious editing to me. --Zero g (talk) 01:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Who is that referring to? Brusegadi (talk) 06:32, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV tag?[edit]

I gather from WP:NPOV that there should be a general consensus before an NPOV tag is removed. As the article stands I don't see any controversial claims and therefore the NPOV dispute seems to be resolved. Since no mention is made of eugenics, the most recent dispute in this discussion must certainly be resolved. Anyone object to removing the NPOV tag? Featherlessbiped (talk) 06:42, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The neutrality of this article is not bad right now, and I support removing the NPOV tag. It's no worse than many other untagged articles. It's still incomplete, confusing, and misleading at points, but these aren't neutrality concerns.--Yannick (talk) 01:39, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the NPOV tag, moved the consequences section to the end and elucidated the introduction. I agree that this article needs a substantial amount of work, I think the changes I have made to the intro make it slightly less vague.Featherlessbiped (talk) 07:50, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Religion / Catholic[edit]

The article states:

This suggests that the demographic-economic paradox applies more strongly in Catholic countries, although Catholic fertility started to fall when the liberalizing reforms of Vatican II were implemented.

The teaching of the Catholic Church both before the Council and at present is that abstinence is the only valid form of birth control.

For the paradox to apply to Catholics, it would seem that either:

  • disobedience to Catholic teaching increases with wealth
  • abstinence increases with wealth, among Catholics

Since the number of consecrated celibates has fallen in these countries, the first seems to be the explanation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jogomu (talk • contribs) 22:28, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]


I am deleting the sentence quoting an incorrect US fertility rate and the table that follows, which actually shows figures for Germany not the US. There is nothing wrong with saying the US media has attributed high fertility to higher religiousity. But quoting incorrect data in support of this contested proposition is not acceptable. Johncoz (talk) 18:52, 25 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Merge[edit]

I think Fertility-development controversy should be merged to Demographic-economic paradox, since they appear to have basically the same scope. The latter seems to be the one more commonly used, so it should probably be the target. Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:39, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:33, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Paradox"?[edit]

Putting aside some other problems with this article, is this really referred to as a "paradox", extensively, in the literature? Paradox is something which is self-contradictory. This is simply illustrating the fact that Malthus was wrong.Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:03, 8 July 2011 (UTC) Checking sources really quick it does seem like this terminology is used sometimes in some works. Who are the people (profession wise) who use it?Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:05, 8 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the list of sources the article uses. Basically, none of them actually mention the subject of this article:

1. ^ David N. Weil (2004). Economic Growth. Addison-Wesley. p. 111. ISBN 0-201-68026-2.

2. ^ http://www.econlib.org/library/Malthus/malPlong.html EconLib-1826: An Essay on the Principle of Population, - does not use the word "paradox"

3. ^ a b demographic transition - does not use the word "paradox"

4. ^ [1] - does not use the word "paradox"

5. ^ Marburg Journal of Religion (June 2006) "Religiousity as a demographic factor" - does not use the word "paradox"

6. ^ Watch on the West: Four Surprises in Global Demography - FPRI - does not use the word "paradox"

7. ^ CIA - The World Factbook -- Rank Order - Total fertility rate - does not use the word "paradox"

8. ^ Nicholas Eberstadt - America the Fertile - washingtonpost.com May 6, 2007 - does not use the word "paradox", not a reliable source

9. ^ Michael Blume (2008) "Homo religiosus", Gehirn und Geist 04/2009. pp. 32 - 41 - I don't think this uses the word "paradox" either

10. ^ Adamson, Peter; Giorgina Brown, John Micklewright and Anna Wright (July 2001). "A League Table of Teenage Births in Rich Nations" (PDF). Innocenti Report Card (Unicef) (3). ISBN 88-85401-75-9. http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/repcard3e.pdf. - nope, no "paradox" here either

11. ^ "National and State Trends and Trends by Race and Ethnicity" (PDF). U.S. Teenage Pregnancy Statistics (Guttmacher Institute). September 2006. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/09/12/USTPstats.pdf. - or here

12. ^ Index of Economic Freedom - dead link

13. ^ CIA - The World Factbook - Rank Order - Birth rate - same source as before, no paradoxes

14. ^ Economic geography, fertility and migration Yasuhiro Sato, Journal of Urban Economics. Published July 30, 2006. Last accessed March 31, 2008. - pretty sure it's not in here either

15. ^ An Estimate of the Long-Term Crude Birth Rate of the Agricultural Population of China Chia-lin Pan, Demography, Volume 3, No. 1. Published 1966. Last accessed March 31, 2008. - or here

16. ^ [2]. Tory Gattis, houstonstrategies.blogspot.com. Published January 15, 2006. Last accessed March 31, 2008. - not a reliable source, no paradoxes

17. ^ de la Croix, David and Matthias Doepcke: Inequality and growth: why differential fertility matters. American Economic Review 4 (2003) 1091-1113. [3] - no paradoxes here

18. ^ UNFPA: Population and poverty. Achieving equity, equality and sustainability. Population and development series no. 8, 2003.[4] - whoa! The word "paradox" does appear in this source... unfortunately not in the sense that is being used in this article.

Classic OR.

VolunteerMarek 00:57, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You might have a point that the article title is not so good, but the appropriate solution to that is to move it or merge it. This phrase and concept was popularized in a book by Mark Steyn, America Alone, in 2006, and it was repeated in other sources such as [4]. This attention has thankfully waned over the years, the material is still in public discussion under different names. This isn't original research. Someone suggested merging to Fertility-development controversy, which would be better than deletion, though I wonder if the "controversy" phrase shows up any more than the "paradox" phrase. Maybe it could be merged into America Alone, since that seems to have been the dominant idea that spread out of that book. Another possible merge target might be Sub-replacement fertility.--Yannick (talk) 02:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That source does use the term "demographic-economic paradox" once - but it's not really enough to hang a whole article on. Of course, any of the info here, if it's properly sourced can be included in other articles. But there's no indication that this particular article merits... an article.VolunteerMarek 03:03, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As an article covering the association between wealth and fertility, I think it's notable enough to merit an article. However, it needs to be named accordingly, and therefore I suggested a move as per below. Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:53, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

VolunteerMarek 00:57, 29 June 2012 (UTC) notes that the word “paradox” does not appear in Malthus’ article “An Essay on the Principle of Population.” Malthus’ theory was that both rich and poor could produce offspring faster than farmers could increase the supply of food. Therefore, both would be continuously under pressure finding enough to eat. The rich could cope more easily, so would not suffer, but the poor would face a life of misery. Then, when a bad harvest produced food shortages, the poor would face famine. There does not seem to be a paradox there.

As SPhilbrick(Talk) 13:00, 30 June 2012 (UTC) suggested, the term probably came from Herwig Birg. The term “Demo-Economic Paradox” appears in this article “ DEMOGRAPHIC AGEING AND POPULATION DECLINE IN 21st CENTURY GERMANY – CONSEQUENCES FOR THE SYSTEMS OF SOCIAL INSURANCE https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/events/pdf/expert/2/birg.pdf Birg observed that a country’s total fertility rate (TFR) tends to be lower the higher a country’s level of development, and that a similar decline in fertility rate in Germany (a TFR of 2.4 in the 1960’s vs 1.3 in 1995) endangered the German social insurance system. He then opined that: ”It still appears a paradoxical outcome that people should be less willing to have children the better they can afford them” particularly if it damages the German retirement system.

Given all of this, I propose deleting the entire “Paradox” section and replacing it with a new section based on Birg. You can find a draft here: (link deleted) Joe Bfsplk (talk) 16:40, 26 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Having seen no objection to my suggestion, I will make the change. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 17:15, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Additional sources[edit]

Some admittedly cursory searching suggests that the original term was "Demo-economic paradox", coined by Herwig Birg. That fact, if confirmed, should be included.

Some additional sources which should be considered:

--SPhilbrick(Talk) 13:00, 30 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fertility Reversal[edit]

Goldstein, J. R., Sobotka, T. and Jasilioniene, A. (2009), The End of “Lowest-Low” Fertility?. Population and Development Review, 35: 663–699. doi: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2009.00304.x

This may be a better article to cite in relation to the reversal of the trend of declining fertility, as opposed to the Nature article (that it cites), which seems to be very misleading in its bracketing of HDI and the language used to describe it. The EU-27 has a well-below replacement fertility and the same is true of Japan. The "lowest-low" reversals that are being talked about are all within subreplacement fertilites such as Japan's 2005 bottom of 1.26 to the present 1.39. in The U.S. white population has subreplacement fertility (already a minority in children under one year of age) and the U.S. birth rate is at the lowest level ever recorded. Immigration is not necessarily counted as fertility growth, but even counting the fertility of new arrivals would be very misleading about the relationship between development and fertility, since most of these immmigrants are not earning like the established groups. This is not the case for Asian immigrants in the U.S., but here we notice that the difference is not captured in simple mathematical models, which explain nothing, but is captured in meaningful cultural differences and mentalities.

www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2009-029.pdf

Dr. Peeters's comment on this article[edit]

Dr. Peeters has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:


Well-founded


We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Peeters has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:


  • Reference : Peeters, Marga, 2011. "Demographic pressure, excess labour supply and public-private sector employment in Egypt - Modelling labour supply to analyse the response of unemployment, public finances and welfare," MPRA Paper 31101, University Library of Munich, Germany.

ExpertIdeas (talk) 15:05, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 7 February 2016[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved Mikael Häggström (talk) 06:52, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]


Demographic-economic paradox → Wealth and fertility → Income and fertility – As mentioned in previous discussion, the name demographic-economic paradox necessitates the presence of a paradox but we can't really say that there is one. The article compares wealth as a fertility factor, and as such I think it would be much more intuitive to name it accordingly, just as the related articles Fertility and intelligence and Age and female fertility. Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:52, 7 February 2016 (UTC) Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:52, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I support this, but I think it should be Income and fertility or something like that, since the article talks mostly (exclusively?) about GDP, which is a measure of income, not wealth. Wealth is the value of your capital stock plus net claims on other countries, which is like "money in your banking account". GDP is the value of production per year which is like "your annual income".Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:59, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Or possibly could just merge/redirect this to Demographic transition.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:11, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I support the version income and fertility. I think this association is present even in countries who do seem to undergo any demographic transition, as well as in sub-populations in any given country, and I think Demographic transition and this one should therefore still have their own articles. Mikael Häggström (talk) 20:31, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Contributions for Income and Fertility[edit]

Hello! I am very interested and intrigued about the correlation between income and fertility, so I would like to help contribute and add more information to develop more to this article! Below I have attached some sources and further topics to that could be added to the Wikipedia article. I am eager to hear what you have to say about my feedback and please let me know what could be improved. That would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! Kailynriedel (talk) 23:49, 14 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Contribution:

Starting off as the first topic within the Income and Fertility article discusses the definition of Income and Fertility combined. I personally think it would be better if there were a section for Income on its own and then Fertility on its own. This would help readers get a clear understanding of each and then be able grasp a better understanding for the other topics further included. Right now, there is not much citation within the article at the beginning, and could use more outside, reliable sources to better the article. There are other topics being discussed, but have little to no information or citation to back it up. There should also be multiple sentences and paragraphs within each of the topics. Incorporating GDP (gross domestic product), the tempo effect, social and economic viewpoints and family size are all topics that would be additional information that would be worthy of talking about in more depth.

Bibliography: (Sources that I have found are attached below)

Weeks, J. R. (2016). Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues (12th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. PAGANETTO, L. (2016). Wealth, income inequalities, and demography. Place of publication not identified: SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PU. https://link-springer-com.aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-05909-9 Donaldson, L. (1991). Fertility transition: the social dynamics of population change. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. https://search-proquest-com.aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/docview/1934949768?pq-origsite=summon Shin, I. (2016). Change and prediction of income and fertility rates across countries. Cogent Economics & Finance, 4(1). doi:10.1080/23322039.2015.1119367 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23322039.2015.1119367 Jones, D. (2010). Contraception and family planning among HIV-seroconcordant and -serodiscordant couples in the US and Zambia. Open Access Journal of Contraception,23. doi:10.2147/oajc.s7477 http://go.galegroup.com.aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CA524690794&docType=Report&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=&prodId=AONE&contentSet=GALE%7CA524690794&searchId=R1&userGroupName=auraria_main&inPS=true

Some comments on previous edits[edit]

In April of this year (2018) a new editor, Kailynriedel, entered a series of edits to this article. According to their account, s(he) at the time was apparently a student at the U. of Colorado and taking a course in Wikipedia editing. My guess is that what they did was part of that course.

First of all, Kailynriedel, bravo for anyone who wants to study Wikipedia editing, more power to you. Wikipedia needs a steady stream of new editors who are willing to take up the cause and add value to this encyclopedia. You have apparently done everything right so far: practiced with a sandbox and discussed your approach on this talk page.

Having said that, I have a few, hopefully helpful, comments on these additions.

1. Start with the additions to the lead section. “Many countries are experiencing a rather weak correlation with income and fertility within a given household. Families with a higher income produce a lower number of children resulting in a low fertility rate whereas families with lower income produce more children with a higher fertility rate.”

I think that the point of the reference article is that there are examples of families bearing more children when their income rises, e.g. when a family’s home value rises, not less as you state.
Quoting from the referenced article: “Two recent papers have identified such natural experiments, and both contradict the assumption that richer people have fewer kids. Rather, in the situations they studied, when families have more money, they have more children.”
Plus, this reference cites only two examples where this is true, and they are both in the US, so stating that “many countries” are showing this result is, I think, overstating this contrary finding.
Also, I think this is better placed in the “Contrary findings” section rather than in the lead section. See this article on the Lead Section:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section
A quote from this article: “The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies.”

“Total fertility rate is specifically the number of children who would be born per woman if she were to pass through the childbearing years bearing children according to a current schedule of age-specific fertility rates.”

The second line of the lead section contains the word “fertility” and is highlighted. Placing the cursor on that word produces a definition of total fertility rate and a link to the article discussing that. That article contains the definition you are repeating here. So, is your copying out the definition really necessary? Does it add value?

“In developing or less developed countries, families need their children for labor and for economic support in the future. Many countries do not have proper pension policies, children are needed in order for the parents to have financial support in their old age.”

This may be true, but there is no reference for this statement, so it does not conform to Wikipedia standards. Furthermore, and this is a general comment, this article is about the relationship between income and fertility. The pension factor, presence or lack of a public pension, might be outside the subject of this article and better treated in the Fertility factor (demography) article. See this section in that article:
	Other factors associated with decreased fertility
• Generosity of public pensions. It has been theorized that social security systems decrease the incentive to have children to provide security in old age.[1]

2. Additions to the Paradox section

In the Paradox section, starting with "Scientist [sic] called it the "demographic economic ..."

you list causes that should belong in the "Causes and related factors" section. Plus, I could argue that this article is about the relationship between fertility and income, and the "causes" cited have little to do with that topic.

Plus, the picture of Malthus and the comment on where he lived is also a duplicate from the article on him.

3. Additions to Causes and related factors section "Gross domestic product stands for GDP, which is the total dollar ..."

I think should be other way around (i.e. GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product) plus GDP is defined by the link in the lead section. Is it necessary to repeat that definition here? The rest of the para discusses GDP and would probably be better included in the article on GDP.

“It is argued then that the poorer individuals have fewer children so that they can obtain more of other types of consumer goods. The wealthier, on the other hand, are able to obtain the consumer goods which they desire as well as to have more children.

Argued by whom? No reference for these statements.

“Generally, Developed country countries have a lower fertility rate while a less economic developed country has a higher fertility rate.

This is a re-statement of the third sentence in the lead section and is the general theme of this article. Is it necessary to repeat that here?

“You will find that in Japan a more developed country, the GDP of $32,600 in 2009 was 1.22 children born per woman. But in Ethiopia a GDP of $900 in 2009 was 6.17 children born per woman.

These are good examples of what this article is discussing.

“The reason for more developed countries to have a lower fertility rate is because of the high standard of living which is expensive and in order to achieve that, they focus more on education rather than having a large family. Educated women and low mortality rate for children equals a smaller family and more self-centered people.

I think that these points have already been covered. Is it necessary to repeat them?

The United States Census Bureau is a fundamental and critical data collection tool that is used specifically in demography. Censuses are a count of the population and not considered a sample. Since the end of World War II, the United Nations has encouraged all countries to take a census.

How is this para connected to the subject of income and fertility?

“Another way to look at it is through the demographic transition model to which was designed in 1929 by demography Warren Thompson who classified countries into three major groups. Number one being high births rates and high but declining death rates, number two was the decline of birth rates and death rates (death rates dealing faster) and number three was the rapid decline in birth death rates (birth rates decline faster).

How is this para connected to the subject of income and fertility?

I hope that you and other Wikipedians find these comments useful. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 21:05, 4 December 2018 (UTC)Joe Bfsplk[reply]

Seeing that there is no response from Kailynriedel, I think you're free to edit the article as you prefer. Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:15, 28 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relationship between female economic opportunities and/or empowerment and declining fertility[edit]

Why there is almost no mention of very strong correlation (much stronger than GDP) between increase in female economic opportunities and empowerment and decrease in fertility? This would fully explain the 'paradox' as there might be no direct relationship between income and fertility, rather they both correlate to human development.

Here is good study on it if anyone is willing to including this in the article, I am not sure if this qualifies as reliable source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43488406?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.198.149.35 (talk) 01:56, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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