In China, the phrase 豆蔻年华 refers to a girl of 13-14. Why? Because a famous poet likened the appearance of a child prostitute’s developing vagina to a cardamom flower. Apparently that was totally fine, romantic even. I feel bad for the girl.
The parts of the world where violent crime is lowest have the highest mean age of motherhood. Women in Australia and the UK, for example, wait until after 30 before having their first child.
The parts of the world where violent crime is the highest have the lowest mean age of motherhood.
Nobody should be encouraging pregnancy before age 30.
Get pregnant or don’t, how is that a concern to me?
Because every society where the average person starts a family before age 22 is described as “developing” or “impoverished” and every society where the average person starts a family after the age of 28 is described as “industrialized”.
You are swapping correlation and causation to some degree. A country does not become industrialized by people starting to have kids at a later age. Rather, people start getting kids when their circumstances allow it: in industrialized countries, you rely less on children to provide for you when old, as there hopefully are social systems in place or you can save up on your own. Downside is, without social systems you also have to provide for yourself at old age, meaning people need to build up more savings before they feel ready for the financial burden a child is for around 20 years.
In developing countries, children often get little support above bare necessities and start contributing to the household income at a much earlier age, even before hitting their teens.
A country does not become industrialized by people starting to have kids at a later age.
There is a theory that supports this:
A core mechanism of unified growth theory is that accelerating technological progress induces mass education and, through interaction with child quantity-quality substitution, a decline in fertility.
Declines in fertility have been observed after a country has become industrialized. Not only did fertility decline, but the children people were having were generally ‘of higher quality’.
The testable predictions of the theory and its underlying mechanisms have been confirmed in empirical and quantitative research in the past decade, and have inspired intensive exploration of the impact of historical and pre-historical forces on comparative economic development and the disparity in the wealth of nations.
I don’t think your conclusion is correct and a correlation between the two numbers is by far not enough to assume a causality between the two of them. I would rather assume there are a lot of other factors being involved. Like e.g. the education system, especially the amount of years spent on education before starting to work, the general wealth of the society, the social securities provided the government, like e.g. health care, unemployment support etc.
Like e.g. the education system, especially the amount of years spent on education before starting to work
Exactly. It’s kinda hard to spend years on education, years building a nest egg, when you haven’t spent all that many years alive.
The correlation is through socioeconomic conditions, correct. Older parents have worked longer, saved more, and can provide greater opportunities to their children, which in turn creates a more prosperous society that values education, social security, etc.
Dude’s not nearly rich or connected enough to hang with the Wall Street freaks or the Silicon Valley geeks. He’s probably raping his way through his local church group, though.
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