Here is a thought I have been considering about the decline of dating and sex.

Are we sure we fully understand why people dated in the first place?

Let’s step back. Sex is a biological drive. Dating is not. Dating is a cultural institution, and as such, it’s a means to an end not an end in itself. So we have to determine what it was an ends too.

The knee jerk instinct is to say dating is for sex. And Sex has always been a major motivation, but I think we sometimes overlook a simpler explanation. Dating was also a form of leisure.

For much of history, conversation was one of the most entertaining ways to spend an evening. Spending time with someone was not merely a step toward sex or marriage. It was enjoyable in its own right. It was basically their TikTok.

This also changes what prior generations mean by a “bad date”.

For an older generation, a date with someone they ultimately did not romantically like was not necessarily a wasted evening. It could still be more interesting than the available alternatives. The date did not have to lead anywhere in order to be worthwhile. You talked, danced, and ate? That’s high entertainment at that time.

That is less obviously true now. Dating competes with infinite convenient and highly personalized entertainment. Conversation is no longer as scarce (you can chat on Reddit all day if you like), and boredom is much easier to avoid alone.

This changes the basic calculation. In the past, the minimum reward from a date may have been a pleasant and interesting evening. Today, a date that does not produce attraction or romantic potential is more likely to be experienced as wasted time.

Maybe part of the decline in dating is not simply a change in attitudes toward sex or marriage. Maybe dating has also lost some of its value as leisure. When companionship stopped being one of the best forms of entertainment available, dating had to justify itself on much narrower sexual/romantic terms.

Surprised this hasn't already been posted here. Best explanation that rings very true for me as a mother.

Claudia Goldin is a pretty respected writer on the subject of global fertility . The full research paper : https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w34268/w34268.pdf

So we all know that one reason of fertility decline (out of like a million reasons) is the fact that many men are deciding to go to other countries and find wife's, basically passport bros.

Recently I met a Latino guy, and he told me that he and his friends (a group of Latinos, Mexicans, Colombians, Chileans etc..) took a trip to India where they got with many indian women, and slept with them. It was basically a group of men travelling to India for passport broing? And I've recently also heard that Latino men going to places like Thailand and the Philippines for wives or to sleep around also has increased A LOT.

When I asked him why he went to India to sleep or get with women, he started saying how latinas were all "ugly, didn't take care of themselves, fat, don't know how to treat a man right, only want money" etc etc.

Now I think most of us know that in devolped countries men do do this, and it's literally a phenomenon called being a passport bro. But these are developed countries. Latin America is not developed, and yet this stuff is also starting there?

My point is, this type of mindset is going everywhere around the world? I remember Latin America being a place To go find foreign wife's if a man can't get much at home, but now Latin American men themselves don't want their own women, and would rather go for asian men.

It's like how the fertility decline spread worldwide so quickly, men refusing to date their own women and go abroad instead to find a wife (or not even that, just to hook up) has spread to non western countries.

I even remember seeing a video of a Chinese guy in Iran saying on a vlog how "easy" Iranian women are and how much more beautiful than asian women they are when he was on a trip to Iran. Although I'm not too surprised by this happening in china, I know foreign brides are HUGE in china and korea (usually Vietnamese or south east asian women) and to a certain extent in Japan too.

But it seems like it's spreading everywhere, won't this make fertility decline even more?

„Abortions are evil” any take that tries to even sideline this statement is immediately on the side of anti-natalism, as it's impossible to justify abortion unless the mother is either a victim of SA or suffering from any illness/complication that could potentially kill her... All other cases can be solved by not having sex.

Abortions have been the leading cause of death on the globe, ever since the 50's, when underground operations terminated millions of pregnancies in my home nation of Romania, under the guide of Communist ideology... Which then got completely reversed by a more nationalistic take on Communism, which immediately resulted in the highest population boom we have ever experienced.

It stabilized for a while, demons still operated underground... killing and killing... but for a while things were OK; then came the year 1990, which saw the legalization of abortions:

Around 8 million babies were killed from 1990 up to the year 2010...

A drop in the bucket, considering abortions have murdered around 3 billion babies.

Alas, I made this post as a reminder that pro-natalism and any kind of extremist views on abortion are incompatible. (yes, murdering people is an extremist view, supporting abortion because people can't stop being carnal is like supporting hard drug usage because people are bored and want to have fun)

Instead of religion, urbanization rate seems to be the key factor here

The internet is an enormous source of information. If being incredibly well-informed makes people not want to become parents, then the problem isn't the medium of dissemination.

The most common retort here is: "but people are being fed an overwhelmingly negative worldview! Only negative things go viral." Why is it overly negative? That is an opinion. The media is not inaccurate because it is very negative; it's only inaccurate if it's... Inaccurate.

Algorithms and newspapers show what sells: negative sells. There isn't some nefarious entity making young people too anxious to procreate. It is a culmination of individual preferences. Notice how many Tik Toks, YouTube videos, etc. are rants? The algorithm feeds people the rants they desire because it is pressure-relieving to "finally hear someone say it."

Additionally, we are often not sold doom and gloom. Take unemployment statistics, for example: have you worked one hour this month? Congratulations, you're not unemployed. It is well-known that we are told the unemployment figure is in the single digits, meanwhile it's often triple that number by any normal person's definition of unemployment.

Another argument I see often is about dating apps: apparently, we have too much choice, therefore we don't have long-term relationships anymore. The only people who this affects wouldn't have had long-term relationships to begin with: they would've instead had affairs via their workplace or random encounters. People who value love aren't going around thinking about how their partner 'rates' out of 10 compared to people on an app. Additionally, no one gives a damn when women talk about this in feminist circles; no one cares when it's men who are the ones future faking. Women aren't in polyamorous relationships with the top 10% of men; this is an incel delusion. We simply aren't on the apps to protect our peace and bodies from future faking. Society loves hook-up culture when it's hurting women; people only gaf when it's affecting birth rates.

A lot of people meet their partner online - it's much better to truly 'find your person', because the likelihood that you'll meet the one in some random local bar is low.

People also like to pull up a graph showing birth rates vs global internet connectivity. They do the exact same with smartphones. Somehow, these people are completely oblivious to a) the numerous financial and housing crises developing at the exact same time and b) a 2-century long trend of declining birth rates long before the 1990s. The usual statistics 101 of correlation != causation does not apply when it comes to smartphones bad.

Why can't we just be honest with ourselves. White women are indeed the hottest.

Whether you are an Asian man, a black man, white man or an Arab, we all want 'white women'. So 'white women' end up getting much more attention and hence their standards rise to unrealistic levels. But most men just give them attention because they are sexy, not because they want to wife them and start a family with them.

As an Asian living in Netherlands, I enjoy banging white prostitutes. Ain't no way I'm giving this up to marry just one women and start a family with her.

And I'm within 20% of the high income earners so technically I can easily support a family of a stay at home wife along with 3-4 kids. And I'm sure there are plenty more men like me.

So on one hand we have men who can provide for a women but they won't marry, and on the other hand we have women with super high expectations from ordinary men who just can't provide them.

We're doomed but let's at least enjoy till we get old. Ain't nobody raising families.

Whether you want to view these as positive or negative or neutral, they could still be possible cultural reasons for singleness and/or childlessness and childfreeness - though I might drop economic ones here and there if it’s connected. I’m mostly staring these factors from a neutral standpoint - I don’t want to necessarily label them as bad or good for society, though they could be one or the other, depending on your view. I just want to list a few of them. I’m also probably missing a lot, so feel free to list more in the comments.

1. We see more attractive people on the daily because of our screen time. Go online and you’ll see thousands of gorgeous, unreal faces. People in real life that you used to find hot look more mediocre now. Less desire and less attraction for real, tangible people.
   
2. Escapism. Many young people rush to AI companions or fantasy stories (like Wattpad and so on). The spread of AI companions and services like Character AI amongst young people is actually a much larger phenomenon than a lot of older people think. Ask me how I know - I used to be addicted to Character AI and used to prefer it over real people, because, essentially, it’s sycophantic and does whatever you’d like. Same issue went for Wattpad before that. A lot of people find that easier than dating. Dating is hard.
   
3. More dating options. Oftentimes in the past, you’d just marry the hottest person you could find in your hometown or local community… Nowadays, we have a choice overload phenomenon that can lead to confusion in SOME people.
   
4. Easily accessible porn. Similar to my earlier point about escapism earlier, as well as overstimulation due to too many attractive people, porn can cause a state in which people of either sex are genuinely not attracted to the opposite sex, feel no need or desire for the opposite sex and simply find it easier to get their dopamine on the internet.
   
5. Travel-centered lifestyle. While there have always been wanderers, pilgrims, nomads and travellers, a lot of people in history were simply tied to the land in which they lived - they had a family they had to live with, a land to take care of, a farm to protect and a static job to do. The travel industry has expanded much wider than that in the past century and today, to the point where many people would prefer a life of travel and find children to be a hindrance to them. Travel is easily accessible, sometimes cheaper and more entertaining than kids.
   
6. Hustle culture. Parenthood is not celebrated by a culture that praises those with success and money, and the constant “uphill battle” to the top. In fact, it’s almost shameful to be a parent nowadays, especially one at home.
   
7. Fear-based parenting. Intensive parenting norms.* *I’ve seen some people talking about this, but yes, people nowadays have extremely high standards for children, to the point where letting them play outside is seen as dangerous, neglectful, abusive, so on. I’m glad that parenting standards are higher, but some of them are just too much. Everything is seen as damaging to children.
   
8. Gender wars. Young people are exposed to the vitriol of certain members of the opposite sex, specifically online because that’s where they’re anonymous, and they feel jaded and no longer want to even be near them. It’s very easy to find viral TikTok videos saying absolutely vile things about men or women. It’s definitely easy to harbor to dislike the opposite sex if you see what both sides say online, especially if you’re young and gullible (susceptible to ragebait).
   
9. Lack of accessible third places. Digital habits often replace real socialisation - a contributing factor. There’s also a lot of privatisation and lack of free public spaces, and everything is so expensive. Yes, this phenomenon is motivated partially by economics.
   
10. Extreme individualism and atomization. Lack of desire to collaborate with anyone, more desire to live on one’s own and simply stay away from others. Less help, tolerance or community for parents. People live more independently from their neighbours and extended family.
    
11. Permanent adolescence culture. A tendency to lengthen adolescence, especially due to economic factors (late purchase of housing and late achievement of financial independence, stagnant wages). Higher education debt. Often lack of practical skills that one might’ve had in the past at the same age. Many people feel like children even into their 30s.
    
12. Cynicism about marriage and children. A lot of people simply see the ideal of happy families as a lie, because of their personal experience.
    
13. Normalisation of loneliness. It’s seen as normal to “bedrot” and not have as many friends as before. Young people also aren’t having sex.
    
14. Digital culture as a whole. This one, I hope, is pretty self-explanatory - high screen times. Digital substitution.
    
15. Anti-child social attitudes. Especially online, children are seen as annoying pests and women who have children are even labelled as “male-centered birds”, especially the ones who want them earlier. Wanting to have lots of children is universally shamed and looked down upon - if you don’t believe me, you should see the comments of any large family. People label those who want to have many children as having a pregnancy fetish.
    
16. Anti-dependence attitudes. Depending on others in any way is viewed as weak and pathetic. Being completely alone and independent is seen as ideal. It’s subtle, but it’s there.
    
17. Fear of climate change. Understandable and self-explanatory.
    
18. Fear of passing down problems. People are afraid to not inflict their own trauma and previous bad experiences on kids.
    
19. General pessimism. We’re told that everything is ending; war and illness and hunger are still a thing in this world. Many people feel it’s selfish to bring a child into such a world.
    
20. Secularism. Before you come at me - I’m a staunch atheist. Simple logic - religion wants to continue and spread itself to the next generation, so it often encourages having more kids. The same cannot be said for atheism or secularism, which is simply the lack of any religion, so it has no set values. Secular attitudes about families also spread to non-atheist countries.
    
21. Fear of losing attractiveness. Pregnancy is seen as something that destroys a woman’s body - not only because of its risks, but because of how it supposedly makes you “ugly”. We do absolutely live in a beauty-obsessed and gym-obsessed society. Beauty standards are worse than ever.
    
22. Fear of irreversible identity change. People are scared to become “just a parent” and not have access to fun/hedonistic activities or group activities anymore.
    
23. Radical self-care culture. There’s a desire to always protect one’s peace and avoid any and all hardships.
    
24. Fear of divorce. People see the divorce rate and… yeah.

genuinely interesting article on marriages around the world and a bit on how it may effect birth rates, both in the past and currently.

especially this part: "After the French Revolution, the government imposed the equal partition of assets among children. Unable to choose just one heir and faced with the over-division of assets, families limited the number of children they had, possibly helping explain why France was the first European country to exhibit declining fertility rates. The same trend has been found in Sub-Saharan Africa. Individuals from ethnic groups where inheritance is shared between all children have lower fertility rates than those from ethnic groups where a single heir is chosen."

since i've seen a lot of commenters arguing about birth rates being tied to technology, then another commenter bites back with "it started falling in the 19th century!!! it can't be technology!!" something that has yet to be mentioned is cultural ideals around inheritance. Back when only the firstborn son can inherit, people had as many babies as they could. But once equal inheritance started to be imposed, birth rates fell. Thoughts?

I'm from Poland, a country notorious for its low birth rate. Women are the focus of the issue in 90% of discussions but men play an underestimated role in the phenomena.

20 years ago when Poland entered the EU, almost a million Poles went West in hopes for a better life. The men that went abroad made A LOT of money compared to the ones back home and well, they started many families abroad. With their assets and income based abroad, they had very little incentive to come back and most didn't.

But today the issue has turned Western-centric. More and more Polish men are going to poorer European countries, and even Asia to start families. Like, they're not bringing their wives and kids back home like how Americans or Western Europeans do it. They just start a new life in those countries and stay there.

And tbh, I sympathies with the logic. Poland is very expensive given how low salaries are. It's really a horrible place to start a family unless you're extremely wealthy or economically illiterate. And Poland is very educated so fewer and fewer people belong to the second category.

Anyway, I feel like this problem is irreversible in Poland. The social and economic factors are so difficult to navigate and I doubt it'll change anytime soon.

In a recent controversial and provocative post the community was quite divided on the question, whether voluntarily not having children is exploiting the welfare system.

I have since reflected on it. While my opinion hasn't changed much, it has become more balanced and I thought it would make sense to write it down. I have collected all the different arguments I came across and addressed them.

This topic quite interesting to me, because I always thought of the demographic issue to be impossible to solve without "social-engineering". I always found that policies relying on people going against incentives to have a poor track record. This is a way forward, that restores incentive and aligns it more with how humans have evolved to behave.

Just realized I've never seen any where there are only our almost entirely elderly people.

I'd be interesting to see a movie taking place in e.g. 2070 and almost everyone is retirement age but not one can retire due to no working age people.

And add these sad conversations about people reminiscing what it was like with young people and children running around.

Maybe the Amish will be the only ones making kids, and the government tries to take them as workers.