I think HDGREENE and Zenster are partially right, but that the issue goes much deeper and broader. Japan as noted has the same problems with low birthrates, little communism or marxism or pressure to create a clerk class of nobility. Add to that Iran, Algeria, and Tunisia which according to the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK have replacement rates of around 1.7 and even Muslim countries have low birth rates. Of course, Yemen has 8! So the situation is varied.
The low birth rate is due to factors outside what’s been discussed. It’s due to what Roissy in DC (a “Pick Up Artist” or PUA who blogs at roissy.wordpress.com) calls the endless choice of urban living. Anonymous, without social control or disapproval, with plenty of the opposite sex on display. Men and women seek to endlessly choose a “better” partner, as shown on Seinfeld and Friends. Urbanization correlates well with drop in TFR, Algeria, Tunisia, and Iran are conservative Islamic countries like Yemen, but are far more urbanized.
Next, the condom and the pill (I’m shocked no one has mentioned it) mean that women can delay pregnancy endlessly. Both are cheap, effective, and available. Women unconstrained by social mores in the big cities can pursue and sleep with the most “Alpha” or socially/physically dominant men without any real penalty (unwanted pregnancies). This leads to the pattern of young women delaying marriage until mid thirties or later, and a catastrophic decline in fertility. You’re looking at one child at best, with fertility treatments. That’s the cost of pursuing Mr. Big.
Next, there seems to be a link between intelligence and testosterone levels. You can see here a discussion at Gene Expression. Testosterone declining as one moves left or right from Average IQ. Bill Gates certainly would appear to have less testosterone than say, Hulk Hogan. Most societies seem to have a problem with intelligent men, they don’t use them very well. Women unless constrained seem to chase after high-testosterone “Alpha Males” of whom there are very few, and have either few kids marrying late, or have kids by the Alpha without marriage.
Britain’s illegitimacy rate is 50%. Most of Northern Europe has the same rates OR HIGHER, including the Scandinavian nations, the Benelux nations, Germany, France, and Switzerland. No one should be shocked by this, women if given their choices would rather have a kid or two by the Alpha Male and remain unmarried than marry some “Beta” male.
Lest anyone be sanguine, Blacks in the US have 70% nationwide illegitimacy, and 90% in the urban core. Whites have 34% illegitimacy rates. Compared to 4% in 1965, and 24% for blacks in 1965. Huge changes in 40 years. Indicative of a pattern of chasing after the Alpha males who do most/all of the reproduction, leave a generation of fatherless kids with boys especially running wild and engaging in thuggery to be the most macho and thus the most favored by women.
I’ve blogged about this here. Short version: “beta” males or the tool-makers, focused on abstract tasks, tools, how things work and can be improved, form the basis for a society’s improvement. Since better tools equal more resources extracted from the environment and better ability to fend off covetous neighbors. HOWEVER, women do not like tool-makers because they are lower in testosterone, the evolutionary price for abstract mental focus on things rather than people and social positioning. THUS societies that constrain and channel male-female reproduction, like Europe around 1000 AD with freeholding tribes converted to monogamous Christianity, have great comparative advantages over others. European women until recently had the choice of prostitute, disposable mistress of an Aristocrat, marriage to an impoverished soldier, or wife of a tradesman or merchant. Eliminating the reproductive bottleneck of the Alpha male, and mobilizing great gobs of beta male tool-makers and improvers.
America is just later jumping into the Abyss than Europe. We also have anonymous urbanization with the illusion of endless choice with no consequences. We also have increasing illegitimacy rates showing the choice of women for Alpha men and no desire for the nerdy beta male. We also have loss of social organizations and constructs that channeled male-female reproduction and marriage. We also have disposable fathers, valued only for testosterone/sexuality, and a fairly feminized society reflecting the demographic reality of slightly more women than men. But urbanized and wealthier Muslim countries are not any different, either.
It’s a tragedy of the commons — the wealth and safety of the fruits of the tool-makers cause women unconstrained to choose the Alpha, which undermines the very wealth and safety in the first place. [This assumes, of course, that one agrees that interest and talent in making tools of one sort or another is inherited, and not just some aspect of personhood "magically" appearing through the Ether, and that while women occasionally are outstanding tool makers, the vast majority have little to no interest in tools and abstract thinking about tools and systems of tools. Thus they are not a replacement for the "beta male" tool-maker.]
