korrents

Lyman Stone

@lyman-stone · 16 positions · 0 changes of mind

Demographer. Director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies and a research fellow at Cardus, he writes about fertility, marriage and how family statistics are measured, and argues in public with most other people who work on the subject.

Lyman Stone did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

  1. Our reading

    Calling the fall in birth rates a mystery is not humility but obscurantism: there is already a good causal account of it.

    Their wordswe really do have a good causal model of how to think about fertility decline!

    ↗We Actually Know A Lot About Fertility Declinelymanstone.substack.com 1st of 5 in this piece

    demographics

    Interesting

  3. Our reading

    The global fall in births over the past two centuries is mostly explained by falling child mortality, and that part of the question is settled.

    Their wordsThe main cause of falling fertility globally over the last 200 years has been declining child mortality.

    ↗We Actually Know A Lot About Fertility Declinelymanstone.substack.com 2nd of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  5. Our reading

    The theory that birth rates fall because home life has not caught up with women's opportunities at work is not supported by the data.

    Their wordswithin societies, more gender-egalitarian people almost never have more kids than less gender-egalitarian people, and in a panel model, changes in the mismatch rate have no relationship to fertility

    ↗We Actually Know A Lot About Fertility Declinelymanstone.substack.com 3rd of 5 in this piece

    demographics

    Interesting

  7. Our reading

    Ruling out every measurable cause because none explains all the variation, and putting an unmeasured one in their place, is not an explanation.

    Their wordsHe ruled out all the actual, measurable variables because they were an imperfect explanation, and instead offers a vague, diffuse variable, for which he has no measure, and which is not actually included in his model.

    ↗We Actually Know A Lot About Fertility Declinelymanstone.substack.com 4th of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  9. Our reading

    A model fitted only to trends in its own outcome cannot forecast anything, because it contains no variable anyone could change.

    Their wordsThe demand for explanations of low fertility is entirely a demand for variables which will reduce these technical trends to near zero.

    ↗We Actually Know A Lot About Fertility Declinelymanstone.substack.com 5th of 5 in this piece

    Interesting
  10. 3 months earlier

  11. Our reading

    Turkey's sudden fertility collapse after 2013 was caused by a collapse in marriage, not by married couples choosing fewer children.

    Their wordsIt just is marriage. Turkish fertility started falling super fast after 2013 because Turkish marriage rates started falling super fast after 2013.

    ↗Falling Marriage Caused Turkey's Recent Fertility Declinelymanstone.substack.com

    Interesting
  12. 7 months earlier

  13. Our reading

    Earning more does not make a woman less likely to have children, except at the very bottom of the income distribution.

    Their wordsthe shift from 50th to 99th percentile earnings has no negative effect on women’s fertility, and unearned income for women has a neutral-to-positive effect

    ↗Falling Fertility Is Not About Opportunity Costlymanstone.substack.com 1st of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  15. Our reading

    Richer countries have fewer children than poor ones, but within a country a boom raises births and a bust lowers them.

    Their wordsAlthough the cross-sectional relationship between national income and fertility is negative, the longitudinal relationship between national income and fertility is positive: economic booms create baby booms, economic busts create baby busts.

    ↗Falling Fertility Is Not About Opportunity Costlymanstone.substack.com 2nd of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  17. Our reading

    Immigration is irrelevant to the real problem low fertility creates, because that problem is people having fewer children than they wanted.

    Their wordsimmigration is mathematically irrelevant to the central policy problem of low fertility

    ↗Falling Fertility Is Not About Opportunity Costlymanstone.substack.com 3rd of 5 in this piece

    immigration

    Interesting

  19. Our reading

    The harm done by low fertility is that people end up with fewer children than they wanted, not that a society runs short of workers.

    Their wordsI don’t see population collapse or lack of workers as the central policy problem: the central policy problem is human happiness, human flourishing, and the freedom to live life well.

    ↗Falling Fertility Is Not About Opportunity Costlymanstone.substack.com 4th of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  21. Our reading

    Something is broken in how people pair up in the West, and that shortage of couples and marriages, not money, is why there are too few children.

    Their wordsThe empirical evidence strongly refutes the idea that rising opportunity costs of childbearing are driving low fertility. Declining marriage due to exogenous technology and economics shocks is tanking fertility irrespective of child direct or opportunity costs.

    ↗Falling Fertility Is Not About Opportunity Costlymanstone.substack.com 5th of 5 in this piece

    demographics

    Interesting
  22. 3 months earlier

  23. Our reading

    Birth rates can move in whatever direction a society chooses, whenever it chooses; there is no ratchet.

    Their wordsSurviving fertility rates can go in whatever direction society wants, whenever it wants.

    ↗There Is No Long Decline in Fertilitylymanstone.substack.com 1st of 5 in this piece

    demographics

    Interesting

  25. Our reading

    Evolution gave humans no target number of births, because what mattered historically was keeping children alive rather than producing them.

    Their wordsAs a result, natural selection is very unlikely to have produced in humans any predisposition or preference for a certain number of births.

    ↗There Is No Long Decline in Fertilitylymanstone.substack.com 2nd of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  27. Our reading

    The total fertility rate is a culturally biased measure, because societies substitute between abortion, infanticide and contraception to reach the same family size.

    Their wordsThus, TFR as an indicator is cross-culturally biased by social preferences between infanticide and abortion, child neglect and abortion, etc.

    ↗There Is No Long Decline in Fertilitylymanstone.substack.com 3rd of 5 in this piece

    demographics

    Interesting

  29. Our reading

    People aim at a number of surviving children rather than a number of births, so falling child mortality lets births fall without anyone wanting a smaller family.

    Their wordsthe key point is that as child mortality declines, live births can be allowed to decline without changing desired family size

    ↗There Is No Long Decline in Fertilitylymanstone.substack.com 4th of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  31. Our reading

    There is no long decline in human family size: once child survival is accounted for, the two-century downward trend disappears.

    Their wordsWhat you can see is that the “long decline” of TFR since the late-19th century is… an illusion! It isn’t real!

    ↗There Is No Long Decline in Fertilitylymanstone.substack.com 5th of 5 in this piece

    Interesting