Oh dear, well my first thought is my ex-wife was horniest when she was fertile, and with the rhythm method we might not have had any sex at all. (we used other forms of birth control.)
Your figure of 3.3 children per couple is way below the number of children I've heard about from traditional Catholic families. I can't identify any error in your numbers, but this makes me think something in them is off.
Do you have any reason to think those families were trying to hold down their family size? I'm describing what could be done by a family that was. At the other end, a family trying to have as many children as possible could easily manage a pregnancy every two years, so more than five kids surviving to adulthood.
I've talked with at least one ex-traditional-Catholic woman online who says she and her husband definitely were trying, and that she'd talked with a number of other women with similarly large families who spoke of them as being normal (under trad-Catholic conditions) even if you didn't really want them. I've anecdotally heard of several more similar stories.
I haven't checked up on the details of the stories, obviously, and it's possible that I'm hearing from one end of a bell curve or the couples in that community weren't trying as hard as the wives made it sound secondhand. But I'd be rather surprised if either of those were the case. So, even though I can't identify any error, I find it hard to believe your numbers.
Something missing in David's calculation is different levels of fertility among individuals. For various medical reasons, some people are just much more fertile than others, and vice-versa. At a population level this *probably* evens out. At an individual level it absolutely does not, leading to a variety of unusual individual stories. It's likely true that some people continue to be fertile to a larger extent than others outside of their four day window as well. I haven't looked into it since my wife and I were trying to have kids, but I also seem to recall that women had a very small, but non-zero, chance of getting pregnant outside of the most fertile times.
Its been a while since I've researched this and I also know that this is a back of the envelope calculation, nevertheless I think that the miscarriage rate is probably significantly higher than 20 percent and also there are probably fairly significant declines in fertility/fecundity from at least age 20. I don't know many very religious catholics but I don't think that younger generations mostly use interruptus or rhythm, so im not sure how relevant the official advise is going forward.
The Akerlof Yellen paper is pretty interesting and seems to match the data much better than the typical welfare explanation. On the net effect of contraception and such, I can imagine how it would have benefits on net among adults, but my guess is that the cost to children and such is just much greater and as large long term effects. There are also broader utilitarian arguments against contraception and such although im uncertain how sound they are.
My only complaint about the Akerlof and Yellen article is that it uses more math than needed. You can do the analysis just fine with no tools Marshall didn't have — it's just a joint product problem.
Have any of the people who supported contraception and legalized abortion on the theory that they would largely eliminate child bearing by unmarried women publicly conceded that they were wrong and discussed explanations for why? I can easily enough imagine someone still arguing that it was the right policy — very possibly it was — but it would be nice if people who turned out to be wrong admitted it.
I'm not sure that the people who actually supported or do currently support abortion on the theory that it would eliminate out of wedlock children, actually believe that it would and/or are interested in either reducing out of wedlock children or the truth of whether it would reduce out of wedlock children. I think the main motivation behind supporting abortion and such is something along the lines of sexual liberation for women who don't want children, with some sympathy for single mothers and near complete disregard for out of wedlock children.
I think people who make such arguments do so mostly because saying you want to reduce out of wedlock children is a more broadly psychologically compelling argument than saying you want to increase sexual freedom especially if you are trying to convince a conservative to support abortion and such. In other words I don't think you should take peoples stated beliefs/preferences for granted, as such when people refuse to admit their argument is/was wrong, its out of a understandable disregard for the truth of their stated argument. Also in some sense their deeper more obvious motivation was in fact right, that is abortion and contraceptives have led to massive increases in a women's freedom/power at least with respects to women who don't want children.
Im not sure that Catholic countries were much higher in fertility in the 19C, than other Christian countries (comparing otherwise culturally similar societies). Certainly the US saw amazing growth in population, not entirely or mostly driven by immigration, in the 19C, from 6 to 80 million. I don’t think any Catholic country comes close.
However some of this was due to lower child fatality, or general fatality statistics in the new vs the old world.
I don't think the Catholic opposition to birth control mattered very much for population growth until about 1860, when inexpensive rubber condoms became available.
For the U.S. case I suspect the driving force in population growth was that, with lots of land available, additional children more than paid for themselves in additional productivity. Adam Smith discussed that point.
Oh dear, well my first thought is my ex-wife was horniest when she was fertile, and with the rhythm method we might not have had any sex at all. (we used other forms of birth control.)
Your figure of 3.3 children per couple is way below the number of children I've heard about from traditional Catholic families. I can't identify any error in your numbers, but this makes me think something in them is off.
Do you have any reason to think those families were trying to hold down their family size? I'm describing what could be done by a family that was. At the other end, a family trying to have as many children as possible could easily manage a pregnancy every two years, so more than five kids surviving to adulthood.
I've talked with at least one ex-traditional-Catholic woman online who says she and her husband definitely were trying, and that she'd talked with a number of other women with similarly large families who spoke of them as being normal (under trad-Catholic conditions) even if you didn't really want them. I've anecdotally heard of several more similar stories.
I haven't checked up on the details of the stories, obviously, and it's possible that I'm hearing from one end of a bell curve or the couples in that community weren't trying as hard as the wives made it sound secondhand. But I'd be rather surprised if either of those were the case. So, even though I can't identify any error, I find it hard to believe your numbers.
Something missing in David's calculation is different levels of fertility among individuals. For various medical reasons, some people are just much more fertile than others, and vice-versa. At a population level this *probably* evens out. At an individual level it absolutely does not, leading to a variety of unusual individual stories. It's likely true that some people continue to be fertile to a larger extent than others outside of their four day window as well. I haven't looked into it since my wife and I were trying to have kids, but I also seem to recall that women had a very small, but non-zero, chance of getting pregnant outside of the most fertile times.
Its been a while since I've researched this and I also know that this is a back of the envelope calculation, nevertheless I think that the miscarriage rate is probably significantly higher than 20 percent and also there are probably fairly significant declines in fertility/fecundity from at least age 20. I don't know many very religious catholics but I don't think that younger generations mostly use interruptus or rhythm, so im not sure how relevant the official advise is going forward.
The Akerlof Yellen paper is pretty interesting and seems to match the data much better than the typical welfare explanation. On the net effect of contraception and such, I can imagine how it would have benefits on net among adults, but my guess is that the cost to children and such is just much greater and as large long term effects. There are also broader utilitarian arguments against contraception and such although im uncertain how sound they are.
My only complaint about the Akerlof and Yellen article is that it uses more math than needed. You can do the analysis just fine with no tools Marshall didn't have — it's just a joint product problem.
Have any of the people who supported contraception and legalized abortion on the theory that they would largely eliminate child bearing by unmarried women publicly conceded that they were wrong and discussed explanations for why? I can easily enough imagine someone still arguing that it was the right policy — very possibly it was — but it would be nice if people who turned out to be wrong admitted it.
I'm not sure that the people who actually supported or do currently support abortion on the theory that it would eliminate out of wedlock children, actually believe that it would and/or are interested in either reducing out of wedlock children or the truth of whether it would reduce out of wedlock children. I think the main motivation behind supporting abortion and such is something along the lines of sexual liberation for women who don't want children, with some sympathy for single mothers and near complete disregard for out of wedlock children.
I think people who make such arguments do so mostly because saying you want to reduce out of wedlock children is a more broadly psychologically compelling argument than saying you want to increase sexual freedom especially if you are trying to convince a conservative to support abortion and such. In other words I don't think you should take peoples stated beliefs/preferences for granted, as such when people refuse to admit their argument is/was wrong, its out of a understandable disregard for the truth of their stated argument. Also in some sense their deeper more obvious motivation was in fact right, that is abortion and contraceptives have led to massive increases in a women's freedom/power at least with respects to women who don't want children.
Im not sure that Catholic countries were much higher in fertility in the 19C, than other Christian countries (comparing otherwise culturally similar societies). Certainly the US saw amazing growth in population, not entirely or mostly driven by immigration, in the 19C, from 6 to 80 million. I don’t think any Catholic country comes close.
However some of this was due to lower child fatality, or general fatality statistics in the new vs the old world.
I don't think the Catholic opposition to birth control mattered very much for population growth until about 1860, when inexpensive rubber condoms became available.
For the U.S. case I suspect the driving force in population growth was that, with lots of land available, additional children more than paid for themselves in additional productivity. Adam Smith discussed that point.
The Catholic Church Is a Criminal Enterprise
https://www.mattball.org/2022/06/the-catholic-church-is-criminal.html