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.
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 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.
The Catholic Church Is a Criminal Enterprise
https://www.mattball.org/2022/06/the-catholic-church-is-criminal.html
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 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.