The decline in the number of births should be seen in connection with the ‘gender divergence’ between increasingly progressive young women and increasingly conservative young men, observes economist Pauline Grosjean in her column.
The number of births has continued to decline in France in 2025. The fertility rate, at 1.56 children per woman, reached its lowest level since 1918. It is true that most of France’s neighbors are faring even worse, and France still holds its – rather relative – status as a champion of birth rates. This decline is a universal and long-term phenomenon, with explanations that have shifted over time.
The initial phase, which has been the most studied, is that of the demographic transition, marked by the shift from a regime of high mortality and fertility to one of low mortality and fertility. France was already an exception, having started its demographic transition in the 18th century, before other countries. Without this early transition, some economists estimate, France’s population would today stand at 250 million.
I’m sure their rulers are having no trouble reproducing.
The middle class is being bred out of the gene pool.
the ruling class is often inbred.
I’m really confused about what you’re trying to say, because it kind of sounds like replacement theory
No that’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying the wealthy are trying to kill the rest of us off, or at least thin the herd. Though be it on purpose or just through incompetence is the question. It’s not a crazy Theory really.
Why wasn’t the lower class included in the statement? If it’s because they’re breeding like rabbits then “it kind of sounds like replacement theory”. I don’t know why that group was omitted but it leaves that interpretation open
Because the poor tend to be less educated in ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies. So we see rich people having as many kids as they want, and poor people having a lot of kids, often accidentally, and only the middle class moderating themselves.
I dont know whats the situation in france but in finland highly educated (middle class) people have more children than working class people.
I failed to find much data for France but it looks like for the US there is a slight downward trend with wage so no rich having lots of babies and no middle class not having babies:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/
In the US there are people who you would think we’re literally unfuckable, looks, hygiene and filthy poor and yet they find someone and have 7 kids.
I’ve seen women and men alike that almost make you want to throw up by looking at them but somehow have a fuckn kid crawling on them.
Oh for sure feels like that in Finland too but apparently statistically speaking for every one of those families there’s a bunch of people who never reproduce whereas middle class educated people have 2-3 children pretty consistently.
I don’t think they are, because labour and consumption, which brings them money, all go through us and require us. In this case (because God knows evil people have conspired since the dawn of mankind and we all know the character of our leaders, so ofc it wouldn’t be that crazy of an idea), it’s just incompetence, I think, or it’s simply seen as unimportant for globalist capitalists because labour can be outsourced or imported.
Well that’s certainly a large part of it. It’s also certainly true that a lot of the wealthy are actually really stupid, don’t think things through, and are easily fooled.
But I’m not so certain it’s just incompetence, though I’m sure that does play a big part. It’s just hard not to think maybe a little bit of it isn’t planned. When you learn about how project 2025 theorizes that the US population ideally should be 100 million it makes all the cutting health care and cutting food Aid and getting rid of vaccines take on a more Sinister light. And that was planned by the Heritage Foundation who write policy for not only the United States but large portions of the rest of the world too.
And then you start learning about these AI rationalists. Those whack jobs who think that we’re going to create an AI God who will solve all the world’s problems. And anything standing in the way of the creation of the AI God is inherently evil and any sacrifice to get to that point is worthwhile. There’s a shocking number of techboro billionaires who are of that mindset. Who truly believe that we can get rid of Labor and replace it with robots and AI and they want to do it now. And don’t look now but Peter Thiel is in France right now giving a speech about anybody who wants to regulate AI must be the Antichrist. Could a bunch of tech bro billionaires convince a lot of lazy capitalists that letting a lot of rest of us die is a good idea? Doesn’t seem far-fetched to me.
When you learn about how project 2025 theorizes that the US population ideally should be 100 million
Where does it say that? (Scroll down to see the downloads)
https://archive.org/details/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL/page/n4/mode/1up
Admittedly, I’ve only skimmed the document but I don’t recall seeing that mentioned, and I haven’t heard people say it about project 2025 before
I could find no reference to it. Would be a wild thing for them to include
Wouldn’t be surprised if that was part of a Stephen Miller-esque plan, but I would be shocked if it was publicly published. Especially in such a foundational document
So, it’s just something some people think might be true, like a bogeyman, or there’s some evidence for a statement by an author in the document somewhere?
Agreed, Miller is mighty messed up but that statement, for now, seems to be coming from nowhere
Okay, first of all thank you for all the info you just dropped on me, what a thoughtful, thorough post.
And yes, perhaps there is something like that in the Western world, specifically America. I didn’t know about the project and the numbers they wanted to reach. Scary. Because they’re not even facetious anymore, they just tell it all, it might just be actioned (and the UK, where I currently reside, often follows America’s example so there’s that…). But the future is uncertain so let’s hope the humanity of the American people will lead them somewhere else, perhaps with some balkanization involved because some ideologies are very geographically entrenched. 🙏
Okay, I read it and re read it and, unless I’m mistaken, I think he meant “rich people have money for kids, whilst the middle class doesn’t”. Which I don’t necessarily agree with (ofc rich people have money and we have less and less, I agree and it sucks, but is it behind the birth rates, really?), that’s much better than just another racist take. 😅
The demographic reality will hit hard, then all those western countries will compete to attract immigrants, to wipe their old asses and contribute to pension funds. Those who accept immigrants today will rule the world tomorrow.
Something to keep in mind while talking about birth rate in France, is that we have a retirement system that is centered around growth. We do not have individual retirement plans, we pay each month for the currently retired people, and the workers will pay for ours when we retire. This creates a problem when the population of retired ppl is in augmentation and the active population ( working and paying taxes) is declining.
For a long time there was way more active pop than retired so we have a safety net, but it will slowly erode. And currently the political “solution” being pushed is not growing the active population (immigration for instance), but shifting the system towards a capitalisation (ie. Simililar to 401k)
The logical thing to do is to raise the retirement age, especially eith increasing life expectancy. But even suggesting something like this has half of France up in arms…
Maybe the logical thing to do wouldn’t be to bake fucking pyramid schemes into your society. I’m looking at you social security
Outjerked
Okay, I spent all of my late teenage years to early adulthood in France so I feel I can chime in: French people, like most Westerners I’ve met, don’t know what they should do with their lives and the burden of responsibility of having children is simply not that appealing compared to having fun, either partying and doing coke or collecting figurines and dakimakuras. Even romance and love is fucked because marriage is seen as outdated and so serious so life long monogamy, for many, is just meh or scary. People don’t date for any objective, they just get together cause they’re lonely or sexually starved. And if they do understand what they should be doing, they’ll be old and weary, and either the psychological scars will stop them from fully commiting to something or biology will have done its thing and now you’re 42 trying to have your first kid, of course it’s gonna be difficult.
Now, whilst I have my value judgement on it, I’m not making any right now, I’m just describing what I’m seeing. Hedonism, consumerism, and an ideological vacuum, means that people won’t be making big commitments like having children. Of course the Muslims will, that makes sense, no surprise over there.
PS: and no, it’s not a financial thing. The immigrants with no support or family money that goes back several generations, working shitty min wage jobs, have and want to have children. It’s an ideological difference.
PS2: oh yeah and the current wave of redpill and casual misogyny on one side and “sexual liberation” and casual pornography on the other isn’t helping either. It just makes both sexes less interested and more cautious, even when there’s always good people in the bunch. That’s gonna have to be addressed as well.
I’m not going to debate you on your moral stance, nor on your conclusions.
But your own experience is a pretty narrow sample size and your generalization is pretty substantial. I don’t think you do justice to the diversity of people out there.
My personal experience with people in France is different, for example, I won’t tell you your argument is invalid over that, but it’s a sample size as big as your own, so it should be weighed.
That’s a very polite way to engage, I appreciate it. Why do you think french people aren’t having kids, friend?
In my perspective there are two aspects: social security and secularisation.
People that are uncertain about their being able to support themselves and afford a house are less likely to procreate.
There’s less influence of the Catholic church, whose message was to procreate.
Both lead to a more solitary life style and lessen faith in the general direction of society.
Mmm, a very reasonable answer. Secularisation definitely plays a part in the larger ideological differences between this population and others. There’s certainly been a very real and drastic economic decline in France since the 70s or something, and my friends’ parents have made it very clear several times, lol. But again, the fact that immigrants, which are arguably the poorest group, are perhaps the most fertile of the bunch points toward yet another ideological/psychological difference (maybe not having as much makes them panic more than others that simply think “God will provide”? Idk) that is deeper and more impactful than financials, IMO.
Perhaps the native thinks of their own childhood as the baseline, and feels like they would be unable to provide, while the immigrant came from comparable economic conditions they have now, or even worse, so they don’t see issues with it.
There’s also the fact that the immigrant is often religious and believes he must have children.
Maybe you’re right, but that’s a mistaken view by the locals, as seen by the immigrants having kids and not just starving on the streets but surviving and even thriving, perhaps not super comfortably, but still doing so. And yes, belief, ideology, they’re at the core of this situation, I agree with you there. 👍
Hedonism, consumerism, and an ideological vacuum
If that’s causing the declining birthrate, why is the birthrate in North Korea dropping so rapidly?
Probably other reasons related to the fact it’s a hermit kingdom isolated from the world, maybe.
