At first I thought your comment completely refuted mine, but then I thought some more and not so sure. Italy being “lazy” is just a meme, a lazy country couldn’t have such amazing car industry, fashion industry, food industry and so on. You try making a Ferrari if you’re lazy :-) My stereotype of Italians is that they often do extremely good work.
You are right. I should clarify my post and provide better sources.
Fertility Rate Hours Worked/Year East Asia 1.08 2,265 Europe 1.38 1,548 Difference −0.30 +717
Accuracy check: Europe matches official estimates, thus east asian tfr is probably on point
From claude. (population weighted). I think you aren’t completely wrong, just that it’s not the core component and is actually marginal. I suspect a lot of the European advantage comes from unassimilated immigrants too (who converge to native birth rates within a generation or two).
EDIT: Population-weighted native European TFR: roughly ~1.22 (rough math based on % of kids from immigrants vs % immigrants)
Italian here. I feel like the core issues are probably on point, with the details differing from country to country. For us, our economy has been quite bad for decades now. Work is scarce, poorly paid, often within stultified companies ruled by an idiotic behind the times managerial class (one thing Italy shares with Japan: being a gerontocracy). People don’t achieve economic stability until well in their thirties, if ever. Some jobs, like teacher, require absurd humiliation congas (I know of people who kept being substitutes and temps, constantly travelling for each role, well into their fifties, while climbing up the Byzantine public scoreboard to a fixed job). It’s just not particularly surprising that fertility craters. Mostly I would say Italians in Italy end up working very hard to achieve very little which is simultaneously tiring and demotivating.
At first I thought your comment completely refuted mine, but then I thought some more and not so sure. Italy being “lazy” is just a meme, a lazy country couldn’t have such amazing car industry, fashion industry, food industry and so on. You try making a Ferrari if you’re lazy :-) My stereotype of Italians is that they often do extremely good work.
You are right. I should clarify my post and provide better sources.
Fertility Rate Hours Worked/Year
East Asia 1.08 2,265
Europe 1.38 1,548
Difference −0.30 +717
Accuracy check: Europe matches official estimates, thus east asian tfr is probably on point
From claude. (population weighted). I think you aren’t completely wrong, just that it’s not the core component and is actually marginal. I suspect a lot of the European advantage comes from unassimilated immigrants too (who converge to native birth rates within a generation or two).
EDIT: Population-weighted native European TFR: roughly ~1.22 (rough math based on % of kids from immigrants vs % immigrants)
Italian here. I feel like the core issues are probably on point, with the details differing from country to country. For us, our economy has been quite bad for decades now. Work is scarce, poorly paid, often within stultified companies ruled by an idiotic behind the times managerial class (one thing Italy shares with Japan: being a gerontocracy). People don’t achieve economic stability until well in their thirties, if ever. Some jobs, like teacher, require absurd humiliation congas (I know of people who kept being substitutes and temps, constantly travelling for each role, well into their fifties, while climbing up the Byzantine public scoreboard to a fixed job). It’s just not particularly surprising that fertility craters. Mostly I would say Italians in Italy end up working very hard to achieve very little which is simultaneously tiring and demotivating.