I wonder if the resistance to reverting to high fertility can be modeled as a sticky phase transition where women and/or families get used to the new lifestyle. Simply removing the incentives to have less children is not nearly enough: you need to push hard to force the phase transition back to 2+ children per family state. This makes sense to me because taking care of several children is hard work and is best done in multi-generational families, which are increasingly rare several decades after a transition to low-fertility. The societal financial setup also changes to where two incomes are barely enough to raise one or two children, and Home Alone or The Simpsons structure is not a thing anymore. The society basically has to more than double after-tax take-home of the working parent to get back to what was the norm in the 1970s USA.
I wonder if the resistance to reverting to high fertility can be modeled as a sticky phase transition where women and/or families get used to the new lifestyle. Simply removing the incentives to have less children is not nearly enough: you need to push hard to force the phase transition back to 2+ children per family state. This makes sense to me because taking care of several children is hard work and is best done in multi-generational families, which are increasingly rare several decades after a transition to low-fertility. The societal financial setup also changes to where two incomes are barely enough to raise one or two children, and Home Alone or The Simpsons structure is not a thing anymore. The society basically has to more than double after-tax take-home of the working parent to get back to what was the norm in the 1970s USA.
Okay, so does that mean we are earning half as much in real terms?