Negative Social Mood Depresses Fertility, America Reaching New Nadir

ZH: The COVID Baby Bump That Wasn't

One thing, however, has not changed: despite expectations of a baby boom from idle couples locked down together, birth rates continue to fall. Birth rates were already trending downwards in Western countries as more women focused on their education and careers, thus delaying plans for marriage or starting a family. The shrinking wage gap between men and women also incentivized many women to postpone childbearing to remain in the workforce longer.

This pattern is reflected in the US, where birth rates hit a 35-year low in 2019: The CDC notes birth rates declined for nearly all age groups of women under 35, remained stagnant for those 35-39 and rose for women in their early 40s.

People will say this is a trend in modern life, but it's also true that women are unhappier with each passing year since the advent of feminism as a soceital force in the 1970s. Femimism is a negative mood ideology as it is based in breaking up the male-female union and pitting male vs femae in society. It emerged in the negative mood 1970s and bouts of feminism have erupted during periods of negative mood such as the #MeToo movement during tehhe 2008- 20?? depression. Unlike healthy negative and positive mood reactions around religion and science that keep both in check, feminism seems like a cancer producing negativity at all times. Healthy societies will defeat or reeplace feminism, or they will probably cease to exist. More importantly for the near term, American social mood is extremly negative. If the stock market ever catches down with mood it will make March 2020 look like a modest pullback.