Women today are having fewer babies. Let me show you how this is GOOD news…
By: Isaac Huerta
Tags: Health, Good News, Women, Babies, Poverty

In the 1800s, women were having on average 6 babies.

Today, that number is 2.5, and it continues to decline. That’s good news!

Hi, my name is Isaac. I share good news with the world because good news don’t make the news. I show you how the world is actually a good place to live in right now.

Elon Musk is trying to conquer Mars.

Jeff Bezos is trying to put mini-worlds in space like in the movie Elysium.

Are we worried about overpopulation on Earth? It seems like it.

The facts oppose that.

There are currently 2 billion children in the world today. How many children do you think there will be in the year 2100? I’ll give you 3 options. 1 is correct. Think in your head for a little.

A) The same (2 billion)

B) 3 billion (+1B)

C) 4 billion (+2B)

If you guessed C, you’re… INCORRECT.

If you guessed B, you’re… ALSO INCORRECT.

The UN predicts that the number will remain the same. Even though we predict that by 2100, the total population will be11 billion. There are 7 billion people on Earth right now.

This doesn’t make sense, does it? Well, let me show you how it does:

As humans, we love to think linearly. It’s our linear instinct. If someone throws a rock at you, you can predict whether it is going to hit you. This instinct has helped us survive up to this point.

However, not everything is like this. Life is more complex and most of the time, graphs don’t look linearly. Most graphs have multiple curves, dips, spikes, slides, and they don’t look like a straight line at all.

This is what the graph for babies per woman looks like:

Wait, if the world population is expected to hit 11 billion by 2100 (and cap there), how can women be having fewer babies?

The short answer is, the world as a whole is getting better!

The semi-long answer is this:

In the last 20 years, extreme poverty (Level 1 — less than $2 a day) has almost halved. 20 years ago, 29% of the world population lived in extreme poverty. Now, that number is 9%. Today, almost everybody has escaped hell.

Isaac, what does this have to do with women and how many babies they’re having?

Well, what do you do as a woman in the 1800s when most of your children died before they got to the age of 1? You have 6 or 7 so that hopefully 2 or 3 make it past the age of 1. Parents also needed more children for labor on the small family farm. More children: more crops and cheap or free labor. But that’s not the case anymore.

As I said, the majority of people have escaped hell. Africa is doing much better than what Westerners think:

Their incomes are rising

Businesses are flocking there because people are moving up the financial ranks which means new consumers

Girls have more access to education

They’re more connected thanks to their internet

Things are getting better! Parents now don’t need to have more than 5 kids because their children are not dying. Instead, they prefer to have 1 or 2 so they can give them better education, more attention, and more love. Contraceptives are also widely available so people are having more sex but fewer children.

This shows us that there is a strong link between income and the number of babies per woman. Women have more children if they live in extreme poverty, remember that. If things continue to get better, as they are now, we can expect to see that 2.5 babies per woman number, continue to increase as people become more educated, have access to more resources, and increase their salaries. That is good news.

Key takeaways:

Earth will not become overpopulated (you’re thinking linearly if you believe this)

Don’t think linearly (my point above): most things are represented by weird-looking lines and not straight ones

Child mortality rate is at an all-time low

Women have more children if they live in extreme poverty — that’s not the case anymore

The majority of people have escaped hell (now let’s focus on helping the ones who still haven’t)

Again, my name is Isaac and I share good news with the world because good news don’t make the news.

I hope you enjoyed this article.