Bro,
... I for one would be curious to know whether the Singaporeans who emigrated to 'greener pastures' have also succumbed to the 'affluent disease' of low procreation? ...
... Stress is but one factor. To me I think the key overriding factor may well be the Individualism/Libertarian factor, the "ME" factor which now appears to be gender neutral which exacerbates the situation even more ...
my humble 2 cents again,
from a biological point of view, a lower birth rate isn't exactly a bad issue altogether, it merely translates to higher chance of promoting the survival of the species due to limitation of nutrients in that specific environment, or some might say it was due to a lack of resources that the species were unable to reproduce. we could rule out the latter as our species, 6 billion strong and growing, are still having decent amount of food.
on why the lower birth rate is causing much alarm in the first world nations, i thought that it would result in the following: that the natives doesn't produce enough, down a generation or two, the society would have to support a larger group of elderly, and entire economy would be hanging by a thread. i don't think any Government would exactly want a nation full of immigrants and with only a small pool of natives. policy formation would be a pain, the nation could simply be at the brink of a collapse.
to depend on immigrants to fill those vacuum, you'd risk increasing the stress level of the natives thus resulting in a vicious cycle, and you end up with a nation of immigrants. not too bad if some of the immigrants would take roots and allow their off-springs to grow up in the new environment, but human are social animals after all. a pretty sad thing they failed to realize we all belong to the same species called
Homo sapiens.
the points i've raised in "ii", would at least give provisions for more perks in being a Citizen of any particular nation, thus providing better conditions for the Citizens, in hope to make them feel comfortable enough to at least start reproducing. humans are living beings, they react to external environment; and the funny thing about the economy is that: the perceived value of any tangible item is more often not the actual value, and most of the time, the former is always higher.
you can't cheat the biological system, if the dynamics is such whereby the folks feel it's unfavorable to reproduce, they simply wouldn't. that's the stress factor i was having in mind. and as a biological system, you can really blame folks who keep their nomadic lifestyle of searching for greener pastures. that real fact is that folks want to make love and have babies, only the perceived conditions ain't favorable
folks in poverty-stricken areas operate on another function altogether, where they would employ another reproduction strategy to ensure their survival. producing more and more and hoping one of them can make it to reproduce the next generation, and we can't fault them for that. Life will always find its way.
a libertarian simply entails the notion that the individual believes in individual rights with minimal intrusions from Government policies if i'm not mistaken, so i don't think it has any bearings on child bearing altogether. Individualism on the other hand might be a better term, where the individual becomes self centred, looking only after his/her own needs and not giving a flying fuck about the others.
but i draw your attention once again to the point that we are still human after all. if that individual grows to become more self centred, it is still the doings of the society, where families are becoming more nucleated in the developed nations, and the young ones doesn't really grow up in an environment that mimics our not-too-distant past. Individualism is simply a by-product of the nucleation of family groups.
you reap what you sow when the conditions are right, and that's the way it always has been. the exponential phase would soon proceed to plateau phase, which i think most developed nations are fast moving into this phase, and unless our species come to realize that we are in fact one and the same, that we need to look out for one another... but heck, we have the selfish gene
