Are children really happiness for the Enriched World?

The declining conservative side of Enriched World politics likes to believe that women who work would actually be happier raising children, and that most women are not “independent” because they look to “Uncle Sam” for their resources rather than for work. It is an assumption I have accepted in the absence of clear, contrary evidence as I try to investigate the real motives behind Enriched and Tropical World politics and relate these to the severe demographic decline in these regions, in spite of the fact that large welfare states and limited housing space give children negligible value in today’s Enriched and Tropical Worlds.

The issue is one I have never seen considered before Arnstein Åssve, Anna Barbuscia, and Letizia Mencarini’s ‘Expected happiness from childbearing and its realization’ came out in March this year. The results show that in France and Italy, there is considerable happiness from having a child, whereas in formerly Stalinist Bulgaria there is not. The difference, however, exists only for second and subsequent births, but is only marginally affected by employment status and level of education, with in Bulgaria and Italy the better-educated feeling slightly greater happiness from children than the less-educated.

A telling statistic is that men feel more happiness from children than women – a reflection perhaps of how thoroughly defeminised Enriched World women have become and of how much they value personal comfort over the sacrifices thereof needed to nurture a new generation, especially in strongly atheist Bulgaria where Marxism dominated among the peasants and urban poor long before Stalin took over the country.

This tendency is supported by the fact that employed women have fewer feelings of happiness about children than those who stay at home whilst their partners work. This suggests that the Enriched World needs to lower living costs so that women do not have to work if it wants to avoid a severe demographic decline. The article does not look at whether excessive living costs are the factor behind the failure of Enriched World adults to achieve desired numbers of children, but it seems very probable and the same should be said concerning regulations and taxes.