shouldn't intelligent wealthy people choose to have more children?

[durangodawood]

why don't intelligent wealthy people have more children?

Compared to low intelligence people, on average:
1. intelligent people have other interesting things to do, if they want, besides raise more kids.
2. intelligent people know there are plenty of people on earth without them making more.
3. intelligent people use birth control.

 

[Brightmoon]

Well the planet is overpopulated with humans . My great gram had 15 . Her daughter ( my grandmother) had 1 . I had 2 and my 3 sisters had 1,2,and 3 . None of us wanted more kids . Frankly I would have been happy with just one but I love both of them . Couldn’t picture having the time or energy for 15 and being a Victorian housewife like my great grandmother was. I also got the impression from my grandmother that her father was very insistent on his right to his wife’s body.
Birth control wasn’t legal then ( early 20th century) . It is now and women aren’t baby machines like they used to be.

 

[Brightmoon]

I think it’s also the fact that women who have money are not being as submissive to male demands and an intelligent women is going to be more independent and want to keep that.

 

[SolomonVII]

why don't intelligent wealthy people have more children?

It reminds me of a joke that a poster once reported on being pinned to the wall of his companies office, filled with DoubleIncomeNoKids lawyers.
It went something to the effect that the 'stupid are outbreeding us'.
I suppose the days when intelligence is still a genetic asset and stupidity is a genetic liability in humans has passed is over.
Smart people are less likely to leave their genetic materials on to a next generation, and dumb people are the ones more adapted to living in this world.
I suppose that conventional wisdom, that smart people have in spades now, teaches them that this world is not worth living in, and it is not anything that they would wish upon their worse enemies, let alone the children that they never are going to have.

 

[Paidiske]

Children come at high cost (and I'm not talking financial cost, I'm talking the biological cost of carrying, birthing and raising them on the mother's body). When infant mortality is high (as it is amongst the world's poorest) having more children increases your chances of some living to adulthood. When infant mortality is low (amongst the rich, and, yes, intelligent; or at least educated) you need bear fewer children to raise some to adulthood.

Given the chance, very few women want to have many babies (given the personal cost involved). Wealth and intelligence give you the opportunity to have as few children as you want, spaced as far apart as you want, and have them live to a reproductive age. So it's a no-brainer that we'd take advantage of that opportunity.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Children come at high cost (and I'm not talking financial cost, I'm talking the biological cost of carrying, birthing and raising them on the mother's body). When infant mortality is high (as it is amongst the world's poorest) having more children increases your chances of some living to adulthood. When infant mortality is low (amongst the rich, and, yes, intelligent; or at least educated) you need bear fewer children to raise some to adulthood.

Given the chance, very few women want to have many babies (given the personal cost involved). Wealth and intelligence give you the opportunity to have as few children as you want, spaced as far apart as you want, and have them live to a reproductive age. So it's a no-brainer that we'd take advantage of that opportunity.

Well said. I think this probably best explains my own personal choices. Though to be honest, I would have wanted two instead of just one. The spacing issue simply caught up with me in terms of life circumstances.

Though if human biology were different - I used to say I'd want as many children as possible - if I could space them 15 years apart. That just doesn't work for us though.

 

[PsychoSarah]

It went something to the effect that the 'stupid are outbreeding us'.
I suppose the days when intelligence is still a genetic asset and stupidity is a genetic liability in humans has passed is over.
Smart people are less likely to leave their genetic materials on to a next generation, and dumb people are the ones more adapted to living in this world.

*Sigh*, the silly "Idiocracy" situation is unlikely. For one thing, plenty of intelligent people still have kids. It's an instinctual urge. In addition, intelligence genetics are complex to such an extent that two idiots can have a child that's a genius. Not to mention the influence of environmental factors in intelligence are almost a match for the influence genetics has. That is, plenty of people are stupid as a result of poor education and health choices early in life rather than due to genetic causes.

 

[SolomonVII]

For one thing, plenty of intelligent people still have kids. It's an instinctual urge.

It is a negative growth rate in many populations now.
Note how many people who identify as smart and well off here are not disagreeing with the contention that they are having fewer children, but instead how they are explaining why they are not having kids.

Genetic success of any population is entirely dependent on relative success of being able to pass ones genetic content down to the next generation.

In addition, intelligence genetics are complex to such an extent that two idiots can have a child that's a genius

.
Evolution and genetics are based on probabilities. Two idiots can have a child that is a genius, but the probabilities are less that that is going to happen than two geniuses having a genius.
That is how evolution works It would have no effect if the traits of the parents were not similar to the traits of their offspring. While mutations happen randomly, genetic traits are conserved from generation to generation, and even across speciation.

Not to mention the influence of environmental factors in intelligence are almost a match for the influence genetics has. That is, plenty of people are stupid as a result of poor education and health choices early in life rather than due to genetic causes.

The chances of two idiots creating the environmental conditions for their mutant genius offspring to make the next great discovery are low. Environmental and health and education conditions are not random either, especially in a meritocracy.

 

[Ophiolite]

why don't intelligent wealthy people have more children?

Because they are intelligent and wish to remain wealthy.