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Comment by retrac | Hacker News Reader

> lliberal societies are also suffering from the same phenomenon

There's one major historical outlier from the whole industrialized societies not having children trend -- the Soviet Union. Like everywhere else industrialized, the fertility rate in the 50s and 60s fell from traditional pre-industrial levels (4 - 5 per woman) down to about 2.5 (just above replacement). It then stayed there until the collapse of the USSR, at which point it plummeted well below replacement in most of the successor states, and has never recovered. (Similar story in East Germany and the rest of the Bloc.)

The USSR had many problems, but employment security and time off, a basic roof and food security for young families, was not among them; it was cheap and practical to have kids.

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This was partly a policy decision; after WW2 killed twenty million Russians, there was an effort to repopulate. Mothers who had a lot of children were given medals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Maternal_Glory until the 80s.

(in the West, a mother who has a lot of children supported by the state is deemed a "welfare queen" to be scorned and vilified. It is not surprising that there aren't so many of them.)

Twenty million *Soviets*, no shortage of Ukranians, Kazakhs, Tatars, Kipchaks, Lithuanians, et al, who fell to German guns.

Hardly unique, Israel and Ireland both had high birth rates at the same time as the USSR while being richer. Plus the USSR had the Muslim republics inflating their numbers, those are still the highest birth rate regions of Russia today.

It's simply because of deep poverty of vast majority of population and unavailability of contraception. Living standards in the Soviet Union were on par with third world, not the first: massive industrial output did not go into consumption, but was either directed to the military, or wasted.

Plus, total fertility rate was rather high in 1970s and 80s (around 2.5) only with inclusion of Asiatic republics where people effectively lived in prehistoric state with little change over 2000 years, with totemic idols replaced with Lenin's statues. In Russia proper, it was hovering at or slightly under the replacement ratio.

People in the GDR were pressured a lot to have kids and to leave them with state institutions very early. Wouldn't be surprised if the USSR was the same.

The DDR also had softcore movies late at night in the hope of increasing the birth rate. I haven't heard that the USSR had gone to that length.

The state institutions were indeed revolutionary, especially compared to the BRD which was (& is) much more regressive when it came to equality (e.g. half school days weds and sat meant women couldn't hold down full time jobs). Unfortunately, as they were indeed also propaganda vehicles, that system was tossed out along with everything else.

Not everything in the DDR was a terrible idea, only almost everything. I can't really criticise the way unification was achieved (it was a big rush that hadn't been planned for) but it's OK to look back and consider what could still be learnt.

very interesting, this I did not know

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