>If infant and maternal mortality are lower than ever before, and women are less likely to die in childbirth than in the past, then why aren’t women having more kids, since she’s less likely to die having each one?
I can think of three possible answers:
Firstly, is that maternal mortality is irrelevant compared to things like status, culture, economics, etc. The underlying thing actually doesn’t matter, the implication is that women who still complain about maternal (or infant) mortality as a reason to not have kids (or not have too many kids) are hysterical and should shut up. Other things are at work.
Secondly, it’s possible that the elimination of risk and difficulty has actually robbed birth of its significance and meaning. Kinda like how no-fault divorce crashed marriage rates. You might think that making it easier to leave a bad marriage would mean that more people would risk getting married in the first place, since if it doesn’t work out, you can just leave. However, what actually happened is that marriage was robbed of its value and permanence, thus there is less of a reason to get married. By making it less difficult and less risky to have children, it actually reduces the allure of having kids at all because it doesn’t mean much.
Thirdly, it could be the case that things haven’t actually improved, and that progressives have been lying to us about everything. Infant and maternal mortality in the past is highly exaggerated, while mortality nowadays is hugely downplayed.
