Fake corks?

[MongoJerry]

It is a question of what is seen as an appropriate family size.  And that reflects the attitudes of the culture.  It has long been known that those attitudes can be changed by appropriated advertising (propaganda) campaigns.

One should remember that Europe, America, Japan and other "developed" countries used to have cultures that encouraged large families. What changed in these countries? A massive propoganda campaign? Nope. It was the overall improved education of the entire population and especially the education and "liberation" of women. The more educated a person is, the more that person is willing to wait to have children in order to establish his or her careers and get ready to have children. Poorer and less educated people, on the other hand, consider children to be their careers and have many of them. (This is true even in "developed" countries).

There is a kind of evolutionary pressure for this. If one lives in a high-stress environment where a significant portion of one's children are likely to die from war, crime, or famine, then it makes sense to have many children in order to have the best chance of propogating one's genes. However, if one is relatively affluent and one's children are likely to survive, then there isn't a need to have so many children. Instead, one can concentrate on giving one's children "the best of everything" so that one's children can prosper and succeed farther than your did.

So, you're right that it is a "cultural" thing, but it's not an east-vs-west or north-vs-south kind of impassable cultural barrier. Historically, it wasn't long ago that women were relegated to taking care of the home and "pumping out babies" even in what are now "developed" countries. If we want to control the population growth of the world, we should focus our efforts on building schools in developing countries and encouraging women in those countries to stand up and be more independent.