Cultural change and its effects

I have been avoiding having to really delve into discussing culture, and therefore impose my preferences on it. There are so many aspects about culture that are sensitive due to its complexity, and in many ways off-limits. However, it is clear that there is a feedback loop between the economy and culture. The part I will be talking about is: power dynamics between age groups and gender. Oh no! I am one of those! Why are you surprised?

The reason why I have chosen these two attributes to focus on, is they comparatively have the biggest effect on outcomes. Also, societies across the world seem to be complaining about age and gender more intensely in the recent years.

There are a set of biological facts we cannot deny. Namely, biological women are the only group who can create new life and care for them during infancy. It is the case for all mammals. Biological males are physically stronger - on average - due to higher testosterone, and are risk takers. These determinations by nature affects individual resource allocation, in time and money. Over the decades, factors e.g. education, WWII, push for independence by the suffragettes etc. has changed culture, such that, particularly women and younger individuals have acquired bargaining power in society. This has meant individuals have changed the way they allocated their resources, directly affecting outcomes such as family creation, population growth etc. This has implications on the economy.

As women have reduced their roles on household activities and focused on having a career, family creation has increasingly been put on the backburner. There is also less of a divide between the role of a man vs a woman, as women have become their own providers and can carry out the same activities as men, to an extent. Why trade income generating activities with unpaid domestic work?

The same can be said about younger people: career and enjoying life comes before having families. Unsurprisingly, the change in economic prospects has also increased the expectation for what constitutes quality life, which comes at a higher cost. The incentives for having families has greatly reduced, which is clearly having adverse effects on regional population growth and the supply of future workers.

The effects are also felt within family units and communities. As the young go off and live their own lives, they aren't available to tend to the needs of the older generation. While a lot of societies have found solutions for elderly care, a lot of other societies haven't. Elderly care is also entrenched in gender, where the onus is on women. Independence also means life is less family centric and communities are not as connected as they once were. Social isolation can have mental health implications, creating a domino effect on physical health, productivity and thus wages.

The backlash about the lack of family creation and population stagnation, actually points to the fact that society hasn't progressed on gender and age, as much as we thought. While there has been a lot of progress on independence, the day to day responsibilities seem to still be very traditional. We provided gender equality without the necessary attitude change by all groups, for it to be a success. Men should read the writing on the wall and adjust; societies lacking in elderly care need to do the same. Without holistic compromises and willingness to pull your weight, it won't get better. What society needs, is internal self-reflection and evaluation, instead of the e.g. vitriolic rants on podcasts about feminism and independence. How are those rants incentivizing family creation? Seems more of a repulsion.

A male-loneliness epidemic has already been declared; the intervention isn't an easy quick fix of merely popping a pill, and it shows.