Date: March 17th, 2025 10:03 PM
Author: cock of michael obama
But it’s still a more generous competitive environment than historically
In the Baby Boom years, something like ~80-85% of men fathered at least one child (and ~92% of women of childbearing age). 92/85% is literally the highest it has ever been, for both genders.
Today, the number is around 80/60%. More competitive, right? I’m sure effective birth control, various memetic hazards making alternatives more appealing, and careers and deciding to marry and have children later have driven a lot of that gap, but all those dynamics are part of the definition of being more competitive on this front, too.
But compared to the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptiveness, it’s an “easy mode” golden age! Harking back to the 80/40% point above - more recent data suggests that even THIS is optimistic.
From an excellent Lyman Stone post aggregating info from two recent papers:
This shows that the long-term average (yellow line) is probably 3-4 women reproducing for every man, which would actually be closer to 80/27%, or even 80/20% vs 80/40% - a significant delta, and looking pretty competitive for men historically.1
So sure, 80/60% is worse and more competitive than what men had 75 years ago! But it’s 2-3 times better than what men faced historically!
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5695477&forum_id=2#48757249)