This whole big problem we currently have been discussing of Depopulation and why it is happening has led me back to doing some research into mammalian reproductive biology, and as a result I'm starting to get a clearer picture of why we are currently failing as a species to reproduce in our current environment.  It's quite a revelation really and it's a work in progress, I don't think I'll be able to fully explain my thinking in one post.  But I'll try and get a start on it.

Mammals have a whole host of different reproductive strategies they develop in response to how they exploit their niche in the environment.  Predators and prey differ markedly, prey come in large numbers and use a Herd systemm, like Horses or Caribou for instance.  Predators come in smaller numbers, and vary from some of the big cats like Tigers or Jaguars that hunt solo to Lions that hunt in packs and form Prides.  Wolves and Dogs are also pack hunters, but their pack reproductive strategy is markedly different than Lions.  In Dogs, only the Alpha male gets to reproduce, with Lions all the males have at least some opportunity at getting some pussy (literally. lol).  A herd of horse has just one alpha male, but as bachelor males get bigger and stronger they'll break off annd new herds will form with them taking some unhappy mares from other herds.  As new males are born, they'll grow protected by their mothers for a while then may challenge for leadership in another herd.

In some of these pack and herd organizations as offspring are born and grow, sometimes it's the males who will leave the generative herd to find mates in another herd as strategy to prevent inbreeding, in others it's the females that leave.  In none of these group style organizations do you find any that mate for life and remain monogomous.

You don't see mating for life except with the animals that hunt solo and have a wide geographic area necessary to find enough food for themselves and offspring.  Eagles for instance mate for life.  Oldfield mice mate for life, but their lifespan is only 9 months long so that  kind of doesn't really count.  Wolves mate for life, but alpha males will cheat on their bitches periodically.

You see elements of all strategies pursued in the wild by other species being employed by humans, in our typically adaptive pattern of whatever suits the environment and the social organization that evolves.  So for instance Inuit generally mate for life, but wives will be shared with other men to shuffle around the limited gene pool available.  Marriage and monogamy though has been the dominant organization for Homo Sap since the development of agriculture, except in highly organized societies where high status men would accumulate many wives and concubines, while those with low status had none.  Warfare which has been periodic and occuring at least once in every generation also steps out of the mate for life paradigm, since raping the wives and daughters of the losing army is and expected bonus if you survive the war.  Since your brother may have been killed in the war, you end up with his wife also.  In many cases, war simply ends when so many men from both sides have been killed there's not enough for a decent army, and it takes both sides a couple of generations to breed up enough cannon fodder for another go round.  Thus Hitler was rushing the Hitler Youth and League of Sluts to pump out new meat packages ASAP since the male population of Krauts had been so recently decimated in the Great War.  Bad family planning there since that generation was still in kindergarten when WWII got underway.  He should have held off on conquest another 10 years until they were big enough to reach the pedals on the tanks he was building.

Although youcan see elements of human reproductive behavior in all animal species, to ones that are anthropologically of the greatest interest are the primates, monkeys and apes.  Closest in DNA typing are the Bonobos and Chimpanzees, 98% and 95% respectively in matching up their DNA to Homo Sap.  Bonobos are famous for being wickedly promiscuous and anybody and everybody has sex with everyone else for all sorts of rreasons not procreation related.  Bonobos will use any excuse to have sex, in captivity when food arrives at the cage, they celebrate before eating with a fuck fest.  If they get in an argument, they resolve the conflict with some genital rubbing, doesn't matter what genitalia is involved.  Chimps are not quite so nuts, and definitely not as sex obsessed as Bonobos.  Not monogamous, but they have a limited number of regular partners.  Fortunately it doesn't take long for a Bonobo to get off, average sexual interaction is like 15 seconds. lol.  Females who have successfully had a BaByBonoBo are most popular and high status males generally monopolizae them, but no male goes without some nookie since grandma, the junior high and kindergarten girls and the other guys are all out there looking for love too. lol.

Amongst the great apes, only Gibbons are the mate for life monogomous types, and they are also the least sexually dimorphic.  In other words, they are about the same size and strength and play similar roles with food foraging and child rearing.  Sort of the Ideal Women's Liberation primate species where the sexes are equal in their power distribution.  For Homo Sap Women's Libbers looking for Dominance over males, their favorite are the Bonobos.  Even though male Bonobos individually are bigger and stronger than the females, the girls cooperate better and gang up on an annoying male and beat him up if he is being a nuisance. lol.  Due to their bizarre sexual obsession also, often in order to cajole some food from a female Bonobo who has some meat, a hungry male BB has to offer to have sex with her.  That is definitely reversed from typical HS behavior.

OK, now, with all these possible strategies out there amongst mammals and birds for successful sexual behavior, mating and reproduction, how has our post industrial techno society evolved into one which appears to be becoming unsuccessful in the repruction aspect in the great game of life?  We've established ourselves at the top of the food chain and adaptability to multiple environments and ecosystems, but in this most crucial department for having a successful and continuing existence on earth, we are quite clearly failing.  Interesting also is where we are failing is in the richest and most well advanced nations of the world, which seems counter-intuitive.  The places that theoretically can support more children are the places least likely to be having them.

So, let's backtrack here a bit to see how we got here first just in the FsoA, and starting with the beginning of the Baby Boom after WWII, when we most certainly were succeeding superbly at reproduction,  In 1950 fertility was at 3 births/woman, up to a high of 3.5 in 1958, then decreasing to the current 1.7.  Meanwhile, the population went fro 30% living on farms in 1940 to 3% in 1980.  Farming as a way of life has virtually disappeared in the FsoA, and with that disappeared the traditional big family of a farmer.

Looking at the leader in the Depopulation race South Korea, the situation is similar there with 50% of the population farming in 1970 to 8.5% in 2005.  What the Koreans don't have is anything resembling the intermediary suburban model the FsoA has, basically everyone who left the farms went straight into the urban living model.  It's one of the most densely populated places on earth, with about 1300 homo saps/sq mi.

So it becomes quite clear what the problem is, it is living space.  To raise a family takes space, and in a highly urbanized, densely populated country like South Korea, living space is very expensive.  If you live where there is space, there's no opportunity for making money, if you live where there are jobs to make money, there's no space to raise kids.

The suburban model blurs this somewhat by providing more space, but it comes at a high energy cost for commutation between work and home.  Since unlike a farm the suburban home in the Wonder Years model produces nothing, it's very expensive space also.  Besides the Asian countries, European countries also went to industrialization without the development of the suburban model, as did the countries which comprised the old Soviet Union.  All of them are deeper into the depopulation doodoo than the FsoA , with bpw around 1.5.

OK, I'll end this part of the analysis here to allow for discussion.  Perhaps some of you will see some of what I see in this predicament, perhaps some will have other ideas.   Could be interesting.