I'm not Amish, but my wife and I have 11 children, 9 boys, 2 girls. Our youngest son has 2 nieces older than him. I'm in my 60s and already have 25 grandchildren, most of whom live close by, and we see them on a regular basis. Our youngest is 12 and we have 6 unmarried children. I expect to reach the 100 grandkids mark.
I grew up with only one sibling but my wife's family (also not Amish) is large. The family dynamics are exactly like you describe. Not one of my wife's siblings have ever divorced, and they in turn have large families. One brother has 15 kids and another has 13! I watched my wife's parents' health rapidly decline in their early 90s, needing around the clock care. With 125 grandkids and 50 great-grandkids, there was always someone to provide that care. So could this be the default dynamics of large families regardless of religious affiliation?
First off, congrats to you and your wife! I'm sure whatever challenges you've had will be more than worth it.
I do think you're right, and that is the default dynamic of large families. As I mentioned in the article, I don't think religion per se has nearly as much impact on individual people's choices around marriage and family as the influence of their own family and surrounding culture.
I think the role religion, and by implication the broader culture, plays in those choices is in creating an environment that prevents the "ratcheting down" effect of smaller families in one generation leading to even smaller families the next generation. By creating a culture and a value system that explicitly and implicitly promotes large families, each generation has a strong incentive to have a large family, even if their own immediate family is small for some reason.
If you had married someone who also had one sibling, like yourself, do you think you would have been less likely to have 11 children? And maybe if you were both family minded to have a "large family" of 4 children instead?
The atomized, individualistic culture of today, which is very different from the tight-knit community of a distinctive religious tradition, makes it much less likely that two people from smaller families will ever be intimately exposed to the dynamics of a large family, and therefore much less likely to desire and achieve that for themselves. Especially when the media, entertainment, and popular culture that atomized individuals use as a substitute for real community all push them in the direction of smaller families and more focus on career and personal lifestyle.
I can say that I definitely would not have had such a large family had my wife not wanted to. She simply had no interest in birth control and I just wanted to have sex and lol. Had she feared we couldn't support them I would have been right there using birth control. Were this venue more private, I would mention some things my wife has made known to me now in her post menopause age. Let's just say that pregnancy is extremely hard on a woman and birth control allows a woman to act post-menopausal without the actual wisdom, experience, and reality of being post-menopausal.
I met my wife women she was 14 and I 16, went on our first date on her 16th birthday, and married when she was 18. Imagine the strength you had at that age! Dealing with babies is hard, and in my 60s now, I couldn't imagine having that ability and hardly can believe we did. It was hard, and not something I would have chosen if either of us were willing to take an easier way out. I admit, reading your focus on the Amish, I misread your intent, thinking you were implying their unique religious beliefs were the driving factor. I agree with your clarification that culture is the driving force. For instance, I don't think my wife's family's religion is the cause of no divorces because they're not overtly religious. I think it is more the can do attitude, the unwillingness to throw in the towel, the commitment to all the children of the union, that drives it. How could you have 11 children and leave your wife?
That's an incredible story with some excellent insights. Imagine the response most young people today would get from their family, friends, church, and literally every person they interacted with if they got married at 18-20 and started a family.
That's why I don't think the large family default dynamic is likely to pass down through generations in the current culture. Very few young people have the strength of personality to go against every message they're getting from those around them, even if they somehow wanted to. Especially young women, who are much more influenced by social norms and peer pressure. Like your experience shows, women are the ones who really determine family size, most men are just kind of along for the ride, and will figure out how to make it work, whatever the number ends up being.
I never realized that entertainment and pop culture for a substitute for community in our atomized culture, but it’s so true. Thank you for this fascinating essay.
Hey, I was going to comment on your second part but it's paid subs only. I can't afford to sub to all the stacks I read so I rotate them. Yours will make the rotation one day. I was just going to say that another modern day group of people still having large families is the traditional Roman Catholics. Maybe comparing and contrasting them with the Amish might give you some new insights.
Hey, thanks for the comment. That would certainly be an interesting comparison. I follow a lot of traditional Catholic authors here and elsewhere, and find a lot of value in their writing and experiences. I just don't have enough direct insight into that community to provide relevant commentary. If someone from that community wanted to tackle it, I would love to hear their insights.
It's funny in a way because my ancestors came to this country primarily because they were being tortured and martyred as heretics by the Catholics in Europe. In spite of that history, they still maintain some counter-cultural similarities today like the large family norms.
By the way, I just upgraded your subscription, so go ahead and check out part 2. I'd be honored to hear your feedback.
Well thank you for that, very kind of you. I don't have much insight into that community but I have a friend who is traditional Roman Catholic and all of his family and friends have 15 passenger vans, lol. They're making a lot of babies and holding their families together somehow. I'll read part 2. And again, thanks.
Great to read, thanks. Where I live around the finger lakes of New York State, there are large, Amish and Mennonite communities. It always makes me happy to see them out and about, or on their properties doing what they do. It feels like Hope for the future for Christian North America, even though my religious doctrine is quite different from theirs.
And our circles, (Reformed), we often see families with 5 to 8 children. The social control and cultural expectations are far less coherent among us, but I am hoping that changes over the course of the next couple generations. Reading this post, several times I experienced a bit of revulsion at the idea of people being “trapped“ in a community like the Amish with no other option, especially thinking of the women. I have to consciously realize that that reaction is a conditioned response. Frightening that someone as in love with traditional European and North American values as I am still has the instinct to eschew the very cultural mindset that would retain traditional culture for us. There is much for us to overcome if we are going to survive.
Especially for those of us who have a more individualistic temperament, I can relate to that objection to the idea of being "trapped". But I do agree with your more reasoned take. The data proves that overall people are happier and less depressed in more family-oriented cultures. The paradox of choice applies there as well. For most people, unlimited optionality leads to anxiety, not satisfaction. And a more structured culture, with more clearly defined roles and responsibilities, ends up leading to better life outcomes for the average person.
And if you think about it, mentally and physically disabled people have a lot more hope being born in an Amish household than in Brooklyn or San Francisco, where they’re likely to end up wards of the State.
Due to a nexus of unexpected contributing factors, I got to see the juxtaposition of the two almost every day. It is not night and day, it’s like the bottom of a twisting mineshaft compared to the day. I try not to think about it because it makes me so angry. As far as I know there is no state in the US that isnt nightmarish in how the state manages and cares for, and in many ways mandates the care of, physically and especially mentally disabled people. Where the state has a heavy hand, theyre treated like livestock, commodities, and, in the most belittling way, princelings. The worst part is the effect on their minds. Abject poverty would be comparatively better. I never met a real live eugenicist (that I knew of) until I heard one of the state’s case managers monologue about her feelings on the matter.
Very well written and informative. The contrasts between their culture and modern America are stark, and it is clear how the culture affects the various incentives and disincentives surrounding community, marriage, and family.
Andrew Breitbart famously coined the aphorism that "Politics is downstream of culture" but what creates a culture? My contention is that culture is downstream of religion, or whatever moral framework built around a founding myth serves that function. It is their religion that creates the background of "conform, or be exiled" that underpins their ability to remove troublesome actors and negative influences from their inner society and their gene pool. One wonders how much further education occurs on a personal level, and if their system is functioning like Medieval and Early Modern European Christianity to increase the general IQ of their population over time (UHIQ people famously don't conform to societal norms very well, especially during their intemperate youth phase).
The potential importance of this would lie in the consideration that the Amish culture (as it currently operates) can only exist as a beneficiary of outsourcing their defense to the high trust, law and order, highly militarily capable society they are embedded in. One wonders how many will make the choice to eschew the "no resistance" clause if faced with total community destruction if the rule of law breaks down. One further wonders if their societal model is then capable of bootstrapping itself up the technological ladder in terms of weapon production for defense well enough and fast enough to avoid being overwhelmed by whoever the local bully is. This bully will eventually scale from a local gang attempting to plunder food, supplies, and women to a warlord to the neighboring polity to whomever is trying to conquer the continent; this will happen over multiple generations and failing this test has enormous cultural impacts, up to and including being totally subsumed.
The ultimate survival of a culture rests on many more factors than just replacement birthrate. The Amish are flourishing only in this particular circumstance of history, which has been very anomalous for North America the past 150 years compared to the 2500+ years of history across multiple cultures we have to compare to.
I join you in your idea that the Amish flourish because of the society they are embedded in. For a slightly more than thought-experiment, how are the Amish faring in their home societies in Europe? Are they similarly flourishing? Have they retained their distinctiveness? How did they survive the 1933 to 1945 era in Europe given their No-resistance ethos? Is their birth rate still wildly different from the larger society?
As I understand the Amish communities in Europe did not survive until 1933. They dissolved into larger Mennonite or Protestant communities. They weren't allowed to avoid military service and generally weren't left alone in Europe.
That's my understanding as well. Anabaptists mostly moved out of Europe to places that treat them better, the US, Canada, and South America for the most part. Some Mennonites have moved back and started churches more recently, but not the Amish. Few countries are as hospitable to their lifestyle as the US.
This was very enlightening. There are Mennonites about an hour from me, and Amish a little further. Past going to their shops for cheap bacon and beef, I had little knowledge of their lives past the fact they shunned most tech, and had large families
I'm intrigued by the part about it being a requirement that they look and dress differently to the English. Over on my side of the religious aisle, ultra-Orthodox Judaism has the same thing. And I've always wondered: if everyone started wearing black slacks and sable hats, would the Haredi have to change to blue jeans so they could stand out? If Amish clothing and beards became fashionable, would the Amish have to change to 1980s glamwear?
It's not an entirely facetious comment, by the way. If your faith requires you to be different, what happens if people start following you? A theological question, I suppose.
A more minor question: do they play boardgames at all? Are the old blokes like old blokes worldwide, who sit in the village square, play dominoes, chess, backgammon or go, and complain that young people don't respect their elders these days? Are the kids arguing over snakes and ladders? Do families dread Monopoly night? Does anyone play D&D? Games are a significant part of culture, so it's an honest question.
Also, this was an interesting article about Amish fertility rates. The authour makes the point that even non-Amish have higher fertility in areas with a lot of Amish. This gives support to what you're saying about "if everyone around you is married with kids, you probably will be, too."
It's a fair point. I believe the Amish basically dress like 18th century European peasants. The fashion trends change, but they just stay the same. I don't think it's ever going to be an issue, because even if fashion shifted somehow towards them, it would switch away again within a few years as fashion always does. For example, beards have come back in style within my lifetime, but none of the men with big Amish style beards are ever mistaken for an Amish man. And in another decade they'll probably be out of fashion again, while the Amish won't have changed a bit.
Oh absolutely, games are a huge thing in the Amish culture. They play all your standard games like Monopoly and Yatzee and checkers and dominoes. There are some other games that are less known or that started out as specifically Amish games. Rook has been a staple for decades, along with Dutch Blitz. Then there are always exclusively Amish games, things they invent and build themselves, with combinations of boards and cards and dice and checkers.
And the old men are very much like you describe, except instead of sitting in the village square playing checkers they're probably in Pinecraft, Florida playing shuffleboard or Phase Ten or Rook or dominoes.
Another difference between Amish women and women of other communities is that they socialize mostly with female relatives. In cities women socialize mostly with unrelated women. While relatives still compete, they may not be as likely to encourage behavior that limits their rivals’ fertility, such as promiscuity, or other behavior that marks a short term mindset.
I'm in late 20s and have five children so far with no intention of stopping anytime soon. I also have a STEM bachelor's degree and not a single other woman from my cohort has any children yet. Both mine and my husbands family find it strange and a little off putting- we're both one of three kids. I think the amount of work it takes and the physical sacrifice to carry, bear, and nourish so many babies provokes a certain amount of guilt in others who took easier paths. God has gratefully seen fit to provide us help one day a week who is the eldest of 12 children. She has many of the perspectives of this article even though she is reformed protestant like my family. It does seem that she has another wedding she's a bridesmaid or helper for at least every month and there's always sisters with new babies for her to help with. She has actually chosen to be an "old maid" (she turned down a good man's proposal and has left it at that) but she's respected and well loved. She will never want for anything as she pours herself into others. I admire her a lot and hope my children are able to have the family networks and love that produces people like her someday. She's the happiest woman I know.
Congrats to you and your husband, and God bless you in your responsibilities. I'm sure you'll have an incredibly fulfilling life and find all the work and sacrifice a small price to pay at some point.
I'm sure you're right about the sense of guilt. I can imagine plenty of people are happy for any justification to feel righteous about taking an easier path, at least in the short term.
Lol, we mostly talked about the ways we could incorporate more Amishness into our life and in how we're raising our kids. There was so much disconnection and busyness in how we were raised that we want something different for our family. So please continue your series and give us more ideas 😂
This was really interesting. Since you mentioned Amish men make a good living in the trades, do the Amish use banks like the rest of the US? Do they just keep their life savings in cash under the mattress? Or is there a community bank, for lack of a better word that holds their money.
Excellent insight into a most interesting community. I grew up in central PA among the Amish and Mennonites. My dad preached for a new community of Mennonites until they could call a preacher. Tons of variety among the various groups that is impossible to capture in an overview.
Good overview of their fertility rates. Unlike so many of the English these days, they don't view families as an impediment to a fulfilled life, but rather as a high calling with significant benefits.
I wouldn't agree that the Amish are uneducated or lack intellectual life. That's a mischaracterization, although I understand where you're coming from. They don't have as many years of formal education, but that's of dubious value anyway imo. It's become more indoctrination than education.
Due to a slightly unusual family situation, my dad and his siblings attended public school in spite of being Amish, instead of attending the Amish parochial school. The school policy was that students could borrow two books a week from the school library. The librarian soon realized that the Amish kids would read their two books within a day or two. She stopped enforcing the weekly limit and let them take as many books as they wanted, and they would take a half dozen books a week or more sometimes. Without any electronic entertainment, the intellectually inclined Amish do a lot of reading, significantly more than the average American. They might not have a degree or be up to date on the latest pop culture, but plenty of the Amish are much more intellectually stimulating in a conversation than the average "educated" American specimen.
One reason the Amish craftsmen have such a good reputation is that the entire population goes into trades and physical jobs. The top IQ Amish don't get siphoned off into college to become useless investment bankers and scummy lawyers, like the broader population. So while there are plenty of average and below average IQ Amish tradesmen, there are also 130 IQ Amish carpenters or mechanics, for example. You'll almost never find a 130 IQ tradesman in the broader population, because they would almost all go to college and end up in a white-collar profession. That's why you have things like Amish machine shops that rebuild CVT transmissions on heavy construction equipment that even the equipment dealers don't want to touch. You have a highly intelligent Amish guy who can read an engineering diagram and take apart and understand the most complex mechanical equipment, but is willing to get some grease under his nails from age 14 instead of spending an extra decade getting "educated" and becoming a software engineer or banker who's too good to get his hands dirty.
The impact on fertility comes mostly from the lack of formal education for women. It's an accepted fact that increasing education opportunities for women reduces fertility. That's because almost all careers that provide male-competitive salaries to women require "credentials" to access. That means women have two life options in their teens: another decade of higher education to get a degree and start a career and build that career to the point of being competitive with men, which is basically incompatible with marrying and having children; or finding and marrying a man with good income potential and having children with him, and managing the family and household while the husband manages the income. If given the option, for various reasons, women mostly choose the former. That pushes the possibility of children mostly into their 30s, when it's too late to have a large family if they're even lucky enough to still be able to have children at all. Taking away this option of course defaults women into the higher fertility life path, which is made easier by the fact that her potential partners are also working and earning income from age 14 instead of staying in higher education for another decade to enter a career and only then starting to earn any income at all, much less the income needed to support a wife and children.
That's an interesting comment about IQ 130 tradesmen.
This could be part of why in the Anglosphere we're seeing diminishing returns in engineering and science - the smarter people are so busy ticking boxes in university they don't have the opportunity to seriously innovate. Also why bridges are falling down, etc - the smarter people are at the drawing board, rather than out there on scaffolding checking things hands-on.
Absolutely. The top IQ men in America today mostly end up in investment banking and the financial industry. That's where the highest income potential is. The financial industry is largely parasitical to society, and the larger it gets, the more wealth gets skimmed off the actually productive economy to support the parasitical economy.
So instead of building small modular nuclear reactors and lowering global energy costs by 99%, the brightest minds are focused on how to bundle sub-prime mortgages on third home McMansions and unload the toxic MBS on pension funds, then engineer a massive bailout when the scam implodes so the perpetrators retire with golden parachutes while the blue collar guys paving roads and building bridges get shafted. Or how to financialize a medium pizza with some BNPL scheme so some banker can profit off the working poor's Tuesday night dinner.
And it's not just that they're at the drawing board instead of in the field. It's that they're not even in the industries that actually matter. The US graduates something like 400 petroleum engineers a year, and without oil we'd be back to the pre-Industrial era. How many smart people are wasting their lives engineering solar panels and wind turbines that are nothing but a grift, collecting massive government subsidies and making energy more expensive, to ostensibly "solve" a non-existent problem? We need those people working on more efficient oil extraction and better nuclear reactor designs, not useless windmills and unnecessary electric vehicles.
Depends where you get it from, as I understand it.
But in either case, we do need an explanation for why we're seeing less innovation, and why things break more easily than they used to. A lack of intelligent people doing the hands-on work would explain this. If you've other explanations I'd be glad to hear them.
Edit: this study looked at innovation, or as they call it, "disruption" (of existing ideas).
It'd be even more dramatic a decline if we tracked it vs the number of actual scientists out there, and the money spent on science. It's taking more effort, time, resources and money to do less than we did before.
Could this be due to the fact that science is no longer an elite field of endeavour and has suffered in terms of prestige and pay due to state control of research funding and direction, the narrowing of the peer review process, the lack of support for gifted individuals, indeed the prioritising of other qualities like race and sex over elite level intelligence in all of academia, and the fact that 50% of people now go to university making academia a thing that doesn’t appeal to the best.
I don’t agree that being a banker, lawyer, software engineer or going into academia is a waste of time as you seem to be saying- the world as it currently exists does need banks, law, software and research.
As far as intellectual life goes, I mean things like the arts, politics, law, literature, economics, entertainment, journalism, music, and research. The kind of thing that often takes people, both male and female, out of conventional family life, and also provides big ideas and drives change in society at large. The kind of thing that develops in large urban centres basically. The progressive thing.
Amish life lacks this, as well as lacking the urban life that produces it. Do you think this leads to higher reproductive rates amongst the Amish?
I would tend to think yes and that cities and the intellectual life they produce have always been huge fertility drains, while simultaneously producing that stuff of ideas, knowledge and technology that moves society ever forwards. They are both a blessing and a curse in this sense, and I think the west has used them and their influence fairly well up until this point.
I agree that not educating women and men leads to higher fertility rates. For women some of it is as you describe above. But for both sexes it is also in terms of the lack of the horizon of the new and the unknown that cities and their intellectual life represent. There is no change catalyst via this life in Amish life to pull people out of their current beliefs and ways of living. There is no option to choose or to imagine it differently, without basically cutting all ties to home, which is a big step for someone raised as Amish.
I think this might be having a bigger effect than you imagine.
I'm not sure if I'm fully understanding your question, but I'll give it a shot.
I'm not saying all those jobs are a waste of time, with the possible exception of banking, but that's another topic entirely. I do think there's a valid role for some lawyers, software engineers, etc, but that there are already too many, not too few. The world would be a much better place with a much smaller number of some of those professions. But that's just my personal opinion, and not particularly relevant to your question.
Reading over your list of things in the category of intellectual life, there are a few that the Amish wouldn't participate in for religious reasons, particularly politics. I could point out examples of how some Amish are involved in some of the things you mention, but I think it's more of a lifestyle you're referring to rather than any specific occupation or field. Because there's no obvious reason all of those careers would require a person to forgo conventional family life, or even move to a large urban center. But I believe that's the thrust of your question.
So if I understand correctly, you're asking whether the lack of a lifestyle option that involves moving to a big city and living a single life while pursuing a white-collar career leads to higher fertility rates? I'd agree with you that the answer is clearly, yes.
I don't think there's any dispute that cities have always been huge fertility drains, as you say. So it would seem clear that any culture or group that avoids cities and their characteristic lifestyle would benefit in terms of higher fertility.
The general attitude of the Amish toward cities and city people is one of suspicion and disgust. That's not uncommon among rural people in general, so I can't attribute it specifically to any Amish peculiarity. But it does certainly help to reduce the allure of the unknown that you describe among the young people. Of course combined with their distinctive culture, which makes it more difficult to fit into any urban area.
Time will tell whether this urban intellectual life truly does continue to move society forward. My interpretation of history is that society follows much more of a boom and bust cycle than a linear growth trend. And this issue of declining fertility seems to be the norm in the late stages of an advanced civilization, soon followed by some sort of collapse and regression to a much more rural and primitive lifestyle. If the historical pattern plays out, our modern civilization and the urban centers that produced it may face some significant challenges ahead, and the general decline in fertility may be a canary in the coal mine.
How would you determine that there are too many lawyers and software engineers when the market demands them? You might argue that people shouldn’t have recourse to law so often and it needs to be simplified, or that people shouldn’t spend so much time doing things on computers, but making that actually happen would require huge societal change and would be potentially coercive.
As far as Amish not being involved in what I would describe as urban intellectual life, I mean that they might be interested in science and read about it, but cannot be scientists involved in actual fundamental research, or that they might enjoy classical music and play music at home, but can not hope to have a career as a soloist and to travel the world playing with prestigious orchestras (for example). They can read the news and have opinions about what is happening in the world but they cannot really be involved in the outside world, be that in politics, journalism, academia, literature, the arts, or any other area.
So I would say that it is more than the lack of lifestyle options and more the total inability to participate in urban life (intellectual life, the cultural life of the city) that is missing from the Amish lifestyle, and that I believe probably contributes strongly to their fertility, much as it does for fundamentalist Muslims in Europe, who similarly exclude themselves from this, especially for women.
Yes I agree that any group less involved with the life of the city will benefit in fertility terms as long as they can maintain the separation, and the big advantage the Amish have here compared to regular rural people is that they are formally separated from it, with big penalties and barriers to entry that many other non urban groups do not have.
"How would you determine that there are too many lawyers and software engineers when the market demands them?"
Results. With anything, whether money, resources, time or people, we can look at whether adding them has improved results, and if so by how much.
For example, health. Sanitation took life expectancy from 40 to 50. Vaccination and antibiotics each added 10 years, taking us to 70yo. Depending on which country you're talking about, that gives us another 10 years or so which fancier medicine can take credit for.
But this is confused by things like, here in Australia from 1970 to 2020 smoking went from 45% of all adults to 12%. Depending on the study, smoking takes something like 10 years off a person's life. So if 33% of the population start or stop, that's 3.3yr difference on average. Similarly with alcohol, where non-drinkers have gone from 15 to 45%.
So all the money spent on higher-level medicine has added something like 2-5 years of life. You can look at the per capita healthcare spending of your country over the last 20-30 years, and in most Western countries it's doubled - but with little or no improvement in life expectancy.
Now, you may or may not want to go as far as saying that the extra healthcare spending has been wasted - there's quality of life too, after all, and that can be harder to quantify. But it's plain that compared to the relatively cheap sanitation, vaccination and antibiotics, and the revenue neutral anti-smoking and anti-drinking stuff, higher medicine has much, much lower rates of return on the money, time, resource, effort and people spent on it.
You can do similar analyses on all sorts of sectors. Look at how the numbers of whatever profession have increased, then decide whether or how much it's improved people's lives.
That would be a topic for an article, but I'd start with the polls showing that 30-50% of people say their job doesn't make a meaningful contribution to the world, and work from there.
If you view the entirety of Amish culture as barriers they've erected between themselves and urban life, then by definition their inability to participate in urban life is what causes their higher fertility.
I would call it a factor, just not the only factor. I'd base that on the fact that while fertility is higher among rural people, there's still a massive gap between the Amish and non-Amish rural people. If participation in the urban monoculture were the only factor lowering fertility rates, the divergence in fertility would be between those who participate in urban intellectual life (become scientists or musicians, etc) and those who don't. And that's not what we see.
Yes, that’s what I’m saying in the final paragraph above: the Amish differ from other non urban groups because they formally separate themselves from urban life (Amish cannot be urban), whereas other rural groups can be influenced by and can join in urban life.
To summarise: I think that it is the non urbanism of the Amish and the barriers they erect to urban life, that explains their fertility vs other groups
Of interest, if you look at the world as a whole, women's lifetime fertility rate drops below replacement (2.1 children per woman) at about 8th grade education, on average - though there's some variation, obviously due to cultural factors. Just move this chart to any individual year and the pattern becomes clear.
And then remember that they're all gettting up to eighth grade.
Obviously, further education drops it further still. But it's that 0 to 8 years that takes it from 6-8 to 2 children per women, from a rapidly growing population to a stable or declining one.
The Amish manage to stay at 6-8 children while giving boys and girls an eighth grade education. But that's why I think it's impossible to break birthrate decline down to a single factor. Other things typically come along with more education for women, and the Amish address those things in different ways that manage to mitigate the negative fertility impact.
Certainly, as I said in other comments obviously culture comes into it, that's why it's not 1:1 worldwide.
Unfortunately I've lost the paper, but I read one from an Indian agency which noted that rural uneducated women in India had in 15 years gone from 3.8 to 2.8 children each. Even the ones who are illiterate can still work as maids for the educated ones in cities or watch TV and see women having fewer children and more prosperous lives, and are adjusting their behaviour to suit.
Which, like the higher birth rates among non-Amish people in areas with a lot of Amish, is more evidence for your, "you tend to do what your neighbours do" thesis of fertility. It's true for many things, of course.
This was a really interesting article, thank you. Since you are planning, according to your conclusion, to write further and more explicitly on the larger culture and its approach to the population replacement rate, I commend an interesting book to you (if you haven't read it): Mary Harrington's Feminism Against Progress. She does a nice job of articulating the role of women through the pre-industrial, the post-industrial, and now, whatever the hell it is that we are moving through. She would likely describe the 1961 introduction of birth control as the cultural pivot to a transhuman-meat lego-cyborg future. She is a feminist, no doubt, but probably in a way that's not entirely incompatible with your description of women in the Amish community. I'm looking forward to Part 2.
Thank you for the recommendation. I've heard her speak a few times, and always found her insightful. I tend to agree that birth control has done quite a bit to change culture in ways that lowered fertility, but she puts a stronger emphasis on the significance than I would probably do.
I don't have full insight into that, but in general, I know the church will step in to offer help in the form of advice/counselling, financial assistance in certain situations, etc. Of course immediate and extended families are supportive in any way they can be.
Besides that, the Amish are just like everyone else in having their share of marital issues and disagreements. The difference is that they either work through those issues as best they can, or learn to live with the situation. I know some Amish marriages are dysfunctional in various ways. They just don't respond by divorcing and blowing up their family, it's just not an option.
I do know two Amish men whose wives divorced them. In those cases, the divorce was filed by the wife, and the husbands showed up to court as required but refused to participate in the divorce proceedings in any way. The divorce basically was done completely by the wife and the court/lawyers, the husbands made it clear that they were not going to participate or consent to anything related to that process. They don't consider the marriage as ended, as per Biblical teaching that marriage is instituted by God and cannot be ended by men, only by God through the death of one spouse. So they continue to live in celibacy as long as their spouse is still alive.
Beyond those unusual cases, they make marriage work as well as they're able, since they have every incentive to do so, and every incentive not to do anything else.
A fascinating and very well done article on a unique culture that has survived by going against the grain of the society around them yet still maintain a sociable relationship with them. I’ve lived in central PA for over 20 years and love the “vibe” my Amish and Mennonite neighbors bring to the area. It’s almost like a steadying factor among the turbulence of modern living. I’ve hired them for construction projects and to help with relatives caregiving. Bought bikes from their shops and enjoy my interactions at the weekly farmers markets. I’m always the outsider but also treated fairly and courteously. Many were my patients in the cancer clinic in town and it impressed me how their community would support them when they were ill. They so appreciated my help with their medications (I read their pharmacist) and I got to know several well over the years.
I would be interested in your views on how they interact with animals and farming. The number of factory farms has increased exponentially around us and I’m
wondering what their approach to organic and “ethical” practices are.
I'm not Amish, but my wife and I have 11 children, 9 boys, 2 girls. Our youngest son has 2 nieces older than him. I'm in my 60s and already have 25 grandchildren, most of whom live close by, and we see them on a regular basis. Our youngest is 12 and we have 6 unmarried children. I expect to reach the 100 grandkids mark.
I grew up with only one sibling but my wife's family (also not Amish) is large. The family dynamics are exactly like you describe. Not one of my wife's siblings have ever divorced, and they in turn have large families. One brother has 15 kids and another has 13! I watched my wife's parents' health rapidly decline in their early 90s, needing around the clock care. With 125 grandkids and 50 great-grandkids, there was always someone to provide that care. So could this be the default dynamics of large families regardless of religious affiliation?
First off, congrats to you and your wife! I'm sure whatever challenges you've had will be more than worth it.
I do think you're right, and that is the default dynamic of large families. As I mentioned in the article, I don't think religion per se has nearly as much impact on individual people's choices around marriage and family as the influence of their own family and surrounding culture.
I think the role religion, and by implication the broader culture, plays in those choices is in creating an environment that prevents the "ratcheting down" effect of smaller families in one generation leading to even smaller families the next generation. By creating a culture and a value system that explicitly and implicitly promotes large families, each generation has a strong incentive to have a large family, even if their own immediate family is small for some reason.
If you had married someone who also had one sibling, like yourself, do you think you would have been less likely to have 11 children? And maybe if you were both family minded to have a "large family" of 4 children instead?
The atomized, individualistic culture of today, which is very different from the tight-knit community of a distinctive religious tradition, makes it much less likely that two people from smaller families will ever be intimately exposed to the dynamics of a large family, and therefore much less likely to desire and achieve that for themselves. Especially when the media, entertainment, and popular culture that atomized individuals use as a substitute for real community all push them in the direction of smaller families and more focus on career and personal lifestyle.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
I can say that I definitely would not have had such a large family had my wife not wanted to. She simply had no interest in birth control and I just wanted to have sex and lol. Had she feared we couldn't support them I would have been right there using birth control. Were this venue more private, I would mention some things my wife has made known to me now in her post menopause age. Let's just say that pregnancy is extremely hard on a woman and birth control allows a woman to act post-menopausal without the actual wisdom, experience, and reality of being post-menopausal.
I met my wife women she was 14 and I 16, went on our first date on her 16th birthday, and married when she was 18. Imagine the strength you had at that age! Dealing with babies is hard, and in my 60s now, I couldn't imagine having that ability and hardly can believe we did. It was hard, and not something I would have chosen if either of us were willing to take an easier way out. I admit, reading your focus on the Amish, I misread your intent, thinking you were implying their unique religious beliefs were the driving factor. I agree with your clarification that culture is the driving force. For instance, I don't think my wife's family's religion is the cause of no divorces because they're not overtly religious. I think it is more the can do attitude, the unwillingness to throw in the towel, the commitment to all the children of the union, that drives it. How could you have 11 children and leave your wife?
You're good, everything makes sense.
That's an incredible story with some excellent insights. Imagine the response most young people today would get from their family, friends, church, and literally every person they interacted with if they got married at 18-20 and started a family.
That's why I don't think the large family default dynamic is likely to pass down through generations in the current culture. Very few young people have the strength of personality to go against every message they're getting from those around them, even if they somehow wanted to. Especially young women, who are much more influenced by social norms and peer pressure. Like your experience shows, women are the ones who really determine family size, most men are just kind of along for the ride, and will figure out how to make it work, whatever the number ends up being.
P.S. I tried to edit and some things but it wouldn't let me. I hope this makes sense.
I never realized that entertainment and pop culture for a substitute for community in our atomized culture, but it’s so true. Thank you for this fascinating essay.
Hey, I was going to comment on your second part but it's paid subs only. I can't afford to sub to all the stacks I read so I rotate them. Yours will make the rotation one day. I was just going to say that another modern day group of people still having large families is the traditional Roman Catholics. Maybe comparing and contrasting them with the Amish might give you some new insights.
Hey, thanks for the comment. That would certainly be an interesting comparison. I follow a lot of traditional Catholic authors here and elsewhere, and find a lot of value in their writing and experiences. I just don't have enough direct insight into that community to provide relevant commentary. If someone from that community wanted to tackle it, I would love to hear their insights.
It's funny in a way because my ancestors came to this country primarily because they were being tortured and martyred as heretics by the Catholics in Europe. In spite of that history, they still maintain some counter-cultural similarities today like the large family norms.
By the way, I just upgraded your subscription, so go ahead and check out part 2. I'd be honored to hear your feedback.
Well thank you for that, very kind of you. I don't have much insight into that community but I have a friend who is traditional Roman Catholic and all of his family and friends have 15 passenger vans, lol. They're making a lot of babies and holding their families together somehow. I'll read part 2. And again, thanks.
Great to read, thanks. Where I live around the finger lakes of New York State, there are large, Amish and Mennonite communities. It always makes me happy to see them out and about, or on their properties doing what they do. It feels like Hope for the future for Christian North America, even though my religious doctrine is quite different from theirs.
And our circles, (Reformed), we often see families with 5 to 8 children. The social control and cultural expectations are far less coherent among us, but I am hoping that changes over the course of the next couple generations. Reading this post, several times I experienced a bit of revulsion at the idea of people being “trapped“ in a community like the Amish with no other option, especially thinking of the women. I have to consciously realize that that reaction is a conditioned response. Frightening that someone as in love with traditional European and North American values as I am still has the instinct to eschew the very cultural mindset that would retain traditional culture for us. There is much for us to overcome if we are going to survive.
Especially for those of us who have a more individualistic temperament, I can relate to that objection to the idea of being "trapped". But I do agree with your more reasoned take. The data proves that overall people are happier and less depressed in more family-oriented cultures. The paradox of choice applies there as well. For most people, unlimited optionality leads to anxiety, not satisfaction. And a more structured culture, with more clearly defined roles and responsibilities, ends up leading to better life outcomes for the average person.
And if you think about it, mentally and physically disabled people have a lot more hope being born in an Amish household than in Brooklyn or San Francisco, where they’re likely to end up wards of the State.
Due to a nexus of unexpected contributing factors, I got to see the juxtaposition of the two almost every day. It is not night and day, it’s like the bottom of a twisting mineshaft compared to the day. I try not to think about it because it makes me so angry. As far as I know there is no state in the US that isnt nightmarish in how the state manages and cares for, and in many ways mandates the care of, physically and especially mentally disabled people. Where the state has a heavy hand, theyre treated like livestock, commodities, and, in the most belittling way, princelings. The worst part is the effect on their minds. Abject poverty would be comparatively better. I never met a real live eugenicist (that I knew of) until I heard one of the state’s case managers monologue about her feelings on the matter.
Where the church has been evacuated from the public sphere, all manner of demonic filth floods in.
Very well written and informative. The contrasts between their culture and modern America are stark, and it is clear how the culture affects the various incentives and disincentives surrounding community, marriage, and family.
Andrew Breitbart famously coined the aphorism that "Politics is downstream of culture" but what creates a culture? My contention is that culture is downstream of religion, or whatever moral framework built around a founding myth serves that function. It is their religion that creates the background of "conform, or be exiled" that underpins their ability to remove troublesome actors and negative influences from their inner society and their gene pool. One wonders how much further education occurs on a personal level, and if their system is functioning like Medieval and Early Modern European Christianity to increase the general IQ of their population over time (UHIQ people famously don't conform to societal norms very well, especially during their intemperate youth phase).
The potential importance of this would lie in the consideration that the Amish culture (as it currently operates) can only exist as a beneficiary of outsourcing their defense to the high trust, law and order, highly militarily capable society they are embedded in. One wonders how many will make the choice to eschew the "no resistance" clause if faced with total community destruction if the rule of law breaks down. One further wonders if their societal model is then capable of bootstrapping itself up the technological ladder in terms of weapon production for defense well enough and fast enough to avoid being overwhelmed by whoever the local bully is. This bully will eventually scale from a local gang attempting to plunder food, supplies, and women to a warlord to the neighboring polity to whomever is trying to conquer the continent; this will happen over multiple generations and failing this test has enormous cultural impacts, up to and including being totally subsumed.
The ultimate survival of a culture rests on many more factors than just replacement birthrate. The Amish are flourishing only in this particular circumstance of history, which has been very anomalous for North America the past 150 years compared to the 2500+ years of history across multiple cultures we have to compare to.
I join you in your idea that the Amish flourish because of the society they are embedded in. For a slightly more than thought-experiment, how are the Amish faring in their home societies in Europe? Are they similarly flourishing? Have they retained their distinctiveness? How did they survive the 1933 to 1945 era in Europe given their No-resistance ethos? Is their birth rate still wildly different from the larger society?
Interesting questions.
As I understand the Amish communities in Europe did not survive until 1933. They dissolved into larger Mennonite or Protestant communities. They weren't allowed to avoid military service and generally weren't left alone in Europe.
That's my understanding as well. Anabaptists mostly moved out of Europe to places that treat them better, the US, Canada, and South America for the most part. Some Mennonites have moved back and started churches more recently, but not the Amish. Few countries are as hospitable to their lifestyle as the US.
This was very enlightening. There are Mennonites about an hour from me, and Amish a little further. Past going to their shops for cheap bacon and beef, I had little knowledge of their lives past the fact they shunned most tech, and had large families
I'm intrigued by the part about it being a requirement that they look and dress differently to the English. Over on my side of the religious aisle, ultra-Orthodox Judaism has the same thing. And I've always wondered: if everyone started wearing black slacks and sable hats, would the Haredi have to change to blue jeans so they could stand out? If Amish clothing and beards became fashionable, would the Amish have to change to 1980s glamwear?
It's not an entirely facetious comment, by the way. If your faith requires you to be different, what happens if people start following you? A theological question, I suppose.
A more minor question: do they play boardgames at all? Are the old blokes like old blokes worldwide, who sit in the village square, play dominoes, chess, backgammon or go, and complain that young people don't respect their elders these days? Are the kids arguing over snakes and ladders? Do families dread Monopoly night? Does anyone play D&D? Games are a significant part of culture, so it's an honest question.
Also, this was an interesting article about Amish fertility rates. The authour makes the point that even non-Amish have higher fertility in areas with a lot of Amish. This gives support to what you're saying about "if everyone around you is married with kids, you probably will be, too."
https://medium.com/migration-issues/how-long-until-were-all-amish-268e3d0de87
It's a fair point. I believe the Amish basically dress like 18th century European peasants. The fashion trends change, but they just stay the same. I don't think it's ever going to be an issue, because even if fashion shifted somehow towards them, it would switch away again within a few years as fashion always does. For example, beards have come back in style within my lifetime, but none of the men with big Amish style beards are ever mistaken for an Amish man. And in another decade they'll probably be out of fashion again, while the Amish won't have changed a bit.
Oh absolutely, games are a huge thing in the Amish culture. They play all your standard games like Monopoly and Yatzee and checkers and dominoes. There are some other games that are less known or that started out as specifically Amish games. Rook has been a staple for decades, along with Dutch Blitz. Then there are always exclusively Amish games, things they invent and build themselves, with combinations of boards and cards and dice and checkers.
And the old men are very much like you describe, except instead of sitting in the village square playing checkers they're probably in Pinecraft, Florida playing shuffleboard or Phase Ten or Rook or dominoes.
But do they play D&D?
Not that I'm aware.
I highly recommend Peter Santenellos docu films on the amish, you can find them here: https://petersantenello.com/videos/?_topics=amish with my personal favourite being "Invited To Amish Dinner".
I just wrote an article about the clothes thing. You’re right that standing out via clothes is important to both of these religious groups.
Another difference between Amish women and women of other communities is that they socialize mostly with female relatives. In cities women socialize mostly with unrelated women. While relatives still compete, they may not be as likely to encourage behavior that limits their rivals’ fertility, such as promiscuity, or other behavior that marks a short term mindset.
I'm in late 20s and have five children so far with no intention of stopping anytime soon. I also have a STEM bachelor's degree and not a single other woman from my cohort has any children yet. Both mine and my husbands family find it strange and a little off putting- we're both one of three kids. I think the amount of work it takes and the physical sacrifice to carry, bear, and nourish so many babies provokes a certain amount of guilt in others who took easier paths. God has gratefully seen fit to provide us help one day a week who is the eldest of 12 children. She has many of the perspectives of this article even though she is reformed protestant like my family. It does seem that she has another wedding she's a bridesmaid or helper for at least every month and there's always sisters with new babies for her to help with. She has actually chosen to be an "old maid" (she turned down a good man's proposal and has left it at that) but she's respected and well loved. She will never want for anything as she pours herself into others. I admire her a lot and hope my children are able to have the family networks and love that produces people like her someday. She's the happiest woman I know.
Congrats to you and your husband, and God bless you in your responsibilities. I'm sure you'll have an incredibly fulfilling life and find all the work and sacrifice a small price to pay at some point.
I'm sure you're right about the sense of guilt. I can imagine plenty of people are happy for any justification to feel righteous about taking an easier path, at least in the short term.
Thank you for putting so much effort into writing this fascinating peice! My husband and I enjoyed a long discussion after reading it.
You're welcome! Don't keep us hanging like that though, I'd love to hear where that discussion went.
Lol, we mostly talked about the ways we could incorporate more Amishness into our life and in how we're raising our kids. There was so much disconnection and busyness in how we were raised that we want something different for our family. So please continue your series and give us more ideas 😂
This was really interesting. Since you mentioned Amish men make a good living in the trades, do the Amish use banks like the rest of the US? Do they just keep their life savings in cash under the mattress? Or is there a community bank, for lack of a better word that holds their money.
Jokes about the old Amish farmer bringing the wrong milk jug full of cash to the farm auction notwithstanding, they use banks just like everyone else.
Fascinating article, and one of the reasons I love substack.
I learned a lot today, and have a lot to think on.
I started late, with my first child born when I was 38. My second child will graduate high school when I’m in my early 60s.
I’ve experienced a lot and traveled a lot, but many who lived the lifestyle I’ve lived end up as old maids, whether they’re a man or woman.
I want what they have. Great writing.
Excellent insight into a most interesting community. I grew up in central PA among the Amish and Mennonites. My dad preached for a new community of Mennonites until they could call a preacher. Tons of variety among the various groups that is impossible to capture in an overview.
Good overview of their fertility rates. Unlike so many of the English these days, they don't view families as an impediment to a fulfilled life, but rather as a high calling with significant benefits.
Do you think that the lack of education and any significant intellectual life has an impact on Amish fertility?
Yes and no.
I wouldn't agree that the Amish are uneducated or lack intellectual life. That's a mischaracterization, although I understand where you're coming from. They don't have as many years of formal education, but that's of dubious value anyway imo. It's become more indoctrination than education.
Due to a slightly unusual family situation, my dad and his siblings attended public school in spite of being Amish, instead of attending the Amish parochial school. The school policy was that students could borrow two books a week from the school library. The librarian soon realized that the Amish kids would read their two books within a day or two. She stopped enforcing the weekly limit and let them take as many books as they wanted, and they would take a half dozen books a week or more sometimes. Without any electronic entertainment, the intellectually inclined Amish do a lot of reading, significantly more than the average American. They might not have a degree or be up to date on the latest pop culture, but plenty of the Amish are much more intellectually stimulating in a conversation than the average "educated" American specimen.
One reason the Amish craftsmen have such a good reputation is that the entire population goes into trades and physical jobs. The top IQ Amish don't get siphoned off into college to become useless investment bankers and scummy lawyers, like the broader population. So while there are plenty of average and below average IQ Amish tradesmen, there are also 130 IQ Amish carpenters or mechanics, for example. You'll almost never find a 130 IQ tradesman in the broader population, because they would almost all go to college and end up in a white-collar profession. That's why you have things like Amish machine shops that rebuild CVT transmissions on heavy construction equipment that even the equipment dealers don't want to touch. You have a highly intelligent Amish guy who can read an engineering diagram and take apart and understand the most complex mechanical equipment, but is willing to get some grease under his nails from age 14 instead of spending an extra decade getting "educated" and becoming a software engineer or banker who's too good to get his hands dirty.
The impact on fertility comes mostly from the lack of formal education for women. It's an accepted fact that increasing education opportunities for women reduces fertility. That's because almost all careers that provide male-competitive salaries to women require "credentials" to access. That means women have two life options in their teens: another decade of higher education to get a degree and start a career and build that career to the point of being competitive with men, which is basically incompatible with marrying and having children; or finding and marrying a man with good income potential and having children with him, and managing the family and household while the husband manages the income. If given the option, for various reasons, women mostly choose the former. That pushes the possibility of children mostly into their 30s, when it's too late to have a large family if they're even lucky enough to still be able to have children at all. Taking away this option of course defaults women into the higher fertility life path, which is made easier by the fact that her potential partners are also working and earning income from age 14 instead of staying in higher education for another decade to enter a career and only then starting to earn any income at all, much less the income needed to support a wife and children.
That's an interesting comment about IQ 130 tradesmen.
This could be part of why in the Anglosphere we're seeing diminishing returns in engineering and science - the smarter people are so busy ticking boxes in university they don't have the opportunity to seriously innovate. Also why bridges are falling down, etc - the smarter people are at the drawing board, rather than out there on scaffolding checking things hands-on.
Absolutely. The top IQ men in America today mostly end up in investment banking and the financial industry. That's where the highest income potential is. The financial industry is largely parasitical to society, and the larger it gets, the more wealth gets skimmed off the actually productive economy to support the parasitical economy.
So instead of building small modular nuclear reactors and lowering global energy costs by 99%, the brightest minds are focused on how to bundle sub-prime mortgages on third home McMansions and unload the toxic MBS on pension funds, then engineer a massive bailout when the scam implodes so the perpetrators retire with golden parachutes while the blue collar guys paving roads and building bridges get shafted. Or how to financialize a medium pizza with some BNPL scheme so some banker can profit off the working poor's Tuesday night dinner.
And it's not just that they're at the drawing board instead of in the field. It's that they're not even in the industries that actually matter. The US graduates something like 400 petroleum engineers a year, and without oil we'd be back to the pre-Industrial era. How many smart people are wasting their lives engineering solar panels and wind turbines that are nothing but a grift, collecting massive government subsidies and making energy more expensive, to ostensibly "solve" a non-existent problem? We need those people working on more efficient oil extraction and better nuclear reactor designs, not useless windmills and unnecessary electric vehicles.
While not agreeing with your proposed solutions, I certainly agree that the brightest are not working where we'd like them to be.
As far as I know science and engineering degrees still have a large practical element, and being a scientist or engineer is a practical job.
Depends where you get it from, as I understand it.
But in either case, we do need an explanation for why we're seeing less innovation, and why things break more easily than they used to. A lack of intelligent people doing the hands-on work would explain this. If you've other explanations I'd be glad to hear them.
Edit: this study looked at innovation, or as they call it, "disruption" (of existing ideas).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05543-x
It'd be even more dramatic a decline if we tracked it vs the number of actual scientists out there, and the money spent on science. It's taking more effort, time, resources and money to do less than we did before.
Could this be due to the fact that science is no longer an elite field of endeavour and has suffered in terms of prestige and pay due to state control of research funding and direction, the narrowing of the peer review process, the lack of support for gifted individuals, indeed the prioritising of other qualities like race and sex over elite level intelligence in all of academia, and the fact that 50% of people now go to university making academia a thing that doesn’t appeal to the best.
Thanks for the reply.
I don’t agree that being a banker, lawyer, software engineer or going into academia is a waste of time as you seem to be saying- the world as it currently exists does need banks, law, software and research.
As far as intellectual life goes, I mean things like the arts, politics, law, literature, economics, entertainment, journalism, music, and research. The kind of thing that often takes people, both male and female, out of conventional family life, and also provides big ideas and drives change in society at large. The kind of thing that develops in large urban centres basically. The progressive thing.
Amish life lacks this, as well as lacking the urban life that produces it. Do you think this leads to higher reproductive rates amongst the Amish?
I would tend to think yes and that cities and the intellectual life they produce have always been huge fertility drains, while simultaneously producing that stuff of ideas, knowledge and technology that moves society ever forwards. They are both a blessing and a curse in this sense, and I think the west has used them and their influence fairly well up until this point.
I agree that not educating women and men leads to higher fertility rates. For women some of it is as you describe above. But for both sexes it is also in terms of the lack of the horizon of the new and the unknown that cities and their intellectual life represent. There is no change catalyst via this life in Amish life to pull people out of their current beliefs and ways of living. There is no option to choose or to imagine it differently, without basically cutting all ties to home, which is a big step for someone raised as Amish.
I think this might be having a bigger effect than you imagine.
I'm not sure if I'm fully understanding your question, but I'll give it a shot.
I'm not saying all those jobs are a waste of time, with the possible exception of banking, but that's another topic entirely. I do think there's a valid role for some lawyers, software engineers, etc, but that there are already too many, not too few. The world would be a much better place with a much smaller number of some of those professions. But that's just my personal opinion, and not particularly relevant to your question.
Reading over your list of things in the category of intellectual life, there are a few that the Amish wouldn't participate in for religious reasons, particularly politics. I could point out examples of how some Amish are involved in some of the things you mention, but I think it's more of a lifestyle you're referring to rather than any specific occupation or field. Because there's no obvious reason all of those careers would require a person to forgo conventional family life, or even move to a large urban center. But I believe that's the thrust of your question.
So if I understand correctly, you're asking whether the lack of a lifestyle option that involves moving to a big city and living a single life while pursuing a white-collar career leads to higher fertility rates? I'd agree with you that the answer is clearly, yes.
I don't think there's any dispute that cities have always been huge fertility drains, as you say. So it would seem clear that any culture or group that avoids cities and their characteristic lifestyle would benefit in terms of higher fertility.
The general attitude of the Amish toward cities and city people is one of suspicion and disgust. That's not uncommon among rural people in general, so I can't attribute it specifically to any Amish peculiarity. But it does certainly help to reduce the allure of the unknown that you describe among the young people. Of course combined with their distinctive culture, which makes it more difficult to fit into any urban area.
Time will tell whether this urban intellectual life truly does continue to move society forward. My interpretation of history is that society follows much more of a boom and bust cycle than a linear growth trend. And this issue of declining fertility seems to be the norm in the late stages of an advanced civilization, soon followed by some sort of collapse and regression to a much more rural and primitive lifestyle. If the historical pattern plays out, our modern civilization and the urban centers that produced it may face some significant challenges ahead, and the general decline in fertility may be a canary in the coal mine.
How would you determine that there are too many lawyers and software engineers when the market demands them? You might argue that people shouldn’t have recourse to law so often and it needs to be simplified, or that people shouldn’t spend so much time doing things on computers, but making that actually happen would require huge societal change and would be potentially coercive.
As far as Amish not being involved in what I would describe as urban intellectual life, I mean that they might be interested in science and read about it, but cannot be scientists involved in actual fundamental research, or that they might enjoy classical music and play music at home, but can not hope to have a career as a soloist and to travel the world playing with prestigious orchestras (for example). They can read the news and have opinions about what is happening in the world but they cannot really be involved in the outside world, be that in politics, journalism, academia, literature, the arts, or any other area.
So I would say that it is more than the lack of lifestyle options and more the total inability to participate in urban life (intellectual life, the cultural life of the city) that is missing from the Amish lifestyle, and that I believe probably contributes strongly to their fertility, much as it does for fundamentalist Muslims in Europe, who similarly exclude themselves from this, especially for women.
Yes I agree that any group less involved with the life of the city will benefit in fertility terms as long as they can maintain the separation, and the big advantage the Amish have here compared to regular rural people is that they are formally separated from it, with big penalties and barriers to entry that many other non urban groups do not have.
"How would you determine that there are too many lawyers and software engineers when the market demands them?"
Results. With anything, whether money, resources, time or people, we can look at whether adding them has improved results, and if so by how much.
For example, health. Sanitation took life expectancy from 40 to 50. Vaccination and antibiotics each added 10 years, taking us to 70yo. Depending on which country you're talking about, that gives us another 10 years or so which fancier medicine can take credit for.
But this is confused by things like, here in Australia from 1970 to 2020 smoking went from 45% of all adults to 12%. Depending on the study, smoking takes something like 10 years off a person's life. So if 33% of the population start or stop, that's 3.3yr difference on average. Similarly with alcohol, where non-drinkers have gone from 15 to 45%.
So all the money spent on higher-level medicine has added something like 2-5 years of life. You can look at the per capita healthcare spending of your country over the last 20-30 years, and in most Western countries it's doubled - but with little or no improvement in life expectancy.
Now, you may or may not want to go as far as saying that the extra healthcare spending has been wasted - there's quality of life too, after all, and that can be harder to quantify. But it's plain that compared to the relatively cheap sanitation, vaccination and antibiotics, and the revenue neutral anti-smoking and anti-drinking stuff, higher medicine has much, much lower rates of return on the money, time, resource, effort and people spent on it.
You can do similar analyses on all sorts of sectors. Look at how the numbers of whatever profession have increased, then decide whether or how much it's improved people's lives.
I don’t believe you can manage an economy according to results- command economics fails in practice.
That would be a topic for an article, but I'd start with the polls showing that 30-50% of people say their job doesn't make a meaningful contribution to the world, and work from there.
If you view the entirety of Amish culture as barriers they've erected between themselves and urban life, then by definition their inability to participate in urban life is what causes their higher fertility.
I would call it a factor, just not the only factor. I'd base that on the fact that while fertility is higher among rural people, there's still a massive gap between the Amish and non-Amish rural people. If participation in the urban monoculture were the only factor lowering fertility rates, the divergence in fertility would be between those who participate in urban intellectual life (become scientists or musicians, etc) and those who don't. And that's not what we see.
Yes, that’s what I’m saying in the final paragraph above: the Amish differ from other non urban groups because they formally separate themselves from urban life (Amish cannot be urban), whereas other rural groups can be influenced by and can join in urban life.
To summarise: I think that it is the non urbanism of the Amish and the barriers they erect to urban life, that explains their fertility vs other groups
Of interest, if you look at the world as a whole, women's lifetime fertility rate drops below replacement (2.1 children per woman) at about 8th grade education, on average - though there's some variation, obviously due to cultural factors. Just move this chart to any individual year and the pattern becomes clear.
And then remember that they're all gettting up to eighth grade.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-attainment-vs-fertility
Obviously, further education drops it further still. But it's that 0 to 8 years that takes it from 6-8 to 2 children per women, from a rapidly growing population to a stable or declining one.
The Amish manage to stay at 6-8 children while giving boys and girls an eighth grade education. But that's why I think it's impossible to break birthrate decline down to a single factor. Other things typically come along with more education for women, and the Amish address those things in different ways that manage to mitigate the negative fertility impact.
Certainly, as I said in other comments obviously culture comes into it, that's why it's not 1:1 worldwide.
Unfortunately I've lost the paper, but I read one from an Indian agency which noted that rural uneducated women in India had in 15 years gone from 3.8 to 2.8 children each. Even the ones who are illiterate can still work as maids for the educated ones in cities or watch TV and see women having fewer children and more prosperous lives, and are adjusting their behaviour to suit.
Which, like the higher birth rates among non-Amish people in areas with a lot of Amish, is more evidence for your, "you tend to do what your neighbours do" thesis of fertility. It's true for many things, of course.
Were ancient Roman women educated above 8th grade level? No.
Then why did the Emperor Augustus produce legislation that promoted marriage and rewarded freeborn women who had more than three children?
It’s the city that kills fertility.
Cities are certainly a factor, yes.
Roman women were more well-educated than you seem to imagine.
http://local.droit.ulg.ac.be/sa/rida/file/2000/vandenbergh.pdf
Here are urban vs rural fertility rates in some places that don’t prioritise female education:
Pakistan Islamabad 3.0, Tribal area 4.8
Haiti metropolitan 2.5, centre 4.2
Liberia Monrovia 3.2, south eastern rural 6.3
Sierra Leone western urban 2.6, Moyamba province 5.6
Peru Cusco region 1.6, Amazon north eastern 3.5
Myanmar Yangon 1.8, Chin state rural 4.6
This was a really interesting article, thank you. Since you are planning, according to your conclusion, to write further and more explicitly on the larger culture and its approach to the population replacement rate, I commend an interesting book to you (if you haven't read it): Mary Harrington's Feminism Against Progress. She does a nice job of articulating the role of women through the pre-industrial, the post-industrial, and now, whatever the hell it is that we are moving through. She would likely describe the 1961 introduction of birth control as the cultural pivot to a transhuman-meat lego-cyborg future. She is a feminist, no doubt, but probably in a way that's not entirely incompatible with your description of women in the Amish community. I'm looking forward to Part 2.
Thank you for the recommendation. I've heard her speak a few times, and always found her insightful. I tend to agree that birth control has done quite a bit to change culture in ways that lowered fertility, but she puts a stronger emphasis on the significance than I would probably do.
Thank you very much for the article!
I have been interacting with some Old Order Amish in Lancaster County, PA for several years and can attest to much of your article.
Curious how the Amish handle marital issues, disagreements, discord, etc.?
Thanks again!
I don't have full insight into that, but in general, I know the church will step in to offer help in the form of advice/counselling, financial assistance in certain situations, etc. Of course immediate and extended families are supportive in any way they can be.
Besides that, the Amish are just like everyone else in having their share of marital issues and disagreements. The difference is that they either work through those issues as best they can, or learn to live with the situation. I know some Amish marriages are dysfunctional in various ways. They just don't respond by divorcing and blowing up their family, it's just not an option.
I do know two Amish men whose wives divorced them. In those cases, the divorce was filed by the wife, and the husbands showed up to court as required but refused to participate in the divorce proceedings in any way. The divorce basically was done completely by the wife and the court/lawyers, the husbands made it clear that they were not going to participate or consent to anything related to that process. They don't consider the marriage as ended, as per Biblical teaching that marriage is instituted by God and cannot be ended by men, only by God through the death of one spouse. So they continue to live in celibacy as long as their spouse is still alive.
Beyond those unusual cases, they make marriage work as well as they're able, since they have every incentive to do so, and every incentive not to do anything else.
A fascinating and very well done article on a unique culture that has survived by going against the grain of the society around them yet still maintain a sociable relationship with them. I’ve lived in central PA for over 20 years and love the “vibe” my Amish and Mennonite neighbors bring to the area. It’s almost like a steadying factor among the turbulence of modern living. I’ve hired them for construction projects and to help with relatives caregiving. Bought bikes from their shops and enjoy my interactions at the weekly farmers markets. I’m always the outsider but also treated fairly and courteously. Many were my patients in the cancer clinic in town and it impressed me how their community would support them when they were ill. They so appreciated my help with their medications (I read their pharmacist) and I got to know several well over the years.
I would be interested in your views on how they interact with animals and farming. The number of factory farms has increased exponentially around us and I’m
wondering what their approach to organic and “ethical” practices are.
Thank you Foxr for a very well done article
Man, this is great. Thanks for sharing!