Sweden is perhaps the most gender equal country in the world, partly due to wage compression & labour market protections for low wage workers.

However, it has done the *worst* in integrating migrant women’s economic participation & equal place.

Why is this? The economic inactivity rate is especially high for women who come after age 15.

Why do so many people complain about dates “ghosting” or being “flakey”?

I think this partly is due to the breakdown of moral policing.

If people date outside their work & social networks, then “bad” behaviour doesn’t affect future interactions.

One can shirk/ cheat/ ghost Fundamentally, everyone seeks status and social approval within their group.

So if one wants to curry favour, one conforms to the group’s ideals.

But if it’s not a “repeated game” (to use Econ speak) and no one you care about ever knows,

Then,

Shirking is costless.

Today, I gave a talk on the economic implications of falling fertility

And two young women were unsure…

“Surely it’s a great win for women that many are exercising autonomy?”

To which I replied,…

🧵 1) Absolutely, in the past, many stayed in unhappy marriages due to economic dependence, shame and stigma of singledom

So increased freedom is a great advance

However …

Have we passed peak intelligence?

In international tests, student scores for reading and maths sunk to a new low.

US teens are struggling to concentrate & evaluate information.

The excellent @jburnmurdoch

Warning: this thread is dark 🧵 What's going wrong?

US 18 year olds increasingly say they have trouble concentrating and learning new things

As you can see, that line was stable till 2013

What caused the sudden spike?

Did I steal or bribe my way to an advance copy? 😛

Saturday is for book reading on the sofa!

Especially if it’s Malika Zeghal’s new opus with @PrincetonUPress Zeghal constructs fantastic data sets on religiosity over time

As you can see, over time, the Turkish government is now spending a much higher share of GDP on religion

Male-female friendships are a under-rated driver of gender equality.

When women can fraternise freely, they can share ideas, gain respect, & build empathy with men who care about their wants & welfare.

Countries with high male-female friendships score better on equality 👇 Even controlling for religion, education, age, marital status, immigration status, gender, and employment status,

Societies with more mixed gender facebook friends express stronger support for gender equality

- at university
- work
- politics
- equal rights

Labour market economists have been obsessed with the question of whether technology will replace market demand for human labour.

But my question is different:

What if tech replaces NON-MARKET DEMAND.

And that’s precisely what we see: surging solitude. Personal online entertainment (podcast bros, online gambling, video games, TikTok games) are so addictive & engaging

They are outcompeting real world connections and interactions.

They are displacing non-market demand for socialising.

ggd.world/p/the-great-sp…

Online connectivity has radically impacted culture

1) Digital tech erodes establishment control. We can now curate personalised echo chambers - eg anti-vax.

2) Rising singlehood and smartphones mean we seek validation from online tribes, who don't observe our behaviour.

🧵 Online connectivity enables individuals to forge tribes with ideological allies across the world, while paradoxically spending more time alone.

Calls for higher fertility must grapple with the challenge that cultural persuasion is now much harder

When tech was more primitive, we watched similar content

So shared expectations about pathways to status

Meeting in person, we sought social approval.

No longer!!

🧵 (1) Moral policing works in 3 ways:

- Humans seek status & social inclusion,

- so pay close attention to peers and successful individuals. They emulate others in their tribe.

- dissidents may be shamed, stigmatised & ostracised.

But such policing is now much harder..

What do a US 20 year old & a 60yo have in common?

They spend about 6 hours a day alone.

Is the rise of solitude hurting our mental health?

New graphs by the great @jburnmurdoch Young US men are increasingly spending time alone.

In the 20th century, we marshalled technology to eliminate one of the major barriers to women's advancement and autonomy.

But one world region struggles to make that transition. Between 1950 and 2020, China reduced female teenage fertility rates from 84 to 12 births per 1000 females aged 15–19 annually and India from 144 to 17 per 1000.

But this same reduction has not been achieved in Sub-Saharan Africa.

I have updated my priors.

Take-home exams should end.

No academic can truly ascertain talent, and distinguish this from AI.

Thinking otherwise is either naive or misplaced hubris. Previously, I tried to set tough questions that outsmarted Generated AI.

In August 2024, I wrote this 👇

ggd.world/p/crafting-ai-…

US corporations going anti-woke really encapsulates cultural evolution.

Also applies to Mughals, Ottomans, & CCP.

1) Ruling group gains power & believes X

2) Other organisations seek prestige & patronage so adopt X

3) Advancement within those institutions now depends on X All major Wall Street Banks have quit industry groups that focus on climate.

Coupling and Fertility are Falling.

In Finland, Mexico, Peru, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey and the US, both are going down.

Superb column by @jburnmurdoch

A must-read for anyone interested in why fertility is falling, and how to respond.

🧵 From the 1960s, US fertility fell primarily due to fewer births AMONG COUPLES.

In that context, pro-natal bonuses might raise fertility.

But today, the major contributing factor is FEWER COUPLES.

Lovers share their hopes & dreams.

Living together, they share stories about their days, and learn about different perspectives.

If 50% of young Americans are single, this may have social implications - potentially less empathy between men & women.

Graph by @jburnmurdoch While some blame the apps, or other matching frictions,

I'm not so sure.

Pew Data suggests that half of singles are not looking for relationships.

“If we exclude the tech sector, EU productivity growth over the past 20 years would be broadly at par with the US” - Draghi

Fabulous article 🧵 “Failure to [boost competitiveness] could jeopardise our ability to generate the wealth needed to sustain our economic and social model” - Lagarde

Abused women around the world tell me that they are staying “for the sake of the children”.

I suspect that this has been a major driver of patriarchy,

The mother wants a loyal provider so endures violence. She is strong for her kids.

Exit, voice and loyalty - Hirschman.

https://twitter.com/economeager/status/1861656503264141336

Afaik, @gabydesch is the first to empirically quantify and test this major driver of patriarchy.

So I very much appreciate her contribution.

India’s female labour force participation has surged!

@TheEconomist has a new article on this phenomenon: is it dodgy data, economic distress, or is the government empowering women?

WAIT!!

We need to disaggregate this data, separately analysing RURAL + URBAN

BIG THREAD 🧶 (2) So the Economist considers whether this is just dodgy data (counting household work), economic distress, or government schemes to support female entrepreneurship.



It features the brilliant @amitbasole economist.com/asia/2024/11/2…

“What is noticeable about the prophetic literature even in its earliest surviving phase is the emphatic connection it makes between sexual misconduct, more often than not on the part of women, and infidelity to the God of Israel.“ “Women could not be considered in the likeness of God..

That was reflected in the architecture… The hierarchy of the six sacred spaces only allowed women access to the sixth and outermost ‘court of the women’.

Women from Eve onwards were catalysts for male faithlessness”

"Strong Democrats" have, in the past 10 years, swung away from the median voter on cultural issues

New analysis by @jburnmurdoch 🧵 "Democrat political elites" culturally diverge from the median voter

Research by Alexander Furnas (@zfurnas) and Timothy LaPira (@timlapira).

ft.com/content/73a183…

Americans, especially men, have fewer close friends 66% of US men wish they spent less time online