No money, lets make babies

[Karl]

I don’t see how that is relevant. People in the age group 60-95 are not quite in the sector that is expected to be particularly active in child production. In fact, more than half of that sector of the population (i.e., female) would be unable to do so.

The “target” population in question would be the younger people for whom WW2 is some abstraction. For example, many of those would have been born in the 1980’s, and it is quite absurd to be speaking of “post-nazi trauma” and “no more germans” in relation to them. Much of the population of child bearing age do not even have the ability to conceptualise the significance that the country was physically partitioned up to ~1990. So how could WW2 be a factor in their personal decisions when it is so far outside of their personal experience.

> German birth rate falls to lowest in Europe | World news | The Guardian

The latest federal figures show wide regional discrepancies. The highest birth rate is in former West Germany, with Wiesbaden (10.5), Frankfurt (10.2) and Bonn (10.1) topping the list. In former communist East Germany, by contrast, the birth rate is alarmingly low, with the city of Chemnitz (6.9) registering the lowest birth rate in the world.

So then how can this significant geo-spatial variation in birthrates in the east and west be explained in terms of WW2? Obviously it is more recent factors, related to Soviet/American/British occupation and enforced partition which lasted until 1990. You will note that the low birth rates are in the east.

And if this “trauma” is something that affects Germans to that extent, why does Eastern Europe, and many of the formerly Soviet-occupied lands like Latvia have higher birth rates than Germany? They would have experienced “traumatic” events much more recently. For that matter, what about Ireland – they have a birth rate that is ~ twice that of Germany. Did they not experience traumatic events much more recently?

[albannet]

Bless the women of Germany! They have evolved to become the wisest in the World. Now, if only the practice of family planning could spread throughout the other four continents, our human species might actually survive its madness.

[Michael Angel]

Originally Posted by Karl

I don’t see how that is relevant. People in the age group 60-95 are not quite in the sector that is expected to be particularly active in child production. In fact, more than half of that sector of the population (i.e., female) would be unable to do so.

The “target” population in question would be the younger people for whom WW2 is some abstraction. For example, many of those would have been born in the 1980’s, and it is quite absurd to be speaking of “post-nazi trauma” and “no more germans” in relation to them. Much of the population of child bearing age do not even have the ability to conceptualise the significance that the country was physically partitioned up to ~1990. So how could WW2 be a factor in their personal decisions when it is so far outside of their personal experience.

> German birth rate falls to lowest in Europe | World news | The Guardian



So then how can this significant geo-spatial variation in birthrates in the east and west be explained in terms of WW2? Obviously it is more recent factors, related to Soviet/American/British occupation and enforced partition which lasted until 1990. You will note that the low birth rates are in the east.

And if this “trauma” is something that affects Germans to that extent, why does Eastern Europe, and many of the formerly Soviet-occupied lands like Latvia have higher birth rates than Germany? They would have experienced “traumatic” events much more recently. For that matter, what about Ireland – they have a birth rate that is ~ twice that of Germany. Did they not experience traumatic events much more recently?

You have to have people born after WW2 to have 60 Yo ds and 20-30 year olds now.
Perhaps the psychological scars from WW2 are passed on?
'The sins of the fathers. . ."

Both Ireland and Latvia are Catholic countries. Latvia not so much (many Orthodox- I don't know their stance on contraception) but if you are looking at regions look at the birth rate in Latgale where most Catholics are.
Most countries have regional differences in birth rates. Darwin in Australia is the place to go for 15YO mothers. The rest of the country the mean age would be closer to 30.
Darwin is also the beer drinking capital of Oz, + tropical and hot -fewer clothes ? How do Eskimos go birth rate wise?

BTW It is thought that the invention of green tea is the reason China has such a large population.
Not because green tea contains anti-oxidants but because the Chinese began to boil their water. Meanwhile Europeans continued to die in droves from water born diseases and parasites.

[Wobs]

Lets try again with that chart:



Now lets take a look at some of your articles you put.

Originally Posted by Michael Angel

Fewer women on Australian boards, survey shows | The Australian

"The issue today is not so much how to bring women into companies, but how to create more successful women leaders," she says.

"there needs to be more awareness raising among men about diversity and how to be inclusive of women in the workforce".

Its basically saying that men need training in equality issues but women don't.
So promoting sexism in the name of equality. Nice.

One of the main themes is that, rather than just complaining that they don't have enough talented women to promote, or that women need time off to manage families or don't put their hand up for leadership positions, companies need to take a systematic look at what is holding back the women in their ranks.

"Identifying the issues that limit women's ability to build lasting careers and addressing them systematically is important," Axelrod says.

She suggests that women need "advocates" within the organisation who can discuss their careers and encourage their promotion.

So preferential treatment for women. All in the name of equality.

Flexibility in workplace conditions, she says, is another key issue for retaining female talent.

I hope you don't advocate giving women more flexibility than men in their choices and practices.

It is a"cop-out" for men to say women choose not to be paid more or to take on executive positions.
so "Its not our fault. It's their biology."

Showing that women choose certain lifestyle choices is not a cop out. Rather it shows that we respect their choices.

I'd rather have equal opportunity, and that means respecting other peoples choices.

The World Today - Females challenging boardroom boys club

This article is a classic in victim mentality. Note it uses phrases like "barriers" but fails to show that there are any:

There are a number of barriers for women in the private sector. One of the other very significant statistics that we're announcing today is that only 5 per cent of women are in line roles. That is the profit and loss roles at the top of Australian business. And we also know that it's the first job and a second job and a third job that women do that determines whether or not they will get the opportunities in those operational roles.

So they're saying that women are choosing the "wrong" jobs. They fail to mention that they might be the right jobs for those women. Profit and loss roles rely on commitment to the job, to put in long hours, and results matter. It fails to mention that these conditions might not be what most women want.

If you look in Australia at where women are being very successful, they're being successful in what we call support roles. Human resources, public affairs and legal. And I'm not saying they're not important roles, but they're actually not the roles that lead to the general management jobs and the CEO jobs in Australian corporations.

It was feminism that recommended that women go into Human Resources 30 years ago. Can't they make up their mind?
Seriously though, again, we have a complaint that women are making the "wrong" decisions, with no basis for that assertion other than the fact that there are a lot of men in certain positions.

I'm sure they don't complain when there are a lack of men in certain positions.

Women executives: the view from on high - FeaturesNational - www.theage.com.au[/quote]
And from that we have:

O'Reilly says she is not ashamed of benefiting from positive discrimination - she was hired as a chartered accountant in the early 1980s by Price Waterhouse - but she likes to believe she would hire the best person for the job.

Wow. Just, wow.

Sally Walker says she has not experienced prejudice or obstacles, with one exception: "The only prejudice I have suffered was at the hands of a woman who didn't want another woman (at her level). At least you expect women to be neutral; it's very disappointing to find a woman that stands in your way."

Sounds like its the women that need the diversity training. I've heard that women bosses can be like that, but never experienced it myself, so don't know how widespread it is.

Her policy is to encourage women to apply for jobs: "I don't believe in the idea of a glass ceiling. I think it's a concrete ceiling; you can't see through it." If women can't see how the upper levels operate, they don't apply to join them, she says.

Men don't have some genetic implanted knowledge of how these things work either. They just work hard to get there.

There are even business courses for women throughout the developed world, and yet men aren't born with such knowledge, so we must ask who has the best opportunities.

I'll ask the question again: Do you agree that equal opportunity does not equate to equal result?

[albannet]

In the past, women in office have been expected to out-macho their male counterparts in dealing with a macho World of violent solutions to so many problems. The first Queen Elizabeth, Prime Minister Margie Thatcher and Israel's Golda Meir did their best. But lost in the horrible shuffle of international politics is almost any woman's natural instinct to make peace. Even when a gentle man like Jimmy Carter as U.S. President actually succeeded in making peace, he was slammed and ridiculed by most of his own countrymen.

I say let women BE women, let them lead, and let them decide if and when to birth their children, then the World will be a place where we can all live in peace and balance instead of always on the brink of war against some testostero-driven madman.

[Wobs]

Another article showing why women don't choose to reach the top:

The Real Reason So Few Women Are in the Boardroom
By Marty Nemko

On average, women are rated as slightly better managers than men. Also, women better understand the female consumer’s mindset. That’s important because women make most purchases. So why are only 11% of Fortune-500 senior executives women?

The standard answer is “glass ceiling,” a term that evokes the image of a cabal of top male executives scheming to preserve an old boy’s club.

While vestiges of old-boy hiring may remain, most top executives at Fortune 500 companies are too worried about the bottom line to let any clubby cravings affect who they hire as senior executives.

The primary reason for the 11% figure is that men, on average, are willing to devote more time to their career. And time it takes. A study conducted by The Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs, found that the average CEO works 58 hours per week. Fortune 500 CEOs likely work even more.

Unlike in typical media portrayals, few male senior executives spend much time hang-gliding. In the real world, here’s how it more often plays out, as reported to me by my many clients who are male senior executives. Their exercise is more likely to be on a treadmill while doing professional reading. If he’s married, when wife urges him to do more of the domestic chores and parenting, he is likely to say something like, “I want to rise to the top and you want me to, too. I like my work and you like our lifestyle. That requires lots of evenings and weekends. I spend as much time with the family as I can.”

Most women make different choices. The October 10, 2004 lead story on 60 Minutes and the September 2003 New York Times Magazine story documented that a majority even of Ivy- and Stanford-educated female alumni did not work full time. Harvard Business School reports that only 38% of its female MBA graduates, during their childbearing years, work full-time.

Dr. Warren Farrell, author of the forthcoming book, Why Men Earn More (Amacom, 2005) found that a key reason men earn more than women is number-of-hours worked. In addition to providing abundant statistics, he interviewed a number of successful senior executive women. Each one stated that crucial to their success was their willingness to work longer than most women are. For example,

When I interviewed Lillian Vernon, (of Lillian Vernon Corporation), she said, “Many people who dream about their own businesses and don’t have one, are not prepared to work that hard—to think about their job while they’re getting dressed, showering, waiting for somebody— to think of every minute as an opportunity.”

Theresa Metty, senior VP at Motorola agreed, “Successful people don’t see after-hour ‘demands’ as demands, but as opportunities. The opportunity to surprise, invent, create…”

All this doesn’t surprise me. Having been career coach to 2,000 professional clients, 2/3 female, I know that more women than men prioritize work/life balance, wanting more time for family, home, friends, and recreation.

In the privacy of my office, many capable, highly educated women who, in public, may mouth politically correct mantras decrying the dearth of women in the boardroom, admit that what they’d really like is to work part-time if at all, and only on a pleasant job, so they can have ample time for home, family, friends, etc. Far fewer women than men are willing to work 58+ hours a week and to take work home or do extensive after-work professional development activities during evenings and weekends.

Steven Rhoades, author of the new book, Taking Sex Differences Seriously, cites study after study indicating that the main reason most women want ample family time is their biological drive to have children and be the primary family caregiver. Feminist activists argue that is social conditioning by “the male hegemony.” But if that were true, then why do women take on most family caregiving in every society from Iceland to New Guinea, in every era from ancient times to today, and in all political contexts from communist to capitalist? Women’s desire to prioritize family caregiving is mainly biological predisposition, not cultural brainwashing.

Some women argue that it’s men’s fault that women don’t spend more time at work. For example, Career Journal senior correspondent Perri Capell wrote, “If more women had men at home doing for them what women traditionally do for men, they might be able to stay at the office longer.”

Fact is, many women don’t do it for men. They do it for themselves. On average, it is women, more than men, who want to have children. So it is unfair of them to insist that the men share heavily in the child rearing.

It is the woman, on average, who cares more about having lots of time with children (And the data doesn't support the importance of that--after controlling for socioeconomic status, quantity of time matters little.Quality of time does). Even many wealthy women, who could afford and have access to high-quality child care, choose to forego that so they can be with their children. If quantity of family time matters more to women, it is unfair for them to impose that value on their husbands.

And regarding domestic chores, most men aren't as concerned about a tastefully decorated and sparkling clean home. On average, women care more about this.

It is unfair for women to force men to spend time on what the woman wants. If a man were to insist that a woman devote equal time to the things he cares about--for example, financial and tax issues, that fix-it/build-it project, or playing basketball, most people would think that unfair, selfish. Yet when women do it, we’re expected to consider it reasonable.

I predict that if women--before they got married--informed their career-minded future husbands that they insist he fully share domestic and child-rearing responsibilities and that they don’t expect to earn much money, many men would decide it isn't worth getting married. So, most women withhold those demands until afterwards.

A 2004 study by Catalyst, a women’s advocacy organization, found that women aspire to senior executive positions at the same rate as men. But a woman (or a man) can’t have it both ways. If she wants a moderate workweek, for the reasons I will outline below, she cannot fair-mindedly aspire to the boardroom.

Corporations, governments, and non-profits need plenty of good 20 to 40 hour-a-week workers, but not in the top spots. Here’s why.

Imagine you were the CEO of a company and were considering two employees for a senior position. Candidate A had—over her or his 20-year career--worked 50 to 60 hours a week, and in spare time, made great efforts to keep upgrading skills. Meanwhile, Candidate B worked 40 hours a week, and in spare time, focused on family, home, friends, and recreation, and had taken years off to raise children—thereby losing professional contacts and currency with the latest information and technology. You’d almost certainly hire Candidate A. Fact is, more men than women are like Candidate A. That, and not a sexist glass ceiling, is the main reason why women represent only 11% of senior executives in Fortune 500 companies.

But let’s say that you, the CEO, did what feminist activists advocate: install a family-friendly workplace that prioritizes work-life balance, and hired many women who had worked only 40 hours a week and taken years off to raise children. You might hire lots of people like Candidate B. If so, your company would likely go out of business.


Here’s why. Your competitors would hire lots of Candidate A’s. That would result not only in those senior executives--the company’s more important people--being more productive, but their supervisees too. Dedicated, passionate leadership is infectious.

A company with such committed employees is an exciting, passion-filled place. The argument that working more than 40 hours a week is ineffective and leads to burnout is not true. What leads to burnout is meaningless or too difficult work in a passionless workplace, not additional hours of meaningful, doable work in a passionate environment. Some of the most alive people I know work long hours. The argument that working more than 40 hours a week leads to burnout is unsupported by sound research. Such rhetoric is a shoot-from-the-hip pitch that feminist advocates use to sell work-life balance to employers. We all know how being around dedicated people makes us more energized, not less.

A workplace with long, hard-working passionate people results in the company’s products being better or more cost-effective, which makes thousands of people--the customers--happier. Aren’t you grateful when your home, TV, car, etc., is wonderful, reliable, and didn’t cost too much? Creating excellent products, in turn, causes a company’s profits to grow, which allows the company to invest in more innovation, provides money to the thousands of shareholders who entrusted their savings to the company, and increases the sense of pride and passion among the company’s employees.

Meanwhile, your employees, mostly Candidate Bs, zealots for work-life balance, in the short-run, will appreciate being able to leave work earlier than workers at your competitors’ companies. When, in the middle of a brainstorming meeting, someone says, “Sorry, I have a parent-teacher conference. I have to leave,” and you say, “Fine,” everyone will smile at how family-friendly their workplace is. But inside, those with passion about their work will feel that passion just slightly diminished. Each such event—for example, every time an employee takes advantage of the Family Leave Act-- diminishes your workplace’s passion just a little more. A number of your employees, who had taken years off to raise a family, are less up-to-date and lack current professional contacts. In the intermediate term, your employees will be working for a company in decline because their competitors, filled with more passionate, dedicated, more knowledgeable, better connected employees, are producing a better product. And in the long-term, such companies are far more likely to go out of business, leaving your boardroom with 0 percent women and 0 percent men.

The media’s headline message is, “Hire more women and make the workplaces more family-friendly. Stop demanding that executives work 50 to 60 hours a week. Be more like France that mandates a 35-hour average workweek.” The media is far less eager to trumpet the fact that despite France having a better educated population and 35-hour work week, its unemployment rate is more than twice the US rate and there’s talk of changing the law. Advocating “family-friendly, work-life balance” workplaces will likely create different headlines a few years from now: “More jobs offshored to India. “More companies open new facilities in China.” “Unemployment soars.”

For the reasons stated at the outset, if I were a CEO, I would certainly want to hire women in senior positions, but only those with a proven track record of having put in long hours at work and in professional development, and who could be counted on to continue doing so. Those are the same criteria I would use to evaluate male candidates.

Women, if you want to be considered for the boardroom, it doesn’t cut it to say you’re working smart so you needn’t work long hours. There are plenty of men competing for those slots who work both long and smart. You can’t have it both ways: either plan on working long and smart or accept a lower-level job in exchange for work/life balance.

There would be plenty of room in my company for women and men who want to work a moderate workweek, but not at the top. I don’t care whether my executives have a y chromosome, but I want their priority not to be work-life balance, but rather, helping my company to ethically develop the best products in the world.

[Wobs]

Originally Posted by albannet

In the past, women in office have been expected to out-macho their male counterparts in dealing with a macho World of violent solutions to so many problems. The first Queen Elizabeth, Prime Minister Margie Thatcher and Israel's Golda Meir did their best. But lost in the horrible shuffle of international politics is almost any woman's natural instinct to make peace. Even when a gentle man like Jimmy Carter as U.S. President actually succeeded in making peace, he was slammed and ridiculed by most of his own countrymen.

I say let women BE women, let them lead, and let them decide if and when to birth their children, then the World will be a place where we can all live in peace and balance instead of always on the brink of war against some testostero-driven madman.

So you're saying that women are more "peaceful" or peace loving than men?

How many examples do you want that disprove that?

Shall we start with the women that gave out white feathers to men who had not signed up to fight in WW1? They shamed young men into one of the most hellish wars ever.

Or Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel went to war with her Arab neighbours in the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

Or Indira Ghandi, Prime Minister of India from 1966-77 and 1980-84 led her country to war with Pakistan in 1971. She set up India's nuclear program, culminating in the explosion of a nuclear device in 1974.

I could go on, but it does show that women are no stranger to war/conflict. I'm not saying they are any more likely to be opposed to peace, but I find the notion of them being more opposed to war as deeply flawed.

As for Maggie Thatcher, well while I don't particularly like her or her policies, at least she didn't play the victim card like many female politicians of today (eg: Hitlary Clinton, Harriot Harman.....).

[albannet]

You prove my point. The women you mention were raised and educated in this World of male supremist, warror mind set, so of course their political policies reflected the lessons they learned from the dominant men in their lives, their husbands, teachers, employers, etc. The modern World has yet to allow a truly female woman to guide a nation, though Tsarange Mathai, the Nobel Prize winning tree-growing horticulturist comes close. By planting a million trees she blocked an otherwise exploding economy that is destroying the African jungles. Men are instinctive conquerors and destroyers every chance they get, as the entire history of the World shows, while women are instinctive creators and nurturers whenever they manage get the chance, which is nowhere near often enough. That's part of the reason why our civilization is headed for ecocide and self-extinction.

[Michael Angel]

Originally Posted by Wobs

Lets try again with that chart:


. . .
Its basically saying that men need training in equality issues but women don't.
So promoting sexism in the name of equality. Nice.

So preferential treatment for women. All in the name of equality.
I hope you don't advocate giving women more flexibility than men in their choices and practices.
Showing that women choose certain lifestyle choices is not a cop out. Rather it shows that we respect their choices.
I'd rather have equal opportunity, and that means respecting other peoples choices.
This article is a classic in victim mentality. Note it uses phrases like "barriers" but fails to show that there are any:
So they're saying that women are choosing the "wrong" jobs. They fail to mention that they might be the right jobs for those women. Profit and loss roles rely on commitment to the job, to put in long hours, and results matter. It fails to mention that these conditions might not be what most women want.



It was feminism that recommended that women go into Human Resources 30 years ago. Can't they make up their mind?
Seriously though, again, we have a complaint that women are making the "wrong" decisions, with no basis for that assertion other than the fact that there are a lot of men in certain positions.

I'm sure they don't complain when there are a lack of men in certain positions.

Women executives: the view from on high - FeaturesNational - www.theage.com.au
And from that we have:

Wow. Just, wow.


Sounds like its the women that need the diversity training. I've heard that women bosses can be like that, but never experienced it myself, so don't know how widespread it is.


Men don't have some genetic implanted knowledge of how these things work either. They just work hard to get there.

There are even business courses for women throughout the developed world, and yet men aren't born with such knowledge, so we must ask who has the best opportunities.

I'll ask the question again: Do you agree that equal opportunity does not equate to equal result?

[/quote]

I tend to be quoting Australian research
You tend to be quoting USA articles.
Perhaps the USA is a more matriarchal society than Australia?

Your chart is basic human biology. I don't see the point.

No I don't have any objections to "positive discrimination" to help remove a perceived inequality be it of gender or race.
You still are respecting 'choice', in fact you are facilitating it.

Yes I believe our business/capitalist system is discriminatory. That a boy's club exists in the "City" and top board rooms. Coming from the "right" boy's school also helps.
Many organisations are still structured on the Roman Legion hierarchical model ( a la Catholic Church) which promotes conformity, aggression and lets sociopaths rise to the top. Not a structure many women would be comfortable in. You only have to look about you today, to see multi-nationals falling like dominos, to see how well that system has served us.

Yes I believe your beliefs are male rationalisations for injustice to women.
We could go on arguing that point for weeks, but I have run out of testosterone I'm afraid



I see your point albannet. Many women leaders have to be more masculine that the men to reach the top. ("have balls") This is very sad as the unique perspective women are likely to bring to the boardroom(s) is lost.

[Wobs]

Originally Posted by albannet

You prove my point. The women you mention were raised and educated in this World of male supremist, warror mind set, so of course their political policies reflected the lessons they learned from the dominant men in their lives, their husbands, teachers, employers, etc. The modern World has yet to allow a truly female woman to guide a nation, though Tsarange Mathai, the Nobel Prize winning tree-growing horticulturist comes close. By planting a million trees she blocked an otherwise exploding economy that is destroying the African jungles. Men are instinctive conquerors and destroyers every chance they get, as the entire history of the World shows, while women are instinctive creators and nurturers whenever they manage get the chance, which is nowhere near often enough. That's part of the reason why our civilization is headed for ecocide and self-extinction.

Erm no.
The women I mentioned are no less female than any other. I'm sure they wouldn't thank you for suggesting otherwise.

Women are no more moral or peaceful than men.

You suggest women who have done good, and then claim men are "conquerors and destroyers every chance they get".

Your sexism is disturbing.

Why don't you consider that your "men are destroyers" idea and then think of the building you're sat in, the computer you're in front of, the food you buy..... All are developed by mostly men.