On family and demographics

 Yesterday I went to the funeral of my uncle. Despite the current restrictions, there was a good turnout and it was a lovely service. 

One thought that struck me though was the 'winnowing' of families, a point made by Ross Douthat in his book The Decadent Society which I read recently. In the section on demographics, he mentions how his generation has had fewer kids compared to his parents and grandparents. This applies too to my family.

For example, my mother had two siblings. They all married and had two children each, replacing themselves and their partners. However, of their six offspring that form my generation, to date we have only had six, of which four were had by my two oldest cousins (two each). 

This winnowing seems to be a fairly common trend, as seen by the overall decline in the fertility rate of Western countries. The big question is why has this happened? This is one of the questions that I constantly grapple with, and will form a key theme in my writings.