Is individualism less toxic for northwest Europeans?
Some thoughts on falling fertility rates
Total fertility rate by country in 2024 (Wikicommons - Korakys)
The fertility rate has fallen the most within a large part of the non-Western world, even though this decline had a head-start in the Western world. Are modern social environments less toxic for WEIRD people of northwest European descent?
The fertility rate began to decline in the Western world before spreading elsewhere. Perhaps surprisingly, this decline is going much farther in many non-Western populations.
Today, fertility rates are lowest in East Asia, where women typically have one child or none at all. You have likely heard that South Korea is down to a fertility rate of 0.82 per woman. But you may not know that this country is part of a much larger zone of ultra-low fertility that includes the entire north and northeast of China. The Chinese province of Heilongjiang now has a fertility rate of 0.57 (Chen, 2025).
Most of the world is not far behind. Jamaica is down to 1.3 per woman, and similar low fertility is developing across Latin America and the Caribbean (Hill, 2025; McLeod, 2025). If we look at Europe, we see that the northwest is mostly above the European average of 1.4, whereas the south and the east largely have ultra-low fertility.
The same pattern appears among population groups in the United States. In 2024, Euro Americans surpassed African Americans in terms of fertility, after having already surpassed Asian Americans and Amerindian Americans (Frost, 2024; Hamilton et al., 2025). They are now set to overtake Hispanic Americans — not because their fertility rate is rising but because it is falling more slowly.
Northwest Europeans seem to have created an anti-natalist culture that is more toxic to other groups than to themselves. This culture acts like an acid bath that dissolves traditional non-Western supports for family formation and child raising. The same fertility reduction is happening to non-Western populations everywhere as they assimilate Western culture, be it in their diasporas or in their home countries. South Korea is an extreme example, but the same holds true for East Asia in general and, increasingly, Latin America.
Better adapted to individualism?
This greater tolerance for anti-natalism by northwest European populations seems to be part of a greater tolerance for the adverse effects of individualism.
In previous posts, I reviewed the evidence that WEIRD people of northwest European descent have long been mental and behavioral outliers. For over a millennium, they have shown a consistent pattern of nuclear families, relatively weak kinship ties, and solitary living during at least part of adulthood. As a result, they have a greater tolerance for individualism, personal autonomy, and social atomization. They are also more adept at impersonal prosociality — social interactions that are less personal, less emotionally intense, and more inclusive of non-friends and non-kin. Finally, they tend to form “moral communities” based not on shared kinship but on shared ideology and rule-following (Frost, 2020; Frost, 2025a; Frost, 2025b; hbd*chick, 2014; ICA, 2020; MacDonald, 2019; Schulz et al., 2019).
These characteristics have enabled northwest Europeans to transcend the limitations of kinship and organize themselves on a much larger scale, socially and economically. They were thus the first to develop the modern state and a true market economy. Over time, these larger entities have grown at the expense of smaller ones based on kinship, including the family unit, with the result that kinship is today reduced to a vestigial role.
Although northwest Europeans can better tolerate the adverse effects of individualism, they too have seen a substantial decline in their fertility rate, which reflects this shift toward greater individualism and weaker kinship ties, particularly those within the family unit. They are thus close to the psychological limits of social atomization.
Better able to resist the fertility decline?
How are northwest Europeans maintaining a higher fertility rate? One way is by belonging to “moral communities” that support procreation through mutual assistance and shared commitment to a moral system. In the United States, such communities include Mormons, Amish, Hasidic Jews and, to some extent, evangelicals and traditional Catholics. It is above all these fertile subcultures that are buoying up the Euro American fertility rate.
In addition, because northwest Europeans don’t expect to receive child support from aunts, uncles, and other close kin, any difficulties in getting such support will not affect their decision to have children. The situation is different with other populations, particularly those of Sub-Saharan African descent. They are undergoing a greater decline in fertility because Westernization — and the social atomization it brings — increases the uncertainty of child support from close kin. There remains support from one’s partner, but it too is far from certain.
This point came up in interviews with Jamaican women about the fertility decline:
Kids? They drain your wallet with diapers, formula, and school fees. I’m not giving up my weekend travel or fancy dinners just yet. Plus you can never, ever, ever trust a man to come through for you. And it’s not au fait for moms to be the ones to leave, and allow men to be the single parents. So knowing all I know, I won’t allow myself to be trapped. (Hill, 2025)
References
Chen, S. (2025). China’s northeast provinces face demographic crisis with fertility rates plummeting below 1.0. Demstate, August 15. https://demstate.com/article/chinas-northeast-provinces-face-demographic-crisis-with-fertility-rates-plummeting-below-10
Frost, P. (2020). The large society problem in Northwest Europe and East Asia. Advances in Anthropology, 10(3), 214-134. https://doi.org/10.4236/aa.2020.103012
Frost, P. (2024). Trump: White America’s savior? Peter Frost’s Newsletter, October 7. https://www.anthro1.net/p/trump-white-americas-savior
Frost, P. (2025a). When did northwest Europeans become WEIRD? Peter Frost’s Newsletter, August 5. https://www.anthro1.net/p/when-did-northwest-europeans-become
Frost, P. (2025b). Reply to Joseph Henrich. Peter Frost’s Newsletter, August 14. https://www.anthro1.net/p/reply-to-joseph-henrich
Hamilton, B.E., Martin, J.A., & Osterman, M.J.K. (2025). Births: Provisional data for 2024. Vital Statistics Rapid Release. April;(38):1–10. https://dx.doi.org/10.15620/cdc/174587
hbd*chick (2014). Big summary post on the Hajnal Line. October 3. https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/big-summary-post-on-the-hajnal-line/
Hill, S. (2025). The birth drought: Women tell why fertility rates will continue to plummet, Jamaica Observer, August 11. https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/allwoman/2025/08/11/the-birth-drought/
ICA (2020). Research Themes—Marriage Patterns. Institutions for Collective Action. https://web.archive.org/web/20190329070516/http://www.collective-action.info/_THE_MarriagePatterns_EMP
MacDonald, K. (2019). Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition: Evolutionary Origins, History, and Prospects for the Future. Amazon. https://www.amazon.ca/Individualism-Western-Liberal-Tradition-Evolutionary/dp/1089691483
McLeod, S. (2025). Jamaica’s fertility rate drops to 1.3 — among the lowest in the world. Caribbean National Weekly, August 4. https://www.caribbeannationalweekly.com/news/jamaicas-fertility-rate-drops-to-1-3-among-the-lowest-in-the-world/
Schulz, J.F., Bahrami-Rad, D., Beauchamp, J.P., & Henrich, J. (2019). The Church, intensive kinship, and global psychological variation. Science, 366(707), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau5141
This is a very interesting hypothesis which I am pleased you have put into words for me.
My wife and I are typical northwestern Europeans (resident in NZ). When we married it never occurred to me to expect support from relatives. Indeed, the closest relatives lived multiple hours drive away from us. However, our families have supported us in times of need.
Our "shared commitment to a moral system" (your words) is a belief in the utility of the scientific method practiced within a framework of somewhat impersonal liberal values. I say 'somewhat impersonal' because we care most about our kids, then about those people we interact with directly (actual friends), then with those we associate with, and proceed with declining emotional intensity to relatives, fellow citizens, westerners, and finally to people of the world (I guess).
We have 4 kids. We had them thoughtlessly. By that I mean without precondition. When we married we both had the intention of having several kids, though without knowing how we would afford them. This is different from the (middle class) people around us whose mindset seems more 'zero sum', more backward looking and more directed to individual hedonism (exotic vacations, personal comforts and status signalling).
Characterising our "moral community", rather than being religious, it's liberal, pragmatic, and resource conservative.
Control for out of wedlock births and E Asia is higher than the West.