I was channel surfing this evening and came across a salient C-Span program in light of a TinyCatPants I read (here) yesterday. “Aunt B” riposted (sic) a Terry Frank post and an Adam Kleinheider post, on the implications, if any, of birth-rate disparities between the East and the West.
The program in question was on BookTV and featured Arthur Brooks, who has published a book/study on patterns of charitable giving in the U.S., Who Really Cares.
“Aunt B” takes offense at the insinuation that people who choose not to have children–or multiple children, are selfish. I didn’t know what to think about the selfish angle, but one thing that Brooks asserts (or has found) is that–all things being equal, people who have more children are more charitable, or vice versa.
“Number of children” is one of a handful of predictive factors for charitableness identified by Brooks (e.g., religious practice, view of government), and they are all clearly interrelated. “Aunt B” and some commenters assert that selflessness is the very reason they’re not having bunches of children. That may be true for them; however, inasmuch as giving to non-family reflects selflessness (and it’s difficult to think of a better measure), it appears the data on charitable giving reflects that a desire to have children goes together with selflessness.
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