The sanity of ordinary people

 We have long argued that some of the best political decisions are made by ordinary people. . . ranging from creating illegal accessory apartments in cities that don't allow them (40,000 in Los Angeles) to some of the most effective population programs including birth control and later marriages. Here's another example. Although the Economist clearly doesn't like the idea, it seems to be having an effect.

Economist - As The Economist reports this week, many women in the richer parts of Asia have gone on “marriage strike”, preferring the single life to the marital yoke. That is one reason why their fertility rates have fallen. And they are not alone. In 83 countries and territories around the world, according to the United Nations, women will not have enough daughters to replace themselves, unless fertility rates rise. In Hong Kong, for example, a cohort of 1,000 women would be expected to give birth to just 547 daughters, at today’s fertility rates. (That gives Hong Kong a “net reproduction rate” of just 0.547, in the language of demographers.) If nothing changed, those 547 daughters would be succeeded by just 299 daughters of their own, and so on. At that rate, according to some back-of-the-envelope calculations by The Economist, it would take about 25 generations for Hong Kong’s female population to shrink from 3.75m to just one.