The full popdec corpus, sequenced. Macro frame → static thesis → dynamic mechanism → public falsifier → positive case → generalization.
The thesis being tested across this path: pronatalist policy compensates at margins, but cannot create the cultural-structural conditions that lift fertility. Necessary-but-insufficient. Read in order — each finding compounds on the prior.
Sub-replacement fertility is now structural across OECD and increasingly across middle-income economies. The Lab corpus operationalizes the load-bearing claim: pronatalist spending compensates at margins, but cannot create the cultural-stru…
Why this here: Start here. The macro frame — what's shifting, who benefits, what to watch.
Hungary spent 6.2% of GDP on family policy and lifted TFR from 1.25 to 1.59. Then it reversed. The pair shows what policy can move and what it can't reach.
Why this here: The static thesis: Hungary spent 6.2% GDP and lifted TFR temporarily; Korea didn't. The wedge isn't spending — it's structural-cultural.
Six branch points in Korea's fertility decline 1997-2024. Three were levers. Three were lockings. Telling them apart is what makes the path-dependence real.
Why this here: The dynamic version. Six branch points in Korea's decline; three were levers, three were lockings.
A public falsifier register for the necessary-but-insufficient thesis. Eight OECD candidates on the watch list. Resolution: 2030-2035 cohort completion data. Falsifier: any country crossing 1.70 cohort fertility where the wedge is policy spend, not structural-cultural conditions.
Why this here: The falsification test. Eight OECD candidates on a public clock; the load-bearing thesis under public falsification through 2035.
Single-case mechanism dossier on the only OECD-context cohort at national-sub-population scale with documented sustained fertility ≥ 6.0. (Hutterite + Amish are valid peer cases at smaller community scale.) Seven structural conditions identified; counterfactual per-condition removal; cross-case validation across Hutterite, Mormon Utah, Roma, Israel-secular, France, Sweden, Korea, Hungary. Five pre-registered predictions resolving 2030-2040.
Why this here: The "exception" that documents the rule. Israel's sustained 2.85 TFR runs on religious-community substrate, not policy.
Cross-case validation of the seven-condition structural framework. Six documented sustained-recovery cases (Haredi, Hutterite, Amish, Mormon Utah, Roma, Israel-Arab Muslim transitional) plus one secular failure analog (kibbutz movement). Tests whether the framework generalizes; tests directionality (lift when conditions hold, decay when they weaken). Seven pre-registered predictions resolving 2030-2040.
Why this here: The abstraction. Where dense substrate exists, demographic resilience clusters — independent of ideology or policy.
Cross-substrate test of the seven-condition framework. Ten well-documented ecological cases: 3 sustained recovery (mountain gorilla, Iberian lynx, gray wolf Yellowstone), 2 transitional, 3 sustained collapse, 2 framework-boundary cases (CA condor intervention substitution, boreal caribou external-suppression). Atlantic cod NW Atlantic is the load-bearing failure analog. 8 pre-registered predictions resolving 2030-2035.
Why this here: The generalization. Structural-cultural lens extended beyond fertility to the broader resilience question.