Older Adults Outnumber Children in 11 States(census.gov)
census.gov
Older Adults Outnumber Children in 11 States
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/older-adults-outnumber-children.html
120 comments
> modern, affluent states are commiting voluntarily suicide because their citizens are not too willing in giving birth
Phrase things with the blame assigned accordingly. Your phrasing blames people for not becoming parents. A more accurate phrasing is '....because their wealthy elites are so greedy they make having children unaffordable'
"Demographic collapse" is because people can't afford rent, can't afford food, can't afford healthcare - childbirth is ABSURDLY expensive in the US, can't afford childcare, and so many other things.
Why is that? Because of greed. More and more of everything is swallowed up by private equity and corporate management who have no empathy, no flexibility, only a demand for eternal growth. The human piece is irrelevant and actively undesirable. Far simpler to just pay for some GPUs and write articles blaming ordinary people for having no more options.
Phrase things with the blame assigned accordingly. Your phrasing blames people for not becoming parents. A more accurate phrasing is '....because their wealthy elites are so greedy they make having children unaffordable'
"Demographic collapse" is because people can't afford rent, can't afford food, can't afford healthcare - childbirth is ABSURDLY expensive in the US, can't afford childcare, and so many other things.
Why is that? Because of greed. More and more of everything is swallowed up by private equity and corporate management who have no empathy, no flexibility, only a demand for eternal growth. The human piece is irrelevant and actively undesirable. Far simpler to just pay for some GPUs and write articles blaming ordinary people for having no more options.
Scandinavian countries are commonly listed as a counter-example to what you say. Those countries have strong social safety nets for everyone, and their citizens' basic needs are covered. Child care costs are not an issue for them. Yet, their fertility rates are also too low.
Thus, to the extent that costs and money play a role, it does not seem to be a decisive one. There is something else going on.
Thus, to the extent that costs and money play a role, it does not seem to be a decisive one. There is something else going on.
Does that include housing? I went and read the Swedish Wikipedia birth rate article (Födelsetal), but couldn't find any clues. Social norms, that's about all.
Presumably the worrying thing here is a possible boom-and-bust cycle. In the long view it should be self-limiting, if a small population with lots of space tends to fill it with a larger future population that then reproduces less. It's just unpleasant to be caught at the declining stage of that cycle, with abundant old people.
Presumably the worrying thing here is a possible boom-and-bust cycle. In the long view it should be self-limiting, if a small population with lots of space tends to fill it with a larger future population that then reproduces less. It's just unpleasant to be caught at the declining stage of that cycle, with abundant old people.
US real household income is probably 3x higher than during the baby boom. How could they have afford to have had kids back then? Moreover, people have always been greedy. Yet birth rates have only started dropping more recently.
I would surmise it’s the opposite cause, people are wealthier now and so kids are less desirable because the opportunity cost is higher.
I would surmise it’s the opposite cause, people are wealthier now and so kids are less desirable because the opportunity cost is higher.
>How could they have afford to have had kids back then?
Most families had only one person working, and one available for childcare. Housing was dramatically cheaper. So was a university education. So was food.
And no - unregulated capitalistic greed has dramatically accelerated in the last few decades. It hasn't always been this way. Corporations are buying up everything so they can extract rent and using algorithms and regulatory control to extract every possible dime. Where before you might rent a small home from a landlord who would understand if you were laid off and had to skip a month or two (and who might not raise rents every year) now you have an apartment owned by equity using software to talk to all the other landlords and fix prices as high as possible who will file eviction if you're a minute late.
Most families had only one person working, and one available for childcare. Housing was dramatically cheaper. So was a university education. So was food.
And no - unregulated capitalistic greed has dramatically accelerated in the last few decades. It hasn't always been this way. Corporations are buying up everything so they can extract rent and using algorithms and regulatory control to extract every possible dime. Where before you might rent a small home from a landlord who would understand if you were laid off and had to skip a month or two (and who might not raise rents every year) now you have an apartment owned by equity using software to talk to all the other landlords and fix prices as high as possible who will file eviction if you're a minute late.
Only in the middle classes does opportunity cost come in. Today, the wealthiest and the poorest have beyond-replacement fertility. Race becomes a factor in America, but the only group of women with higher fertility in the middle class are foreign-born.
Then why more affluent younger people have no plan to have kids? The under 35 who have a partner at my work are just planning their next trip. They don't want to hear anything about kids and their constraints.
They will give you reasons like over population, environnemental collapse etc... I think they are very self centered and don't want to make sacrifices
They will give you reasons like over population, environnemental collapse etc... I think they are very self centered and don't want to make sacrifices
Costs are out of control. I know families where both parents were big tech SWEs and one quit their job because losing that huge salary was about the same cost as childcare.
Exactly. How do we expect parents with multiple lower income jobs to manage this at all. We don’t have universal childcare and Reaganites fucked us with the nuclear family bullshit.
> think they are very self centered and don't want to make sacrifices
How dare they not want to spend decades doing something they don't want at enormous personal and financial cost just to keep your favorite economic pyramid scheme running. So selfish.
Here's an idea: if you want kids so much, pay for them. Provide universal healthcare, childcare, education. Provide food stamps for everyone under 18. Put your money where your mouth is.
How dare they not want to spend decades doing something they don't want at enormous personal and financial cost just to keep your favorite economic pyramid scheme running. So selfish.
Here's an idea: if you want kids so much, pay for them. Provide universal healthcare, childcare, education. Provide food stamps for everyone under 18. Put your money where your mouth is.
If those people expect to continue to live on after they retire, then all the products and services they rely on in that stage of life will be performed by the children of their peers, the ones who had them at enormous personal and financial cost. They are externalizing the costs of there being people to make the economy work in their old age to others so they can take more trips. In fairness, if you don't have kids you should have to pay higher taxes (enormously higher in fact to get close to making up the difference). Those taxes get re-directed to childcare for those that need it. Fair?
> if you don't have kids you should have to pay higher taxes
We do actually have this today in the US through policies like the earned income tax credit, child/dependent care tax credit, and child tax credit, which primarily reduce taxes for people with children (and therefore put a relatively higher tax burden on childless people).
We do actually have this today in the US through policies like the earned income tax credit, child/dependent care tax credit, and child tax credit, which primarily reduce taxes for people with children (and therefore put a relatively higher tax burden on childless people).
There’s also a large tax credit for adoption costs. I wonder if GP comment would result in more births, or something like H1B arrangements for personal tax reasons.
As a US citizen, why on earth would I bring a new innocent child into this modern capitalist christian nationalist hellscape? We just had to have a judge force the government to fund food stamps for another month for fucks sake. I would be more likely to adopt because the child already exists and needs love and care.
We adopted. So many things today are in opposition to Christ’s teachings. The politicization of helping the poor. The individual reaction to problems by wanting so much wealth that those problems don’t apply to me.
Adoption is costly but for now there’s a tax credit. And I suspect every company would like to have the kind of employee who adopts. Some will pay large proportions of the cost, but not the median employer.
Adoption is costly but for now there’s a tax credit. And I suspect every company would like to have the kind of employee who adopts. Some will pay large proportions of the cost, but not the median employer.
That's part of the problem, but the trend is universal, so it's not only that. I think that reduction of human population is good, but we need to rethink our economic models entirely, which nobody is doing, at least not seriously enough
> Phrase things with the blame assigned accordingly. Your phrasing blames people for not becoming parents. A more accurate phrasing is '....because their wealthy elites are so greedy they make having children unaffordable'
OP has identified the problem more accurately than you have, though.
AI is a symptom, not a cause. We have to fill the labor gap with immigrants and AI because people are having fewer children.
Do you think modern institutions are less efficient at suppressing human greed than medieval ones? Obviously they are more efficient.
The problem you mention is not the wealthy elite, but rather the unproductive parasites, rich and poor. And this is a somewhat separate problem from the birth rate collapse. Indeed, it doesn't help the birth rate, but it's also not the main reason people aren't having children. The main reason is people wanting to have sex without having children, and we've given everyone the ability to do so with the birth control pill.
OP has identified the problem more accurately than you have, though.
AI is a symptom, not a cause. We have to fill the labor gap with immigrants and AI because people are having fewer children.
Do you think modern institutions are less efficient at suppressing human greed than medieval ones? Obviously they are more efficient.
The problem you mention is not the wealthy elite, but rather the unproductive parasites, rich and poor. And this is a somewhat separate problem from the birth rate collapse. Indeed, it doesn't help the birth rate, but it's also not the main reason people aren't having children. The main reason is people wanting to have sex without having children, and we've given everyone the ability to do so with the birth control pill.
Technology has enabled greed and exploitation to increase exponentially. The ability to regulate it has been slashed at every opportunity - such as cutting funding to the IRS.
Natural selection will fix this in no time, as the genes and cultures that lead to people not making kids die off. Widespread availability of contraceptives and abortion is recent enough that we just haven't had the time to adapt yet. The desire to have sex has been enough to keep birth rate high for most of human history. Now evolution is strongly selecting for cultures and genes that lead to more kids even in the presence of birth control. In a few of generations we'll start seeing birth rates recover.
I am not sure will all culture remain immune to the "curse" of modern comfortable lives that lead to low birthrates. This remains unproven.
And based on current trend it seems that it's the most religious group ( Islamists, Orthodox Jews) who props up the birthrates. But they are also economically most unproductive and most anti-science ones, so I really unsure where this will lead us.
And based on current trend it seems that it's the most religious group ( Islamists, Orthodox Jews) who props up the birthrates. But they are also economically most unproductive and most anti-science ones, so I really unsure where this will lead us.
Except religious fanatics, the trend is universal and driven by other factors than abortion or contraception
The trend is universal because birth control is becoming universal. The only places that still have high birth rates are places where birth control isn't easily available (and religious cultures). It could be driven by other factors as well, but I'm betting it's mostly just birth control. We don't have a very strong innate desire to have kids, it is the desire for sex that human reproduction has mostly relied on. We're only a couple of generations into birth control, so we're only now starting to feel the effect.
I think you’d lose that bet. Women die in childbirth regularly. And it’s not birth control but our stratospheric advances against infant mortality that most strongly influence population dynamics.
Nope. In this case it's definitely birth control. Birth rate got cut in half when the pill was introduced.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_oral_contraceptive_pi...
I mean, come on, it's literally called "birth control". It would be strange if it didn't affect birth rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_oral_contraceptive_pi...
I mean, come on, it's literally called "birth control". It would be strange if it didn't affect birth rate.
What's fascinating to me about this shift is that I've yet to see a clearly identified root cause. Some people on the left identify cost of living and things like that, but we're generally richer and better off than ever and still having fewer kids. In fact higher standards of living seem generally negatively correlated with number of children. Some people on the right blame birth control or women not knowing their place or whatever, but it seems odd that propagation of a species would rely on essentially forced participation of prospective parents.
Given those things, I wonder if there is an actual problem here or we just don't have the experience to see how it resolves. It's hard to see the side effects of increased standards and living or more choice and equality for women as inherently bad or something we need to fight against, especially when there seem to be few effective solutions that are compatible with a free and modern society.
Given those things, I wonder if there is an actual problem here or we just don't have the experience to see how it resolves. It's hard to see the side effects of increased standards and living or more choice and equality for women as inherently bad or something we need to fight against, especially when there seem to be few effective solutions that are compatible with a free and modern society.
Cost disease applies to children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect
We aren't supposed to think of children as an economic good. For one children don't pay money for their care so it's difficult for capital to exploit the relationship. Unpaid work especially done by women is valued at zero. Or seen as a sunk cost.
If we reject that than we see that it takes similar amounts of time and labor to raise children as it did a 100 years ago. Other resources have increased. Particularly raising children in an urban environment costs more than rural. And unlike rural children's labor has no value in urban environments. That totally sets up cost disease.
I've been thinking along the lines of generalized Malthusian limits it's not just malnutrition and disease that limits population growth. Toss in cost disease and you can argue for urban, capitalist industrial economies we've overshot some nebulous limit that doesn't show up in mortality statistics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect
We aren't supposed to think of children as an economic good. For one children don't pay money for their care so it's difficult for capital to exploit the relationship. Unpaid work especially done by women is valued at zero. Or seen as a sunk cost.
If we reject that than we see that it takes similar amounts of time and labor to raise children as it did a 100 years ago. Other resources have increased. Particularly raising children in an urban environment costs more than rural. And unlike rural children's labor has no value in urban environments. That totally sets up cost disease.
I've been thinking along the lines of generalized Malthusian limits it's not just malnutrition and disease that limits population growth. Toss in cost disease and you can argue for urban, capitalist industrial economies we've overshot some nebulous limit that doesn't show up in mortality statistics.
> Some people on the right blame birth control or women not knowing their place or whatever, but it seems odd that propagation of a species would rely on essentially forced participation of prospective parents.
The simple explanation is that there is no local "cost" to doubling your household's income. The only thing you "pay" is to have fewer children. As smaller households become more competitive, average costs rise and the only way to stay competitive is for other households to also stay small.
Looking at world-wide graphs and it's extremely worrying - many countries are completely upside-down and over the next 25-50 years as the elderly die, these populations will crash.
IMO governments should have started doing something about 20 years ago if they wanted to keep things on-track, I suspect the children of today are just going to have to suffer the consequences of a large population decrease.
It's certainly plausible that this is all for the best for Earth's sustainability, but I expect the coming years to be turbulent nonetheless.
The simple explanation is that there is no local "cost" to doubling your household's income. The only thing you "pay" is to have fewer children. As smaller households become more competitive, average costs rise and the only way to stay competitive is for other households to also stay small.
Looking at world-wide graphs and it's extremely worrying - many countries are completely upside-down and over the next 25-50 years as the elderly die, these populations will crash.
IMO governments should have started doing something about 20 years ago if they wanted to keep things on-track, I suspect the children of today are just going to have to suffer the consequences of a large population decrease.
It's certainly plausible that this is all for the best for Earth's sustainability, but I expect the coming years to be turbulent nonetheless.
> IMO governments should have started doing something about 20 years ago if they wanted to keep things on-track...
I guess my thought is that it's non-obvious what "doing something" would have looked like. The seemingly inevitable outcome of economic, social, and technological progress has been declining birthrates, and many proposed solutions would effectively involve reversing one of those three things. I'm honestly not sure that would be a better outcome. I'd welcome a more palatable alternative, but it's not clear one will be forthcoming.
I guess my thought is that it's non-obvious what "doing something" would have looked like. The seemingly inevitable outcome of economic, social, and technological progress has been declining birthrates, and many proposed solutions would effectively involve reversing one of those three things. I'm honestly not sure that would be a better outcome. I'd welcome a more palatable alternative, but it's not clear one will be forthcoming.
>> I feel that demographic collapse is the single biggest crisis facing the developed world now
This is similar in some ways to the situation when I was young where population growth was the single biggest crisis facing the developed world.
Either way, we're doomed.
This is similar in some ways to the situation when I was young where population growth was the single biggest crisis facing the developed world.
Either way, we're doomed.
I sort of agree with you.
To get some sober second thought though, you could watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIDnr646tLA&t=1452s
It tears down the strawman case of demographic collapse, but I'm with you that its still pretty scary looking and quite unprecedented.
To get some sober second thought though, you could watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIDnr646tLA&t=1452s
It tears down the strawman case of demographic collapse, but I'm with you that its still pretty scary looking and quite unprecedented.
It's a problem we chose to create for ourselves by inventing and socially normalizing 99% effective birth control. We've given ourselves the freedom to make the choice to have children consciously, but not without consequences, some of which have already caught up to us.
In the past, natural selection had no reason to distinguish between the drive to have sex and the drive to have children because they have the same effect. If we abruptly take away the former as a reliable enough mechanism to propagate the species, we should expect much fewer children. And that is exactly what happened when the pill was introduced a few decades ago: it cut the birth rate in half in developed countries almost instantly.
If we wanted to ameliorate the demographic issues caused by this, we just have to restrict the supply and availability of birth control pills and similar surefire methods like IUDs, just enough such that the birth rate is pegged at 2.1 children per woman.
But this is difficult to achieve in democratic societies because the people that want sex without reproduction make up a significant portion of the population. But we have to fill the labor gap somehow. The solutions we've come up with are mass immigration, and soon, AI. Of course, these solutions create new problems that we'll have to deal with later, but such is life.
In the past, natural selection had no reason to distinguish between the drive to have sex and the drive to have children because they have the same effect. If we abruptly take away the former as a reliable enough mechanism to propagate the species, we should expect much fewer children. And that is exactly what happened when the pill was introduced a few decades ago: it cut the birth rate in half in developed countries almost instantly.
If we wanted to ameliorate the demographic issues caused by this, we just have to restrict the supply and availability of birth control pills and similar surefire methods like IUDs, just enough such that the birth rate is pegged at 2.1 children per woman.
But this is difficult to achieve in democratic societies because the people that want sex without reproduction make up a significant portion of the population. But we have to fill the labor gap somehow. The solutions we've come up with are mass immigration, and soon, AI. Of course, these solutions create new problems that we'll have to deal with later, but such is life.
Demographic is an unsolvable problem. Since the last 30 years every effort of countries has failed. From Denmark's sexy ads to the "Flirting" Ministry of Singapore, only superficial results in the correct direction. It seems that behind every social factor, a depressed basic animal reproductive instinct is the common mechanism.
This isn't true. The current birth rate crisis is artificially induced by the widespread production and use of birth control pills.[0] If you look at the fertility rate graph, it fell off a cliff from 1960-1975 when the pill was introduced and has remained relatively stable ever since.[1] America's fertility rate would be well above replacement if we never invented the pill.
Popular socioeconomic explanations for why people are having fewer children aren't wrong, but those aren't the biggest factors. They likely explain the drop from 2008-present, but this recent drop is nothing compared to the 1960-1975 pill cliff. If you claim the socioeconomic problems are unsolvable (which I don't think is true either), there is still the option of regulating the pill as a controlled substance.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_oral_contraceptive_pi...
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni...
Popular socioeconomic explanations for why people are having fewer children aren't wrong, but those aren't the biggest factors. They likely explain the drop from 2008-present, but this recent drop is nothing compared to the 1960-1975 pill cliff. If you claim the socioeconomic problems are unsolvable (which I don't think is true either), there is still the option of regulating the pill as a controlled substance.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_oral_contraceptive_pi...
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni...
> Delaware, Hawaii, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Maine, Vermont, and Florida
West Virginia is a surprise to me, I can only guess that is because of young people moving out. Same could probably be said for Rhode Island, Maine and Vermont.
West Virginia is a surprise to me, I can only guess that is because of young people moving out. Same could probably be said for Rhode Island, Maine and Vermont.
This isn’t a surprise — it’s been projected since the 80s at least. K-12 is in a trough for the next decade.
In particular, West Virginia was a high fertility rate state during the baby boom, among those. Maybe Vermont, too.
A lot of country's population pyramid doesn't look like a pyramid. It's more like a rhombus.
https://www.populationpyramid.net/world/2024/
I noticed some middle eastern countries have a very skewed male female ratio among people born roughly 30 years ago.
https://www.populationpyramid.net/world/2024/
I noticed some middle eastern countries have a very skewed male female ratio among people born roughly 30 years ago.
The ME countries you are talking about are UAE, Qatar etc. where a lot of labourers are brought in from South Asian countries for construction etc. That's why you see so many 20-40 males.
Interestingly enough if you change the filter to "US" and rewind the data to 1950 (it looks like that's how far this graph goes), if you advance up by 5 years you can see the "bulge" of baby boomers age up into retirement where they are right now.
Very nice. There’s also a second bulge starting around 1990.
Could be the children of baby boomers, except it seems like it's about a decade late?
Things are far worse in China. That's the only reason I am bullish in the US as world's top dog for the foreseable future.
I wouldn’t believe any estimates you see from China first of all. China also has a unique history and the ability to turn things around very quickly. That said, what’s the point of comparing other than to confirm your own belief that this is the single most important aspect of a thriving country?
Yeah, but the US have this perennial luck too. I am generation X, I was raised first with the idea that japan would overcome the US, then it was the EU. and yet, the US always reinvented itself/got lucky/played dirty.
Empires are fucking resilient creations. The news of US hegemony demise are vastly exagerated.
Empires are fucking resilient creations. The news of US hegemony demise are vastly exagerated.
Who and when believed the EU would take over the US? Japan, I remember, but the EU?
Not super surprising given the baby boom that many of those older adults were born during - it was an anomalous spike in birth rates after all.
To me, it all seems very simple, and I don't understand if my opinion is profoundly stupid or everyone else is blind.
1. For the first time in human history, it's a viable thing to live alone. Not only that, but actually living alone is easier than living with a spouse. If you want to be married you have to put a lot of effort into dealing with the other person. If you're single, nothing stops you from just eating frozen pizza and playing video games all you want. 100 years ago most people were farmers, and good luck trying to farm land alone, especially as a woman. Once the economic survival necessity to marry disappeared, the naked truth was exposed - people just don't like each other. We'd rather sit alone.
2. When people were finally taught "if you put penis into vagina without latex, a child will pop out, and you will need to keep feeding it for next twenty years", the reaction was "fuck that" because honestly, parenthood is just a bad deal. Nature got around this problem by equipping us with sex drive and for most animals that works because most animals don't make the mental connection between sex and pregnancy, but modern people do make the connection, which breaks the system.
3. Demographic collapse is actually not a problem. Humanity will not die out. It's just a giant evolutionary bottleneck, like many in history. Will the society collapse? Maybe. Not the first and not the last time.
4. Even if the society collapses, a better one will emerge. Black Death killed half of Europe's population, and some historians say that this contributed to Renaissanace, which was a major postive turning point. Labor shortages led to much better position of common workers, and the last time I checked, common workers bitched about being exploited.
1. For the first time in human history, it's a viable thing to live alone. Not only that, but actually living alone is easier than living with a spouse. If you want to be married you have to put a lot of effort into dealing with the other person. If you're single, nothing stops you from just eating frozen pizza and playing video games all you want. 100 years ago most people were farmers, and good luck trying to farm land alone, especially as a woman. Once the economic survival necessity to marry disappeared, the naked truth was exposed - people just don't like each other. We'd rather sit alone.
2. When people were finally taught "if you put penis into vagina without latex, a child will pop out, and you will need to keep feeding it for next twenty years", the reaction was "fuck that" because honestly, parenthood is just a bad deal. Nature got around this problem by equipping us with sex drive and for most animals that works because most animals don't make the mental connection between sex and pregnancy, but modern people do make the connection, which breaks the system.
3. Demographic collapse is actually not a problem. Humanity will not die out. It's just a giant evolutionary bottleneck, like many in history. Will the society collapse? Maybe. Not the first and not the last time.
4. Even if the society collapses, a better one will emerge. Black Death killed half of Europe's population, and some historians say that this contributed to Renaissanace, which was a major postive turning point. Labor shortages led to much better position of common workers, and the last time I checked, common workers bitched about being exploited.
> 4. Even if the society collapses, a better one will emerge. Black Death killed half of Europe's population, and some historians say that this contributed to Renaissanace, which was a major postive turning point. Labor shortages led to much better position of common workers, and the last time I checked, common workers bitched about being exploited.
Nit-Pick:
The Renaissance is more of the exception that proves the rule than anything. If you look at other plagues history they typically don't result in any large scale changes in society, just misery usually. Unfortunately (?) the data is a bit sparse here, as large scale deaths like this are a bit rare in history, so there really aren't that many plagues to study. But, I think my point still stands, the Renaissance was an outlier, not an expected result.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics_and_pandemic...
Nit-Pick:
The Renaissance is more of the exception that proves the rule than anything. If you look at other plagues history they typically don't result in any large scale changes in society, just misery usually. Unfortunately (?) the data is a bit sparse here, as large scale deaths like this are a bit rare in history, so there really aren't that many plagues to study. But, I think my point still stands, the Renaissance was an outlier, not an expected result.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics_and_pandemic...
True, that's the weakest of my points. But the rest is solid, I think.
High housing costs is a key factor.
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/31/nx-s1-5551108/housing-costs-b...
The Boomer generation has perpetuated and intensified restrictive zoning. The lack of new homes where well-payong jobs are located has caused housing prices to soar.
The Boomer generation has also led the de-growth movement. I guess they are going to get their way by making it too expensive for their grandkids to have children and cause the population to plummet.
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/31/nx-s1-5551108/housing-costs-b...
The Boomer generation has perpetuated and intensified restrictive zoning. The lack of new homes where well-payong jobs are located has caused housing prices to soar.
The Boomer generation has also led the de-growth movement. I guess they are going to get their way by making it too expensive for their grandkids to have children and cause the population to plummet.
I was born in a Third World country where people sometimes didn't have money to buy food, and yet they reproduced like rabbits. And this is over from what people tell me.
It is cultural. Having kids is low status in the modern world. And it fucking makes a lot of sense. I only like kids because I have kids, my wife wanted to have kids, and I was kind of forced into it. Now, I love having kids, but because I already have them.
It is cultural. Having kids is low status in the modern world. And it fucking makes a lot of sense. I only like kids because I have kids, my wife wanted to have kids, and I was kind of forced into it. Now, I love having kids, but because I already have them.
women have lower standards in the third world
Depends on what you call the third world. Eastern europe? Brasil? Argentina? Nigeria? it is not the same as Peru, Benin or Ethiopia.
Honestly, "third world" is a bad word. It comes from the cold war. A lot of countries we refer to as "third world" are really "second world" in this distinction.
I would say you have high birthrates despite low material growth in patriarchal countries, where men have more leverage over women. Whereas in countries struggling with birthrates, women have higher standards. For example, home ownership is a bottleneck. In the USA the supply of homes is artificially constrained by the older property-owning class to boost the value of their investment (but really it will result in a crash due to resulting population changes). In china, you have different shenanigans in the construction industry.
"Third world" immigrant groups have lower standards at first, but after they reach a certain material status in a "first world" country, they have the same birthrate trend as their native peers.
I would say you have high birthrates despite low material growth in patriarchal countries, where men have more leverage over women. Whereas in countries struggling with birthrates, women have higher standards. For example, home ownership is a bottleneck. In the USA the supply of homes is artificially constrained by the older property-owning class to boost the value of their investment (but really it will result in a crash due to resulting population changes). In china, you have different shenanigans in the construction industry.
"Third world" immigrant groups have lower standards at first, but after they reach a certain material status in a "first world" country, they have the same birthrate trend as their native peers.
Don't know. By government numbers, china has incredible home ownership numbers. And China is kind of patriarchal, for example, man having affairs is seen as a status marker and more or less socially accepted.
You cited an article about people in 2025 talking about whether or not they might have kids in the future.
This census investigation is talking about people under the age of 18, meaning it includes people who were conceived almost two decades ago.
Several states on the list also have significantly above average housing affordability (home price to income ratios) like West Virginia or Pennsylvania.
This census investigation is talking about people under the age of 18, meaning it includes people who were conceived almost two decades ago.
Several states on the list also have significantly above average housing affordability (home price to income ratios) like West Virginia or Pennsylvania.
The greatest generation may have been good at ridding the world of fascism, but not so good at raising responsible and civic-minded adults.
I don't understand why the Baby Boomers are the ones that get blamed for restrictive zoning. The oldest were in their early 30s and the youngest couldn't even vote during the peak of single family zoning activity in the 1970s
They voted to perpetuate it since then in the face of many proposals for more relaxed rules.
Being responsible for the peak of something and having the power to undo it but choosing to do nothing produce the same result.
By this logic, you'd also have to blame Gen X and Millenials, as they've all been voting for at least a decade (and together have outnumbered baby boomers for several) but single family zoning continues to persist
I, a Millenial with a very active voter record, increasingly do. What seems to be the problem? Perhaps I should point out that representatives still must bring issues to bear, and the age of the average representatives has only very recently dipped into even high Gen X territory. Regardless, if your goal is to spread a little bit of the recent blame around, by all means, don't let me stop you. We should do something about it.
So I guess it’s the desegregation advocates who are technically at fault? Like that’s when people started using sneaky tricks to maintain segregation. At least before that it was above board and didn’t distort all these other basically unrelated areas (like zoning, and school district “preferences”, etc).
Because they’re the ones who’ve been fighting to keep it. I don’t give a shit what happened in the 70s before I was born. I’ve been watching boomers fight for low density zoning since the 90s.
"If one has no stake in the capitalist system, then one may well turn against it."
One of the 'fun' areas on the net to hang out on is the 'baby-o-sphere' here where everyone is fretting about these demographic collapses. 'Fun' in the way the old net was, as everyone in this area would never talk with each other otherwise.
You get hardcore communists, evangelical christians, muslim scholars, boring census interpreters, etc. It's a whole lot of people out on the fringes of some bell curve that are all worried about this one little thing. I imagine climate change people were like this in the early days. It's a bit heartening as people who normally are enemies ideologically will share tips and news of studies. A little preview of a better future. And so a nicer place to hang out than the regular doomer internet.
Thing is with the 'baby-o-sphere', it's a lot like the plot of TNG's The Chase ( https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Chase_(episode)), in that, you know once the little key or recipe that is discovered that will reliably change birthrates, then everyone is going to scatter and start hating each other again. C'est la vie.
You get hardcore communists, evangelical christians, muslim scholars, boring census interpreters, etc. It's a whole lot of people out on the fringes of some bell curve that are all worried about this one little thing. I imagine climate change people were like this in the early days. It's a bit heartening as people who normally are enemies ideologically will share tips and news of studies. A little preview of a better future. And so a nicer place to hang out than the regular doomer internet.
Thing is with the 'baby-o-sphere', it's a lot like the plot of TNG's The Chase ( https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Chase_(episode)), in that, you know once the little key or recipe that is discovered that will reliably change birthrates, then everyone is going to scatter and start hating each other again. C'est la vie.
There's going to be an inflection point with more elderly than young population, then all the old folks are going to die, so what? All the fear mongering about societal collapse and the inevitable doom are just populist arguments because the underlying fear is to be replaced by young immigrants from poor countries.
no, if people have 1 kid per woman for generations, then the ratio between young and old will remain the same, we will just get less and less people overall.
Seeing that actually the number of kid per woman is not stable but actually dropping worldwide, the ratio between old and young will get even worse than it is today.
Seeing that actually the number of kid per woman is not stable but actually dropping worldwide, the ratio between old and young will get even worse than it is today.
I never got the argument that its too expensive so we can't have kids. Look at the most impoverished countries - they have much less money but have more kids and often strong senses of purpose and community.
All of it is societys perception, how we are being bought up as men and women, our actual purpose, and greed that has killed the desire for children.
All of it is societys perception, how we are being bought up as men and women, our actual purpose, and greed that has killed the desire for children.
Yes it is affordable if one raises their kids in an environment without running water or reliable electricity or healthcare. Those places have the highest infant mortality rates in the world and you can't compare their viability of child rearing to that of a first world.
On the other end, the wealthiest have high fertility as well. What have the middle classes concluded about their prospects with and without children?
Nobody can afford anything.
It makes no sense to have kids when you can't afford your own existence.
Tax the fucking rich.
It makes no sense to have kids when you can't afford your own existence.
Tax the fucking rich.
Some of the highest birth rates are in relatively quite poor countries. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/birth-rat...
We still have (for now, though even this is under threat) good access to contraception, good sexual education, relatively low child mortality rates, etc here in the US.
Comparing the affordability crisis for the middle class in the US to that of historically poor developing countries as it relates to birth rates is not a very good argument.
It might be somewhat comparable a decade or so from now if we keep letting wealth inequality run away at current rates, but it isn't right now.
Comparing the affordability crisis for the middle class in the US to that of historically poor developing countries as it relates to birth rates is not a very good argument.
It might be somewhat comparable a decade or so from now if we keep letting wealth inequality run away at current rates, but it isn't right now.
Quite poor countries can plop out an infant and literally do not worry of him ever again. So much for buying him stuff, education, care...
The reason is very simple, contraceptives.
Developing countries don’t care less about their infants, how can you think that?
Developing countries don’t care less about their infants, how can you think that?
Ask UNICEF if it's not a problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_children
Read the paragraph about causes maybe.
This phenomenon has many many causes, and does not represent any statistic on a parents caring for their kids. It is ludicrous you would think so. Please provide at least one study that shows some form of causality.
This phenomenon has many many causes, and does not represent any statistic on a parents caring for their kids. It is ludicrous you would think so. Please provide at least one study that shows some form of causality.
lots of developing countries have way stronger communities. in these places you can raise your kids in a more "free-range" style and nobody will give you shit about that.
agreed, they collectively care more, would be my view. In many neighborhoods in the US, people only care about themselves, no one else. They don’t even know their neighbors.
way easier to raise kids when you have a clan/family around, and they generally cost a lot less money/attention.
How did people afford existence in 1950 when they made 3x less?
> How did people afford existence in 1950 when they made 3x less?
Is this a serious question?
The average price of a home in 1950 was like $7,500 - $10,000.
The average price of a home in 2025 is like $410,000 - $530,000
Of all the (generally) rising numbers that factor into the US economy, wages is one of the major things that has risen the least since the 1950s, and especially so since 1980.
Is this a serious question?
The average price of a home in 1950 was like $7,500 - $10,000.
The average price of a home in 2025 is like $410,000 - $530,000
Of all the (generally) rising numbers that factor into the US economy, wages is one of the major things that has risen the least since the 1950s, and especially so since 1980.
Inflation, at minimum, needs to be factored into such calculations.
Just one data point to illustrate: in 1950, a bottle of Coca-Cola cost 5 cents.
Just one data point to illustrate: in 1950, a bottle of Coca-Cola cost 5 cents.
raising multiple kids when both parents work, you have no community to help, and you can't afford child care, is very, very, hard.
plus, parents care more what happen to their kids these days, which turns even more time consuming
plus, parents care more what happen to their kids these days, which turns even more time consuming
Bringing a child into this world would be utter madness.
More crazy than the Cold War? The World Wars? The great flu pandemic? The Chinese Civil Wars? The European Wars of Religion? The Black Death? The Mongol Invasions?
I can't think of a single year in human history when the world wasn't crazy (maybe with the exception of a couple years in the late 1990s)
I can't think of a single year in human history when the world wasn't crazy (maybe with the exception of a couple years in the late 1990s)
Every ancestor of yours since single cell organisms has reproduced. If they could all do it, you can to. Especially given that you live a more cushy life than 99.9999% of them.
To not be would be utter madness. For those who can and opt not to, they are perpetuating the tragedy of the commons.
We face the largest demographic crisis ever and we're passing the problem onto the young while draining them via taxation, whislt demanding ever increasing benefits in an all out land grab.
In 1950 the ratio of those paying into the system versus withdrawing was 15:1, were now at 2:1.
We face the largest demographic crisis ever and we're passing the problem onto the young while draining them via taxation, whislt demanding ever increasing benefits in an all out land grab.
In 1950 the ratio of those paying into the system versus withdrawing was 15:1, were now at 2:1.
The problem is the draining by taxation, not the absolute number of productive people.
It is far from evident what size of real productive population is needed to sustain a society. With modern tools it does feel like it could be in the realm of sub 10% of the population. This will get even more wild if the techno-optimists are correct.
Depending on how close we are to biophysical bounds trying to increase the population to the historically required productive ratios is just going to make living conditions worse for the average person.
It is far from evident what size of real productive population is needed to sustain a society. With modern tools it does feel like it could be in the realm of sub 10% of the population. This will get even more wild if the techno-optimists are correct.
Depending on how close we are to biophysical bounds trying to increase the population to the historically required productive ratios is just going to make living conditions worse for the average person.
Alright, so why are so many adults not having children, and what do you think should be done to address it?
I have my own ideas, but I'd love to hear your opinion.
I have my own ideas, but I'd love to hear your opinion.
There seems to be a fairly strong correlation between wealth and childlessness, so the obvious guess is that the world is getting wealthier. Exactly why that stops people having kids is a bit unclear to me though. Maybe being a parent is one of those things that is a harder sacrifice to make the more alternative comforts have to be given up.
This is not true. In the west, the wealthiest do have higher fertility.
https://ifstudies.org/blog/more-money-more-babies-whats-the-...
https://ifstudies.org/blog/more-money-more-babies-whats-the-...
It is true. That article doesn't really back up the idea that wealthy families have more children and in most of the graphs you can actually see fertility has dropped off with income. Eg, in Figure 1 it looks like the only demographic consistently meeting the replacement rate are low income women in certain cultural groups and a marginal number of wealthy migrants. It is obvious [0] that more wealth -> less children. The effect enormous.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
The topmost graph on Wikipedia is about GDP, and when it comes to children-per-village, you’re absolutely right. But down some is the J graph, which looks like the American graph in the link I posted.
Economics has a simple answer: public pensions are a classic tragedy of the commons. If the pension system didn't exist, then people would be incentivised to have more children to support them in old age, instead of a free rider problem where everyone relies on everyone else having children.
The demographic crisis of refusing to allow young people and families into the country? You want people to have kids so that we can keep America white?
Why not? It's not like every country in the world can rely on immigration and brain drain. Don't you think it is alarming that the country can't produce enough people to maintain a stable-state population and instead has to rely on a parasitic strategy?
Not intrinsically alarming, no. If I thought the country should be self-sufficient in isolation then there are many weak points I’d prioritize before birth rate.
90% of those crossing the border illegally are men. Watch any video on YouTube documenting illegal crossings and you'll see
Does that have something to do with what I said?
How does letting in millions of only men cause a sustainable population growth?
How does the set of people who arrive illegally overlap with the set of people that would come if we let them in legally, given that we can define the set that is allowed in legally?
America has a more liberal immigration policy than practically anywhere else on the planet, as evidenced by the massive change in demographics over a mere half century. You would like it to go faster?
Please go advocate for the Chinese to take immigrants from everywhere on earth at the same time, which they currently do not at all. Or do you not care about that for some reason?
Please go advocate for the Chinese to take immigrants from everywhere on earth at the same time, which they currently do not at all. Or do you not care about that for some reason?
The topic was “Americans must have babies because we need more young people”. There are plenty of young people who would move here but aren’t allowed in - would you like to disagree with that? Or address it in any way whatsoever?
Do you think there is any chance that the characteristics of human territories are determined in significant part by the natural tendencies of their inhabitants?
Do you think there is any chance that there is a diverse set of natural tendencies among humans, clustered by what sort of environmental filters those humans passed through? For example, surviving “trying to kill you” winter every year for thousands of years in a row with survivor man tier technology, where planning and tool design/making are critical, vs not?
I’m literally asking if you think there’s no chance, and if so, how do you know that? Was it scientifically proven? I’ve looked long and hard for that, and gosh I just couldn’t find where that ever happened.
If there is a chance, though, then we are gambling at (further) becoming Brazil in order to save the comfort of one single generation of old people. Yeah I think I’ll pass on that, thanks.
As for alternate solutions. We could allocate available resources based on how many descendants the old person produced. Why should we tolerate free riders and make the young produced by others pay for them? Let them be in old people dorms. Let them have insufficient medical care. It isn’t worth risking the quality of the country over, obviously. And if we use the scheme I mentioned, then they aren’t anybody’s grandparents, anyway. Who will fight for them?
The values you hold, the ones you are defending right now, are western values. Your type seems so sure that the newcomers can be brainwashed to think like we do. Good luck with that! Egalitarianism is not the norm historically or globally. It certainly isn’t the human default.
Do you think there is any chance that there is a diverse set of natural tendencies among humans, clustered by what sort of environmental filters those humans passed through? For example, surviving “trying to kill you” winter every year for thousands of years in a row with survivor man tier technology, where planning and tool design/making are critical, vs not?
I’m literally asking if you think there’s no chance, and if so, how do you know that? Was it scientifically proven? I’ve looked long and hard for that, and gosh I just couldn’t find where that ever happened.
If there is a chance, though, then we are gambling at (further) becoming Brazil in order to save the comfort of one single generation of old people. Yeah I think I’ll pass on that, thanks.
As for alternate solutions. We could allocate available resources based on how many descendants the old person produced. Why should we tolerate free riders and make the young produced by others pay for them? Let them be in old people dorms. Let them have insufficient medical care. It isn’t worth risking the quality of the country over, obviously. And if we use the scheme I mentioned, then they aren’t anybody’s grandparents, anyway. Who will fight for them?
The values you hold, the ones you are defending right now, are western values. Your type seems so sure that the newcomers can be brainwashed to think like we do. Good luck with that! Egalitarianism is not the norm historically or globally. It certainly isn’t the human default.
> Let them be in old people dorms. Let them have insufficient medical care
Thats certainly not a set of values I’d say is worth keeping. Neither is the “but white people are evolved to be better” crap.
Thats certainly not a set of values I’d say is worth keeping. Neither is the “but white people are evolved to be better” crap.
Ironically, your interpretation of what I said as “white people are… better” (which isn’t what I said, or what I meant) is itself deeply Eurocentric.
If we assume there are many, or even infinite, valid ways to structure a large human group, and the structuring of the large human group depends on the humans executing certain behaviors, then, unless we assume that all humans have completely identical natural instincts and behaviors, an assumption which has no basis in fact, then structures developed by a particular group may not be equally operable by another group, because the two groups may have differing instincts or behaviors. If particular behaviors are required to operate the large human group structure, then humans who have an easier or harder time performing these behaviors will tend to produce a version of the implemented structure with higher or lower fidelity with respect to its abstract design.
No structure of humans is “better” or “worse” than another structure. That is the Eurocentrism in your frame. The style of societal structure we live in is highly contingent. It was developed by Europeans. Can it be operated just as well by other groups? We don’t really know for sure, but the attempts we see around the world have had quite mixed results. That doesn’t mean those people are “bad people” or whatever, or “inferior”, it just means they may be better suited for a different sort of social structure than the one that was developed by our ancestors and people similar to them.
This issue is so highly moralized these days from childhood brainwashing (unintentional, I think) that people’s minds simply won’t go there in a calm and rational manner, absent substantial deprogramming (which is not a fun experience, let me tell you).
If we assume there are many, or even infinite, valid ways to structure a large human group, and the structuring of the large human group depends on the humans executing certain behaviors, then, unless we assume that all humans have completely identical natural instincts and behaviors, an assumption which has no basis in fact, then structures developed by a particular group may not be equally operable by another group, because the two groups may have differing instincts or behaviors. If particular behaviors are required to operate the large human group structure, then humans who have an easier or harder time performing these behaviors will tend to produce a version of the implemented structure with higher or lower fidelity with respect to its abstract design.
No structure of humans is “better” or “worse” than another structure. That is the Eurocentrism in your frame. The style of societal structure we live in is highly contingent. It was developed by Europeans. Can it be operated just as well by other groups? We don’t really know for sure, but the attempts we see around the world have had quite mixed results. That doesn’t mean those people are “bad people” or whatever, or “inferior”, it just means they may be better suited for a different sort of social structure than the one that was developed by our ancestors and people similar to them.
This issue is so highly moralized these days from childhood brainwashing (unintentional, I think) that people’s minds simply won’t go there in a calm and rational manner, absent substantial deprogramming (which is not a fun experience, let me tell you).
All the climate change problems, wars, pandemics and natural disasters won't devastate human simply because we been through all those and we recovered. But demographic collapse because of high living standard? It's uncharted territory here and I am really, really worry.