The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates(medium.com)
medium.com
The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates
https://medium.com/@hectorchu1/the-future-is-too-expensive-a-new-theory-of-why-people-arent-having-kids-c3eca581c491
225 comments
Worse: the costs are front-loaded and (all but) must come early-ish in your life.
The opportunity cost—the shadow, if you will, that the cost of children casts on your future retirement savings—is enormous. It’s way larger than the nominal cost. Big ouch.
The opportunity cost—the shadow, if you will, that the cost of children casts on your future retirement savings—is enormous. It’s way larger than the nominal cost. Big ouch.
Children used to be your retirement plan.
I feel like the costs are U-shaped.. 0-5 childcare, then 18-22 college right?
College is quite cheap in many, many parts of the world where birth rates are still quite low - specifically in most of Europe, but also in Japan, Korea, at least compared to the USA.
Yes but those places (esp Europe) have youth unemployment / underemployment problems so similar issue with the next generation taking longer to establish themselves financially stable
Sure, I was just pointing out that the costs of raising children are not U-shaped in those places, they are just front loaded. Even if young adults are financially dependent on their parents because of youth unemployment issues, they don't start costing their parents more when they're 18-20 than when they were, say, 12-14.
6-17, the time to actually raise them.
It ain't like just because the kid 7 you can leave them at home while both parents go to work.
It ain't like just because the kid 7 you can leave them at home while both parents go to work.
Right right, but purely mechanically in terms of number of hours in school / after school activities / clubs / sports.. you could most easily have two working parents during that age range.
> ‘most easily’
Seems like you may be underestimating how much work kids, even at elementary age, can be.
Seems like you may be underestimating how much work kids, even at elementary age, can be.
Many people tend to want to own their own place before having kids, then the mortgage costs mean they might only be able to afford to have one child. Each child means a parent stops working for at least few months, losing income. Housing costs are getting worse over time too in HCOL areas.
Kinda. I dunno, I had a job and went to a cheap college.
Also from a world where the ability of women to access decently paying jobs outside the home was heavily restricted to one approaching equality. Motherhood is one choice of many, with negative pay.
Right, the numbers can be a real mess / rich people problems if you have two relatively high paying earners in a household.
My parents baby boomer generation maybe the wife was college educated and worked, but the pay wasn't necessarily great AND the cost of childcare wasn't as insane as it is today.
In many HCOL/VHCOL areas, people tend to not live near parents anymore so they lose free childcare, and then between tax & number of kids in childcare.. very well paying 6 figure jobs are basically just treading water for 5-10 years.
It leaves families with a a hard choice of heaving the lower paid spouse leave the workforce which helps kids and in short term makes economic sense, but ruins future savings for college/retirement prospects as its hard to re-enter the workplace after 5-10 years.
My own mother was in nursing, left workforce for ~20 years and returned working a retail job. My mother in law educated in accounting left the workplace for similar length of time and returned to nonprofit work.
Both of them had degrees that didn't cost 1/10th of what it does today so it wasn't as bad as it sounds. By comparison my wife's student loans weren't fully paid off until we were 35.
My parents baby boomer generation maybe the wife was college educated and worked, but the pay wasn't necessarily great AND the cost of childcare wasn't as insane as it is today.
In many HCOL/VHCOL areas, people tend to not live near parents anymore so they lose free childcare, and then between tax & number of kids in childcare.. very well paying 6 figure jobs are basically just treading water for 5-10 years.
It leaves families with a a hard choice of heaving the lower paid spouse leave the workforce which helps kids and in short term makes economic sense, but ruins future savings for college/retirement prospects as its hard to re-enter the workplace after 5-10 years.
My own mother was in nursing, left workforce for ~20 years and returned working a retail job. My mother in law educated in accounting left the workplace for similar length of time and returned to nonprofit work.
Both of them had degrees that didn't cost 1/10th of what it does today so it wasn't as bad as it sounds. By comparison my wife's student loans weren't fully paid off until we were 35.
Spot on, but this in particular
> people tend to not live near parents anymore so they lose free childcare
For some reason I don't see this mentioned as often, but I've always felt it a significant root cause (among many of course).
Childcare is really expensive, but it used to be "free". I grew up with grandparents/aunts/uncles/older cousins available to baby sit me. But now very much of my cohort have moved away from our home region for better jobs. My nearest family is a 4 hour drive away.
Combine this with a strong individuality streak (less reliance on neighbors and community) and you have to turn to very expensive childcare.
Raising children without that support is very daunting, at least to me.
> people tend to not live near parents anymore so they lose free childcare
For some reason I don't see this mentioned as often, but I've always felt it a significant root cause (among many of course).
Childcare is really expensive, but it used to be "free". I grew up with grandparents/aunts/uncles/older cousins available to baby sit me. But now very much of my cohort have moved away from our home region for better jobs. My nearest family is a 4 hour drive away.
Combine this with a strong individuality streak (less reliance on neighbors and community) and you have to turn to very expensive childcare.
Raising children without that support is very daunting, at least to me.
It fits with everything in the rich world, especially the west, especially the US which is - replacing family/community/social/etc systems with pay-as-you-go solutions. And this is one of many areas it falls apart.
One of the major unspoken costs of having hotbeds of industry and the opportunity cost associated for not being in those hotbeds. Hotbeds are great for the entrepreneur but it still costs a hell of a lot in other ways that would otherwise enrich society.
> We are still grappling with how you incentivize and promote parenthood when the future costs of each child are 6 figues.
Six figures? False because poor people have been having children forever and continue too.
Six figures? False because poor people have been having children forever and continue too.
Two points:
1. In rich countries (like the US, where I live), some of the cost of children is subsidized for poor people.
2. Middle class parents are very unlikely to raise their children at the same cost as poor parents. If they can afford better things for their kids, they will. There is enormous social (even moral) pressure on parents to make sacrifices for their kids.
Note that I think both of these things are good things. But the upshot is that, in pure economic terms, the short term cost of kids for society and for parents is high. Long term, they are a great investment, but even this is more true for society at large than for parents directly.
But if parents were only thinking about children in pure economic terms, birth rates would be even lower than they are. There are other really good reasons to have kids. But I think a lot of young people don't see or hear about that, or don't believe parents when they say it.
There was a great article from Cartoons Hate Her[0] where she made the point that one thing you can do to increase the odds your children will want to have children is to "make parenting look fun". The way I would say this is that you want to make sure kids aren't only aware of the not-fun parts (when their parents are mad and frustrated, it's obvious), but also the times when you're really enjoying having them around.
I think this applies at the society level too. Parenting does suck, but it's also awesome. We don't need to lie about the sucky parts, but we should make sure that's not all we're showing young people.
0: https://www.cartoonshateher.com/p/how-to-have-grandchildren
1. In rich countries (like the US, where I live), some of the cost of children is subsidized for poor people.
2. Middle class parents are very unlikely to raise their children at the same cost as poor parents. If they can afford better things for their kids, they will. There is enormous social (even moral) pressure on parents to make sacrifices for their kids.
Note that I think both of these things are good things. But the upshot is that, in pure economic terms, the short term cost of kids for society and for parents is high. Long term, they are a great investment, but even this is more true for society at large than for parents directly.
But if parents were only thinking about children in pure economic terms, birth rates would be even lower than they are. There are other really good reasons to have kids. But I think a lot of young people don't see or hear about that, or don't believe parents when they say it.
There was a great article from Cartoons Hate Her[0] where she made the point that one thing you can do to increase the odds your children will want to have children is to "make parenting look fun". The way I would say this is that you want to make sure kids aren't only aware of the not-fun parts (when their parents are mad and frustrated, it's obvious), but also the times when you're really enjoying having them around.
I think this applies at the society level too. Parenting does suck, but it's also awesome. We don't need to lie about the sucky parts, but we should make sure that's not all we're showing young people.
0: https://www.cartoonshateher.com/p/how-to-have-grandchildren
My two cents as someone that had his only child past the age of 40:
More than low birth rates, I think that the problem is that people are postponing children until the last possible moment biology allows for it.
The reason is that people need to have their life in order before having children. I imagine it was easier in the past than nowadays.
You have Children and need to work? Daycare is extremely expensive. Want to buy a house? Well, Children weights against you when trying to get a mortgage. And I am not even getting into the actual costs of raising a child.
People say that low birthrates are a problem, but while raising children is a personal endeavor, nobody is willing to make a collective problem (it is fairly unpopular to direct taxpayer money to pay for it).
More than low birth rates, I think that the problem is that people are postponing children until the last possible moment biology allows for it.
The reason is that people need to have their life in order before having children. I imagine it was easier in the past than nowadays.
You have Children and need to work? Daycare is extremely expensive. Want to buy a house? Well, Children weights against you when trying to get a mortgage. And I am not even getting into the actual costs of raising a child.
People say that low birthrates are a problem, but while raising children is a personal endeavor, nobody is willing to make a collective problem (it is fairly unpopular to direct taxpayer money to pay for it).
I wouldn't say "more than", I would just say that these are both different problems, with different impacts. I don't think it's obvious which thing is a bigger problem. But yes, I agree that the root causes are likely similar.
Yes, I think the costs/inconveniences/stress of parenting is much more obvious to young working age people than the benefits/fun are.
Children are an asset for net tax-recipients, but a liability for net tax-payers. I grew up in a very poor area and heard firsthand teenage girls excited over how much welfare money they can receive for babies. It's an inversion of the natural order. It's state-manipulated breeding incentives between different classes of people. It's literally eugenics.
Children are a massive asset for tax-payers. Money is a claim on the production of a country. Without that production, money is just a useless piece of paper or useless entry in a bank database. And for a country to produce, it needs people of working age.
More concretely, let's suppose you're 92 and you need full time nursing care. You still have retirements savings so should be able to pay for it. Now let's say there are more people needing nursing than there are nurses. What happens to the cost of that nursing? It goes up until some cannot afford to pay and demand balances supply.
Without a working age population, your retirement assets will be inflated away into worthlessness.
More concretely, let's suppose you're 92 and you need full time nursing care. You still have retirements savings so should be able to pay for it. Now let's say there are more people needing nursing than there are nurses. What happens to the cost of that nursing? It goes up until some cannot afford to pay and demand balances supply.
Without a working age population, your retirement assets will be inflated away into worthlessness.
Nobody thinks like this. Not a single intelligent, successful, prosperous woman is going to be even slightly motivated to have a baby over the long-term viability and credibility of fiat currency, whereas I personally know of two people who only exist because their welfare-dependent mother impulsively took advantage of a government cash bonus by getting knocked up by a man she barely knew, and then promptly did so again with a different one.
We're not asking mothers to think like this. We're asking legislators to think like this.
The time horizon is too long and the gains too far into the future for legislators to care. It’s short termism all the way down.
> Now let's say there are more people needing nursing than there are nurses. What happens to the cost of that nursing?
The cost does not change. This situation that you describe is already present a many countries who have an acute nurse shortage. The gap as always is filled by immigrants from the global south.
The cost does not change. This situation that you describe is already present a many countries who have an acute nurse shortage. The gap as always is filled by immigrants from the global south.
Yes at a society level, but individual parents bare the costs.
So far rich world governments and individuals haven't found an optimal incentive/cost share ...
So far rich world governments and individuals haven't found an optimal incentive/cost share ...
It's all relative to your own status.
Everyone wants their kids to do better than they did. But, if you are poor enough in a rich country, you have lower absolute aspirations for your own children / you probably get child related government benefits that approach your costs / etc.
If you went to college and want your kids to do the same.. the costs are enormous.
Everyone wants their kids to do better than they did. But, if you are poor enough in a rich country, you have lower absolute aspirations for your own children / you probably get child related government benefits that approach your costs / etc.
If you went to college and want your kids to do the same.. the costs are enormous.
I don't think it's that and it's more about how conscious a decision it is nowadays. It's not the future - it's the attitude towards it.
Teen pregnancies are at an all time low everywhere in the developed world and it's not just thanks to the availability of contraception, but also a generational shift in attitudes towards risk taking.
Overall people are having children later and therefore fewer because they feel that they need to be more established in life first - the larger the city, the stronger this sentiment.
I have children myself so I had plenty of conversations about people's decisions in this regard and the majority of those I spoke with who don't have children see it as some kind of grand undertaking that either requires more preparation (indefinitely) or is just too much to bear.
Meanwhile my parents' generation would essentially yolo people into this world, sometimes by accident.
We've become too cautious for our own good.
Teen pregnancies are at an all time low everywhere in the developed world and it's not just thanks to the availability of contraception, but also a generational shift in attitudes towards risk taking.
Overall people are having children later and therefore fewer because they feel that they need to be more established in life first - the larger the city, the stronger this sentiment.
I have children myself so I had plenty of conversations about people's decisions in this regard and the majority of those I spoke with who don't have children see it as some kind of grand undertaking that either requires more preparation (indefinitely) or is just too much to bear.
Meanwhile my parents' generation would essentially yolo people into this world, sometimes by accident.
We've become too cautious for our own good.
> Teen pregnancies are at an all time low everywhere in the developed world and it's not just thanks to the availability of contraception, but also a generational shift in attitudes towards risk taking.
Yes - and this was a policy objective! People hated teenage pregnancy. Religious organisations condemned it from the pulpit. The Catholic Church in Ireland had a little gulag for teenage mothers: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/03/mass-grave-of-...
We (the West, generally) have successfully put the fear of god (including metaphorically, for atheists) into people that they MUST NOT HAVE CHILDREN THEY CANNOT SUPPORT. We have provided them with means for not having children. Now everyone is surprised?
Yes - and this was a policy objective! People hated teenage pregnancy. Religious organisations condemned it from the pulpit. The Catholic Church in Ireland had a little gulag for teenage mothers: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/03/mass-grave-of-...
We (the West, generally) have successfully put the fear of god (including metaphorically, for atheists) into people that they MUST NOT HAVE CHILDREN THEY CANNOT SUPPORT. We have provided them with means for not having children. Now everyone is surprised?
Yeah it is absolutely baffling to me that the discussion of teen pregnancy never seems to come up in these "oh no birth rates are down" discussions. Like, you told us that a substantial portion of these births were bad for society (and I generally agree) and now you are freaking out that the number of births went down?
Most people aren’t aware - especially in educated UMC circles like this one - how much the birth rate relied on teenage moms.
The birthrate for educated folks has been below replacement for a long time. Teenage moms probably aren’t in their mind cause they were raised among other UMC folks and it just doesn’t happen there. The US has been below replacement overall for even longer. We’ve relied on immigration for 50+ years.
Most of these discussions talk about cost of living and so forth - which are good metrics but the biggest influence of whether people have kids is if they’re getting into relationships. As any country has more women getting online, the birth rate plummets. It’s another factor we don’t talk about in these discussions. Social media has a huge effect on getting into relationships - and therefore having children.
The birthrate for educated folks has been below replacement for a long time. Teenage moms probably aren’t in their mind cause they were raised among other UMC folks and it just doesn’t happen there. The US has been below replacement overall for even longer. We’ve relied on immigration for 50+ years.
Most of these discussions talk about cost of living and so forth - which are good metrics but the biggest influence of whether people have kids is if they’re getting into relationships. As any country has more women getting online, the birth rate plummets. It’s another factor we don’t talk about in these discussions. Social media has a huge effect on getting into relationships - and therefore having children.
~40% of annual pregnancies in the US and internationally are unintended (per the Guttmacher Institute and the UN, respectively). When women can prevent unintended pregnancy, of course total fertility rate will decline to a neutral rate below replacement rate. The population exploded because women were not empowered, and now they are. Economic systems built around this anomaly in human history are structurally flawed, and will need to adapt.
Kids incur exceptional opportunity and real costs, and are unnecessary for a fulfilling life, so this outcome should not be surprising.
Kids incur exceptional opportunity and real costs, and are unnecessary for a fulfilling life, so this outcome should not be surprising.
> Kids (…) are unnecessary for a fulfilling life, so this outcome should not be surprising.
Unnecessary in a material existential sense, perhaps, when one exludes a systemic need to take care of the elderly. One could argue, however, that the responsibility when taking care of kids are one of the few means to live and grow as a human being.
Unnecessary in a material existential sense, perhaps, when one exludes a systemic need to take care of the elderly. One could argue, however, that the responsibility when taking care of kids are one of the few means to live and grow as a human being.
Adopt. There are ~400k kids in foster care in the US alone, half of which are adoptable. There are plenty of humans already existing who need care.
This ignores the level of issues that most kids in foster care are suffering. People want a healthy child to start with. Most children in foster care are deeply afflicted and have deep traumas that will never be resolved by any new parental figure.
Humans are selfish, broadly speaking, there is no solution for that.
>> but the biggest influence of whether people have kids is if they’re getting into relationships.
cue the discussion about the dating crisis... A lot of people are having a hard time forming relationships for various reasons.
cue the discussion about the dating crisis... A lot of people are having a hard time forming relationships for various reasons.
Where can I find information on how much of the birthrate decline is due to unwed teenage mothers?
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2023/...
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/02/why-is-th...
https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2014/09/what-behind-declines-...
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr104.pdf
Teen marriage rates (15-17) are alread exceptionally low. One would expect as laws are enacted at the state level to raise the minimum marriage age to 18, these declines should continue.
https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(21)00341-4/full...
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/11/01/child-mar...
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/02/why-is-th...
https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2014/09/what-behind-declines-...
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr104.pdf
Teen marriage rates (15-17) are alread exceptionally low. One would expect as laws are enacted at the state level to raise the minimum marriage age to 18, these declines should continue.
https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(21)00341-4/full...
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/11/01/child-mar...
I don't dispute that the teen birth rate is much lower now. I'm trying to estimate out the counterfactual "what would the US birth rate be if teen pregnancy was (say) the same as 2 decades ago" ? Currently it's 1.66.
But the back-of-napkin math is hard for me to figure out from the given "births per 1,000" women per different age group.
But the back-of-napkin math is hard for me to figure out from the given "births per 1,000" women per different age group.
I disagree with you.
It is good to be cautious when thinking about having kids.
Having a child is not like picking up a new hobby that you can give up the next month because you got bored of it, it's taking on the responsibility for another human being for the next 20 years.
This is a very important decision that will change your life and should not be taken it lightly. The fact that the previous generation were "yoloing" is not a great argument. The previous generations used to drink a drive a lot more too, should we go back to that as well?
It is good to be cautious when thinking about having kids.
Having a child is not like picking up a new hobby that you can give up the next month because you got bored of it, it's taking on the responsibility for another human being for the next 20 years.
This is a very important decision that will change your life and should not be taken it lightly. The fact that the previous generation were "yoloing" is not a great argument. The previous generations used to drink a drive a lot more too, should we go back to that as well?
I'm not arguing that.
But it never occur to me that e.g. being a homeowner should be a prerequisite. My parents weren't and neither most everyone else's in my generation. I was still renting when my first child was born.
Also to me people give undue importance to things like climbing the corporate ladder. Most don't get far enough for the pay to finally match the responsibility, as there's simply too few positions to take and competition is fierce.
I don't think I can name a single person in my extended social circle who either is or reports directly to a C-level who got there without already being promoted once or twice in their twenties. If it didn't happen by the time a person is around 30, there's going to be someone younger and snappier vying for the same role.
But it never occur to me that e.g. being a homeowner should be a prerequisite. My parents weren't and neither most everyone else's in my generation. I was still renting when my first child was born.
Also to me people give undue importance to things like climbing the corporate ladder. Most don't get far enough for the pay to finally match the responsibility, as there's simply too few positions to take and competition is fierce.
I don't think I can name a single person in my extended social circle who either is or reports directly to a C-level who got there without already being promoted once or twice in their twenties. If it didn't happen by the time a person is around 30, there's going to be someone younger and snappier vying for the same role.
> I'm not arguing that.
> Meanwhile my parents' generation would essentially yolo people into this world, sometimes by accident. We've become too cautious for our own good.
But you are arguing that.
> But it never occur to me that e.g. being a homeowner should be a prerequisite. My parents weren't and neither most everyone else's in my generation. I was still renting when my first child was born.
I was not talking about homeownership, I was talking about making a rational decision to have a child or more as in weighing the pros an cons.
People these days want what is best for their kids. So they take their time, they think about it and eventually delay or abandon the idea altogether if they are not sure that this is the right one. It's that simple.
It's well and good to YOLO people into this world if you have an amazing job and low chance of being made redundant but if your situation looks even a tiny bit precarious then you are going to think a lot about it because that is the rational way of doing things.
> Meanwhile my parents' generation would essentially yolo people into this world, sometimes by accident. We've become too cautious for our own good.
But you are arguing that.
> But it never occur to me that e.g. being a homeowner should be a prerequisite. My parents weren't and neither most everyone else's in my generation. I was still renting when my first child was born.
I was not talking about homeownership, I was talking about making a rational decision to have a child or more as in weighing the pros an cons.
People these days want what is best for their kids. So they take their time, they think about it and eventually delay or abandon the idea altogether if they are not sure that this is the right one. It's that simple.
It's well and good to YOLO people into this world if you have an amazing job and low chance of being made redundant but if your situation looks even a tiny bit precarious then you are going to think a lot about it because that is the rational way of doing things.
> We've become too cautious for our own good.
Depends on what you expect for the future. A lot of those children have a hard time thinking of what kind of job they'll be able to do. Most of them seem to land on "influencer" or something.
I know it is contentious, but there is a very real chance that a large part of humanity will cease to be able to add significant (economic) value in the somewhat near future. You may not believe that, but if it is true then adding to that number of people is not a good thing.
More humans != more better.
Depends on what you expect for the future. A lot of those children have a hard time thinking of what kind of job they'll be able to do. Most of them seem to land on "influencer" or something.
I know it is contentious, but there is a very real chance that a large part of humanity will cease to be able to add significant (economic) value in the somewhat near future. You may not believe that, but if it is true then adding to that number of people is not a good thing.
More humans != more better.
> a large part of humanity will cease to be able to add significant (economic) value
Which, of course, is our "special purpose" in life.
Why would people even exist if they weren't going to contribute to shareholder value?
I completely agree that more people is not good, but for completely different reasons: there are WAY too many already.
Our primate species has so overpopulated the planet that every single "environmental service" (to put this in the money = purpose in life perspective) is massively over burdened.
My personal opinion is that there is no such thing as "purpose in life", we just grew from the mud here. But I think there is a general awareness among people with some exposure to the state of the planet that we're trashing the place, and that's mostly due to there being way too many humans.
Even if a person can't put their finger on it, there is a general feeling that the future holds a dubious opportunity to flourish.
Therefore less kids.
I also believe that raising a child takes a lot of time and effort, and modern first world youth just aren't interested in spending that much time away from their phones.
Which, of course, is our "special purpose" in life.
Why would people even exist if they weren't going to contribute to shareholder value?
I completely agree that more people is not good, but for completely different reasons: there are WAY too many already.
Our primate species has so overpopulated the planet that every single "environmental service" (to put this in the money = purpose in life perspective) is massively over burdened.
My personal opinion is that there is no such thing as "purpose in life", we just grew from the mud here. But I think there is a general awareness among people with some exposure to the state of the planet that we're trashing the place, and that's mostly due to there being way too many humans.
Even if a person can't put their finger on it, there is a general feeling that the future holds a dubious opportunity to flourish.
Therefore less kids.
I also believe that raising a child takes a lot of time and effort, and modern first world youth just aren't interested in spending that much time away from their phones.
> Which, of course, is our "special purpose" in life.
I didn't say that. But the reality is that people who add no economic value are a problem for our societies as they are structured today.
But yes, overpopulation is also an issue with regard to pressure on the environment.
Something to think about instead of more or fewer humans is: what would be the ideal number of humans (at various points in the future)? It strays into eugenics pretty quickly, but it does force you to think about the fundamental elements such as ethics when dealing with these matters.
I didn't say that. But the reality is that people who add no economic value are a problem for our societies as they are structured today.
But yes, overpopulation is also an issue with regard to pressure on the environment.
Something to think about instead of more or fewer humans is: what would be the ideal number of humans (at various points in the future)? It strays into eugenics pretty quickly, but it does force you to think about the fundamental elements such as ethics when dealing with these matters.
Thanks for replying. Sorry, I ended up typing a small chapter 8-/
> people who add no economic value are a problem for our societies as they are structured today.
There's no denying that, I think it's a pretty balanced statement, but a lot of people would point the finger at "as they are structured today".
The fact is, tech advances have been disrupting established social patterns of providing "economic value" from the beginning. And while the Luddites might be pointed to as an example that the world marches on, they actually do serve as a very good example of how the world marches on, with ownership reaping a bigger piece of the economic pie, and labor reaping less.
Working people have been increasingly disadvantaged by tech advances in pretty much every single case, from the beginning of tech advances.
Inequality is on a scale with all time record highs at this point, and tech is being applied to fields never approached before.
So, it's also reality that fewer and fewer people are needed to operate society.
There are already too many people, and fewer and fewer are able to provide "economic value" (the statement of which is silent on who receives that economic value, because it's assumed that it's not value until it's received by ownership. This is just by definition).
One natural consequence we're seeing of this, is that fewer people want to have kids.
Everyone should be happy about this. It means the economic value can be spread more densely while leaving fewer people lacking, and we obtain a greater ability to continue generating economic value into the future. Because the "trashing the planet" consequences are not a joke, even though the owners of the world's largest wealth are treating them that way.
We don't need eugenics, all we have to do is facilitate the already existing population declines, which again, is the opposite of what ownership is trying to do. It's all a panic because the ponzi scheme is going to implode.
1 billion people on the planet would be plenty... Why is that so hard to believe? Why is that so impossible to accomplish?
For all the brilliant advances and innovation that the world's wealth holders are supposed to be "creating", to me they seem pretty cluelessly unable to grasp even the basic facts in front of them and chart a path forward...
> people who add no economic value are a problem for our societies as they are structured today.
There's no denying that, I think it's a pretty balanced statement, but a lot of people would point the finger at "as they are structured today".
The fact is, tech advances have been disrupting established social patterns of providing "economic value" from the beginning. And while the Luddites might be pointed to as an example that the world marches on, they actually do serve as a very good example of how the world marches on, with ownership reaping a bigger piece of the economic pie, and labor reaping less.
Working people have been increasingly disadvantaged by tech advances in pretty much every single case, from the beginning of tech advances.
Inequality is on a scale with all time record highs at this point, and tech is being applied to fields never approached before.
So, it's also reality that fewer and fewer people are needed to operate society.
There are already too many people, and fewer and fewer are able to provide "economic value" (the statement of which is silent on who receives that economic value, because it's assumed that it's not value until it's received by ownership. This is just by definition).
One natural consequence we're seeing of this, is that fewer people want to have kids.
Everyone should be happy about this. It means the economic value can be spread more densely while leaving fewer people lacking, and we obtain a greater ability to continue generating economic value into the future. Because the "trashing the planet" consequences are not a joke, even though the owners of the world's largest wealth are treating them that way.
We don't need eugenics, all we have to do is facilitate the already existing population declines, which again, is the opposite of what ownership is trying to do. It's all a panic because the ponzi scheme is going to implode.
1 billion people on the planet would be plenty... Why is that so hard to believe? Why is that so impossible to accomplish?
For all the brilliant advances and innovation that the world's wealth holders are supposed to be "creating", to me they seem pretty cluelessly unable to grasp even the basic facts in front of them and chart a path forward...
Could it be perhaps that they need to be established first and feel like talking less risks because the future feels uncertain like the essay suggests? “People don’t want to take risks” seems like half an answer and isn’t finding root cause. When things feel crazy, people control what they can, establish routines, and perhaps take less risks.
Just the other day my wife and I were marveling that people in our neighborhood groups are requiring pet sitters to be insured and bonded.
The future has always been uncertain. The modern world focusses on risk mitigation to an astonishing degree compared to generations even in the relatively recent past. A lot of that has produced good results. But personally I suspect that we're overly focussed on safety to a degree that inhibits human flourishing.
The future has always been uncertain. The modern world focusses on risk mitigation to an astonishing degree compared to generations even in the relatively recent past. A lot of that has produced good results. But personally I suspect that we're overly focussed on safety to a degree that inhibits human flourishing.
Just saying people need to chill out there has always been risk isn't really going to cause that to happen as there's no information there really. It's still useful to look at the reasons for the perception of increased risk if that's the right thing to focus on at all.
All these wild theories are complicating a simple issue. People arent having kids because they dont want kids. For some people maybe they need to see a psychotherapist like your comment almost implies, but for many others they just think kids would make their own lives worse in a way that past generations did not.
I think that the various studies on this subject do not take into account a simple explanation. Choice.
Women choose to no longer have children or to have a very limited amount of children because they don't see the point in it anymore.
Women who have kids lose the best years of their life and then on top of that have trouble getting back into the workforce once they are done raising the kids.
From their point of view, it means an overall loss of income and some may have to restart their careers from scratch because no employer wants to hire someone with a 5/10 year gap on their resume.
According to this study https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/03/almost-1-..., only 18% of stay at home parents are dads, which means that in 80% of the cases, it's the woman who has to sacrifice their career to raise the kids.
If I put myself in the shoes of young ambitious woman today, would I give up my dreams of climbing the corporate ladder/opening my own business/traveling the world in order to have kids or would I delay/ opt out of motherhood?
As a guy I don't even have to ask myself this question, but a woman will and as we can see from all these studies, they have decided that it is not worth it.
Women choose to no longer have children or to have a very limited amount of children because they don't see the point in it anymore.
Women who have kids lose the best years of their life and then on top of that have trouble getting back into the workforce once they are done raising the kids.
From their point of view, it means an overall loss of income and some may have to restart their careers from scratch because no employer wants to hire someone with a 5/10 year gap on their resume.
According to this study https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/03/almost-1-..., only 18% of stay at home parents are dads, which means that in 80% of the cases, it's the woman who has to sacrifice their career to raise the kids.
If I put myself in the shoes of young ambitious woman today, would I give up my dreams of climbing the corporate ladder/opening my own business/traveling the world in order to have kids or would I delay/ opt out of motherhood?
As a guy I don't even have to ask myself this question, but a woman will and as we can see from all these studies, they have decided that it is not worth it.
"On a farm, a child is an investment. In a city, it's a liability".
In the past few decades, we have globally seen a massive shift towards living in a city. Even in times of war and pestilence, people needed extra hands on the farm. But when living in a city, children are just an extra burden on your time and budget. I feel articles like this are over-analyzing the issue.
In the past few decades, we have globally seen a massive shift towards living in a city. Even in times of war and pestilence, people needed extra hands on the farm. But when living in a city, children are just an extra burden on your time and budget. I feel articles like this are over-analyzing the issue.
This post argues that collapsing birth rates aren’t just about housing or money — they’re a rational response to the sense that the future is unstable, meaningless, or even dangerous. It introduces the concept of “temporal inflation” — the idea that just like money loses value in hyperinflation, time loses value when people can’t trust the future. Would love to hear if this resonates with others.
> Yes, kids are expensive. But countries like Korea and Singapore are pouring money into incentives and still seeing fertility drop to record lows.
This is what you're missing. They are not.
When the Titanic hit the iceberg, you could have gone from 0 people bailing water on the ship with buckets to the whole complement of crew and passengers (if you had enough buckets). You could talk about how there's now thousands of gallons of water being bailed out of the ship per minute. Without the context of the actual cause it would sure sound like a lot of water, like a meaningful attempt. But the Titanic would still sink.
In the last 100 years, we went requiring 1 income to support a household to 2 incomes to support a household. Everyone acted rationally, but its a very large scale prisoner's dilemma. Women wanted economic freedom and the economy was happy for more labor. There was no accounting for the labor women had already been doing. And so dual income households, at every level, pushed up the prices of everything that can't come out of factory in China. Even at the scale of ~300k individual incomes, a second person bringing in 100k-200k makes a noticeable difference, right? So for 99% of the population, dual income for some # of years, just til we buy our first house, just need a new car, well you get used to the standard of living dual income provides... and houses are more expensive now... jobs less secure... and you'd have to see online what you'd be missing out on...
Well, we took the "slack" out of the system and sold it. Without really being aware of its value.
And now governments, like those of Korea and Singapore, are trying to buy it back, but they haven't _really_ grappled with the scale of debt that was incurred, because it wasn't on any balance sheet.
This is what you're missing. They are not.
When the Titanic hit the iceberg, you could have gone from 0 people bailing water on the ship with buckets to the whole complement of crew and passengers (if you had enough buckets). You could talk about how there's now thousands of gallons of water being bailed out of the ship per minute. Without the context of the actual cause it would sure sound like a lot of water, like a meaningful attempt. But the Titanic would still sink.
In the last 100 years, we went requiring 1 income to support a household to 2 incomes to support a household. Everyone acted rationally, but its a very large scale prisoner's dilemma. Women wanted economic freedom and the economy was happy for more labor. There was no accounting for the labor women had already been doing. And so dual income households, at every level, pushed up the prices of everything that can't come out of factory in China. Even at the scale of ~300k individual incomes, a second person bringing in 100k-200k makes a noticeable difference, right? So for 99% of the population, dual income for some # of years, just til we buy our first house, just need a new car, well you get used to the standard of living dual income provides... and houses are more expensive now... jobs less secure... and you'd have to see online what you'd be missing out on...
Well, we took the "slack" out of the system and sold it. Without really being aware of its value.
And now governments, like those of Korea and Singapore, are trying to buy it back, but they haven't _really_ grappled with the scale of debt that was incurred, because it wasn't on any balance sheet.
Exactly. "Pouring money" is what, a one-time $2000 payment? How is that going to get anywhere near balancing what you've already described. Unfortunately most politicians seem very out of touch and are just there to keep the status quo.
In France, you get a couple hundred euros each month per child and I am there thinking, so what, that will barely cover the cost of the diapers.
The government is not going to give you more money to rent a bigger place or buy a bigger house so then you need to factor in those expenses as well not to mention the partial and sometime total loss of income of 1 adult for the first 2/3 years of the life of the child.
The math just doesnt work.
The government is not going to give you more money to rent a bigger place or buy a bigger house so then you need to factor in those expenses as well not to mention the partial and sometime total loss of income of 1 adult for the first 2/3 years of the life of the child.
The math just doesnt work.
> In France, you get a couple hundred euros each month per child
Starting with the second child. You don’t get anything for the first.
Starting with the second child. You don’t get anything for the first.
I think treating it as a rational process and looking at the reasons behind makes sense, as opposed to "attitudes", in the sense that attitudes and culture are shaped through some processes.
I think that in modern societies children are a bad investment, but not only for this reason. If anything, I think that fertility rates were going down even before uncertainty for the future was up. Another commenter talked about urbanisation, and that in an agricultural society children were an investment, while in an urban one a liability. Some efforts focus on reducing the cost of having children, via social benefits etc, but the core reasons behind making having children actually costly is rarely addressed.
I think that in modern societies children are a bad investment, but not only for this reason. If anything, I think that fertility rates were going down even before uncertainty for the future was up. Another commenter talked about urbanisation, and that in an agricultural society children were an investment, while in an urban one a liability. Some efforts focus on reducing the cost of having children, via social benefits etc, but the core reasons behind making having children actually costly is rarely addressed.
It's a way to frame the problem that will work well for some people, and I don't see any real downsides to it.
I might note the role of 24x7 News and the attention economy in temporal inflation - "We Are Doomed, Because _______" stories are great for audience- and profit-building, but they keep dialing up peoples' expectations of temporal inflation.
And "temporal inflation" is easily dumbed down to "their future looks sh*tty, to them" - which feels like it could get through, to at least a few of those who are skillfully and willfully oblivious to the causes of the problem. Hopefully. Maybe.
I might note the role of 24x7 News and the attention economy in temporal inflation - "We Are Doomed, Because _______" stories are great for audience- and profit-building, but they keep dialing up peoples' expectations of temporal inflation.
And "temporal inflation" is easily dumbed down to "their future looks sh*tty, to them" - which feels like it could get through, to at least a few of those who are skillfully and willfully oblivious to the causes of the problem. Hopefully. Maybe.
Is this AI generated?
Summary of original post written in ChatGPT style with no original substance… my guess is yes!
Yes, and it still gets replies. Maybe from other bots. Welcome to our dumb future.
Would be nice to clarify that you're the OP? If I'm right about your username.
I don't know. Did people do this in the midst of world war 2, for example?
Tough to say. It was difficult to have children in the middle of WW2 when all the men of appropriate age were fighting on the frontlines.
The results would also likely be skewed by Germany quasi-forcing people to have children in support of the party.
The results would also likely be skewed by Germany quasi-forcing people to have children in support of the party.
Look up birth rates in Syria for the past 10 years.
I am not sure. I was not alive during world war 2. I would think, though, that during world war 2 it was relatively easy to think that we just need to wait until the bad guys are defeated. Now the rise of dictatorships and populism makes me wonder whether humanity as a whole is not just too stupid to survive.
The war was likely to eventually end. The price of food will continue to increase exponentially, at some variable rate of inflation, forever.
Skilled professions were likely to remain useful after the war. AI makes their future value seem uncertain.
Skilled professions were likely to remain useful after the war. AI makes their future value seem uncertain.
[deleted]
Covered in TFA.
Like any single-cause explanations of the fertility collapse, it's fairly easy to poke holes in it. Usually, you just name countries as a counter-argument.
For example, North Korea. Better life now than in the 90s, lower fertility.
What hope for the future was there in the 1930s Ukraine, in the middle of an artificial famine that killed millions? Higher fertility than mid-2010s Ukraine (nowadays you can blame the war for an additional drop).
Eritrea and Ethiopia are right next door to each other, they have high birth rates dropping completely in lock-step, despite Eritrea being essentially shut off from the outside world in terms of disruptive tech - no Internet for most, no social media or whatever other bogey man you can come up with and blame for "disrupting the culture".
Countries that are essentially ignoring climate change have falling birth rates too, as do countries where people aren't into Western-style contemplative existential dread.
I haven't come up with an alternative answer, mind you. So far, I've just been noting how easy it is to poke holes in all available single-cause explanations.
For example, North Korea. Better life now than in the 90s, lower fertility.
What hope for the future was there in the 1930s Ukraine, in the middle of an artificial famine that killed millions? Higher fertility than mid-2010s Ukraine (nowadays you can blame the war for an additional drop).
Eritrea and Ethiopia are right next door to each other, they have high birth rates dropping completely in lock-step, despite Eritrea being essentially shut off from the outside world in terms of disruptive tech - no Internet for most, no social media or whatever other bogey man you can come up with and blame for "disrupting the culture".
Countries that are essentially ignoring climate change have falling birth rates too, as do countries where people aren't into Western-style contemplative existential dread.
I haven't come up with an alternative answer, mind you. So far, I've just been noting how easy it is to poke holes in all available single-cause explanations.
The usual one is "availability of contraception and related education for women". I don't think even the fundamentalist states have chosen to and managed to reverse that. Least feminist most collapsed country Afghanistan is still falling: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/AFG/afg...
We still don't know what a "modern depopulated country" might look like, that is a whole country where the population is more than 10% below its peak level by natural decline. It's visible in some areas and cities, but not the whole country level.
We still don't know what a "modern depopulated country" might look like, that is a whole country where the population is more than 10% below its peak level by natural decline. It's visible in some areas and cities, but not the whole country level.
Plausible. But what about sub-Saharan Africa? Do they not have access to birth control? (Or are they falling too, just started later?)
Much less so, it's extremely poor and more likely to be starvation or war limited. But even there it's going down.
A candidate might be "exposure to estrogenoids". But I'm not sure how that plays with North Korea or Afghanistan.
Its pretty related to the other article that was posted here yesterday (?) about the american dream.
I dont think its the perception of the future, because people in the cold war / WWII surely didnt believe the future is going to be bright. Just read about the youth protests in America during 1940-1945.
Its the hyperinflation of "as standard" seen things one needs to be ready to have a family. Just in this thread many say its housing. Well guess what my grandma had 5 kids living with her parents. Its our culture that infected us with the idea we need a 100 sqm apartment and two cars etc. Put on top of that the need for our kids to be special, it should get at least get a masters degree , a high paying job etc. I dont think this idea was so cemented in generations before, because mobility was lower and therefore it was e.g. ok for a child to become a mechanic.
Its the hyperinflation of "as standard" seen things one needs to be ready to have a family. Just in this thread many say its housing. Well guess what my grandma had 5 kids living with her parents. Its our culture that infected us with the idea we need a 100 sqm apartment and two cars etc. Put on top of that the need for our kids to be special, it should get at least get a masters degree , a high paying job etc. I dont think this idea was so cemented in generations before, because mobility was lower and therefore it was e.g. ok for a child to become a mechanic.
In canada, aged 20-29, 46% were still living with their parents. If you live in a big city like toronto, the number is way higher.
Kids living at home aren't saying "I still live in my parent's basement"
"oh, lets have a baby!" this really is the depth of the issue. Confidence isn't going to have you change this answer.
Kids living at home aren't saying "I still live in my parent's basement"
"oh, lets have a baby!" this really is the depth of the issue. Confidence isn't going to have you change this answer.
Children in overpopulated countries like India have been living with their parents for generations. Now that children are leaving the house in those countries, the growth rate is decreasing. I doubt living with parents is affecting reproduction.
People don't want kids for mysterious reasons that we have yet to discover.
People don't want kids for mysterious reasons that we have yet to discover.
>Children in overpopulated countries like India have been living with their parents for generations.
which has a different culture than the West.
Living with their parents may be a benefit for arranged marriages. Now they are moving out, arranged marriages maybe are dropping, but they don't have the culture to make non-arranged marriages (all the above is of course just assumption)
Now in many Western cultures there is not any sort of arranged marriage etiquette, you live on your own and you invite people over for sex, a person who lives at home is categorized as a loser. I can certainly see why living at home in one of these cultures would end up not providing the necessary ingredients for marriage to be on the roadmap.
Aside from all this I suppose access to birth control takes away the whole got in trouble, need to get married aspect of the past.
which has a different culture than the West.
Living with their parents may be a benefit for arranged marriages. Now they are moving out, arranged marriages maybe are dropping, but they don't have the culture to make non-arranged marriages (all the above is of course just assumption)
Now in many Western cultures there is not any sort of arranged marriage etiquette, you live on your own and you invite people over for sex, a person who lives at home is categorized as a loser. I can certainly see why living at home in one of these cultures would end up not providing the necessary ingredients for marriage to be on the roadmap.
Aside from all this I suppose access to birth control takes away the whole got in trouble, need to get married aspect of the past.
> Living with their parents may be a benefit for arranged marriages
Yes, arranged marriages played a big role in getting people to form families. It has many disadvantages in terms of personal freedom, but it seems to be effective for population growth.
Couples also need to have children in such cultures unless they want to be ostracized from society.
The birth rate issue could very well be cultural instead of a financial one.
Yes, arranged marriages played a big role in getting people to form families. It has many disadvantages in terms of personal freedom, but it seems to be effective for population growth.
Couples also need to have children in such cultures unless they want to be ostracized from society.
The birth rate issue could very well be cultural instead of a financial one.
> People don't want kids for mysterious reasons that we have yet to discover.
It's the liberation of women, we can all stop now guys it's directly correlated with women's rights.
Turns out if you just give women more of a choice over having kids then a lot of them say "uh... no thanks".
It's the liberation of women, we can all stop now guys it's directly correlated with women's rights.
Turns out if you just give women more of a choice over having kids then a lot of them say "uh... no thanks".
>Children in overpopulated countries like India have been living with their parents for generations.
That's comparing apples to oranges. People living in rich first world countries with stagnating economies like Canada expect a better future and standard of living for their kids than those from impoverished third world countries who rose to be developing countries, no? Then there's also completely different cultural norms and expectations between India and western nations and how multi generational families interact.
I had a similar discussion with someone form Africa who was shocked to hear that in some rich European countries you could have a full time job and still be homeless due to scarce housing and crazy rents. And then he replied "what's the point of a country being rich if the people are poor?". Good question mate. It's because the point of rich countries is to be tax havens and economic zones where worldwide money is funneled to the top 1% and the workers who enable that have to fight for the scraps while those who can't, get left behind for the welfare state to pick up or fall through the holes in the safety net and end up on the street.
>People don't want kids for mysterious reasons that we have yet to discover.
The reasons have been written in this thread. If you don't like them or don't resonate with you, doesn't mean they're mysterious and undiscovered. Just go on the street and ask 100 random people, they'll tell you the same.
That's comparing apples to oranges. People living in rich first world countries with stagnating economies like Canada expect a better future and standard of living for their kids than those from impoverished third world countries who rose to be developing countries, no? Then there's also completely different cultural norms and expectations between India and western nations and how multi generational families interact.
I had a similar discussion with someone form Africa who was shocked to hear that in some rich European countries you could have a full time job and still be homeless due to scarce housing and crazy rents. And then he replied "what's the point of a country being rich if the people are poor?". Good question mate. It's because the point of rich countries is to be tax havens and economic zones where worldwide money is funneled to the top 1% and the workers who enable that have to fight for the scraps while those who can't, get left behind for the welfare state to pick up or fall through the holes in the safety net and end up on the street.
>People don't want kids for mysterious reasons that we have yet to discover.
The reasons have been written in this thread. If you don't like them or don't resonate with you, doesn't mean they're mysterious and undiscovered. Just go on the street and ask 100 random people, they'll tell you the same.
> People living in rich first world countries with stagnating economies like Canada expect a better future and standard of living for their kids than those from impoverished third world countries
Most parents want their children to live a good life, whether they're from poor country or not. Besides, people used to have more sex in the past when life seemed much more hopeless than it is now. Granted, condoms didn't exist but these days, people aren't even dating anyway.
> The reasons have been written in this thread
It's all speculation at this point. If we knew the reasons, we'd solve the problem. Like the meaning of life, there are some things we can't know.
Most parents want their children to live a good life, whether they're from poor country or not. Besides, people used to have more sex in the past when life seemed much more hopeless than it is now. Granted, condoms didn't exist but these days, people aren't even dating anyway.
> The reasons have been written in this thread
It's all speculation at this point. If we knew the reasons, we'd solve the problem. Like the meaning of life, there are some things we can't know.
You can just ask people! You can ask women why they're not having children!
Well, not on HN, but in general.
Well, not on HN, but in general.
Asking people will give you a "faster horses" kind of answer.
I don't think "what you want from a horse" and "what you want from life" are comparable questions.
>Most parents want their children to live a good life, whether they're from poor country or not.
And if the country is not providing a better future for the kids than the parents, why are you surprised they're not breeding? You're also ignoring the differences in standards. For some countries, a good future might be not dying of dysentery, for others is having a single family home.
>If we knew the reasons, we'd solve the problem.
You're talking like a true politician here. "Ah geez, if only we knew why people are getting depressed, poorer and not breeding, we'd totally fix it, but as we have no clue, I guess our hands are tied, oh geez. It's totally not our immigration, zoning and financial policies that have made wages stagnate and housing more expensive and of poorer quality for your kids, no, it's the fault of video games, dating apps, avocado toast and hookup culture."
And if the country is not providing a better future for the kids than the parents, why are you surprised they're not breeding? You're also ignoring the differences in standards. For some countries, a good future might be not dying of dysentery, for others is having a single family home.
>If we knew the reasons, we'd solve the problem.
You're talking like a true politician here. "Ah geez, if only we knew why people are getting depressed, poorer and not breeding, we'd totally fix it, but as we have no clue, I guess our hands are tied, oh geez. It's totally not our immigration, zoning and financial policies that have made wages stagnate and housing more expensive and of poorer quality for your kids, no, it's the fault of video games, dating apps, avocado toast and hookup culture."
What about countries like Japan then? It's a great country where any children born would live a long and healthy life. Sure beats being born in Mogadishu. But forget about having children, Japanese people aren't even dating.
More money can't solve the problem. People could live in cardboard boxes and still reproduce if they want. The reason is multifaceted.
More money can't solve the problem. People could live in cardboard boxes and still reproduce if they want. The reason is multifaceted.
>Japanese people aren't even dating.
Why would you bother with the extra effort of dating if your life sucks? Just sit at home or in an internet cafe and watch streamers and play videogames. Much easier.
There's a lot of effort in dating. You gotta groom, you gotta stay fit, and you gotta go out and mingle. But when are you gonna do all that if you finish work at 9pm and need to wake up at 7am as do a lot of japanese?
>More money can't solve the problem.
More money means needling less time spent working and more time for dating/hobbies.
Why would you bother with the extra effort of dating if your life sucks? Just sit at home or in an internet cafe and watch streamers and play videogames. Much easier.
There's a lot of effort in dating. You gotta groom, you gotta stay fit, and you gotta go out and mingle. But when are you gonna do all that if you finish work at 9pm and need to wake up at 7am as do a lot of japanese?
>More money can't solve the problem.
More money means needling less time spent working and more time for dating/hobbies.
Not surprised. Housing went up a lot in recent years and it is not affordable for most young people. And if you have to rent, why not rent your parent's?
Housing in the West was basically turned into another pillar of retiree funding. Old people extract tremendous financial gains from younger generations by either a) selling them decrepit real estate at extremely high prices or b) collecting very high rents on buildings that are even older than themselves (even in the US, which is the king of corporate landlording, they are a small minority; most landlords are natural persons, mostly retirees or near-retirees).
It turns out if you do that the living space required to raise the next generation simply becomes inaccessible.
(Another way to look at it - people on new leases will often spend around 30-40% of net income on rent. In most instances this is a direct transfer to a retiree/near-retiree. Taxes, a lot of which also goes towards transfer payments, and other transfer payments to old people, are 40-50% in many countries. Taken together, younger, working people are effectively transferring 2/3rds or more of their gross income to retirees before spending the first cent on themselves. Why would anyone be surprised people are checking out of that system en-masse?)
It turns out if you do that the living space required to raise the next generation simply becomes inaccessible.
(Another way to look at it - people on new leases will often spend around 30-40% of net income on rent. In most instances this is a direct transfer to a retiree/near-retiree. Taxes, a lot of which also goes towards transfer payments, and other transfer payments to old people, are 40-50% in many countries. Taken together, younger, working people are effectively transferring 2/3rds or more of their gross income to retirees before spending the first cent on themselves. Why would anyone be surprised people are checking out of that system en-masse?)
No matter the system you'd end up with the working age population tending for the children and elderly. I don't think that in it self is a problem. You could argue around implementation details though ...
(Near-)retirees are typically the largest voting bloc and usually the only one experiencing any growth in most of the West. It is unsurprising that they get to set policies that solely benefit them at the expense of everyone else, including those that are yet to be born and those who will never be born because of those policies. And why would they care about the future? Retirees, by revealed preference, don't, and why would they? It's not their future they're destroying. Indeed, they're making quite a nice (short) future for themselves by bleeding societies dry.
My experience joining a political party as 3X yo is that the (near)retirees are eager to throw mandates at you because you are young.
The early 20s and 5X+ are the ones that have more time for politics. I would not read some inter-generational class warfare into that.
I wouldn't broadly blame generations for things. It is like that silly Karen meme service workers have. We are part of the problem too.
The early 20s and 5X+ are the ones that have more time for politics. I would not read some inter-generational class warfare into that.
I wouldn't broadly blame generations for things. It is like that silly Karen meme service workers have. We are part of the problem too.
Young people may be checking out of that system but BlackRock and others are doing the opposite.
Why wouldn’t they, when government policy has made it an asset class that can never fall in value?
Why wouldn’t they, when government policy has made it an asset class that can never fall in value?
The post definitely highlights some of the reasons a person would (rightfully) choose not to start a family. I would add that addressing those reasons should absolutely not be "just to increase the birth rate". There are currently a little over 8 billion humans on Earth - the survival of the species is not even remotely at stake.
It's possible we're nearing a moment when we have to re-evaluate what it means to be human. Do we live just to procreate? Just to work to support 'the system'? I don't know the answer, but I can't stop thinking about that line from Star Trek First Contact: "... The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves..."
It's possible we're nearing a moment when we have to re-evaluate what it means to be human. Do we live just to procreate? Just to work to support 'the system'? I don't know the answer, but I can't stop thinking about that line from Star Trek First Contact: "... The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves..."
Funny, not a single mention of the collapse of communities as a possible contributing factor. Strong communities provided support to young parents and also pressured them to have kids.
Yep. Especially if shrinking families and high mobility result in few young couples having extended family around for support.
We certainly aren’t going to do anything about climate change, so any kid born now is going to live to see some rough times.
I would add another item:
Today you need to be "the perfect mother". Just "being a parent" isn't good enough anymore for the middleclass.
Today's grandparents spend their time and money on themselves instead of helping out.
So not only do you need to be perfect as a parent, there is also less support from the people who have done this once before.
If does not help much to consult the internet as you will mostly get told the world is about to fall apart if your kid gets as much as a skin rash.
Today you need to be "the perfect mother". Just "being a parent" isn't good enough anymore for the middleclass.
Today's grandparents spend their time and money on themselves instead of helping out.
So not only do you need to be perfect as a parent, there is also less support from the people who have done this once before.
If does not help much to consult the internet as you will mostly get told the world is about to fall apart if your kid gets as much as a skin rash.
Everyone is going to want to reach for their favorite modern problem, but every point in history is fraught with sociopolitical and economic challenges. Today is not special, in that regard.
My personal favorite reason is just that this is the outcome of birth control. At no other point in history could people decide how many kids they want, and when you give people the choice, they just aren't going to choose very many.
My personal favorite reason is just that this is the outcome of birth control. At no other point in history could people decide how many kids they want, and when you give people the choice, they just aren't going to choose very many.
Is it possible that many people simply fail to acknowledge that for one, not everyone wants to be a parent and two, if given the choice between a new car or a vacation in the Bahamas every few years and having kids, people will most likely choose the car and/or the holiday?
It is also possible that many young women have seen what the previous generation lived through with "stay at home" spouses and decided to opt out? Who could blame them really?
It is also possible that many young women have seen what the previous generation lived through with "stay at home" spouses and decided to opt out? Who could blame them really?
Birth control was available to the Baby Boomers's parents, and the result was... a baby boom. My two grandmothers had 7 and 5 children respectively in spite of the availability of birth control.
Griswold was in 1965. We had laws banning birth control.
The Pill was first used in 1960.
Yes, condoms existed. But they were stigmatized, sometimes criminalized, and substantially less effective than hormonal birth control methods developed and popularized during the 60s and 70s.
The Pill was first used in 1960.
Yes, condoms existed. But they were stigmatized, sometimes criminalized, and substantially less effective than hormonal birth control methods developed and popularized during the 60s and 70s.
The percentage of the population taking birth control has increased significantly since that time.
Cultural shifts, in this case due to the availability of birth control, take time to materialize.
Cultural shifts, in this case due to the availability of birth control, take time to materialize.
You've just moved the problem to explaining why "the percentage of the population taking birth control has increased significantly since that time".
Your initial claim was that it was the availability of birth control. That is, that birth control was the cause. But this new claim is that it is the choice to use birth control. That is, choosing to use birth control is now an effect, which must have some other cause.
Your initial claim was that it was the availability of birth control. That is, that birth control was the cause. But this new claim is that it is the choice to use birth control. That is, choosing to use birth control is now an effect, which must have some other cause.
when you give people the choice, they just aren't going to choose very many.Makes me think of Future Shock a little? We've known that cultural and technological change has been accelerating for decades, though. I suppose the question is if there's been an inflection point even in that.
If someone had asked me I would have probably struggled to find words to explain this exact thing, but the article explains it well.
And in the words of my wife, “It seems like a bad idea to bring a kid into this world”
And in the words of my wife, “It seems like a bad idea to bring a kid into this world”
I hope not to sound like some sort of birth evangelist but could we not flip that statement?
That portraits a child as someone that you need to protect from suffering at all costs. If your parents were to make the same argument towards you, as an adult, you would argue that it is perhaps condescending and removes somewhat your own agency.
There is a _chance_ that any children that you bring into this world become not only an adult but an agent for (positive) change.
That portraits a child as someone that you need to protect from suffering at all costs. If your parents were to make the same argument towards you, as an adult, you would argue that it is perhaps condescending and removes somewhat your own agency.
There is a _chance_ that any children that you bring into this world become not only an adult but an agent for (positive) change.
> If your parents were to make the same argument towards you, as an adult
"Hey, it was unfair of us to bring you into this situation, so we were thinking maybe we should kill you."
This does not follow. A person's resistance to having their shitty life terminated doesn't mean it was a good idea to begin it.
"Hey, it was unfair of us to bring you into this situation, so we were thinking maybe we should kill you."
This does not follow. A person's resistance to having their shitty life terminated doesn't mean it was a good idea to begin it.
Two things I think are the main drivers, one is easy access to effective birth control (I consider this a great thing) and that is often mentioned. I think the other thing, though, is it is much easier to be entertained these days. People don't understand how boring it was 30+ years ago. I'll go back and play games with my son from when I was young and the games almost always are much more dull than I remember.
There is a profound amount of entertainment and education at our fingertips, much of it available literally at all times. This includes adult entertainment, so it's easy to alleviate, uh, "needs". A lot of kids in the past came about from boredom.
Also, because of the access to information, a lot of people realize that raising a kid is, for most people, kind of a sucky job. I love my son and would do it all over again, but the actual job of parenting has a lot of boring stuff that pushes me back into social spheres with people I gladly left years ago. There are some people that love the job through and through, but I just don't think most adults are like that. And we can easily understand that as an adult now. Plus the pressure to execute perfectly is intense. My parents had me, my mom carried me around until I was school age, and then basically my life was my own after that - they cared about me and were good parents, but they only vaguely were paying attention to me (I was a 3rd child and generally good kid, so it was easy). GenX experience through and through. These days? My son is in high school and the insane rat race for college is something my son and wife and I are just saying "no thanks" to. He'll go somewhere and figure something out, but kids are literally spending 60-80 hrs a week on school and "extracurriculars". Too much pressure!
Really, there are just all kinds of factors now present that all push down the birthrate.
There is a profound amount of entertainment and education at our fingertips, much of it available literally at all times. This includes adult entertainment, so it's easy to alleviate, uh, "needs". A lot of kids in the past came about from boredom.
Also, because of the access to information, a lot of people realize that raising a kid is, for most people, kind of a sucky job. I love my son and would do it all over again, but the actual job of parenting has a lot of boring stuff that pushes me back into social spheres with people I gladly left years ago. There are some people that love the job through and through, but I just don't think most adults are like that. And we can easily understand that as an adult now. Plus the pressure to execute perfectly is intense. My parents had me, my mom carried me around until I was school age, and then basically my life was my own after that - they cared about me and were good parents, but they only vaguely were paying attention to me (I was a 3rd child and generally good kid, so it was easy). GenX experience through and through. These days? My son is in high school and the insane rat race for college is something my son and wife and I are just saying "no thanks" to. He'll go somewhere and figure something out, but kids are literally spending 60-80 hrs a week on school and "extracurriculars". Too much pressure!
Really, there are just all kinds of factors now present that all push down the birthrate.
The college prep rat race is insane today compared to when I was a kid. It’s become a 10+ year effort to check all the checkboxes.
1995: Have > 3.8 GPA, take the SAT, get a good enough score, write some decent sounding bullshit on an application essay, and bam: you have a shot at a top school.
2025: Start taking AP courses in middle school. Take and excel at advanced science and math classes for 4 years. Take 3 years of a foreign language and become fluent. Have a 5.0+ GPA. Have at least a 1580/1600 SAT. Have at least a 35/36 ACT. (Realistically you want perfect test scores). Be thoroughly involved in (preferably in a leadership role) multiple extracurriculars or sports teams. Have at least 3 letters of recommendation from prominent people in the community. Write an elaborate essay that checks multiple boxes, and a personal statement. After all this, you have maybe a 3% shot at a top school.
1995: Have > 3.8 GPA, take the SAT, get a good enough score, write some decent sounding bullshit on an application essay, and bam: you have a shot at a top school.
2025: Start taking AP courses in middle school. Take and excel at advanced science and math classes for 4 years. Take 3 years of a foreign language and become fluent. Have a 5.0+ GPA. Have at least a 1580/1600 SAT. Have at least a 35/36 ACT. (Realistically you want perfect test scores). Be thoroughly involved in (preferably in a leadership role) multiple extracurriculars or sports teams. Have at least 3 letters of recommendation from prominent people in the community. Write an elaborate essay that checks multiple boxes, and a personal statement. After all this, you have maybe a 3% shot at a top school.
To those non-parents, or older parents, or parents of small kids, this is not an exaggeration. My son (a sophomore) is taking the exact same classes as I did in high school, except he is taking an AP course as a junior, and probably 2 as a senior. He has a 3.9 ish GPA so far. He is, in general, doing better than I was, and I got into a top 25 university. I've had comments from counselors and teachers saying, "oh, so is he not really on a college trajectory?" Insane and destructive. The thing is, at the same time, colleges have gotten easier overall. My brother is a professor and he has largely retired because he has gotten sick of, "I know the student is failing the class because they didn't do the work, but can you please just pass them anyway?" from university leadership.
I work with a lot of high-end CS graduates, and some are great, but few of them blow my socks off.
Our education is just messed up right now.
(By the way, it is possible for a high school student to graduate with an entire year's college credits via AP classes)
I work with a lot of high-end CS graduates, and some are great, but few of them blow my socks off.
Our education is just messed up right now.
(By the way, it is possible for a high school student to graduate with an entire year's college credits via AP classes)
Colleges have refused to expand enrollment as our society/world becomes wealthier = more competition for spots. Either you subscribe to the overproduction of elites theory which means we need to return dignity to jobs that dont require education or colleges need to massively expand enrollment.
Our World in Data has a great chart showing negative correlation between women's education level and fertility:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-educational-attain...
This was particularly experienced in India, where the birthrate went down when literacy went up.
Maybe more educated people do worry about the future?
This was particularly experienced in India, where the birthrate went down when literacy went up.
Maybe more educated people do worry about the future?
The post is very unconvincing, I doubt that the outlook for today's situation is more severe than back in the middle of the coldwar for example.
It’s interesting to think about the implied expectation that my children, who my wife and I have poured out our time, energy, and resources for, will do their part to support and willingly help the childless, who conserved their resources for themselves, in their old age. If I were looking down the barrel of that future, I wouldn’t feel so confident about that eventuality.
I'm in my 40ies and in Germany and basically from my friends and surroundings I've realized the only people that have children are academics / people with established careers where both partners earn very well and have stable jobs or people on welfare where at least all necessities are covered. What's missing is people in-between, people with limited contracts, people without money in the family and people working a job that hardly pays more than what you would get with welfare.
If you look at birth rates in eastern europe after the fall of the soviet union and the establishment of neoliberal economics everwhere and the development of eastern europe economies as workbenches for western corporations with low wages the birth rates fell and are only slowly recovering now.
Before that - while circumstances where surely not better in a lot of ways - essentials like housing, childcare (kindergarden and so on) where provided and you could be assured to be fine no matter what is going on in your job.
Now you are only fine if you either on welfare and have nothing to loose anyway or earn so much that you can afford everything and risk having children. If you are in between (like most of the population around 20-40 here) it's perceived as a risky gamble.
If you look at birth rates in eastern europe after the fall of the soviet union and the establishment of neoliberal economics everwhere and the development of eastern europe economies as workbenches for western corporations with low wages the birth rates fell and are only slowly recovering now.
Before that - while circumstances where surely not better in a lot of ways - essentials like housing, childcare (kindergarden and so on) where provided and you could be assured to be fine no matter what is going on in your job.
Now you are only fine if you either on welfare and have nothing to loose anyway or earn so much that you can afford everything and risk having children. If you are in between (like most of the population around 20-40 here) it's perceived as a risky gamble.
Yeah, I do wonder if a survey question getting at "how concerned am I about the risk that I won't be able to find good work in 15 years" would be pretty well correlated with fertility rate decline. Most things I see look at current economic conditions, but I think you're right that it's the perception of future earning potential, a decade or two out, that is most stressful to parents of young children.
Is this a new theory?
I'm sure this has been a fairly commonly perceived trope amongst late-X and millenials for several years now.
Presumably accelerated during 2016-2020, and once again ramping up quickly, for our stateside friends - but I haven't heard of any part of the planet being burdened by an over-abundance of optimism about the (affordability of the) future.
I'm sure this has been a fairly commonly perceived trope amongst late-X and millenials for several years now.
Presumably accelerated during 2016-2020, and once again ramping up quickly, for our stateside friends - but I haven't heard of any part of the planet being burdened by an over-abundance of optimism about the (affordability of the) future.
The future is not too expensive- people have just grown balooning expectations of what is minimal sustenance for children - people on <$200 month have 5 children families all over hte world and then you see people on 100k+ salaries saying they can't 'afford' to have chlidren. The truth is they can't afford to keep all the nice things - free time for hobbies/sports etc (childcare), holidays etc while still having children.
Sacrifice some of that and suddenly most people can afford children but most people don't have enough moral value and a sense of duty to the society to sacrfice anything for a better future - in fact it's opposite - with credit cards and debt you sacrifice the future for sake of some frivolous consumption now.
In shrinking economy like current Germany’s economy the future does not look bright. White collar jobs are moved to Malaysia, Poland and Serbia at extreme rate. And will never come back. I recently worked at the companies moving whole departments to the mentioned countries. I am sure, living from salary to salary in a rented apartment does not provide much optimism about future. Especially when one can barely afford rent of bigger apartment. Having a child in a city adds a pile of extra cost: bigger apartment plus few hundred for kindergarten. Children are simply for very rich families.
Surprised to see such a poor and superficial article reach the front page, the collapsing birth rates are a multifactorial problem, there's nothing of substance in that article.
What happened in the 1960s in the USA?[1] This seems to correlate with women's emancipation and the rise of contraception. Are there any other theories?
1. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Total-fertility-rate-in-...
1. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Total-fertility-rate-in-...
The modern mortgage market is largely based around multiple people with jobs.
Once you have a kid either one of those people is taking 5 years out of work or they're paying nursery fees for the next 5 years. Either of which is incredibly expensive (£15k per year in the UK for full-time childcare).
So a lot of people decide "Well, I didn't fancy children that much."
Once you have a kid either one of those people is taking 5 years out of work or they're paying nursery fees for the next 5 years. Either of which is incredibly expensive (£15k per year in the UK for full-time childcare).
So a lot of people decide "Well, I didn't fancy children that much."
Isn't Korea, one of the countries that they use explicitly as a counter-example to prosperity or monetary incentives helping with fertility, also a country where people still tend to expect the same job for their entire life?
If so, then much of this idea fails on the same arguments it uses against other possible explanations.
If so, then much of this idea fails on the same arguments it uses against other possible explanations.
French Aristocrats had difficulty affording children as well.
My theory is that as a society becomes wealthier, the acceptable minimum standard for child rearing grows at an even faster rate, until it becomes unattainable for a growing number of people.
Raising kids is cheap. People who live in mud huts who have never heard of money can afford to raise kids. Avoiding negative social stigma is what people can't afford.
My theory is that as a society becomes wealthier, the acceptable minimum standard for child rearing grows at an even faster rate, until it becomes unattainable for a growing number of people.
Raising kids is cheap. People who live in mud huts who have never heard of money can afford to raise kids. Avoiding negative social stigma is what people can't afford.
> Avoiding negative social stigma is what people can't afford.
This is a very important factor. The West has successfully more or less eliminated teenage pregnancy thanks to very heavy stigma plus enabling choice and information. People are simply deferring having children until conditions are perfect - as they were told to do.
This is a very important factor. The West has successfully more or less eliminated teenage pregnancy thanks to very heavy stigma plus enabling choice and information. People are simply deferring having children until conditions are perfect - as they were told to do.
I would say they don’t need to be perfect, but mere stability seems to be a thing of the past.
The millennial generation has seen repeated waves of economic crises and layoffs and the invention of a gig economy.
Mere stability is lacking. At least the people in mud huts know they can afford their mud hut next year.
Maybe people don’t want to be economically corralled into a large city a thousand miles from home and then to have their children in that city where they moved for career advancement, particularly as the social contract between employees and employers grows increasingly vacuous.
The millennial generation has seen repeated waves of economic crises and layoffs and the invention of a gig economy.
Mere stability is lacking. At least the people in mud huts know they can afford their mud hut next year.
Maybe people don’t want to be economically corralled into a large city a thousand miles from home and then to have their children in that city where they moved for career advancement, particularly as the social contract between employees and employers grows increasingly vacuous.
Indeed. Likewise, there has never been a time where wide swaths of potential parents feel like they can "afford" having children. Before birth control, it was less of a choice.
This narrative that "people aren't having children because the future is bleak and they're expensive," is wildly overblown. Yes, it's what people say when you ask them. That's not the same as it being the actual reason.
This narrative that "people aren't having children because the future is bleak and they're expensive," is wildly overblown. Yes, it's what people say when you ask them. That's not the same as it being the actual reason.
We are enough people on the planet.
Why does this read like we have to have kids?
I'm completly fine not having kids surprise \o/
Why does this read like we have to have kids?
I'm completly fine not having kids surprise \o/
It's how society will break down without a younger generation in quantity that is paying for social security, earning taxes for society, etc.
Humans are pretty clever, so we'll figure it out. Humans are also pretty lazy, so we won't figure it out until we have to.
A pure captialistic issue.
And something people mention without mentioning everything else.
The existing system 'worked' because we grew from a few million to 8 Billion. If we 'stagnate' at 8, its no longer sustainable, therefore it was never sustainable if its only sustainable with constent growth.
Nonetheless, automatisation is not stopping anyway. We will solve a lot of theese problems with robots and ai. The bigger the problem, the bigger the pressure.
And something people mention without mentioning everything else.
The existing system 'worked' because we grew from a few million to 8 Billion. If we 'stagnate' at 8, its no longer sustainable, therefore it was never sustainable if its only sustainable with constent growth.
Nonetheless, automatisation is not stopping anyway. We will solve a lot of theese problems with robots and ai. The bigger the problem, the bigger the pressure.
Yes, let's make babies to perpetuate an unsustainable system that relies on mythical infinite growth.
Nothing to see here.
Nothing to see here.
Oh well, just have to accept that there won't be retirement, only burning your savings and then euthanasia. Better have fun while you can afford it.
When i look at most people what they do when they retire, it doesn't feel like most people actually have a good strategy for it anyway.
Less work, longer work, using more and leaving without a dime in the pocket sounds a lot better.
Less work, longer work, using more and leaving without a dime in the pocket sounds a lot better.
That might be preferable to rotting in an old age home with dementia.
That sounds like a rational strategy to me.
Counting on a retirement takes faith.
Counting on a retirement takes faith.
If the society is built upon the assumption of its own infinite growth in terms of population—an assumption which is very blatantly nonsensical—then maybe it deserves to break down.
Tax AI and we let the bullshit jobs die.
IMHO instead of trying to use UBI to help folks afford things, we should be trying to reduce the actual cost of living for everyone. This would also reduce peoples dependence on Social Security in the US which should go over well in congress.
Genuine question: why do I care if birth rates are falling? There are plenty of people.
There are many problems that come with a population decline, two of the major are:
- Our economy (read: investment) is based on a constant growth, which is a function consumers
- the elderly have to be taken care of … this is us one day
- Our economy (read: investment) is based on a constant growth, which is a function consumers
- the elderly have to be taken care of … this is us one day
I think a more humane (and likely more successful) way out of this is to not try to convince the childless to have children at all, but to try to convince those with children to have more.
So, I'll pose this question to HN and see what you all say: If you have kids, why not more? (if you're too old/young, just imagine you're the right age)
I'll go first: We'd both like to have more kids, but we honestly don't have the time for another. They really do eat up loads of your time. I already only have ~15 minutes at the end of the day for myself, another one would make me go negative (somehow). Part of this is our situation: my folks need some intensive memory care and my In-Laws aren't really interested in any childcare duties. We spend about an hour a day in the car shuttling about the ones we have, so more destinations isn't too bad, but would be tougher. Monetarily, we're more than fine compared to our neighbors, education should be well and paid for through college (very lucky here, we know). We can and do afford weekend activities. Our religious group is alright, they care, but there is just too many old people that need help and really suck all the charity-time out of the group as is (read: mostly useless for child-care/assistance). So, we're probably going to stick at what we have right now.
I'm free to be questioned about my choices, so don't feel bad asking, though I'll try to keep some anonymity if that is alright.
So, I'll pose this question to HN and see what you all say: If you have kids, why not more? (if you're too old/young, just imagine you're the right age)
I'll go first: We'd both like to have more kids, but we honestly don't have the time for another. They really do eat up loads of your time. I already only have ~15 minutes at the end of the day for myself, another one would make me go negative (somehow). Part of this is our situation: my folks need some intensive memory care and my In-Laws aren't really interested in any childcare duties. We spend about an hour a day in the car shuttling about the ones we have, so more destinations isn't too bad, but would be tougher. Monetarily, we're more than fine compared to our neighbors, education should be well and paid for through college (very lucky here, we know). We can and do afford weekend activities. Our religious group is alright, they care, but there is just too many old people that need help and really suck all the charity-time out of the group as is (read: mostly useless for child-care/assistance). So, we're probably going to stick at what we have right now.
I'm free to be questioned about my choices, so don't feel bad asking, though I'll try to keep some anonymity if that is alright.
> I think a more humane (and likely more successful) way out of this is to not try to convince the childless to have children at all, but to try to convince those with children to have more.
> So, I'll pose this question to HN and see what you all say: If you have kids, why not more? (if you're too old/young, just imagine you're the right age)
> I'll go first: We'd both like to have more kids, but we honestly don't have the time for another. They really do eat up loads of your time.
I think you've largely answered your own question, by reflecting on your own circumstances. I suspect there are plenty of people who would not mind having more kids per se, but simply cannot afford to (in terms of time, or in terms of money, etc).
We are planning on a second kiddo, and I can barely fathom how we'll make it work with what little time we have left. At least in the US, we simply don't have a society that makes it easy or feasible to have kids - financially or otherwise.
> So, I'll pose this question to HN and see what you all say: If you have kids, why not more? (if you're too old/young, just imagine you're the right age)
> I'll go first: We'd both like to have more kids, but we honestly don't have the time for another. They really do eat up loads of your time.
I think you've largely answered your own question, by reflecting on your own circumstances. I suspect there are plenty of people who would not mind having more kids per se, but simply cannot afford to (in terms of time, or in terms of money, etc).
We are planning on a second kiddo, and I can barely fathom how we'll make it work with what little time we have left. At least in the US, we simply don't have a society that makes it easy or feasible to have kids - financially or otherwise.
My bad about not being more clear here.
I was looking for the perspectives of others, not to conclusively answer the question. I thought it would be polite to offer my own first.
I was looking for the perspectives of others, not to conclusively answer the question. I thought it would be polite to offer my own first.
Apologies if that came off as rude or something, I wasn’t trying for that tone at all. I meant what I said more in the sense of “it’s a good question, and in fact you’ve summed up the answer pretty nicely too” :)
Talk to upper middle class people that have 4 or more children. They'll likely tell you that life gets easier after the 4th and subsequent children. I've heard of fathers describe it as switching from "man-to-man defence" to "zone defence". Your experience and parenting skills no longer have to be learned. Older children help with care for the younger. And not inconsequentially, your expectations rationalize.
My wife wanted more than our 2 children, but medical reasons prevented us from having more.
Most of my children's friends are in 2 child families. IMO middle class people tend to stop at 2 for financial reasons. OTOH, we know several couples who are both surgeons or in similar occupations. They tend to have either 0 or 4+ children.
My wife wanted more than our 2 children, but medical reasons prevented us from having more.
Most of my children's friends are in 2 child families. IMO middle class people tend to stop at 2 for financial reasons. OTOH, we know several couples who are both surgeons or in similar occupations. They tend to have either 0 or 4+ children.
Income inequality is the root cause. If it, housing, and healthcare were affordable, then we wouldn't even be talking about it. The problems are dwindling jobs and declining wages.
People don’t want to admit this is a cultural challenge.
see correlation house affordability vs. birth rates...im sure which one is cause and which one is consequence
I know several couples who had children in grad school. They had university jobs which did not pay very well, but had generous maternity and childcare benefits. They were in a grad program that pretty much guaranteed them a good job once they graduated. They were young and healthy. They stretched out their graduation, but nobody cares if you get your masters/phd in 3 years or 5.
Compare that to what seems to now be the normal pattern of waiting until you're financially secure before having children. It seems to work out OK for the guys, but seems far from optimal for many women. Children later in life is really hard on their bodies, and so many of them seem to blow a giant hole in their career that they never recover from.
There were down sides, of course. Most grad students are terribly poor. But they make it work.
I really think that's something we should lean into and encourage as a society.
Compare that to what seems to now be the normal pattern of waiting until you're financially secure before having children. It seems to work out OK for the guys, but seems far from optimal for many women. Children later in life is really hard on their bodies, and so many of them seem to blow a giant hole in their career that they never recover from.
There were down sides, of course. Most grad students are terribly poor. But they make it work.
I really think that's something we should lean into and encourage as a society.
Not having kids is too inexpensive.
I disagree. Even though I'm childless, taxes I've paid my whole life help finance public schools which I'll never use.
> which I'll never use.
Your younger co-workers will have been educated in public schools you paid for. If you're an employer, the people you hire will have been educated with public schools you paid for. When you retire, the people paying your retirement and running the country you live in will have been educated by the public schools you paid for. When you're sick, loads of the research on how to cure you and keep you in good health will have been done by researchers who went through public schools you helped fund.
Everyone benefits from an educated populace, which is why it makes sense for it to be paid for by everyone.
Your younger co-workers will have been educated in public schools you paid for. If you're an employer, the people you hire will have been educated with public schools you paid for. When you retire, the people paying your retirement and running the country you live in will have been educated by the public schools you paid for. When you're sick, loads of the research on how to cure you and keep you in good health will have been done by researchers who went through public schools you helped fund.
Everyone benefits from an educated populace, which is why it makes sense for it to be paid for by everyone.
Agree 100%. Not saying I don't benefit indirectly from public education. In fact, I actually feel good about contributing to the education of my fellow citizens. My comment was related to the insinuation that childfree choice is "too inexpensive". What's next, let's tax childfree people more than parents?
Maybe you used the public schools when you were growing up? A generation often pays for the previous one, or up and coming one.
Lack of affordable housing, job insecurity and the looming threat of AI and automation, unaffordable healthcare, unaffordable higher education, inflation, trade/culture/cold/proxy wars, societal unrest and thanks to social media the prospect of a global trend towards the collapse of democratic institutions and a march towards authoritarianism. Sure, let me just bring a couple of new humans into the world—people I’m legally responsible for and could go to jail over if I can’t afford to feed them. Sounds like a solid plan.
Your life, and the world around you, is objectively better than it would have been in the 1930s, when birth rates didn't fall. So while you may see this as a valid reason/excuse for yourself not to have kids, it doesn't explain broader fertility declines.
When people are considering having children, of course the first thing they think is “our lives are objectively better than the 1930s, let’s go for it!”
As the GP makes clear, most people think about the future, not the past. And many think the future is looking pretty bleak right now.
I do think there’s a tendency to overstate the potential future problems (humans are resourceful and will find ways to solve them), but the psychology of this seems fairly clear cut.
As the GP makes clear, most people think about the future, not the past. And many think the future is looking pretty bleak right now.
I do think there’s a tendency to overstate the potential future problems (humans are resourceful and will find ways to solve them), but the psychology of this seems fairly clear cut.
That's the precise argument I'm refuting with the 1930s analogy - not that people today look to the past, but that people in the past had a lot less reason to be optimistic about the future. Again, think 1930s in rural central Ukraine - you've had a relatively okay life, but now uncle Stalin has re-instituted serfdom, this time under the auspices of a totalitarian state (itself a terrifying bleeding-edge invention in the 1930s). Your friends, neighbours and relatives are dropping dead all around you, there's rampant cannibalism, for god's sake. What possible hope is there for the future? Birthrates didn't fall.
Just one example of many. This "vibes about future" argument ought to make no sense whatsoever to anyone who is a fan of history, particularly the daily-life-in-the-age-of kind, not the battles-and-dates kind.
Just one example of many. This "vibes about future" argument ought to make no sense whatsoever to anyone who is a fan of history, particularly the daily-life-in-the-age-of kind, not the battles-and-dates kind.
You're right that many aspects of life have improved since the 1930s, but that doesn’t mean the current conditions for raising children are good or sustainable. In high-income countries, lower birth rates correlate with rising housing costs, lack of affordable childcare, stagnant wages, and job insecurity.
People in the 1930s did have more kids, quite often out of necessity. Child labour was the norm, birth control access was severely limited cmpared to today, and high infant mortality rates meant larger families were a survival strategy.
People in the 1930s did have more kids, quite often out of necessity. Child labour was the norm, birth control access was severely limited cmpared to today, and high infant mortality rates meant larger families were a survival strategy.
Directionality is the key. Do we see things as getting better, staying the same, or getting worse?
Right now, the future has very very few signs of promise. Humanity is behaving attrocious, being a menace and a monster is amazingly popular, science and free thinking are being cancelled and rounded up by government goons. The very rich prey ever more on everyone else.
Right now, the future has very very few signs of promise. Humanity is behaving attrocious, being a menace and a monster is amazingly popular, science and free thinking are being cancelled and rounded up by government goons. The very rich prey ever more on everyone else.
But is it substantially different? The writing from the 30's is extremely pessimistic. In the 50's and 60's everybody assumed that we were all going to die in a nuclear war. And going back in time you can find numerous examples of where the future was worse than uncertain, where an awful future for your children was guaranteed. As an extreme example, many children were voluntarily born into slavery.
I would argue that pessimism about the future is the rule, and the American optimism about the future in the 20th century was the exception.
I would argue that pessimism about the future is the rule, and the American optimism about the future in the 20th century was the exception.
The future being grimdark isn't new, that's true.
But humanity had so much finding out to do. Average material conditions haven't moved steadily forwards, no, but humanity has been overall rising. Science and technology developing, insights to the natural world happening & spreading, cultural elements forming & flourishing. The powers that be in the world were quite regionalized, had their fingers in only small pies: there was similarities across the world but it was characterized more as many individual experiments rising and falling, a variance among societies where many things were being tried in many ways. The difficulty in survivng (for much of this time) was overall characterized by the difficulty of finding food in the world, which was brutal work but work against nature.
Today, things are so different. We all see (or can see if we want) the whole world. Progress has tapered down. The bold efforts for progress like the New Deal and international order (UN) have been worn down or unrepaired (notably the security council sotuation). But more than all that, we have lost the civilizational diversity that fed change and growth. We don't try new things, our systems don't shift: we are locked on course, path dependence amid the vast global network of international trade. The efforts to try new things are small tweaks, of limited scope: Obamacare (much protested), 4 day work weeks, some small scale UBI. We have seen so few attempts to house and feed the populations of the world, so few attempts to broaden education. The millions of enterprises across the world keep being hoovered up into ever larger companies with ever more high up and far off seats of power, the 0.1%'s ascent over us all and control of the world's money supply and markets extends and extends.
The stagnancy and unflinching singular trajectory we are all locked into is pitiful. Humanity feels so a long for the ride of a couple absolutely insane pathological freaks. That loss of diversity, the consolidation of many things into fewer and fewer, is an evolutionary stagnancy which even if unconsciously experienced weighs enormously heavy on the human souls of today. It feels terrible, feeling like as the wheel turns, it's not the rise and fall of civilizations, but now the plight of us all, enmeshed, and knowing that we do so very little have so few levels to pull, so few positions of any real power to steer this.
But humanity had so much finding out to do. Average material conditions haven't moved steadily forwards, no, but humanity has been overall rising. Science and technology developing, insights to the natural world happening & spreading, cultural elements forming & flourishing. The powers that be in the world were quite regionalized, had their fingers in only small pies: there was similarities across the world but it was characterized more as many individual experiments rising and falling, a variance among societies where many things were being tried in many ways. The difficulty in survivng (for much of this time) was overall characterized by the difficulty of finding food in the world, which was brutal work but work against nature.
Today, things are so different. We all see (or can see if we want) the whole world. Progress has tapered down. The bold efforts for progress like the New Deal and international order (UN) have been worn down or unrepaired (notably the security council sotuation). But more than all that, we have lost the civilizational diversity that fed change and growth. We don't try new things, our systems don't shift: we are locked on course, path dependence amid the vast global network of international trade. The efforts to try new things are small tweaks, of limited scope: Obamacare (much protested), 4 day work weeks, some small scale UBI. We have seen so few attempts to house and feed the populations of the world, so few attempts to broaden education. The millions of enterprises across the world keep being hoovered up into ever larger companies with ever more high up and far off seats of power, the 0.1%'s ascent over us all and control of the world's money supply and markets extends and extends.
The stagnancy and unflinching singular trajectory we are all locked into is pitiful. Humanity feels so a long for the ride of a couple absolutely insane pathological freaks. That loss of diversity, the consolidation of many things into fewer and fewer, is an evolutionary stagnancy which even if unconsciously experienced weighs enormously heavy on the human souls of today. It feels terrible, feeling like as the wheel turns, it's not the rise and fall of civilizations, but now the plight of us all, enmeshed, and knowing that we do so very little have so few levels to pull, so few positions of any real power to steer this.
> Progress has tapered down.
Maybe you can argue that it's slower now than it was in the late 20th century. But it's still far faster than it was at any other point in history.
You may think we're locked on course, but we're far less locked on course than we were in medieval times or pretty much any other time in history. Changes in medieval times happened, but took centuries, and those advocating for change got burned at the stake.
Of course, it matters less what actually was than the way people thought. It's an almost universal constant throughout history that people thought the future was doomed.
Maybe you can argue that it's slower now than it was in the late 20th century. But it's still far faster than it was at any other point in history.
You may think we're locked on course, but we're far less locked on course than we were in medieval times or pretty much any other time in history. Changes in medieval times happened, but took centuries, and those advocating for change got burned at the stake.
Of course, it matters less what actually was than the way people thought. It's an almost universal constant throughout history that people thought the future was doomed.
On the one hand you are absolutely right. The last was slower about change, probably in many many ways.
But the past was decoupled. There were many pasts, moving at different paces, in different ways. We don't know what most of these pasts were even a thousand years ago, for the majority of life on earth! We have such a eurocentric view of history, have such incredibly poor knowledge of how most of humanity (by area at least) lived, what was really happening, what life was like, how people saw the world and saw history & time.
Theres still many things happening, sure. But the dominant themes of the world today trace to Thomas Pikerty Capital in the 21st Century overarching economics, something he shows happening over a 250 year arch. The many free hands of the world are reduced to many many less hands than before.
The locality of power is gone. The availability of new lands and new resources to tap into has peaked. We have gobsmacking amounts of people and we don't know what to do to harness this bios-power, we don't have true missions available for people to get up to, and almost no governments are able to generate good causes and good trouble to get themselves up to. We devolve into shitty posturing and jingoism as purpose and exploration/expansion (and alas yes imperialism) fade away, after a time of great prosperity & strong social character.
We're at the end of a lot of curves. It's so so so unclear how incremental GDP rising is supposed to tide us over spiritually. Especially when such a lions share of the GDP is captured by such monsters at the top, when no government or system seems willing to set the sparks of motivation to get the populations excited and moving on their own.
But the past was decoupled. There were many pasts, moving at different paces, in different ways. We don't know what most of these pasts were even a thousand years ago, for the majority of life on earth! We have such a eurocentric view of history, have such incredibly poor knowledge of how most of humanity (by area at least) lived, what was really happening, what life was like, how people saw the world and saw history & time.
Theres still many things happening, sure. But the dominant themes of the world today trace to Thomas Pikerty Capital in the 21st Century overarching economics, something he shows happening over a 250 year arch. The many free hands of the world are reduced to many many less hands than before.
The locality of power is gone. The availability of new lands and new resources to tap into has peaked. We have gobsmacking amounts of people and we don't know what to do to harness this bios-power, we don't have true missions available for people to get up to, and almost no governments are able to generate good causes and good trouble to get themselves up to. We devolve into shitty posturing and jingoism as purpose and exploration/expansion (and alas yes imperialism) fade away, after a time of great prosperity & strong social character.
We're at the end of a lot of curves. It's so so so unclear how incremental GDP rising is supposed to tide us over spiritually. Especially when such a lions share of the GDP is captured by such monsters at the top, when no government or system seems willing to set the sparks of motivation to get the populations excited and moving on their own.
I suspect the big factor is that the opportunity costs have gotten a lot higher over that past 80-100 years. For the median woman in the 1930s, her expected lifetime earnings if she didn't have kids probably wouldn't be that much higher compared to if she took 10-20 years off to raise some kids. Equally the relative quality of life a single income family could expect wasn't too different from that of a dual income family. Today a dual income, no kids, household have opportunities and possibilities simply not available to such a household in the 30s.
> So while you may see this as a valid reason/excuse for yourself not to have kids, it doesn't explain broader fertility declines.
C'mon you have the whole answer right here.
Its a prisoners dilemma. People aren't stupid. For any one individual, it makes sense to wait and defer having kids until they're more economically secure. They know that. So what happens when _everyone_ is under that same incentive structure? Well, some people eventually pull the trigger and just yolo it, if they _really_ wanted kids. They probably aren't as economically secure as they wanted to be, but make the personal sacrifices to do it anyway. But you probably also have a lot of people/couples who are depressed that they didn't reach the position they expected to and depressed people generally don't want to have kids.
C'mon you have the whole answer right here.
Its a prisoners dilemma. People aren't stupid. For any one individual, it makes sense to wait and defer having kids until they're more economically secure. They know that. So what happens when _everyone_ is under that same incentive structure? Well, some people eventually pull the trigger and just yolo it, if they _really_ wanted kids. They probably aren't as economically secure as they wanted to be, but make the personal sacrifices to do it anyway. But you probably also have a lot of people/couples who are depressed that they didn't reach the position they expected to and depressed people generally don't want to have kids.
I really don't think incentives changed so much in Eritrea or North Korea or Iran lately. If this was a Western-only or rich-countries-only phenomenon, I would provisionally buy this (and a bunch of other Western-centric) explanations. But it's a global phenomenon.
Statements like this are mostly useless.
People don’t measure happiness in aggregate. Just because I can fly anywhere in the world in a few hours, doesn’t make up for something like loneliness.
There’s categories of “happiness with life”, and some of them are much, much worse than a century ago.
It could very well be that those carry a lot more weight than tech.
People don’t measure happiness in aggregate. Just because I can fly anywhere in the world in a few hours, doesn’t make up for something like loneliness.
There’s categories of “happiness with life”, and some of them are much, much worse than a century ago.
It could very well be that those carry a lot more weight than tech.
When comparing the 1930s and today, I'm not talking about tech or flying, of course. I'm talking about health and longevity, economic opportunities for the bottom 80%, political and personal freedom, social progress on most fronts, that sort of thing.
Perhaps you're right in saying that the vibes are off, and in any individual country that could be a very valid point - pressures imposed on young people in South Korea, for example. Killer argument - except the same thing is happening in Sweden where these pressures are almost absent by comparison. And in North Korea, would you believe it? Birthrates falling. I somewhat doubt their "happiness with life" has dropped in concert with that in the West, on account of them having a life and a culture that's almost orthogonal to ours in every way.
Perhaps you're right in saying that the vibes are off, and in any individual country that could be a very valid point - pressures imposed on young people in South Korea, for example. Killer argument - except the same thing is happening in Sweden where these pressures are almost absent by comparison. And in North Korea, would you believe it? Birthrates falling. I somewhat doubt their "happiness with life" has dropped in concert with that in the West, on account of them having a life and a culture that's almost orthogonal to ours in every way.
Higher living standards also raise expectations. Young people of today would view the 1930s as barbaric.
My dad grew up with hand-pump well water, an outhouse, a four-room house his dad built on cinderblocks that was too small for both the girls and the boys so the boys slept in the barn (and I think maybe they had a dirt-floor house at first, that one may have come after he was born), no electricity in his early years, no phone until he was a teen and I think it was a party line until after he moved out. Pretty sure they still had a one-room school house, too (small rural town).
This was the late '40s through '60s, not even the '30s. In the US.
This was the late '40s through '60s, not even the '30s. In the US.
The lower birthrates are also happening in countries like Sweden/Finland/Norway where higher education is "free" and healthcare is also "free" so those are not the reasons why women opt out of motherhood, or at least not the complete reasons anyway.
The trend is global so the main reason is most likely something global. In this case couldn't it be simply that motherhood is no longer attractive to women and they want to do other things instead of raising kids?
The trend is global so the main reason is most likely something global. In this case couldn't it be simply that motherhood is no longer attractive to women and they want to do other things instead of raising kids?
My read of your first paragraph is that despite quality of life in the Nordic countries being overall better, it’s still not enough to offset the sacrifices associated with becoming parents.
If you frame this from an economical standpoint, there simply isn’t a single country in the world that adequately compensates parents (especially mothers) for the costs of raising children. These costs are numerous and not just financial — there’s also massive opportunity costs, and that’s to say nothing about the tradeoffs a parent is forced to make (“do I spend more time with my kid or spend more time working to help ensure they have a stable childhood and bright future?)
Simply put, if we want people to raise families it needs to make economical sense to do so. What exactly that looks like can be debated, but it’s likely something along the lines of one of the parents receiving a midrange part time or full time paycheck (depending on if they decide to stay at home or not) on top of the other parent being able to work an hour or two less each day without taking a hit to their paycheck.
Otherwise, it makes more sense to either accumulate wealth until the last biological second and then only have 1-2 children or simply have none at all. That’s what the current system incentivizes.
If you frame this from an economical standpoint, there simply isn’t a single country in the world that adequately compensates parents (especially mothers) for the costs of raising children. These costs are numerous and not just financial — there’s also massive opportunity costs, and that’s to say nothing about the tradeoffs a parent is forced to make (“do I spend more time with my kid or spend more time working to help ensure they have a stable childhood and bright future?)
Simply put, if we want people to raise families it needs to make economical sense to do so. What exactly that looks like can be debated, but it’s likely something along the lines of one of the parents receiving a midrange part time or full time paycheck (depending on if they decide to stay at home or not) on top of the other parent being able to work an hour or two less each day without taking a hit to their paycheck.
Otherwise, it makes more sense to either accumulate wealth until the last biological second and then only have 1-2 children or simply have none at all. That’s what the current system incentivizes.
> Simply put, if we want people to raise families it needs to make economical sense to do so. What exactly that looks like can be debated, but it’s likely something along the lines of one of the parents receiving a midrange part time or full time paycheck (depending on if they decide to stay at home or not) on top of the other parent being able to work an hour or two less each day without taking a hit to their paycheck.
I agree with your general comment but this type of incentive for parenthood basically turns into a tax for single/childless/infertile people.
The money has to come from somewhere at the end of the day. So you need to raise more tax revenue but how?
The big corps will exploit the tax loopholes, the 1% will emigrate to more tax friendly countries and you'll be left with a lots of single/childless/infertile people paying a hefty bill to subsidize other families so that the country can have a bigger working population 25 years after the fact.
I just don't see how this is feasible politically in any way.
I agree with your general comment but this type of incentive for parenthood basically turns into a tax for single/childless/infertile people.
The money has to come from somewhere at the end of the day. So you need to raise more tax revenue but how?
The big corps will exploit the tax loopholes, the 1% will emigrate to more tax friendly countries and you'll be left with a lots of single/childless/infertile people paying a hefty bill to subsidize other families so that the country can have a bigger working population 25 years after the fact.
I just don't see how this is feasible politically in any way.
> a tax for single/childless/infertile people.
Taxes on other people's kids pay for childless people's retirement, so isn't it fair that childless people help pay for other people's kids?
Taxes on other people's kids pay for childless people's retirement, so isn't it fair that childless people help pay for other people's kids?
I don’t have any answers, but it’s a fact that society is going to have to confront sooner or later.
Perhaps the main thing that needs to occur is a reframing of the issue. The only reason why a tax on the single/childless/infertile to support families is untenable is due to individualist thinking, but we’re all heavily dependent on society, and if children are required for society to continue to function that makes the tax a no-brainer except for the most staunch of doomers and anti-natalists. It’s functionally not that different from all the other ways people indirectly benefit from spending tax dollars.
Perhaps the main thing that needs to occur is a reframing of the issue. The only reason why a tax on the single/childless/infertile to support families is untenable is due to individualist thinking, but we’re all heavily dependent on society, and if children are required for society to continue to function that makes the tax a no-brainer except for the most staunch of doomers and anti-natalists. It’s functionally not that different from all the other ways people indirectly benefit from spending tax dollars.
Cost of living in those countries is extremely expensive and so is buying any type of housing. New families who don't inherit an empty place to live must work a lot to afford anything, so both partners have to work and that leaves no or much less time for kids.
Second is universal education which rapidly advances, means that women are no longer content with being a nanny plus housemaid forever, and often want to have something more meaningful, leading to no or much less time for kids.
Basically kids require at minimum one adult taking care of them during most of the awake time. And due to various reasons gaps in that coverage can be a deal breaker. For example kids going to day care until 15:00, but parents busy until 19:00. 4 hours gap is not a lot but at early age can be a deal breaker. Etc.
In my opinion we won't reverse this trend until next world war (after such event humanity will partially reverse development and due to loss of life and work, many people would have time for kids). So in the mean time countries need to attract skilled educated immigrants while suppressing housing prices, and the most successful countries in that would win in the long run.
Second is universal education which rapidly advances, means that women are no longer content with being a nanny plus housemaid forever, and often want to have something more meaningful, leading to no or much less time for kids.
Basically kids require at minimum one adult taking care of them during most of the awake time. And due to various reasons gaps in that coverage can be a deal breaker. For example kids going to day care until 15:00, but parents busy until 19:00. 4 hours gap is not a lot but at early age can be a deal breaker. Etc.
In my opinion we won't reverse this trend until next world war (after such event humanity will partially reverse development and due to loss of life and work, many people would have time for kids). So in the mean time countries need to attract skilled educated immigrants while suppressing housing prices, and the most successful countries in that would win in the long run.
[deleted]
> Nobody knows
Have you tried asking them? In particular, asking the women who are making the career-or-children decision?
South Korea is invoked, but it seems like the population there has almost perfectly levelled out at just over 51m: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/kor/sou... of which 20m live in Seoul.
This discussion comes up a lot on HN, and it seems to be one where there are answers, but people don't like the answers, so they go back to feigning ignorance.
Have you tried asking them? In particular, asking the women who are making the career-or-children decision?
South Korea is invoked, but it seems like the population there has almost perfectly levelled out at just over 51m: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/kor/sou... of which 20m live in Seoul.
This discussion comes up a lot on HN, and it seems to be one where there are answers, but people don't like the answers, so they go back to feigning ignorance.
No, the population has not "levelled out" in Korea.
These dynamics have a pretty long timeline. To give an extreme example, if you, for example, have a city with 10M old people who can't have kids anymore, you can reliably predict the population will be 0 once they pass.
The demographic pyramid of South Korea is scary:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_Korea#/m...
Learn how to read these plots and what they mean.
There are almost no young people.
There are almost no kids in South Korea.
Unless there is mass immigration, the population of South Korea will implode.
Even if people began breeding like rabbits today, there is nothing that can be done; when the 0-20 year old population is of working age, there will be a massive number of old people, and almost no one of working age.
These dynamics have a pretty long timeline. To give an extreme example, if you, for example, have a city with 10M old people who can't have kids anymore, you can reliably predict the population will be 0 once they pass.
The demographic pyramid of South Korea is scary:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_Korea#/m...
Learn how to read these plots and what they mean.
There are almost no young people.
There are almost no kids in South Korea.
Unless there is mass immigration, the population of South Korea will implode.
Even if people began breeding like rabbits today, there is nothing that can be done; when the 0-20 year old population is of working age, there will be a massive number of old people, and almost no one of working age.
> There are almost no kids in South Korea.
That page says 11% of the population is under 15.
Rather like global warming, the question is "what are the old people of today prepared to change in order to avert a problem that only becomes acute after they are dead?"
That page says 11% of the population is under 15.
Rather like global warming, the question is "what are the old people of today prepared to change in order to avert a problem that only becomes acute after they are dead?"
It's going to become acute well before. It's more like the tragedy of the commons.
You need a tax / working base of some size to produce enough stuff. That simply won't be in place when the current kids are adults, and adults or elderly.
Barring robots and AI -- which admittedly looks like a very real possibility now -- the current adults will not have enough working-age people to support them when they're old.
Indeed, the problem is acute only because they won't be dead. We're all counting on our kids to support us when we're old, only now indirectly, via taxes and mechanisms like social security.
If South Korea simply had 1/4 of its current population, everyone would have more space and resources, and things would probably be okay. Property values and economy would contract in absolute terms, but everyone has more stuff.
You need a tax / working base of some size to produce enough stuff. That simply won't be in place when the current kids are adults, and adults or elderly.
Barring robots and AI -- which admittedly looks like a very real possibility now -- the current adults will not have enough working-age people to support them when they're old.
Indeed, the problem is acute only because they won't be dead. We're all counting on our kids to support us when we're old, only now indirectly, via taxes and mechanisms like social security.
If South Korea simply had 1/4 of its current population, everyone would have more space and resources, and things would probably be okay. Property values and economy would contract in absolute terms, but everyone has more stuff.
To portray it as an existential problem for South Korea - I'd focus on their next-door neighbor. Elderly folks might be of limited utility when the (North) Korean People's Army marched in. And the South's cyber-defenses might well prove inadequate, to keep their drones and robo-soldiers functioning properly.
And a population where, say, everyone uniformly lives to 75 should have 20% of its population under 15. So that page says that South Korea has just over half as many kids as it should have for a stable population.
> population there has almost perfectly levelled out at just over 51m
This video would beg to differ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmu1WD2TSk&pp=ygUWa3Vyemdlc...
That said, I am inclined to disagree with his take -- when women and men are both expected to work 996, when housing takes up a huge percentage of your income, when the only way you think you can assure a good life for your children is to pay exorbitant amounts for private tutoring, then yeah, 0 or 1 seems like the best option.
This may be a bit of a weird take, but I wonder if it might make sense to just explicitly make "rearing the next generation" a "public good" career choice. Some people are far more cut out, by personality and character, to raise children. Rather than trying to exhort every single family to have 2.1, find people who are good at child-rearing, give them training, and give them government support to raise 8 kids.
This video would beg to differ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmu1WD2TSk&pp=ygUWa3Vyemdlc...
That said, I am inclined to disagree with his take -- when women and men are both expected to work 996, when housing takes up a huge percentage of your income, when the only way you think you can assure a good life for your children is to pay exorbitant amounts for private tutoring, then yeah, 0 or 1 seems like the best option.
This may be a bit of a weird take, but I wonder if it might make sense to just explicitly make "rearing the next generation" a "public good" career choice. Some people are far more cut out, by personality and character, to raise children. Rather than trying to exhort every single family to have 2.1, find people who are good at child-rearing, give them training, and give them government support to raise 8 kids.
Why have two people linked the same youtube video as if that's some kind of response to a graph? The population has (past tense) levelled out. It is roughly flat over the past few years. It is not yet falling at a significant rate. It is a long time away from "the population is 5% off its peak", and my argument is that that is the real signal (in the control theory sense) which people might respond to, the rise in empty properties and unfilled jobs.
> find people who are good at child-rearing, give them training, and give them government support to raise 8 kids.
"Mother of the Soviet Union" or "welfare queen"?
It might work, but a lot of people get really, really mad at taxpayers money subsidizing other people's children.
> find people who are good at child-rearing, give them training, and give them government support to raise 8 kids.
"Mother of the Soviet Union" or "welfare queen"?
It might work, but a lot of people get really, really mad at taxpayers money subsidizing other people's children.
> Why have two people linked the same youtube video as if that's some kind of response to a graph?
Because the "but" in the sentence implies that leveling out means there's no problem. Filling out the missing pieces:
> South Korea is invoked [as an example of a country that is in major trouble], but it seems like the population there has almost perfectly levelled out at just over 51m [, which implies it's reached a stable and sustainable equilibrium.]
The video predicts not that it's at a stable plateau, but that it's reached the apex of its curve and is about to begin plummeting.
Because the "but" in the sentence implies that leveling out means there's no problem. Filling out the missing pieces:
> South Korea is invoked [as an example of a country that is in major trouble], but it seems like the population there has almost perfectly levelled out at just over 51m [, which implies it's reached a stable and sustainable equilibrium.]
The video predicts not that it's at a stable plateau, but that it's reached the apex of its curve and is about to begin plummeting.
> Rather than trying to exhort every single family to have 2.1, find people who are good at child-rearing, give them training, and give them government support to raise 8 kids.
Do you mean more like surrogacy, or more like teacher/personal tutor?
The former… I'm told is medically inadvisable over 5 births, even if humans used to have 10 in the hope of 2 surviving to adulthood. But that may be confounding variables given 5+ is unusual.
The latter is, I think, a good idea that people will object to actually paying for — "teacher" is not as highly respected a profession as it ought to be.
Do you mean more like surrogacy, or more like teacher/personal tutor?
The former… I'm told is medically inadvisable over 5 births, even if humans used to have 10 in the hope of 2 surviving to adulthood. But that may be confounding variables given 5+ is unusual.
The latter is, I think, a good idea that people will object to actually paying for — "teacher" is not as highly respected a profession as it ought to be.
> This discussion comes up a lot on HN, and it seems to be one where there are answers, but people don't like the answers, so they go back to feigning ignorance.
A real interesting data point that made reconsider some of my assumptions on birth rates in developed nations is Israel.
There is a really interesting piece (albeit with a conservative bias) that can articulate this far better than I can. [0]
[0] https://nationalpost.com/opinion/danielle-kubes-the-truth-be...
A real interesting data point that made reconsider some of my assumptions on birth rates in developed nations is Israel.
There is a really interesting piece (albeit with a conservative bias) that can articulate this far better than I can. [0]
[0] https://nationalpost.com/opinion/danielle-kubes-the-truth-be...
The Nat'l Post just says "it's cultural".
Without data on the relative affordability of living and having children in Israel, and on how parent-friendly (especially mom-friendly) life actually is there - that's 95% useless for comparing to other countries.
(Yes, I get that a very pro-child culture could translate to very pro-child policies.)
Without data on the relative affordability of living and having children in Israel, and on how parent-friendly (especially mom-friendly) life actually is there - that's 95% useless for comparing to other countries.
(Yes, I get that a very pro-child culture could translate to very pro-child policies.)
This is not what has happened in South Korea though. They've hit the top of the curve and pretty much every projection agrees that it's drastically downhill from here, the main disagreement is over how quickly. Kurzgesagt has a good video on this [0], they estimate that by 2060 the population of South Korea will have shrunk by 30% and will be heavily skewed towards the elderly.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmu1WD2TSk
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmu1WD2TSk
Sometimes asking people will give you true insight, and sometimes it will give you false insight because the people themselves don't consciously know and make things up that seem right but are not; or, a behavior or decision is the product of a chain of other things that's too complex to reason about or communicate easily even if each link in the chain is consciously known.
On South Korea, you might want to consider this chart instead: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/KOR/sou...
KOR's Fertility rate has been under 1.25 for two decades. It follows then that "stable" population can only be the result of three factors:
1. Pushing the population curve out through longer lives;
2. Immigration;
3. Time-effect offsets of the fertility rate; for instance, if it's the projected fertility rate of females born in a given year, it would take roughly 20-40 years for the fertility rate to have its effect on the population curve.
On South Korea, you might want to consider this chart instead: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/KOR/sou...
KOR's Fertility rate has been under 1.25 for two decades. It follows then that "stable" population can only be the result of three factors:
1. Pushing the population curve out through longer lives;
2. Immigration;
3. Time-effect offsets of the fertility rate; for instance, if it's the projected fertility rate of females born in a given year, it would take roughly 20-40 years for the fertility rate to have its effect on the population curve.
I deliberately chose the population number graph rather than the birth rate graph because that's the one that actually affects resource usage (housing etc), rather than its first derivative.
If the numbers start dropping to the extent that opportunities open up, I believe that people's views might start changing.
We see localized depopulation of e.g. small Italian or Japanese villages as the local economy dries up. But Korea still has a real and growing economy! It's just perhaps not evenly distributed.
If the numbers start dropping to the extent that opportunities open up, I believe that people's views might start changing.
We see localized depopulation of e.g. small Italian or Japanese villages as the local economy dries up. But Korea still has a real and growing economy! It's just perhaps not evenly distributed.
You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. The median age is 45.6 and rapidly rising. All of these people can't decide to adapt to market conditions and have children. The population crash is almost inevitable unless SK breaks free of population-wide human behaviors and goes from having less than 1 child per couple to having 6.
It’s sad that there seems not be structured research on this topic.
Also important to ask people who had children 30-50 years ago why they decided to have children and then to compare to today.
Also important to ask people who had children 30-50 years ago why they decided to have children and then to compare to today.
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He is right, if he also stops well short of saying what he might. But "the politicians", as always, are only doing what the people are telling them to. The human species has decided to shut down.
> But "the politicians", as always, are only doing what the people are telling them to.
Incorrect. The politicians are doing what a very small, almost numerically insignificant, portion of the people are telling them to do. Those being the ultra-wealthy. It may be that what we are seeing is that what is best for the ultra-wealthy is not what is best for society as whole.
Incorrect. The politicians are doing what a very small, almost numerically insignificant, portion of the people are telling them to do. Those being the ultra-wealthy. It may be that what we are seeing is that what is best for the ultra-wealthy is not what is best for society as whole.
The human species has eight billion people.
If the birthrate is still low when it's four billion, or two billion, I'll start to have concern for the species.
If the birthrate is still low when it's four billion, or two billion, I'll start to have concern for the species.
Would that it were a game of SimCity. If/when we get to 4B, 2B, it will be only after displacements of whole populations, mass-starvation, and likely brutal war.
It's amazing that we had oodles of "population growth will cause mass-starvation, we need global policy to limit the population to the current size" worries on the run up from 2B to 8B and now we've got "population decline will cause mass-starvation, we need global policy to limit the population to the current size" worries.
And the global population isn't falling. Birth rates are only below replacement among certain groups.
And the global population isn't falling. Birth rates are only below replacement among certain groups.
Good news, unfortunately, rarely radiates with the power or urgency of bad news.
The mass-starvation concerns of the '70s-'80s were resolved by an army of agriculture and biological scientists developing revolutionary breakthroughs in staple food crops and farming techniques. These fundamentally staved off the "cold equations" starvation risk (most starvation in the modern era is logistical error; the food exists, it isn't where people are).
Unfortunately, key pieces of the solutions involved practices we know aren't sustainable indefinitely (fertilizer production is fossil-fuel heavy), so there's more work to be done (and some non-zero benefit if we were to discover that the global human population was falling without some mass-tragedy causing it).
The mass-starvation concerns of the '70s-'80s were resolved by an army of agriculture and biological scientists developing revolutionary breakthroughs in staple food crops and farming techniques. These fundamentally staved off the "cold equations" starvation risk (most starvation in the modern era is logistical error; the food exists, it isn't where people are).
Unfortunately, key pieces of the solutions involved practices we know aren't sustainable indefinitely (fertilizer production is fossil-fuel heavy), so there's more work to be done (and some non-zero benefit if we were to discover that the global human population was falling without some mass-tragedy causing it).
birth rates are below replacement in the majority of countries now. Global birth rate is down to 2.24 this year, and 2.11 is the baseline for maintaining the population. I'd bet a tremendous amount of money that we cross the threshold by 2030.
Really is amazing to me how the second derivative of population can be used to argue in this way. Mass starvation. Doomed civilization. While the population continues to grow.
People are capable of looking past their nose, and I've never claimed the outcome will be mass starvation or a doomed civilization. Societies will just have to change, in a way that is without precedent.
And I think you are being playful, but it's worth remembering that the second derivative of position is what kills you in a car accident, and the third derivative gives you whiplash. We also just had an election where a top issue was both the derivative and second derivative of the value of a dollar.
And I think you are being playful, but it's worth remembering that the second derivative of position is what kills you in a car accident, and the third derivative gives you whiplash. We also just had an election where a top issue was both the derivative and second derivative of the value of a dollar.
The comment I responded to said "displacements of whole populations, mass-starvation, and likely brutal war."
True. And I agree with it in terms of cardinality (bad stuff incoming), just not magnitude.
The starvation thing that appears throughout this larger thread is exceptionally odd to me, how does a planet where food is mostly harvested mechanically, encounter food shortages in the face of decreased population? Even if the labor force plummets, the machines sow, tend, and harvest most of the food, and the amount of required food is also going to down as the population does.
The starvation thing that appears throughout this larger thread is exceptionally odd to me, how does a planet where food is mostly harvested mechanically, encounter food shortages in the face of decreased population? Even if the labor force plummets, the machines sow, tend, and harvest most of the food, and the amount of required food is also going to down as the population does.
That is quite possible, but I was thinking more that several generations of people not reproducing above replacement rate isn't really a disaster by itself.
If we don't have war, displacement, and mass starvation, and people still decide just to not have as many kids for a few generations, the species will survive (and from a resource consumption standpoint the planet will probably be better off).
If we don't have war, displacement, and mass starvation, and people still decide just to not have as many kids for a few generations, the species will survive (and from a resource consumption standpoint the planet will probably be better off).
This happened depending on where you live in the course of 1-3 generations.
We are still grappling with how you incentivize and promote parenthood when the future costs of each child are 6 figues.