Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?(ft.com)
ft.com
Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?
https://www.ft.com/content/500c0fb7-a04a-4f87-9b93-bf65045b9401
153 comments
The ratio of housing cost vs real income almost tripled over the last 20 years in Sweden. Add a looming climate crisis and a self-fulfillment-oriented culture and you get very few new babies.
> The ratio of housing cost vs real income almost tripled over the last 20 years in Sweden
I think this is all that needs to be said on these articles.
(There's a lot more that _could_ be said, such as how few actual birthing HN readers there are, but I think the economics is really simple at the root of it.)
Besides, even the countries with really the worst outlook and conditions aren't falling all that fast. Russia since the high point of the 1990s: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/russia-popula...
I think this is all that needs to be said on these articles.
(There's a lot more that _could_ be said, such as how few actual birthing HN readers there are, but I think the economics is really simple at the root of it.)
Besides, even the countries with really the worst outlook and conditions aren't falling all that fast. Russia since the high point of the 1990s: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/russia-popula...
Russia's not a great example to look at. They're one of the only 'Western' countries that's historically actually maintained a healthy fertility rate. The big catch in their numbers is that in the 90s the country turned into a near anarchic hellhole. But they managed to pull out of that and have had a growing fertility rate since 1998, which has been met with an ever widening array of pro-natal incentives, and a generally very pro-family culture as well. [1]
More relevant is something like Japan. [2] They are currently losing 1 in every 200 people, every year. And that rate of decline is still accelerating. And they have a similar fertility rate to Finland 1.37 vs 1.42. The only difference is that Japan has had its low fertility rate for longer, and so it's closer to the equilibrium rate of loss that such a fertility rate implies, while Finland is closer to their older higher fertility rates.
[1] - https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/fertility-r...
[2] - https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/population
More relevant is something like Japan. [2] They are currently losing 1 in every 200 people, every year. And that rate of decline is still accelerating. And they have a similar fertility rate to Finland 1.37 vs 1.42. The only difference is that Japan has had its low fertility rate for longer, and so it's closer to the equilibrium rate of loss that such a fertility rate implies, while Finland is closer to their older higher fertility rates.
[1] - https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/fertility-r...
[2] - https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/population
> They're one of the only 'Western' countries that's historically...
...in pretty much no sense of the word a "Western" country.
...in pretty much no sense of the word a "Western" country.
Macrotrends is a spam site which is full of completely erroneous data on almost every topic. Just look up their China demographic data - it's just laughable.
Russia has lower fertility rate than EU average, at 1.50 vs 1.53. And a higher and faster growing share of Muslim population than Europe.
Overall, death rate is about 1.37x more than birth rate in Russia (999.14 vs 728.02 per 100K in first 10 months of 2023 - link to official stats https://statprivat.ru/demo2020?r=3). In EU it's 10.7 vs 9.5 per 1000 (in a full year), so only 1.12x the difference. Births are 8% lower per 1000 and deaths, 12% higher. Plus, Russia has a higher proportion of Muslim population than any EU country and it grows faster too, so for white population situation is beyond dire: in ethnic Russian majority regions apart from Moscow and St. Petersburg, death rate at 2.5-3x the birth rate is the norm.
If you've been under impression that Russia somehow has some sound demographic policy and/or family culture and is doing better in this respect than any European country, you're just a victim of Putin's propaganda. Compared to EU states, Russia is only better than Bulgaria in this respect.
Russia has lower fertility rate than EU average, at 1.50 vs 1.53. And a higher and faster growing share of Muslim population than Europe.
Overall, death rate is about 1.37x more than birth rate in Russia (999.14 vs 728.02 per 100K in first 10 months of 2023 - link to official stats https://statprivat.ru/demo2020?r=3). In EU it's 10.7 vs 9.5 per 1000 (in a full year), so only 1.12x the difference. Births are 8% lower per 1000 and deaths, 12% higher. Plus, Russia has a higher proportion of Muslim population than any EU country and it grows faster too, so for white population situation is beyond dire: in ethnic Russian majority regions apart from Moscow and St. Petersburg, death rate at 2.5-3x the birth rate is the norm.
If you've been under impression that Russia somehow has some sound demographic policy and/or family culture and is doing better in this respect than any European country, you're just a victim of Putin's propaganda. Compared to EU states, Russia is only better than Bulgaria in this respect.
I'm not sure of their source, but you get the exact same figures on Statista. [1] Somebody who has an account should be able to get the source from that site, which I'm quite curious of. I was initially ready to dismiss you as a nutter, but I do agree actually - even Russian official numbers give lower rates, so far as I can tell.
That said, your analysis is a bit misleading. Because while deaths/births are ultimately what fertility comes down to, it's a long lagging result. Taken to extremes, if a country of 20 year olds had a rapid extinction level fertility rate of 0.1, births would still far outpace deaths for many decades. Vice versa if there was a country made up of mostly of the elderly and then a small number of high fertility youth, deaths would outpace births for many years - in spite of [now] healthy demographics.
So fertility is what matters. And no, I don't think Russia is the epitome of what we should do. They have endless problems including alcohol abuse, a hugely imbalanced sex ratio, high suicide rates, and more. But I do think they're working to solve their problems in a way that is likely to create a better and more sustainable future for themselves. By contrast much of the Western world today seems content to behave in a generally myopic and reactionary fashion. Even in this very thread you see some people positive about lower fertility rates because climate. It's like seeing your house burning down and being happy that you won't have to fix that leaking sink anymore.
[1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033851/fertility-rate-r...
That said, your analysis is a bit misleading. Because while deaths/births are ultimately what fertility comes down to, it's a long lagging result. Taken to extremes, if a country of 20 year olds had a rapid extinction level fertility rate of 0.1, births would still far outpace deaths for many decades. Vice versa if there was a country made up of mostly of the elderly and then a small number of high fertility youth, deaths would outpace births for many years - in spite of [now] healthy demographics.
So fertility is what matters. And no, I don't think Russia is the epitome of what we should do. They have endless problems including alcohol abuse, a hugely imbalanced sex ratio, high suicide rates, and more. But I do think they're working to solve their problems in a way that is likely to create a better and more sustainable future for themselves. By contrast much of the Western world today seems content to behave in a generally myopic and reactionary fashion. Even in this very thread you see some people positive about lower fertility rates because climate. It's like seeing your house burning down and being happy that you won't have to fix that leaking sink anymore.
[1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033851/fertility-rate-r...
That contradicts official statistics from Russia itself though. They claim 1.42 for 2022, not 1.82.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_subjects_of_Ru... (the data is copied from https://fedstat.ru/indicator/31517# - Federal Statistics service of Russia - but it's closed for access from outside).
1.42 is worse than in 20 out of 27 EU countries and worse than in EU overall (1.53). With much lower readings in Russian-populated regions, i.e. it hangs on Muslims. Of which Russia has more and they grow faster than in any EU country. Some almost purely Russian-population regions rival South Korea in low fertility with <1.0 readings. Probably fertility of Russians themselves is under 1.0 in all regions except Moscow.
Not sure why you are trying to find something good where it simply isn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_subjects_of_Ru... (the data is copied from https://fedstat.ru/indicator/31517# - Federal Statistics service of Russia - but it's closed for access from outside).
1.42 is worse than in 20 out of 27 EU countries and worse than in EU overall (1.53). With much lower readings in Russian-populated regions, i.e. it hangs on Muslims. Of which Russia has more and they grow faster than in any EU country. Some almost purely Russian-population regions rival South Korea in low fertility with <1.0 readings. Probably fertility of Russians themselves is under 1.0 in all regions except Moscow.
Not sure why you are trying to find something good where it simply isn't.
Your reading comprehension could use a bit of a tune up.
But what is driving the housing prices up in the Nordics? Population decline would suggest weakening demand. The EU is famous for long lasting housing so lack of new inventory shouldn't hit supply side that hard.
Here in Norway it's primarily centralization. We used to have many living in small towns and cities along the coast and such, but young folks are moving to the larger cities[1].
This is driving up the demand a lot in central areas.
The houses left behind are not desirable for the same reason so many opt to keep them as summer homes, leading to shortages in the districs as well.
A lot of this has to do with jobs. We've lost a lot of jobs in the districs due to various reasons, and at some point these towns collapse. You need a certain minimum number of folks to have a decent school, a hospital etc. Once population drops too low the hospital gets shut down say and it's downhill from there.
[1]: https://www.nrk.no/vestland/byene-vokser-_-distriktene-blor-...
This is driving up the demand a lot in central areas.
The houses left behind are not desirable for the same reason so many opt to keep them as summer homes, leading to shortages in the districs as well.
A lot of this has to do with jobs. We've lost a lot of jobs in the districs due to various reasons, and at some point these towns collapse. You need a certain minimum number of folks to have a decent school, a hospital etc. Once population drops too low the hospital gets shut down say and it's downhill from there.
[1]: https://www.nrk.no/vestland/byene-vokser-_-distriktene-blor-...
Rising lifespans and immigration has made our population grow despite relatively low fertility.
Another huge problem right now is that the high prices has made it tricky for _older_ people to move, a large rent controlled apartment for an retired person is far cheaper than even the smallest new apartments if the lease is changed, so you have tons of retired people with kids that moved out (or should have moved out) living in 4-5 bedroom flats whilst families are crammed into smaller ones.
The only way out is to buy an apartment/house instead of renting, but here profit-taxation comes into play making elder people hesitant about selling because the huge price increases (often 90%) makes the 30% profit tax almost 30% of their selling price so they actually can't even afford to buy something reasonable since it'd anything relatively smaller would be too expensive for them.
One way out of this would be to lower the profit-tax of a dwelling by 0.5-1% for each year lived in it, that'd make retired people able to sell their dwellings w/o hardly any taxes and should enable a more dynamic market.
Another huge problem right now is that the high prices has made it tricky for _older_ people to move, a large rent controlled apartment for an retired person is far cheaper than even the smallest new apartments if the lease is changed, so you have tons of retired people with kids that moved out (or should have moved out) living in 4-5 bedroom flats whilst families are crammed into smaller ones.
The only way out is to buy an apartment/house instead of renting, but here profit-taxation comes into play making elder people hesitant about selling because the huge price increases (often 90%) makes the 30% profit tax almost 30% of their selling price so they actually can't even afford to buy something reasonable since it'd anything relatively smaller would be too expensive for them.
One way out of this would be to lower the profit-tax of a dwelling by 0.5-1% for each year lived in it, that'd make retired people able to sell their dwellings w/o hardly any taxes and should enable a more dynamic market.
Another factor keeping older people in place is that they've put a lot of energy into the yard or their house to make it the way they want it to be. For example, if my mom, a still sharp and active 90-year-old, couldn't live independently, and spend time in her garden, she would probably pass in 2 - 3 months. Expiration after loss of independence and access to the outdoors is a common way to die in my family.
Population decline lags affordable property shortages (see Japan [1], where property price declines are following after rural population declines). The results of fertility decisions take years, or even decades, to see (although total fertility rate and annual births is a lower lag indicator). For example, declining school enrollment in the US is from fertility decisions made half a decade ago [2], because that's about the time when those kids born would've enrolled.
If there is insufficient supply, housing prices go up.
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/7/14/japans-abandoned...
[2] https://www.ey.com/en_us/strategy/declining-enrollment-in-pu...
If there is insufficient supply, housing prices go up.
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/7/14/japans-abandoned...
[2] https://www.ey.com/en_us/strategy/declining-enrollment-in-pu...
We are thinking about a second kid now, and realized...we kind of screwed up. Women are really most fertile from their 20s to very early 30s (and also have the best chance of a healthy baby, etc...), it is a time when most people aren't even thinking about getting married yet these days, let alone having kids! When you finally figure out you are ready...well...it is much harder to have a kid.
So we really needed to think of this a few years ago. It might still be possible, but now it is an uphill battle and will be a much higher risk pregnancy to boot.
So we really needed to think of this a few years ago. It might still be possible, but now it is an uphill battle and will be a much higher risk pregnancy to boot.
If the woman is 35 and over it is called a geriatric pregnancy. Need to do a bunch of additional tests to make sure the kid doesn't have genetic defects.
Fun (?) fact: Birth defect risk for an over 40 pregnancy is the same as with a first cousin.
I thought the house-as-an-asset mentality was the most to blame.
Are you sure most houses in the Nordics are occupied by the same family most of the time?
Are you sure most houses in the Nordics are occupied by the same family most of the time?
Not really, the privately owned stock is divided into privatized rentals (often in condo like associations) and houses. Afaik Houses are free to own (but outside of Germans wanting vacation homes there hasn't been much of an outside influx), most condos on the other hand requires you to have your official residence there (an association might grant temporary rentals but most associations frowns upon too long term rentals and the exceptions are often granted on a yearly basis).
There's other issues though (see my sibling post to GP)
There's other issues though (see my sibling post to GP)
[deleted]
If you're waiting for your life to be stable enough to have children, most likely you're never going to have them.
As years go by, life becomes more complicated, not less. With or without children.
Having children also involves sacrifice, improvisation, unpredictability, suffering... and lots of people are apparently allergic to all of those things.
As years go by, life becomes more complicated, not less. With or without children.
Having children also involves sacrifice, improvisation, unpredictability, suffering... and lots of people are apparently allergic to all of those things.
> Having children also involves sacrifice, improvisation, unpredictability, suffering... and lots of people are apparently allergic to all of those things.
Rightfully so. There is no extra credit for unnecessarily burdening yourself.
Rightfully so. There is no extra credit for unnecessarily burdening yourself.
The Swedish population is not declining. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/sweden-popula...
Right!
In fact only Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia of the Northern Europe countries are showing a long term decline.
In fact only Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia of the Northern Europe countries are showing a long term decline.
I didn’t check, but it’s a safe bet the average number of people in a household decreased significantly.
That could increase demand even if the population decreased slightly (which it didn’t, according to another reply)
That could increase demand even if the population decreased slightly (which it didn’t, according to another reply)
Housing policy, interest rates & urbanization are the usual factors everywhere, seems a safe null hypothesis here as well.
Eg in sweden, deregulation: https://www.thelocal.se/20230627/explained-swedens-plans-to-...
Eg in sweden, deregulation: https://www.thelocal.se/20230627/explained-swedens-plans-to-...
A baby born today isn't going to add demand for housing for almost 2 decades.
A couple with a house not large enough to support a child the way they want does add to the housing demand, or they skip the kid.
Russia has reasonably affordable real estate as well as quite peculiar job market.
A lot of real estate is being built and most of it is "low cost" economy class, which in the end lets a lot of people who want that, own an apartment and have children. Home ownership statistics are also great.
The pay is meager but at least jobs are there, meaning that if you own an apartment or a house (often inherited from your ancestors in some form) and is employed, and can fall back to Babushkas' safety nest, you can have children and that will not ruin you. Also, actual child care benefits are fine. Long parental leave et all.
Russia also actually saw a lot of economic growth since both 1999 and 1991. Perhaps the most of all ex-USSR countries, save for Baltic states, but in case of Baltics there's a serious job crunch as far as I know. The pay is nice but securing it becomes a headache. In the end it's easier to move westwards.
I'm not sure why you would assume Russian outlook is particularly bad, especially if we're talking before the 2022. After 2022, too early to say.
A lot of real estate is being built and most of it is "low cost" economy class, which in the end lets a lot of people who want that, own an apartment and have children. Home ownership statistics are also great.
The pay is meager but at least jobs are there, meaning that if you own an apartment or a house (often inherited from your ancestors in some form) and is employed, and can fall back to Babushkas' safety nest, you can have children and that will not ruin you. Also, actual child care benefits are fine. Long parental leave et all.
Russia also actually saw a lot of economic growth since both 1999 and 1991. Perhaps the most of all ex-USSR countries, save for Baltic states, but in case of Baltics there's a serious job crunch as far as I know. The pay is nice but securing it becomes a headache. In the end it's easier to move westwards.
I'm not sure why you would assume Russian outlook is particularly bad, especially if we're talking before the 2022. After 2022, too early to say.
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every...
I'm very much a believer that housing costs are at the root of a whole lot of what's wrong with... everything.
It's long past debate and long past time for neighborhoods to come up with a "vision." We need state and national level mandates for zoning reform and density increase, and if you're against it too bad. NIMBYs had 50 years to come up with something other than obstructionism.
I'm very much a believer that housing costs are at the root of a whole lot of what's wrong with... everything.
It's long past debate and long past time for neighborhoods to come up with a "vision." We need state and national level mandates for zoning reform and density increase, and if you're against it too bad. NIMBYs had 50 years to come up with something other than obstructionism.
What people actually seem to want is the ability to use the planning system to veto their neighbours having children.
People vehemently do not want density increases around them or "changes to the character of the neighbourhood", and if driving the birth rate down helps with that goal then they're fine with it.
People vehemently do not want density increases around them or "changes to the character of the neighbourhood", and if driving the birth rate down helps with that goal then they're fine with it.
Yep, and this is what has to be crushed.
Also the rising inaccessibility of child care. All other industries get some productivity boost, but in child care it is the opposite (productivity is going down per worker over time).
[deleted]
Wait, how do you know there are few actual birthing HN readers? How many children have I had?
No idea about you personally, but I'm fairly sure the overwhelming majority of HN readers are men.
Upper-middle and upper class aren't having children either though, so my bet is on the latter side of your argument. Huge opportunity costs for having kids before your mid 30s, and afterwards, it's a bit late to have more than a couple kids to have sustainable population numbers.
Definitely a bit hypocritical of me, since I'm also a part of the problem who doesn't want to have kids. But, at least for me, it's not worth it right at this time.
Definitely a bit hypocritical of me, since I'm also a part of the problem who doesn't want to have kids. But, at least for me, it's not worth it right at this time.
>Upper-middle and upper class aren't having children either though
Interesting. In USA fertility is tub / U shaped [0]. Filthy rich just hire nannies and bang away and dirt poor have none to negative opportunity cost
[0] https://twitter.com/theHauer/status/1222514313723875332/phot...
Interesting. In USA fertility is tub / U shaped [0]. Filthy rich just hire nannies and bang away and dirt poor have none to negative opportunity cost
[0] https://twitter.com/theHauer/status/1222514313723875332/phot...
Can you elaborate on that? Every statistic I've seen so far looked like even "the filthy rich" don't have enough kids. Obviously you'll get some exceptions that are talked again and again on the media, but that's not the norm.
Even by just looking at my surroundings, I have some friends who make decent money, and they're still on "no kids" train, even though hiring 24/7 help would just cost them pennies.
Even by just looking at my surroundings, I have some friends who make decent money, and they're still on "no kids" train, even though hiring 24/7 help would just cost them pennies.
Most the statistics cut off at ~200-300+k income catch all bucket which drowns out the rich averages. See my source above capturing higher income buckets which pronounce the U.
Near equal (higher) fertility at both extremes might be, but not proof of, the hypothesis the dirt poor and filthy rich are the fertility rate you get when opportunity cost looks near 0.
A bucket you often see stopping at 300+k imo far too low as the lower band of that is usually high stress highly educated long hours professional and small biz owners who have insane opportunity cost to have children.
Near equal (higher) fertility at both extremes might be, but not proof of, the hypothesis the dirt poor and filthy rich are the fertility rate you get when opportunity cost looks near 0.
A bucket you often see stopping at 300+k imo far too low as the lower band of that is usually high stress highly educated long hours professional and small biz owners who have insane opportunity cost to have children.
I still don't understand how the opportunity cost can be 0 for the rich. Women still have to get pregnant, and sacrifice a lot of things at the cost of 1 year per kid. Like sure, they'll have nannies, but the years of "when you can have fun and do all the self-fulfillment stuff" is gone. Usually that cohort of people are also fairly educated, so they have even more connections and opportunities to lose during those lost years.
Sure, if your goal is to have as many kids as possible, that's a different topic. But that's statistically insignificant amount of people as of now.
Sure, if your goal is to have as many kids as possible, that's a different topic. But that's statistically insignificant amount of people as of now.
Pregnancy applies to the poor too.
But agreed, there are costs that might not be offset by the rewards. Nevertheless the statistics remain filthy rich and dirt poor are acting as mirrors on the curve.
But agreed, there are costs that might not be offset by the rewards. Nevertheless the statistics remain filthy rich and dirt poor are acting as mirrors on the curve.
I can't say for everybody but around 30 "fun and self-fulfilling stuff" becomes repetitive and bland. You see the end of it and then having a baby changes everything. Fun but bland thing become funnier once you experience them together with the little person.
To each their own. I've heard second hand accounts for all kind of scenarios - parents regretting their decisions in their 30s, extremely happy parents, childless extremely happy couples in their 50s, and some with their regrets. That being said, even if you have 1 child to "have some fun with the little person", it's still below 2+ children a couple is supposed to have to fix the birth rate problem.
Yeah you might get a value of a few hundred $ per month from the pro-natalist benefits but buying a dwelling for say 4 kids will cost you 200 years of wages
One of the big issues in housing is ultra urbanization though, where everybody wants to move into a tiny handful of locations. This just drives housing costs upwards basically without end. This graph of Stockholm's population [1] is just completely bonkers. But beyond this it also creates environments that aren't especially good for raising a family in, at least in general.
[1] - https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/stockholm-pop...
[1] - https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/stockholm-pop...
You can just build. Perhaps the "never lived lavishly, no reason to begin" attitude would have hepled.
[1] https://yandex.ru/images/search?text=мурино
[2] https://yandex.ru/images/search?text=кудрово
[3] https://yandex.ru/images/search?text=парнас
[4] https://yandex.ru/images/search?text=филатов%20луг
[1] https://yandex.ru/images/search?text=мурино
[2] https://yandex.ru/images/search?text=кудрово
[3] https://yandex.ru/images/search?text=парнас
[4] https://yandex.ru/images/search?text=филатов%20луг
I completely agree with the attitude, but not necessarily the implementation. Would you want to live in any of those places? Let alone raise a family in one? In the second link, I think the difference between the presumably idealized/proposed [1] version of one of these areas, and what it inevitably turns into [2] demonstrates the issue.
So it would probably be reasonably affordable, but only because you'd make it less desirable to live there. Then enter the general problem of people's complete disregard for other's property in many places in the Western world and those places would become highly unpleasant, if not unsafe, quite quickly - especially if they were very affordable. There's a reason "the projects", everywhere, end up the way they do.
[1] - https://avatars.mds.yandex.net/i?id=e67240f3f995f865b864bee1...
[2] - https://avatars.mds.yandex.net/i?id=05678345cd91e9579bd7e719...
So it would probably be reasonably affordable, but only because you'd make it less desirable to live there. Then enter the general problem of people's complete disregard for other's property in many places in the Western world and those places would become highly unpleasant, if not unsafe, quite quickly - especially if they were very affordable. There's a reason "the projects", everywhere, end up the way they do.
[1] - https://avatars.mds.yandex.net/i?id=e67240f3f995f865b864bee1...
[2] - https://avatars.mds.yandex.net/i?id=05678345cd91e9579bd7e719...
You can buy this one, save for a few years and get a better one, then have children.
Once you get this rolling you can improve your situation every few years.
The problem with "the projects" is that undesirable people get to live there practically for free. But that is not the case in Russia or China. Everybody lives in some sort of high-rises and has a middle class life.
But, you can also absolutely have a kid there as well.
Otherwise, people would love to be able to afford a house or at least a townhouse, but modern economy gets in the way of that wish, especially from scratch.
Once you get this rolling you can improve your situation every few years.
The problem with "the projects" is that undesirable people get to live there practically for free. But that is not the case in Russia or China. Everybody lives in some sort of high-rises and has a middle class life.
But, you can also absolutely have a kid there as well.
Otherwise, people would love to be able to afford a house or at least a townhouse, but modern economy gets in the way of that wish, especially from scratch.
Real disposable income in Sweden has increased 50% over the last 20 years.
https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/the-real-gross-disposabl...
https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/the-real-gross-disposabl...
Green is disposable income, orange is cost of apartment housing:
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tonEuOE0IXE/WfpBpIzy8rI/AAAAAAAAF...
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tonEuOE0IXE/WfpBpIzy8rI/AAAAAAAAF...
So what? Is not disposable income what's left over after you pay your mandatory expenses, like housing?
If real disposable income is rising, then people have more access to non necessary resources than they did before. So, they have more wealth, but are having fewer babies, which is the general trend.
If real disposable income is rising, then people have more access to non necessary resources than they did before. So, they have more wealth, but are having fewer babies, which is the general trend.
> Is not disposable income what's left over after you pay your mandatory expenses, like housing?
No, it’s what’s left after taxes, before any actual spending on things like housing occurs.
> Gross disposable household income is the amount of money that individuals in the household sector can spend or save after income distribution measures.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/regionalaccounts/grossdisposa...
No, it’s what’s left after taxes, before any actual spending on things like housing occurs.
> Gross disposable household income is the amount of money that individuals in the household sector can spend or save after income distribution measures.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/regionalaccounts/grossdisposa...
I'm wrong. Thanks for the correction.
No sweat! First time I’ve read those words on HN, kudos :)
Housing isn't mandatory - the government doesn't put you in jail if you don't pay it; you just get evicted. Disposable income is basically just income minus required taxes.
I found this article fascinating. It's about the uk affordability of housing but with 175 years of data.
https://www.schroders.com/en-gb/uk/individual/insights/what-...
You can clearly see the impact of ww1 and the influenza pandemic in the 1914-18 period.
https://www.schroders.com/en-gb/uk/individual/insights/what-...
You can clearly see the impact of ww1 and the influenza pandemic in the 1914-18 period.
I don't understand worrying about falling birthrates.
There are 8 billion of us. I think it's a little premature to be worrying about the extinction of homo sapiens. Something tells me when we're not all working 40+ hours a week scrabbling for the same 20% of the resources, just maybe our birth rate will sort itself out.
There are 8 billion of us. I think it's a little premature to be worrying about the extinction of homo sapiens. Something tells me when we're not all working 40+ hours a week scrabbling for the same 20% of the resources, just maybe our birth rate will sort itself out.
There’s a quiet part I am going to say out loud. On a global scale, population decline isn’t an issue. The problem is /where/ the population decline is happening. Most of the global birth rate is made up by countries with low GINI indexes, low education, and high religiosity. Most of the decline is in high GINI index, highly educated, secular countries.
This population shift has a seriously high risk of causing the global failure of egalitarian democracies, and pushing humanity back into a highly repressive and dangerous state.
This population shift has a seriously high risk of causing the global failure of egalitarian democracies, and pushing humanity back into a highly repressive and dangerous state.
Capitalism eating itself?
more like socialist policies aftereffects, first of all government pension scheme which gave the illusion to working class they didnt need to have childrens as a safety net for old age relegating them as the "fruit of love". Spoiler: the system still need an above replacement fertitlity rate to keep the ponzi pension going
Exactly.
The open question is whether we're watching a possible regressive backslide... Or the global community pushing forward towards whatever comes after capitalism, because there's clearly a huge slice of those eight billion people that capitalism is doing few favors.
The open question is whether we're watching a possible regressive backslide... Or the global community pushing forward towards whatever comes after capitalism, because there's clearly a huge slice of those eight billion people that capitalism is doing few favors.
"Rotkirch is exasperated by those who think lower fertility rates should be welcome, given climate change. “Climate change has to be combated now, and if you look at fertility changes, they are long term."
I don't understand Rotkirch's point here. Of course the kinds of population decline we're on track to experience cannot solve the acute climate change crisis, but it can open up the solution space for human civilization in the long term by giving humanity more time to deal with non-renewable resource constraints and earth system boundaries on a timescale of centuries. There are few ecological problems that would not be easier to solve in a century or two if the human population were closer to 1920s levels.
I don't understand Rotkirch's point here. Of course the kinds of population decline we're on track to experience cannot solve the acute climate change crisis, but it can open up the solution space for human civilization in the long term by giving humanity more time to deal with non-renewable resource constraints and earth system boundaries on a timescale of centuries. There are few ecological problems that would not be easier to solve in a century or two if the human population were closer to 1920s levels.
You have to appreciate how fast fertility changes will change the face of the Earth. The change in a generation can be determined by taking their fertility rate and dividing by 2. So a fertility rate of 5 = 5/2 = 2.5 = the next generation is 250% larger. A fertility rate of 1 = 1/2 = 0.5 = the next generation is half as large.
A 'generation' is equal to a birthing window, so ~20 years. And these are exponential systems, because they keep multiplying against themselves. If you start with a population of 100 and a fertility rate of 1 then your first generation will be 50 people, then 25, then 12, then 6, then 3, then 1, then extinct. By contrast imagine for comparison if this group had a fertility rate of 4. It'd go to 200 people (4x as many), 400 (16 times as many), 800 (64x as many ignoring rounding), and so on. All in one human lifetime! Pretty insane.
It's really counter-intuitive how fast fertility changes will change the face of the Earth! And now consider demographics. If you want to predict fertility it's easy: high religiosity, low income, high conservatism, low education. And vice versa for predicting low fertility. And while people can obviously differ from their parents, it's equally obvious that most people will end up like the parents. So the group having lots of kids is also the group that's generally not too bothered by climate change. And the group not having kids is the group that is concerned about climate change. Guess who's going to win that argument in the future?
This also applies to just about everything. By not having children you're essentially conceding your opportunity to have a 'voice', even if not your own, in the future of humanity. People talk about things like wanting to transfer their consciousness into a computer, but that's nonsense. There is no "transferring" anything - you might create a chatbot in your likening, but you'll be dead all the same, and that chatbot will be along as soon as somebody gets bored of running totally_sentient_chatbot_v2.37.exe. Human immortality is a social thing - and little more than a continuation of the species. And we all get to choose whether we want to play our own little part in that, or not.
A 'generation' is equal to a birthing window, so ~20 years. And these are exponential systems, because they keep multiplying against themselves. If you start with a population of 100 and a fertility rate of 1 then your first generation will be 50 people, then 25, then 12, then 6, then 3, then 1, then extinct. By contrast imagine for comparison if this group had a fertility rate of 4. It'd go to 200 people (4x as many), 400 (16 times as many), 800 (64x as many ignoring rounding), and so on. All in one human lifetime! Pretty insane.
It's really counter-intuitive how fast fertility changes will change the face of the Earth! And now consider demographics. If you want to predict fertility it's easy: high religiosity, low income, high conservatism, low education. And vice versa for predicting low fertility. And while people can obviously differ from their parents, it's equally obvious that most people will end up like the parents. So the group having lots of kids is also the group that's generally not too bothered by climate change. And the group not having kids is the group that is concerned about climate change. Guess who's going to win that argument in the future?
This also applies to just about everything. By not having children you're essentially conceding your opportunity to have a 'voice', even if not your own, in the future of humanity. People talk about things like wanting to transfer their consciousness into a computer, but that's nonsense. There is no "transferring" anything - you might create a chatbot in your likening, but you'll be dead all the same, and that chatbot will be along as soon as somebody gets bored of running totally_sentient_chatbot_v2.37.exe. Human immortality is a social thing - and little more than a continuation of the species. And we all get to choose whether we want to play our own little part in that, or not.
Every time fertility decline comes up I consistently see the same arguments about why fertility is declining: people are just not comfortable enough to want to have children. I just don’t buy this.
I have seen reasons like workspace discrimination, lack of parental leave, economic uncertainty and poverty in general used as reasons why young adults are not choosing to have children and it doesn’t quite make sense to me. Objectively along all those axis, societies have improved with time from the early 1900s and the birth rate keeps falling. Can someone help me understand why European countries keep trying to increase the comfort of their population expecting to increase birth rates? I understand social programs with payouts can be popular and perhaps paying to solve the problem is appealing to the population but I don’t see why we would expect those policies to actually increase fertility. I would understand if this was simply a case of government programs that people like even if they don’t achieve the desired outcome.
I think a much simpler microeconomic analysis explains the decline in fertility: opportunity cost. People in child-bearing age have too much other stuff with a larger expected payout than having children. For example, a lot of people might prefer to work hard to improve their socioeconomic situation or travel the word over raising children. Under this model, more government provided comfort won’t increase fertility because the vast amount of costs in child bearing comes from the opportunity cost. Even in a world without parental discrimination I would find it hard to argue that parents should automatically be promoted in their work but that may actually be the more significant cost. A parent may forgo promotion or other gains for parenting.
I am not sure what a better solution this problem is. We probably need to reframe childbearing in a different way through so that having children is not subject to this type of utilitarian analysis.
I have seen reasons like workspace discrimination, lack of parental leave, economic uncertainty and poverty in general used as reasons why young adults are not choosing to have children and it doesn’t quite make sense to me. Objectively along all those axis, societies have improved with time from the early 1900s and the birth rate keeps falling. Can someone help me understand why European countries keep trying to increase the comfort of their population expecting to increase birth rates? I understand social programs with payouts can be popular and perhaps paying to solve the problem is appealing to the population but I don’t see why we would expect those policies to actually increase fertility. I would understand if this was simply a case of government programs that people like even if they don’t achieve the desired outcome.
I think a much simpler microeconomic analysis explains the decline in fertility: opportunity cost. People in child-bearing age have too much other stuff with a larger expected payout than having children. For example, a lot of people might prefer to work hard to improve their socioeconomic situation or travel the word over raising children. Under this model, more government provided comfort won’t increase fertility because the vast amount of costs in child bearing comes from the opportunity cost. Even in a world without parental discrimination I would find it hard to argue that parents should automatically be promoted in their work but that may actually be the more significant cost. A parent may forgo promotion or other gains for parenting.
I am not sure what a better solution this problem is. We probably need to reframe childbearing in a different way through so that having children is not subject to this type of utilitarian analysis.
Alternatively, we just don't worry about it.
We are a planet trying to find the resources for eight billion human beings and we already know the backbone of our global agriculture solution is an unsustainable fossil-fuel-based phosphate cycle.
People choosing to not have replacement-number of children is one of the more humane ways to balance the cold equations for subsequent generations.
We are a planet trying to find the resources for eight billion human beings and we already know the backbone of our global agriculture solution is an unsustainable fossil-fuel-based phosphate cycle.
People choosing to not have replacement-number of children is one of the more humane ways to balance the cold equations for subsequent generations.
Although I disagree with the malthusian view on the world I still think there is a more important quantitative argument against this viewpoint. A fertility rate significantly below 2 results in an exponential decline in the population with a lag. In other words, fertility rates close to 1 (as seen in japan and korea), result in a sharp population decline a few decades later that could destabilize the society. Even if I concede the anti-human argument I don’t think the environment would benefit from a destabilizing population collapse. A slow gradual fall with rates close but not quite 2 seems like a much better alternative.
> I don’t think the environment would benefit from a destabilizing population collapse.
Hard to predict. The resulting chaos could cause outsized environmental damage. On the other hand, the environmental damage caused by wars tends to be short-term (in contrast to the damage caused by, say, fossil-fuel-based energy production and agriculture, which is perpetually-increasing damage to feed the needs of a society with a stable population and status quo).
But you're making an excellent point. I'm certainly not advocating for societal collapse. I, for one, think the risk of such is a bit overblown (societies tend to adapt, not implode, even in the face of demographic turbulence).
Besides, automation's supposed to make up for much of the labor shortfalls anyway.
Hard to predict. The resulting chaos could cause outsized environmental damage. On the other hand, the environmental damage caused by wars tends to be short-term (in contrast to the damage caused by, say, fossil-fuel-based energy production and agriculture, which is perpetually-increasing damage to feed the needs of a society with a stable population and status quo).
But you're making an excellent point. I'm certainly not advocating for societal collapse. I, for one, think the risk of such is a bit overblown (societies tend to adapt, not implode, even in the face of demographic turbulence).
Besides, automation's supposed to make up for much of the labor shortfalls anyway.
malthusian bollocks, earth can sustain tens of billions of human beings, the downside that 10 acre mcmansions and huge pickup trucks will be unaffordable for the "middle class". We produce already enough resources, we waste them on allocation
How do we handle the fundamental need for fossil fuel to create the phosphates that underpin modern agriculture?
+1. It make me think: this is why _Brave New World_. It was out of necessity.
In this article, and in the comments here, and in news reporting in general, falling birth rates are generally seen as a problem. Why is that?
I strongly feel we should strive to decrease the amount of people on this planet: less people means less resources needed to feed and to house them. It means less pressure on the planet's ecosystems, less CO2 produced, less pollution.
The only ethical way to get to a lower amount of people is to have less children. We should see falling birth rates as a good thing, not a problem to be solved.
Are falling birth rates a problem for the economy, as the article hints? I can see how that's a problem, but if the economy only works well when the earth's population is ever increasing, that's clearly not sustainable. The future needs to be sustainable, or human kind is not going to have a future.
I strongly feel we should strive to decrease the amount of people on this planet: less people means less resources needed to feed and to house them. It means less pressure on the planet's ecosystems, less CO2 produced, less pollution.
The only ethical way to get to a lower amount of people is to have less children. We should see falling birth rates as a good thing, not a problem to be solved.
Are falling birth rates a problem for the economy, as the article hints? I can see how that's a problem, but if the economy only works well when the earth's population is ever increasing, that's clearly not sustainable. The future needs to be sustainable, or human kind is not going to have a future.
> falling birth rates are generally seen as a problem. Why is that?
Anyone who's ever lived in a place (at a city, province, or national level) whose population is dwindling knows exactly why. Opportunities are fewer and people are generally less wealthy[0].
[0]: I mean real wealth, like living in a comfortable home and being able to afford hobbies. Not your 401k balance.
Anyone who's ever lived in a place (at a city, province, or national level) whose population is dwindling knows exactly why. Opportunities are fewer and people are generally less wealthy[0].
[0]: I mean real wealth, like living in a comfortable home and being able to afford hobbies. Not your 401k balance.
> In this article, and in the comments here, and in news reporting in general, falling birth rates are generally seen as a problem. Why is that?
Because survival is the goal of every species. It's encoded into the brains of a healthy animal. A falling birth rate is the opposite of that, so from a philosophical point of view it's against our most basic and most important purpose of life.
From a more modern economical point of view a falling birth rate means that a lot of the luxuries we enjoy today are based on the fact that future generations will pay for them. Pensions is the obvious one, people from today won't have a pension tomorrow if tomorrow's young people are less than tomorrow's old people. But forget pensions for a moment, an even bigger issue would be health care. Health care is mostly consumed by old non working people and paid for by the younger working population, if the former hugely outnumbers the latter then it's not hard to see how our entire healthcare system will collapse.
This raises the next big issue: immigration and the loss of a nation's own culture. If a nation cannot fix the problem of the falling birth rate then the only way to sustain itself is by having to import huge amounts of young working age people from other countries, inevitable therefore changing the culture and demographic of the nation itself. You don't have to be a right wing lunatic to see that such a drastic slow shift of demographics will cause a lot of friction and issues over a long period of time before it settles again (essentially when one demographic was mostly replaced by a new one).
> The only ethical way to get to a lower amount of people is to have less children. We should see falling birth rates as a good thing, not a problem to be solved.
Well, a falling birth rate means the extinction of humankind, so it's hardly a good thing. What you mean is that you think that we need a temporary slowdown in births because you think that we have grown by too much too fast. Well, that is possible, I don't know for sure, but if you'd look at a graph of humankind you'd want to zoom out by 100x until you don't see every little blip in acute rises and drops and see a slow but steady growth, because anything else would suggest that we have a fundamental issue with our own survival. Now when our grandparents were born the world had not even 50% of the people we hav etoday, so there was definitely a huge influx of humans over the last 100 years and that is mostly explained through huge improvements in medicine and standards of living, vaccinations, etc., so perhaps there is a good argument to say that a short term fall in births is a good thing to soften the issues we see today from those drastic increases in population, but overall a fall in birthrates is not a good thing.
Because survival is the goal of every species. It's encoded into the brains of a healthy animal. A falling birth rate is the opposite of that, so from a philosophical point of view it's against our most basic and most important purpose of life.
From a more modern economical point of view a falling birth rate means that a lot of the luxuries we enjoy today are based on the fact that future generations will pay for them. Pensions is the obvious one, people from today won't have a pension tomorrow if tomorrow's young people are less than tomorrow's old people. But forget pensions for a moment, an even bigger issue would be health care. Health care is mostly consumed by old non working people and paid for by the younger working population, if the former hugely outnumbers the latter then it's not hard to see how our entire healthcare system will collapse.
This raises the next big issue: immigration and the loss of a nation's own culture. If a nation cannot fix the problem of the falling birth rate then the only way to sustain itself is by having to import huge amounts of young working age people from other countries, inevitable therefore changing the culture and demographic of the nation itself. You don't have to be a right wing lunatic to see that such a drastic slow shift of demographics will cause a lot of friction and issues over a long period of time before it settles again (essentially when one demographic was mostly replaced by a new one).
> The only ethical way to get to a lower amount of people is to have less children. We should see falling birth rates as a good thing, not a problem to be solved.
Well, a falling birth rate means the extinction of humankind, so it's hardly a good thing. What you mean is that you think that we need a temporary slowdown in births because you think that we have grown by too much too fast. Well, that is possible, I don't know for sure, but if you'd look at a graph of humankind you'd want to zoom out by 100x until you don't see every little blip in acute rises and drops and see a slow but steady growth, because anything else would suggest that we have a fundamental issue with our own survival. Now when our grandparents were born the world had not even 50% of the people we hav etoday, so there was definitely a huge influx of humans over the last 100 years and that is mostly explained through huge improvements in medicine and standards of living, vaccinations, etc., so perhaps there is a good argument to say that a short term fall in births is a good thing to soften the issues we see today from those drastic increases in population, but overall a fall in birthrates is not a good thing.
Hungary did succeed in raising its fertility rate, but in the last few years it's also been falling.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/332502/fertility-rate-in...
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?page=&lo...
I suspect that a couple years is not enough to draw any conclusions.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/332502/fertility-rate-in...
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?page=&lo...
I suspect that a couple years is not enough to draw any conclusions.
It wouldn't surprise me if policies to boost birth rates partially (mostly?) just shift births forward for a few years -- you have a number of people currently waiting to have kids but putting it off, and the policies induce them to have kids now instead of in 1, 3, 5 years.
First: you have no data there.
Second: even if this were true, it would still be a net win. Babies now are better than babies 3 years from now.
Also, women have a limited number of fertility years. This would give them the chance to have more.
Second: even if this were true, it would still be a net win. Babies now are better than babies 3 years from now.
Also, women have a limited number of fertility years. This would give them the chance to have more.
Hungary recently promised a lifetime income tax break to women who have 4 or more children. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/have-four-or-more-babies-in-...
Have any other countries seen such a strong fertility rate bump as Hungary? I haven't seen any long trends that look that promising!
Have any other countries seen such a strong fertility rate bump as Hungary? I haven't seen any long trends that look that promising!
Russia has a pretty interesting one. [1] It's been rising every year since 1998, but it comes with a huge asterisk. They had a good fertility rate (by Western standards at least) up until the 1990s. But the collapse of the Soviet Union and the migration to a market economy in the 90s sent everything into chaos, and the country ended up in defacto anarchy for about a decade.
But I still think it's relevant, because it shows it is possible to get those rates back up again. They went from a rate of 1.247 to 1.826 in 20 years. Still nowhere near where it should be, but that's relatively rapid progress in a good direction. Perhaps more importantly, it also challenges many of the arguments people make about why fertility rates are collapsing in the West at large.
[1] - https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/fertility-r...
But I still think it's relevant, because it shows it is possible to get those rates back up again. They went from a rate of 1.247 to 1.826 in 20 years. Still nowhere near where it should be, but that's relatively rapid progress in a good direction. Perhaps more importantly, it also challenges many of the arguments people make about why fertility rates are collapsing in the West at large.
[1] - https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/fertility-r...
Let's see if that's not just a regression to the mean... The birth rate was not much higher in the last decade of the Soviet Union, and times have changed since then.
> the country ended up in defacto anarchy for about a decade.
Kleptocracy, not anarchy.
Kleptocracy, not anarchy.
People use anarchy in one of two ways:
- Capital-A Anarchist "late stage liberalism", i.e. a system in which all coercive or hierarchial power structures have been dismantled, including capitalism, nationalism, and the monopoly on violence that is the bedrock of all nation states.
- As a shorthand for chaos and violence caused by an inability to enforce laws.
The latter is a sort of denigration of the former, but it's become so commonly used that people assume it without thinking. To be fair to people using the word this way, there are very few examples of functionally anarchist places that aren't hellholes[0].
[0] The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_Administration_of_N... isn't explicitly capital-A Anarchist, but they also have adopted a lot of policies that Anarchists might like.
- Capital-A Anarchist "late stage liberalism", i.e. a system in which all coercive or hierarchial power structures have been dismantled, including capitalism, nationalism, and the monopoly on violence that is the bedrock of all nation states.
- As a shorthand for chaos and violence caused by an inability to enforce laws.
The latter is a sort of denigration of the former, but it's become so commonly used that people assume it without thinking. To be fair to people using the word this way, there are very few examples of functionally anarchist places that aren't hellholes[0].
[0] The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_Administration_of_N... isn't explicitly capital-A Anarchist, but they also have adopted a lot of policies that Anarchists might like.
Kleptocracy describes near to any any modern political system - "public service" could much more aptly be described as "self enrichment." So the term is neither particularly descriptive, nor relevant, in my opinion.
Solution is simple and well-known but requires balls: separate childbearing from marriage politically, and treat it as a full-time job. Institute flat tax charged from all adult population and use it to pay salaries to all women (not "families") with children based on number of children without regard to "quality", variating (guaranteed inflation-adjusted till age of 18) salaries, and taxes, according to the birthrate factual vs desired: increase both if birth rate is too low, until it is sufficient. As simple as that.
Because this will be exploited by the poorest underclass women who will have lots and lots of children to milk the taxpayer (and that's fine!), the resulting market-based salary won't at all be huge.
Because this will be exploited by the poorest underclass women who will have lots and lots of children to milk the taxpayer (and that's fine!), the resulting market-based salary won't at all be huge.
>this will be exploited by the poorest underclass women who will have lots and lots of children to milk the taxpayer (and that's fine!)
It blows my mind that people think this way. You're going to get a lot of children who are wanted for fiscal benefits, but are unwanted from a maternal benefit. So yes, number goes up, but at what non-fiscal cost?
It blows my mind that people think this way. You're going to get a lot of children who are wanted for fiscal benefits, but are unwanted from a maternal benefit. So yes, number goes up, but at what non-fiscal cost?
I wonder if you realize that in a traditional farming family, children were used for agricultural menial tasks very early in their lives, and then booted out of household around adolescence. That's where all of these soldiers and sailors, but also housemaids came from.
Children were genuinely profitable. Not anymore so birth rates plummet.
Nobody can seriously reason how they are going to increase the overall quantity of children while at the same time increase quality of these children('s lives). It's a tradeoff.
But there is a brighter side, if the whole society still benefits from being economically, demographically and culturally solvent, that may offset that tradeoff's quality of life decrease for these children. As we all see it's quite crappy to be a Little Emperor until you are 18 and then realize that education debt + real estate prices = 8===э
Children were genuinely profitable. Not anymore so birth rates plummet.
Nobody can seriously reason how they are going to increase the overall quantity of children while at the same time increase quality of these children('s lives). It's a tradeoff.
But there is a brighter side, if the whole society still benefits from being economically, demographically and culturally solvent, that may offset that tradeoff's quality of life decrease for these children. As we all see it's quite crappy to be a Little Emperor until you are 18 and then realize that education debt + real estate prices = 8===э
Of course, using children for your fiscal benefit while freeing yourself of the maternal responsibility is reserved for those child-free riding off of social security paid for thanks to parents raising productive children.
You see it's only moral to use other children as fiscal cattle, not your own!
You see it's only moral to use other children as fiscal cattle, not your own!
People as cattle.
I see some issues with that.
I see some issues with that.
You will get downvotes from people who expected to increase quality when improving quantity at the same time.
Was this ever the case? Good people have enough children, they always did and still do, they are well-off, have normal families and normal perception of reproduction. They will always be sufficient to have a ruling class, but never sufficient to have a class to be ruled.
I think the idea is horrible but didn't downvote.
I think I don't even have the button to.
I think I don't even have the button to.
I hate to ask a stupid question, but... So what?
The housing prices are extraordinary and the cost for people to live so far north is significant. Maybe we don't need a lot of people being born up north. There's certainly enough people on the planet to make up for any headcount-shortfall with immigration (and in Norway in particular, quite a few people born there move away these days because cost of living is so high).
The housing prices are extraordinary and the cost for people to live so far north is significant. Maybe we don't need a lot of people being born up north. There's certainly enough people on the planet to make up for any headcount-shortfall with immigration (and in Norway in particular, quite a few people born there move away these days because cost of living is so high).
> There's certainly enough people on the planet to make up for any headcount-shortfall with immigration
I'm just glad they're all perfectly interchangeable.
I'm just glad they're all perfectly interchangeable.
This is assuming that all people/groups are essentially equally productive, which is not true.
People in more developed countries are >10x more productive than people in undeveloped countries.
People in more developed countries are >10x more productive than people in undeveloped countries.
So they move to Norway to make up the shortfall and become more productive. It's not like the magic of birth is what makes people in more developed countries 10x more productive.
I don’t follow.
Your original post was saying that it is OK for population decline in the northern countries because it is too expensive to live there. And population growth in other (less productive) countries is fine because it evens out.
Your original post was saying that it is OK for population decline in the northern countries because it is too expensive to live there. And population growth in other (less productive) countries is fine because it evens out.
Two forces at play here:
1) There's no set "right number" of people who should be living in northern countries, no rule that says we need to replace every emigrant (or unborn person) with an immigrant. If it's too expensive to live up north, maybe just... Fewer people just live up north.
The population of Norway, right now, is higher than it's ever been in the country's history. Maybe a population decline looks more like a correction to a "right" amount?
2) To the extent that more people are needed, one can assume that the headcount shortfall from lower birth rate will be filled with skilled immigrants who like the climate and bring a competency that creates enough value to afford the cost of living.
1) There's no set "right number" of people who should be living in northern countries, no rule that says we need to replace every emigrant (or unborn person) with an immigrant. If it's too expensive to live up north, maybe just... Fewer people just live up north.
The population of Norway, right now, is higher than it's ever been in the country's history. Maybe a population decline looks more like a correction to a "right" amount?
2) To the extent that more people are needed, one can assume that the headcount shortfall from lower birth rate will be filled with skilled immigrants who like the climate and bring a competency that creates enough value to afford the cost of living.
> the headcount shortfall from lower birth rate will be filled with skilled immigrants who like the climate
NOBODY likes the climate.
NOBODY likes the climate.
Bah, that's not true. I happen to find it quite stimulating.
There's no bad weather, just bad clothing. ;)
There's no bad weather, just bad clothing. ;)
Skitsnack spritt av friskusar som vill impa på andra (jag var också sådan, tills jag blev frusen på gamla da'r) eller av klädindustrin. Låt oss skylla på norrmännen, det var säkert Helly-Hansen.
Title adjusted to accommodate title limit.
https://archive.today/ZmD9O
https://archive.today/ZmD9O
Crossposting from my own Reddit comment about the same article:
No, it's just that the policies aren't changing fast enough to match the drop in culture pressure/attitudes that used to push people to have kids (especially religious ones).
Major things that have pushed people to have kids:
* De facto retirement plan / can actually make you richer (sorta)
* Cultural/religious pressure
* Emotional personal reasons: you want kids because you want kids
Of these three, the first one is obviously not just gone, but actually reversed -- people don't quickly put their grade school children to work on the farm anymore -- and the second one has rapidly declined in the last century. To the extent people in developed countries have kids, it's usually because they just wanna, that's it. Maybe a bit of an exception for immigrant groups when it comes to cultural attitudes, but those tend to regress to the mean for the the country over generations.
Things pushing people to not have kids:
* Kids are extremely expensive in terms of money
* Kids are extremely expensive in terms of energy/labor/time
* Kids are an 18+ year commitment you can't really back out of
* And of course some people just don't see benefit to themselves (this is more a lack of upside than a downside)
Due to the first two things here, having kids generally results in a large change in lifestyle and even standard of living, usually a downgrade on the latter, with things like 'going out' or vacations taking a steep tumble in frequency and/or quality. Lots of jokes about this in parent groups because it's very true for most: kids are intensive and expensive.
The reality is that expectations for parents have never been higher, and if you look at childcare time, the amount of time moms and dads spend with taking care of their kids has gone up, even as the number of kids people have has gone down. People really expect a lot out of parents, people expect a lot out of themselves as would-be parents, and then they look at their material circumstances and how much kids would cost, and think: nah, that wouldn't work.
And for what? The entity that benefits most tangibly from more kids is not the parents, but the state, who wants more workers to keep that worker:retiree ratio solid.
Of course, there is a solution: if the state is the one benefitting in the end, let the state pay: make parenting a net zero financial impact for most families via larger subsidies to cover child-rearing costs. This would remove one of the major issues stopping people from having kids, and partially mitigate another one (to the extent that things like occasional babysitting might be covered).
Making parenting net zero on your budget is a radical suggestion that politically would probably be unpopular, especially among people who absolutely don't want kids: because NOT having kids is currently viewed as the 'smart financial choice', being financially equal with parents would likely be viewed as oppression. They would view it as a subsidy from a childfree lifestyle to a child-supporting one...which is exactly correct, of course, because currently the child-supporting lifestyle ends up supporting the childfree one when it comes time to retire.
Absent a change like this, it's hard to not imagine seeing more and more people avoiding kids as a practical choice: will having kids make you happier than just spending more time with existing friends and family? Uncertain, but it'll definitely leave you with less money, meaning likely less financial security. And of course, it doesn't help that things like homes are increasingly expensive, which means it's harder to afford more space that people reasonably want for their kids. The different components of inflation hit people supporting kids extra hard.
No, it's just that the policies aren't changing fast enough to match the drop in culture pressure/attitudes that used to push people to have kids (especially religious ones).
Major things that have pushed people to have kids:
* De facto retirement plan / can actually make you richer (sorta)
* Cultural/religious pressure
* Emotional personal reasons: you want kids because you want kids
Of these three, the first one is obviously not just gone, but actually reversed -- people don't quickly put their grade school children to work on the farm anymore -- and the second one has rapidly declined in the last century. To the extent people in developed countries have kids, it's usually because they just wanna, that's it. Maybe a bit of an exception for immigrant groups when it comes to cultural attitudes, but those tend to regress to the mean for the the country over generations.
Things pushing people to not have kids:
* Kids are extremely expensive in terms of money
* Kids are extremely expensive in terms of energy/labor/time
* Kids are an 18+ year commitment you can't really back out of
* And of course some people just don't see benefit to themselves (this is more a lack of upside than a downside)
Due to the first two things here, having kids generally results in a large change in lifestyle and even standard of living, usually a downgrade on the latter, with things like 'going out' or vacations taking a steep tumble in frequency and/or quality. Lots of jokes about this in parent groups because it's very true for most: kids are intensive and expensive.
The reality is that expectations for parents have never been higher, and if you look at childcare time, the amount of time moms and dads spend with taking care of their kids has gone up, even as the number of kids people have has gone down. People really expect a lot out of parents, people expect a lot out of themselves as would-be parents, and then they look at their material circumstances and how much kids would cost, and think: nah, that wouldn't work.
And for what? The entity that benefits most tangibly from more kids is not the parents, but the state, who wants more workers to keep that worker:retiree ratio solid.
Of course, there is a solution: if the state is the one benefitting in the end, let the state pay: make parenting a net zero financial impact for most families via larger subsidies to cover child-rearing costs. This would remove one of the major issues stopping people from having kids, and partially mitigate another one (to the extent that things like occasional babysitting might be covered).
Making parenting net zero on your budget is a radical suggestion that politically would probably be unpopular, especially among people who absolutely don't want kids: because NOT having kids is currently viewed as the 'smart financial choice', being financially equal with parents would likely be viewed as oppression. They would view it as a subsidy from a childfree lifestyle to a child-supporting one...which is exactly correct, of course, because currently the child-supporting lifestyle ends up supporting the childfree one when it comes time to retire.
Absent a change like this, it's hard to not imagine seeing more and more people avoiding kids as a practical choice: will having kids make you happier than just spending more time with existing friends and family? Uncertain, but it'll definitely leave you with less money, meaning likely less financial security. And of course, it doesn't help that things like homes are increasingly expensive, which means it's harder to afford more space that people reasonably want for their kids. The different components of inflation hit people supporting kids extra hard.
> Making parenting net zero on your budget is a radical suggestion that politically would probably be unpopular, especially among people who absolutely don't want kids: because NOT having kids is currently viewed as the 'smart financial choice', being financially equal with parents would likely be viewed as oppression. They would view it as a subsidy from a childfree lifestyle to a child-supporting one...which is exactly correct, of course, because currently the child-supporting lifestyle ends up supporting the childfree one when it comes time to retire.
Exactly. For years there's been all kinds of shaming of poor mothers. It's drilled into people that being a parent when you aren't financially independent is a bad choice. Not really surprising that people don't want to take that on if they don't have to. Parenting isn't all that popular in the broader political discourse sphere.
Exactly. For years there's been all kinds of shaming of poor mothers. It's drilled into people that being a parent when you aren't financially independent is a bad choice. Not really surprising that people don't want to take that on if they don't have to. Parenting isn't all that popular in the broader political discourse sphere.
Agree with all this. I think the lowered birthrate is all explained by the accessibility & acceptability of birth control. Before birth control, if you didn't want to have kids, you had to be celibate, which uh no, thanks. So lots of people had kids whether they wanted them or not. Now that we have a choice, we're finding many people just choose not to.
If this is a problem that we want to solve, then the solution IMO is to treat child rearing as the full-time job that it is. I don't mean subsidies or tax breaks, I'm talking a full $70k/year salary for the job of Being A Parent. As a childless person myself, I would support this.
If this is a problem that we want to solve, then the solution IMO is to treat child rearing as the full-time job that it is. I don't mean subsidies or tax breaks, I'm talking a full $70k/year salary for the job of Being A Parent. As a childless person myself, I would support this.
> Major things that have pushed people to have kids
What about evolutionary pressure - the biological impulse? Or, are we humans post-evolution and have overridden the innate impulse to reproduce?
What about evolutionary pressure - the biological impulse? Or, are we humans post-evolution and have overridden the innate impulse to reproduce?
Yes, that's the emotional angle I mentioned.
> Or, are we humans post-evolution and have overridden the innate impulse to reproduce?
Not entirely, but it it's absolutely common for many people to say they just don't want kids.
Also, the primary thing there is the inmate impulse to have sex, not reproduce. It's just that we've managed to disconnect sex from reproduction.
> Or, are we humans post-evolution and have overridden the innate impulse to reproduce?
Not entirely, but it it's absolutely common for many people to say they just don't want kids.
Also, the primary thing there is the inmate impulse to have sex, not reproduce. It's just that we've managed to disconnect sex from reproduction.
Robust access to contraceptives allows for the act without the burden of the result (if undesired).
https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-...
https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#contraception
https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-...
https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#contraception
Is the impulse to reproduce the same as the impulse to have sex?
What does the fertility rate and surveys of people of reproductive age tell us?
Well, the recent studies say nobody is having sex anymore, especially among the younger generations. So, people are not having sex and people are not having children. I’m not sure what that says. If people were having sex without having kids, that would mean something, but that isn’t the reality.
> So, people are not having sex and people are not having children. I’m not sure what that says.
Hey, there could be a connection here! Do we know where children come from?
Hey, there could be a connection here! Do we know where children come from?
Consider asking Pew Research. info at pewresearch dot org. They have an "Ask the Expert" service which is equivalent to a research assistant for their corpus and methodologies.
people in today world are disconnected from their "nature", we are made to be seminomad huntergatherers living in small tribes of kin. A lot of our wants are a surrogate of our biology, like the craving for sugars/fats. A lot of societal/mental ills can be correlated to such disconnection
I would add kids are a lifetime commitment. The relationship changes after 18, 21, 30 but still requires time/effort.
This is a radical idea, but I think what may happen eventually is that we figure out a way to incubate mammals, ie. an artificial uterus. Governments start to raise people like we raise fish in fish farms. Those people are now loyal to the state, that's their family. It's similar to an ant colony. Natural reproduction may be banned, or severely penalized. Many science fiction novels have explored this idea. I can see communist countries loving this idea.
A few common counterarguments and my responses:
Kids don't have to be super expensive!
This is true, but it's also true for most people they are. To make them not expensive, you have to avoid a lot of things that most people consider a normal, middle-class part of a regular lifestyle or a middle-class way of raising children. I won't dispute that there are probably smarter low-cost ways to raise kids, but we're talking about parents as they are and will continue to be, not parents as some idealistic frugality experts: people will want to pay for music lessons and for vacations to Disneyland. Especially if they were already taking equivalent vacations before they had kids.
Why should I have to pay for your kids?
Because collectively, people having children is what supports society, especially when it comes to people eventually retiring. If there are no more workers when it comes time for you to retire, society doesn't work. If there are not enough workers, society doesn't work well. The proportion of government budgets that different nations are paying out towards elder care via pensions and healthcare is huge and increasing because of changes in this ratio; the fewer workers you have, the more something's gotta give.
Can't we just use immigration?
This actually isn't a horrible idea, it's just that this is likely only a temporary solution, for one simple reason: birth rates are low or dropping nearly everywhere now. You can only take the excess youth from other countries for so long before that won't really work anymore. Eventually, it'll be shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic, especially as more and more developing or previously-developing countries improve their own economic situations.
There are also possible issues with cultural integration of immigrants, but I don't disagree that using immigration as part of the solution is a good idea at least for a while (and certainly, some countries already do this; the US has been below replacement rate for a while but has still had an increasing population).
What about robots doing all our work so we don't need workers?
In the sufficiently long term, yes that might work, we might get fully automated luxury communism (I'm certainly not against the idea). It's just that
a) We don't know how long it'll take until we actually have robots capable of doing all the basic things you need in a society like growing food, constructing buildings, practicing medicine, teaching people things, etc. and also
b) So far, humanity has done an awesome job of basically making up new jobs that require humans every time we get rid of existing jobs that require humans. The number of people we need to grow food has collapsed, the number of people we need for industrial production per unit of <thing> has steadily been decreasing for a long time, and yet somehow we keep coming up with more jobs for people to do, new ideas of what counts as a necessity (your great great grandparents probably didn't consider individual therapy to be one).
Kids don't have to be super expensive!
This is true, but it's also true for most people they are. To make them not expensive, you have to avoid a lot of things that most people consider a normal, middle-class part of a regular lifestyle or a middle-class way of raising children. I won't dispute that there are probably smarter low-cost ways to raise kids, but we're talking about parents as they are and will continue to be, not parents as some idealistic frugality experts: people will want to pay for music lessons and for vacations to Disneyland. Especially if they were already taking equivalent vacations before they had kids.
Why should I have to pay for your kids?
Because collectively, people having children is what supports society, especially when it comes to people eventually retiring. If there are no more workers when it comes time for you to retire, society doesn't work. If there are not enough workers, society doesn't work well. The proportion of government budgets that different nations are paying out towards elder care via pensions and healthcare is huge and increasing because of changes in this ratio; the fewer workers you have, the more something's gotta give.
Can't we just use immigration?
This actually isn't a horrible idea, it's just that this is likely only a temporary solution, for one simple reason: birth rates are low or dropping nearly everywhere now. You can only take the excess youth from other countries for so long before that won't really work anymore. Eventually, it'll be shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic, especially as more and more developing or previously-developing countries improve their own economic situations.
There are also possible issues with cultural integration of immigrants, but I don't disagree that using immigration as part of the solution is a good idea at least for a while (and certainly, some countries already do this; the US has been below replacement rate for a while but has still had an increasing population).
What about robots doing all our work so we don't need workers?
In the sufficiently long term, yes that might work, we might get fully automated luxury communism (I'm certainly not against the idea). It's just that
a) We don't know how long it'll take until we actually have robots capable of doing all the basic things you need in a society like growing food, constructing buildings, practicing medicine, teaching people things, etc. and also
b) So far, humanity has done an awesome job of basically making up new jobs that require humans every time we get rid of existing jobs that require humans. The number of people we need to grow food has collapsed, the number of people we need for industrial production per unit of <thing> has steadily been decreasing for a long time, and yet somehow we keep coming up with more jobs for people to do, new ideas of what counts as a necessity (your great great grandparents probably didn't consider individual therapy to be one).
> To make them not expensive, you have to avoid a lot of things that most people consider a normal, middle-class part of a regular lifestyle or a middle-class way of raising children.
Well, you can make the middle-class lifestyle affordable.
It's not Disney vacations that make people give-up on childbirth. It's housing and schooling.
Well, you can make the middle-class lifestyle affordable.
It's not Disney vacations that make people give-up on childbirth. It's housing and schooling.
I 100% agree. Though even if those things were more reasonably priced, they would still be more expensive for people with kids. You do need some more space with kids to maintain the same standard of living, and most people prefer easier access to green space (yard and/or close by parks) when they have kids.
That's why huge subsidies to reach financial parity are probably necessary.
That's why huge subsidies to reach financial parity are probably necessary.
Couple of thoughts. (1) To me, immigration can indeed fill the gap. An endless supply of people wish to leave poorer , or hotter (which is a problem with climate change) countries, for richer ones. This will hurt the poorer countries that end up with an ageing population. OTOH if those poorer countries are becoming too hot to live in, that's a good move for people , although awful for those left behind. (2) Cost of raising kids - in my experience the richer people are the more they seem to worry. Maybe those of us raised on less are simply used to being creative about getting by on less, and unfazed by the prospect. To use your 2 examples- music lessons can be had in many ways, often cheap/almost free such as joining a community music group where people will pass on skills. Disneyland - hardly essential, or any form of hardship for a child to miss out on that, IMHO. There are many ways to have a meaningful life, get plenty of education etc, without spending a fortune. While housing has gone up a lot, my parents' generation will say that in the past there were housing booms too, followed by super high interest rates, and everything else used to take relatively more of income, including food and clothes. A difference then was public transport was better in many ways and cheaper, so a car not as essential. I think the main difference now is peoples' expectations. Since the planet can't sustain ever-increasing consumption habits, probably its a good thing people are having less kids.
As I pointed out already, it is not in fact endless, and most of those poorer countries are steadily becoming richer. South Korea used to be poor as shit, not so much anymore. Eastern Europe has improved massively, parts of it have caught up to parts of Western Europe. China isn't nearly as poor as it was a few decades ago either.
I was thinking of countries more like India and Nigeria, both of which, despite becoming richer and having lower fertility themselves, have populations projected to exceed China's, and both projected to become too hot to live in without big problems. Its not literally an "endless" supply, but its easily enough to cover gaps in the west. If fertility fell 75% in the west, could probably fill it with people from those countries. And that might be a win-win in certain ways. The west then doesn't have an aging population. People in too hot countries get to move. The suffering happens to old people left in poor hot countries, which is a sad thing. In the end yes you are correct its not endless, but this must be a very long way off.
I think endless supply of "brown" people is going to become limited supply of brow immigration because voices in rich western countries are not going to see that as win-win.
Do you foresee a massive upsurge in racism then? I hope not, and that over time people will become more sensible about seeing those who look different from them as simply "other people". In the UK, some of the most racist people are dying out and being replaced with people who are used to growing up in a multi-ethnic society and having friends that look different. There was some hoo-hah a couple years back when politicians wanted to stir up racism and the England football team was having none if it, they are a bunch of young lads of many colours who value each other equally, as it should be. OTOH unfortunately we now have right-wing politicians who themselves are non-white who are trying to stir up racism against people the same colour as them.
I'm in Canada and pro-immigration young demographics liberal leaning are starting to signal against immigration - too much inflows driving costs up (housing which I think UK understands). PoC right-wing politicians and if UK constituent anything like Canadian conservatives, it reflects lots of immigrant PoCs have, fuck you, got mine, attitude towards new immigrants. They didn't claw their way to the west from global south, to "suffer" mass inflow from global south diminishing perks of the west. They like their priveledge as well. Maybe we can sort out cost of living crisis that reduces immigration friction, but I suspect not, because the fuck you, got mine interests runs deep.
human capitals in these countries is not distribuited the same as in the western world or even most of asia. Thats reality under the luxury belief that anybody can be "integrated"
Yeah, there's a upper bound to skilled labour production in developing countries unless they massively improve education, but that's also an enviroment correlated with better development and less outflows. But there's plenty of bodies, IMO not everyone has luxury to prioritize skilled immigration like Anglo countries (who themselves lose cream to US), and even Anglo countries might eventually have to settle for less skilled if what is needed is just bodies to keep economy growing. Even if productiity return is subpar.
It’s not about economic conditions, or culture, or religion, or anything like that. It’s modernity itself
This really is the elephant in the room that no one wants to admit to or address. It’s not merely about economics.
There have been planned economies in various degrees that have subsidized housing, willed industries into existence, that have not done better.
The real issue is that none of our societies have brought certain values into the modern world, particularly values like family and loyalty. And because we have nuclear families now, the neuroses of the parents get focused on the 1-2 children that they tend to have.
There have been planned economies in various degrees that have subsidized housing, willed industries into existence, that have not done better.
The real issue is that none of our societies have brought certain values into the modern world, particularly values like family and loyalty. And because we have nuclear families now, the neuroses of the parents get focused on the 1-2 children that they tend to have.
That's an interesting position. I'd love it if you'd elaborate on what you mean. What exactly is it about modernity? Certainly you don't just mean the year number.
Humans are not singular organisms, we're a colony species. We are evolved for (and thrive in) social groups. These social groups are not just voluntary associations, but are deeply rooted traditions - whether that's based in family, faith, or nation.
The problem with Modernity is that the systems and structures that humans have built to ensure continued human flourishing within these deeply rooted social bonds have grown far beyond their original scale. You can blame capitalism, the state, whatever, it doesn't really matter. What's important is that as the state or capital grow (and they have to, or be killed by others which do), they must necessarily tear down the old order; debride the old traditions which hinder its continued growth.
The end-state of this, which we can see best in places like East Asia, or California, is society in which humans are interchangeable chess pieces. People are atomized from any received community or tradition. Thus, reproduction is viewed not as a natural stage of life — an essential component in the ordered tradition in which they live their life — but as an object of luxury consumption. Very luxury! Which is why people in these regions tend to stick to one kid, maybe two (and if you walk around Seoul, you'll see plenty of dogs in strollers: much cheaper!)
In societies which haven't yet reached that end state, we see the same effect as the forces of Modernity inexorably creep in: religion wanes, tradition falters, birthrates fall. Be it Salt Lake or Suzhou, Tehran or Tokyo, we see this pattern in every place wherever Modernity is made manifest.
The problem with Modernity is that the systems and structures that humans have built to ensure continued human flourishing within these deeply rooted social bonds have grown far beyond their original scale. You can blame capitalism, the state, whatever, it doesn't really matter. What's important is that as the state or capital grow (and they have to, or be killed by others which do), they must necessarily tear down the old order; debride the old traditions which hinder its continued growth.
The end-state of this, which we can see best in places like East Asia, or California, is society in which humans are interchangeable chess pieces. People are atomized from any received community or tradition. Thus, reproduction is viewed not as a natural stage of life — an essential component in the ordered tradition in which they live their life — but as an object of luxury consumption. Very luxury! Which is why people in these regions tend to stick to one kid, maybe two (and if you walk around Seoul, you'll see plenty of dogs in strollers: much cheaper!)
In societies which haven't yet reached that end state, we see the same effect as the forces of Modernity inexorably creep in: religion wanes, tradition falters, birthrates fall. Be it Salt Lake or Suzhou, Tehran or Tokyo, we see this pattern in every place wherever Modernity is made manifest.
But that's cultural change, no? I'm trying to get an idea of what "modernity" means in the sense you mean.
Modernity is the sum total of political and economic forces in the present era that are causing this identical cultural change across the planet.
8 billion monkey men on the planet!
The human population needs to drop 90%
The only people averse to this are the ones running the ponzi schemes...
The human population needs to drop 90%
The only people averse to this are the ones running the ponzi schemes...
I'm averse to this and I'm not running anything. You don't find it a little bit ironic to moralize a claim that most people should be dead and see yourself and those who hold this view as the good guys?
Were they ever going to be enough? There's a bump in fertility in wealthy countries when women has increased maternal options - but TFR is collapsing to irrevocably below replacement levels in wealthy muslism countries as well. My friends in the region have cheap housing, relatively well paying jobs - are religiously traditional - the women want families, have the resources and the family pressure to, but still end up settling for 1-2 kids for less than >2 TFR. E: Oh they also have help, like maids and nannies.Like this shit is not resolvable via policy.
Oh so we can't call the current generation baby boomers
Let parents lay claim to X% of the loot (tax) government takes from their children. It's what boomers do to us but with reverse incentives as they profit more the fewer children they have as social security isn't tied to your contribution to the next gen tax generation machines.
Change it from tragedy of the commons to mutual cooperation.
Change it from tragedy of the commons to mutual cooperation.
Income is inversely correlated to fertility. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1328574/fertility-rate-w...
Having said that, Hungary is trying something interesting. Waiving income tax for life for women who have 4 or more children. That might actually be compelling. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/have-four-or-more-babies-in-...
Having said that, Hungary is trying something interesting. Waiving income tax for life for women who have 4 or more children. That might actually be compelling. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/have-four-or-more-babies-in-...
In this scheme, by design, you get the income when the children are grown so it shouldn't yield the negative correlation. I specifically accounted for your concern and designed it to incentivize raising productive children.
Ah. I misread that a bit.
I TOTALLY agree.
We have a system now where childfree people disproportionately benefit from the socialized state. Not only do they not have to engage in any of the sacrifice (both monetary, time, and personal interests) of raising children, but they also get to suck just as much off the productivity of other people's children later in retirement. You might even get MORE than parents, since social security benefit is based off your average income over 35 working years.
For all of human history, your children were your retirement plan. You benefited directly in the future by how many you had that became successful, productive adults. But now retirement is so heavily socialized in the west that that children often can't directly take care of their parents because they're dealing with their own work and tax burden.
I don't have anything against childfree people (I'm one myself), but this system is fundamentally perverse and self destructive. You can't disproportionately reward people that don't reproduce from the bounty of those who do and expect that system to continue for very long. Like a parasite sucking a host dry, both eventually die.
I TOTALLY agree.
We have a system now where childfree people disproportionately benefit from the socialized state. Not only do they not have to engage in any of the sacrifice (both monetary, time, and personal interests) of raising children, but they also get to suck just as much off the productivity of other people's children later in retirement. You might even get MORE than parents, since social security benefit is based off your average income over 35 working years.
For all of human history, your children were your retirement plan. You benefited directly in the future by how many you had that became successful, productive adults. But now retirement is so heavily socialized in the west that that children often can't directly take care of their parents because they're dealing with their own work and tax burden.
I don't have anything against childfree people (I'm one myself), but this system is fundamentally perverse and self destructive. You can't disproportionately reward people that don't reproduce from the bounty of those who do and expect that system to continue for very long. Like a parasite sucking a host dry, both eventually die.
Low birthrate is only a problem for ponzi-scheme societies.
It's the economy, stupid.
You're right. We've gotten too rich.
Every bit of data seems to show that the wealthier we get, the fewer babies we have.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1328574/fertility-rate-w...
Every bit of data seems to show that the wealthier we get, the fewer babies we have.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1328574/fertility-rate-w...
It's a lot more complicated than that. France has a higher GDP per capita than South Korea, but has a fertility rate of 1.7 vs .7.
1.7 isn't replacement but it's not national extinction. There's a cultural element here besides pure economics.
1.7 isn't replacement but it's not national extinction. There's a cultural element here besides pure economics.
Oh yeah. The truth is obviously way more complicated and nuanced.
I was just being snippy at the parent comment giving the really tired complaint that it's all about not having enough money (obviously false).
I was just being snippy at the parent comment giving the really tired complaint that it's all about not having enough money (obviously false).
Wealth is mostly held by people who are outside the age range of having babies.
Wage growth compared to cost of living has been flat to negative for decades. Outlook for the future is low. Of course people aren't having kids.
Wage growth compared to cost of living has been flat to negative for decades. Outlook for the future is low. Of course people aren't having kids.
If that was the economy, at least birthrates won't fall in countries where it has skyrocketed.
The researcher in the article claims it's not that easy. Should I trust busterarm or the researcher on this subject?