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US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further Below Replacement Level

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Re: US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further Below Replacement Level

#71

Post by loggedinmyphone »

tzahola wrote: post #61
Karishma1234 wrote: post #36

Not true at all. Turns out that the poor people who actually cant afford to have kids are having more kids. Hispanic and Black growth is much higher than whites and asians. Asians with the highest income level have lowest birth rate. Given that it is mostly whites who have been leading in STEM there is a high chance that US will lose its competitive advantage in these fields.

I think the dwindling white population is actually a good thing, because it will enable people of color to assert a leading role in STEM fields!

And that's what it's all about.

Re: US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further Below Replacement Level

#72

Post by drspacemonkey »

Viker wrote: post #10

Interesting... How many people here would say that they have actively decided not to have children? I am just curious.

38yo Canadian male. Made a conscious decision to never have kids when I was 30. Haven't changed my mind.

Re: US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further Below Replacement Level

#73

Post by paulcole »

CalRobert wrote: post #6
CalRobert wrote: post #3

Sample of one (well, two) here but my wife and I decided it was now or never as we hit our mid thirties and decided to have a kid. She still has mountains of student debt precluding homeownership though which means it's unlikely we'll have two. We also waited until the kid could be something other than American though, so we're outliers.

Then again, the lower the birthrate of wealthy high-emission folks, the greater the chance civilization survives another century,

I agree with you but this is a super controversial opinion on HN. People here seem to really like to ignore the environment cost of a child.

Re: US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further Below Replacement Level

#74

Post by dalacv »

nostromo wrote: post #35
mhneu wrote: post #8

For decades, the US birth rate has been held up by immigration. American values have been to regard the country as a nation of immigrants, who not only act as a source of youthful workers, but also have more kids than Americans who have been here longer. So the US has avoided workforce aging, as has happened in parts of Europe and especially Japan, through immigration. With the recent reduction in immigration, accele…

I don't see the value in large numbers of unskilled workers entering the US every year. With a potentially large wave of automation coming, the US shouldn't straddled itself with lots of unemployable drivers, farm workers, etc. I hope we can move to a much more sensible immigration system, similar to Canada's, for example.

What some people don't realize is that the person emptying your trash bin in the evenings might very well be college educated. Not that they stand a chance of using that education in the US without the appropriate level of English.

Re: US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further Below Replacement Level

#75

Post by dagw »

coldtea wrote: post #24
0xB31B1B wrote: post #5

Student loans, housing costs, job prospects, healthcare, childcare. People are making a rational decision to avoid children they can’t afford. We as a society need to re-examine the causes of rising costs of essentials so reproduction is no longer financially infeasible.

> Student loans, housing costs, job prospects, healthcare, childcare. People are making a rational decision to avoid children they can’t afford. Well, people in the US made way more children when they made very few money, and lived 10 together in tiny houses and apartments. And they still do in the developing world. So it can't be just costs.

So it can't be just costs.

Our expected spending on children has also grown dramatically. For example back then there was an expectation that someone would always stay home an look after the kids, now we expect them to go to day care. Back then 4 kids sharing a room their entire childhood was normal, now each kid is expected to get their own room. Back then kids where expected to entertain themselves, now we expect them to attend all sorts of after school activities. Back then they where expected to either go straight to work after high school or pay their own way through college either by working or scholarships, now the parents are expected to help pay for college, and so on.

Basically it's not that having kids per se is more expensive, it's that providing kids with the quality of life we've come to be expected to provide them with is expensive.

Re: US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further Below Replacement Level

#76

Post by diminoten »

nostromo wrote: post #35
mhneu wrote: post #8

For decades, the US birth rate has been held up by immigration. American values have been to regard the country as a nation of immigrants, who not only act as a source of youthful workers, but also have more kids than Americans who have been here longer. So the US has avoided workforce aging, as has happened in parts of Europe and especially Japan, through immigration. With the recent reduction in immigration, accele…

I don't see the value in large numbers of unskilled workers entering the US every year. With a potentially large wave of automation coming, the US shouldn't straddled itself with lots of unemployable drivers, farm workers, etc. I hope we can move to a much more sensible immigration system, similar to Canada's, for example.

What's the definition of "value" here? For current US citizens? For the world's economy? For some kind of global happiness/prosperity measurement?

Each definition changes the answers significantly, I'd think.

Re: US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further Below Replacement Level

#77

Post by paulcole »

Viker wrote: post #10

Interesting... How many people here would say that they have actively decided not to have children? I am just curious.

I've known for as long as I could remember that I didn't want kids. Just never seemed interesting or appealing to me. Had a vasectomy around age 30.

Re: US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further Below Replacement Level

#78

Post by mywittyname »

Karishma1234 wrote: post #36

Not true at all. Turns out that the poor people who actually cant afford to have kids are having more kids. Hispanic and Black growth is much higher than whites and asians. Asians with the highest income level have lowest birth rate. Given that it is mostly whites who have been leading in STEM there is a high chance that US will lose its competitive advantage in these fields.

The skills that get a person through college -- good long-term planning, ability to defer pleasure, prudent analysis -- also tend to cause people to successfully put off having children.

That's really the crux of the problem. Then add to that the fact that people who do have children young are put in a comparative disadvantage to their peers.

Re: US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further Below Replacement Level

#79

Post by jacquesm »

Viker wrote: post #10

Interesting... How many people here would say that they have actively decided not to have children? I am just curious.

> How many people here would say that they have actively decided not to have children?

Plenty of people do. For many different reasons.

Some people do not like kids, some people like their life as it is, some people are in a relationship that they are happy in but that they are sure of that it won't survive having children, some people carry genes that they do not wish to pass on and so on. The list is endless, probably at least as long as the list of reasons why people do want children, possibly even longer.

Re: US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further Below Replacement Level

#80

Post by wetpaws »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #20
enraged_camel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. If you think about it, most species reproduce when resources are abundant, and stop reproducing when resources become scarce. That's basically what is happening to young people here.

It's the opposite with humans. 3rd world/developing countries have extremely high birth rates. The best mechanism for "population control" in people is to improve a population's standard of living.

>3rd world/developing countries have extremely high birth rates

Their birth rates are also declining and doing it with increasing speed.

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