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Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

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121–130 of 359 posts

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal fees themselves aren't very expensive. If you can resist the societal pressures to have a large and extravagant wedding with many guests, then even the wedding itself isn't particularly expensive. The main cost of getting married is getting divorced. Legal fees add up a lot here, and the division of assets is costly. Now, you could argue your marriage won't end in divorce, but 60% of marriages in the US do.

Perhaps worth noting: that "60% of marriages end in divorce" number is quirky when you pull back the skin. 60% of marriages end in divorce, but most people who marry do not get divorced from their first marriage. The 60% number is bumped out due to the segment of the population that get married 3 or 4 times.

Interesting, thank you :) I'm still seeing divorce rates of 30-40% for first marriages, depending on generation.

Anecdotally, I know a lot of people who are either divorced in their 30s, or still unmarried in their 30s. Considering the difficulties a woman has conceiving beyond their mid 30s, I think the explanation is here in our faces.

My grandma had 5 kids and was married at 19.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> percentage of income spent on housing is not a great metric. A better metric is absolute income minus housing costs. / All else being equal, I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent, because that remaining 25% would be a heck of a lot of money. It makes sense, but that doesn't make it true. Is your argument based on your personal beliefs, or is it based on actual outcomes in the economy?…

> It makes sense, but that doesn't make it true. Is your argument based on your personal beliefs, or is it based on actual outcomes in the economy? Seems to me it's based on basic arithmetic. Are you arguing that $250,000/year isn't a very comfortable take-home wage?

I'm saying that the currency of fact is evidence, not speculation and analysis. It's an interesting theory, but we need evidence to know whether or not it's true. That's what science and reason are about.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when the bubble pops, how long will you be able to make your 30k/month mortgage payments?

You won’t, because you were smart and rented instead. :)

If you were smarter you'd have commuted in from the suburbs and banked the money for retirement.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when the bubble pops, how long will you be able to make your 30k/month mortgage payments?

You won’t, because you were smart and rented instead. :)

Woah, when did renting became the smart choice?

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#126
Considering generations in the past, and still in a lot of poor countries have raised multiple children in the smallest of spaces, I just don't believe there is a causative relation.

Much more plausible to me is the association to women's education, causing women to delay their first pregnancy and opt out of further children. Also there seems to be an association between general misery or fatality and birth rates.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the ratio of career gains that go to those working in a few expensive cities, even if this is largely selection effects, I'm not sure this paints a very rosy picture of the society we're creating. I'm reminded of how few heads of EU states are parents https://www.marketwatch.com/story/do-childless-leaders-mean-...

This stage of the demographic transition is a huge problem, IMO. The more I think about it, the more it seems like a ratchet (as in, it only moves in one direction): Basically, two incomes are useful, so both people in a relationship pursue careers. Now they have more money to compete on the housing market. This seems like a good move, so others follow suit. At first this is largely a win for people who pursue this r…

Solution: create a surplus of homes. That will detach price from income. Nothing else will work. (Note: we did this with food and it successfully kept prices low)

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#128
post #37

From previous: " In nations in the West, an important limiting factor is the ability to get one’s own apartment. That is, the ratio of average male wage to average rent. In the USA, the happiest year for this ratio was 1958, when people were spending 22% of their income on rent, on average. Not by coincidence, this was the peak year of the Baby Boom. In some sense, it was the best year in history to be a young white…

In pretty much every analysis involving housing costs, I try to mention that percentage of income spent on housing is not a great metric. A better metric is absolute income minus housing costs. All else being equal, I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent, because that remaining 25% would be a heck of a lot of money. I doubt this metric would significantly change the conclusions of this ar…

That pretty much strengthens the position of the article, assuming living surface need increases proportionally with head count. Then adding people to your family will quickly become unsustainable because your income is fixed but costs increase far quicker.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won’t, because you were smart and rented instead. :)

If you were smarter you'd have commuted in from the suburbs and banked the money for retirement.

In SF the suburbs are called Silicon Valley and are also expensive.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when the bubble pops, how long will you be able to make your 30k/month mortgage payments?

You won’t, because you were smart and rented instead. :)

haha, but what if it doesn't pop and we see something like Japan's economy from the early 90's on? High prices that never come down, combined with wage stagnation? We're kind of already seeing it now.
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