221–230 of 359 posts
Obvious conclusion: children wreck property values. (this result published in "The Journal Of Correlation Implying Causation ;) )
worded slightly differently, "adding 1+ people to your family who don't work will decrease your disposable income"
Obvious conclusion: children wreck property values. (this result published in "The Journal Of Correlation Implying Causation ;) )
The value of your property depends on the value of the properties around you. Therefore, if you intend to sell your home, 'remove' some children in your neighborhood and you can increase your asking price!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Immigration will offset the demographic implosion, at least if current trends continue. But speaking as someone who studied climate science, a temporary population reduction can only be a good thing for long-term human survival. We're above the carrying capacity of Earth for humans, and though we've done a lot of tricks to expand capacity, we're currently putting a large swath of the biosphere in danger. If there are…
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.
While it is of course possible to raise a lot of children in a tiny space, it is not something you necessarily want to do. Especially if no-one in your environment is doing it. It is not really a happy life if you have to spend your evenings in utter silence because there is a baby or a toddler sleeping in the same room two meters away.
I believe that irrational factors are easily overlooked but predominant. There is a certain biological drive to raise children, stronger in some people compared to others. And various factors modulate this drive, again unconsciously.
Most of the time, in free societies at least, it is the woman who makes most of the decision. If she really wants to have a child, nothing and nobody can stop her, short of a reproductive problem.
The boomer generation (of which I am a member) has systematically disinvested in future generations. We've stripped resources from education, housing, and infrastructure. And we've successfully concentrated ourselves into certain geographical areas (counties) and driven housing prices up.
And now our generation's birth rate has (except for trophy wives) fallen to zero. That happens to every generation.
So, young people who want to live in our enclaves have to work really hard, or have to live in our cellars. Those who can afford it don't have time for kids, and those who can't go to live in areas we consider less "desireable."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you square that with somewhere like Denmark with it's equally abysmal yet they have way less working hours and a large social safety net?
I've visited Denmark before as an American :) It's a pretty nice place-- sure there are pretty generous payments to most members of society, but there is still some petty crime and different social classes and lack of major mobility. I am not precisely sure if they have less working hours. I mean, anecdotally, I don't know any Danes who have 10 minute commutes working 4 days a week, 6 hours a day or something like th…
By most metrics, Denmark has one of the largest degrees of social mobility in the world. The US usually comes out worst or second-worst in the developed world (the UK is gaining on it lately).
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…
However I don't believe in minus housing cost, as everything is relative. We should simply have housing cost / wages shown at different distribution level. Median, 60% and 80%, etc.
Although I am glad the world has finally caught up to the housing prices problem. Hong Kong people has been crying about it for decades.
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…
I think this is a wonderful way to tackle climate change. Higher housing if leads to lower birth rates then it might be good for planet. I wonder if there is analysis been done as to what birth rates we need to achieve to ensure the planet is fit to live for our kids.
I believe the driving factor of climate change isn't total world population though; it's fossil fuel exhaust generated for energy. There's correlation with total population but not necessarily direct linkage; if there are fewer people, but each person is consuming 2.5x as much electricity as the generation before, we wouldn't expect to see the fossil fuel burn rate lower.