Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by paidleaf » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 1:44 PM UTC

lkrubner wrote: post #20

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…

> 1958 is when men had the best wage to rent ratio, and that helped create families and have children.

I don't think it is necessarily the current state, but our view of future prospects that may matter more. I wonder if there are yearly studies of people's outlook on employment prospects/etc broken down by age. Having children is a future oriented endeavor. Your current situation absolutely matters, but I think your outlook on future prospects is the driving factor. I suspect it is so for women too. If you think your purchasing power, ability to own a home, etc in the future is diminishing, it would affect both the male and female positions on whether to have or the number of kids to raise.

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

#262

Post by jdavis703 » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 1:49 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #240

Swizec wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t forget to take transportation cost out of your $3000 per month. I live across the street from the office and yes the rent is stupid, but my commute is a 5 minute walk. And rent is still stupid in a 30min radius (for a total of 1h/day). You really have to go 1h+ radius to make a significant dent in rent around here (SF).

If you are working for somebody else, you can't exactly make any extra money by working extra hours. At least in a programmers case. The only real thing to gain in this case is convenience.

I work full time in software engineering and do occasional paid freelancing work. It's quite possible to be full time and work extra.

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

#263

Post by maccard » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 1:51 PM UTC

anoncoward111 wrote: post #121

fixermark wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> My grandma had 5 kids and was married at 19.

Funny that you've mentioned correlation and no causation, and then brought this up. How old was your grandma when she had her first kid?

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

#264

Post by saalweachter » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 1:51 PM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #219

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For NYC it can be an easy 30-45 minute train ride where you are free to occupy your time with something productive.

Something productive that can be done in a car or train you mean. Not, say: - Being with your kids, spouse or helping them out to school or work - Housekeeping - Working out - Doing anything that requires undisturbed attention

As someone with a long train commute, my train time is basically my non-productive "me time". Read a book, read the internet, take a nap, program on fun, non-work projects. If I'm at home, I'm usually engaged in child-care or house-care of some flavor or another, with very little time for simple idleness.

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

#265

Post by Retric » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 1:51 PM UTC

nickrivadeneira wrote: post #256

Retric wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is you need more space after having kids. If your already spending 75% of your income on rent adding another room is not feasible. Or more basically you need a significant surplus to be able to afford kids.

That entirely depends on the income level you're talking, which is the OP's point. If you're making $10 mil and spending $7.5 mil on housing, you probably already have enough rooms to have kids. And even if you didn't, you could surely find room in your remaining $2.5 mil to add a room onto your house or find a slightly bigger place. This obviously does not apply if you're making $50k... Hence why absolutes are relev…

You are assuming that 7.5 million buys a multi room home. At the extreme it may only rent you a 350 square foot apartment.

Some people might spend 75% of their income on massive dwellings, but most people downsize if possible before going past 55% of income. And as we are talking about things on the social not individual level those preferences matter.

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

#266

Post by jdavis703 » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 1:53 PM UTC

iguy wrote: post #213

mrighele wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess his point is that what is important is the amount of money that is left after paying rent that you can use to raise kids (at least in this context). An homeless person spends 0% of his income in rent, but he's not in a good position to raise kids

What baddox's comment (about only the difference mattering) misses is this: what if you need another bedroom? In other words, it's ignoring the fact that houses come in many sizes. Anyone spending 75% of income on housing has an enormous incentive to choose a slightly smaller apartment. And is completely unable to contemplate expanding slightly. What if you want two kids... and the second one turns out to be twins? C…

Me and my sister shared a bedroom in a two bedroom apartment for a few years. I recentlty had neighbors that had a one bedroom with two kids. I'm not sure where this requirement of one bedroom per child comes from. Really, that's just a luxury.

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

#267

Post by krinchan » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 1:56 PM UTC

sien wrote: post #72

nomocrypto wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sane zoning laws would be much easier and do a lot more to ease the burden on people (I currently live in an “OMG no high rises! Won’t someone think of the neighborhood character!?” city and the rent is ridiculous). We just have to have the political will to change them, which unfortunately means angering very powerful monied interests, including Betty and Edgar who really love their now-valued-at-$500,000 house next…

This is bang on. Looking at the graph look where Harris County (Houston) and Dallas are. If the graphs were plotted with increase in population against the change in fertility then those places would be outliers. Texas zoning and tax on houses work. The funny thing about housing prices is that a state in the US has handled house prices so well with an economy that is doing well but Texas is often ignored in these dis…

> Texas zoning and tax on houses work.

Texas zoning also paved over all the marsh land that would've kept the city from flooding.

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

#268

Post by gedy » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #159

nostrademons wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's saying that as absolute incomes get higher, commuting cost as a percentage of income drops, because commuting cost is largely fixed regardless of income. And so it makes more sense to live in a low-COL region and commute to a high-COL region. For the average person, flying to work every day is unrealistic. If you are making $1M/year, it suddenly becomes very realistic. Same day roundtrips between SFO and…

There are a variety of private jet subscription offerings popping up, including Surfair: https://www.surfair.com/us/membership-pricing/ That one is only $2k/month for unlimited trips between a few locations in California. I don't know how restrictive their scheduling options are, though (i.e., could you actually commute daily with the service?).

Yes you can do daily. Although they've recently reduced their flights by quite a bit so now some days/location combinations are no longer available.

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

#269

Post by krinchan » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:03 PM UTC

hshehehjdjdjd wrote: post #109

anoncoward111 wrote: post #90

There's correlation here, but likely not causation. The real underlying cause in the drop in birth rates is an increase in working hours, an increase in commuting times, an increase in college tuition and health care costs, and also an increase in divorce rates. These days, even getting married is an expensive financial arrangement. Having kids is just another layer on that. Housing prices have increased because of c…

Getting married is expensive? How so?

Let's not mention the taxes for getting married w/out children. Unless you have dependents (children) or one income (which makes one spouse the other spouse's dependent), getting married as a DINC (Dual Income, No Children) is a fiscal disaster in the US right now.

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

#270

Post by Broken_Hippo » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:05 PM UTC

jsonne wrote: post #112

anoncoward111 wrote: post #90

There's correlation here, but likely not causation. The real underlying cause in the drop in birth rates is an increase in working hours, an increase in commuting times, an increase in college tuition and health care costs, and also an increase in divorce rates. These days, even getting married is an expensive financial arrangement. Having kids is just another layer on that. Housing prices have increased because of c…

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?

If I remember correctly, Denmark started teaching people about having children along with pregnancy prevention. Simply making sure people knew things led to increased birth rates.