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Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

economist.com

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Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#21

Post by josephcsible »

ortusdux wrote: post #4

I once read a convincing argument that, in some cases, American's resistance to helmets caused helmet laws to have a net negative effect on health. The author claimed that the laws caused enough of a reduction in ridership that the lost exercise outweighed the reduction in injury. I've attempted to find the paper again, but I can't seem to track it down.

De Jong, Piet, The Health Impact of Mandatory Bicycle Helmet Laws (February 24, 2010). Risk Analysis, 2012, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1368064 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1368064

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#22

Post by ashtonkem »

munificent wrote: post #16
svachalek wrote: post #7

This reads like a textbook example of "correlation is not causation". You think there'd be ...some? people talking about how they decided not to have a child because she/he wouldn't fit in the car if it's going to have a measurable effect on birth rates but at least personally I have never, ever heard this one.

I have elementary school age kids, so I know lots of parents. Anecdotally, there is a big jump between having two kids and having more than two. I've had a lot of conversations with friends on their third pregnancy about having to upgrade to a bigger car because with the size of car seats, you can't fit three of them in one row of a typical sedan. And I've likewise had conversations with parents who decided (like my…

I absolutely buy the step-wise argument, especially for housing, but I do not buy it for cars. Americans buy way more large SUVs and trucks than the rest of the world, even those with fewer than three kids (or no kids). The idea that car size is a meaningful barrier to the number of children one has, especially compared to housing and education costs, simply does not pass the sniff test to me.

From a pure financial standpoint, I'd look more to the cost of education, healthcare, and housing. All of which have been growing much more rapidly than the cost of cars or gasoline.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#23

Post by blang »

mb7733 wrote: post #20
ortusdux wrote: post #4

I once read a convincing argument that, in some cases, American's resistance to helmets caused helmet laws to have a net negative effect on health. The author claimed that the laws caused enough of a reduction in ridership that the lost exercise outweighed the reduction in injury. I've attempted to find the paper again, but I can't seem to track it down.

I believe you're thinking of Australia. There are very few (if any?) places in the US with helmet laws for adults.

King county Washington[1].

[1] https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/health/violence-injury-prev...!

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#24

Post by dzdt »

I think there is a plausible mechanism for causation here. It adds to the expensiveness of children -- many smaller vehicles are not even compatible with the big car seats required, or with having more than two car seats in use. There is kind of a calculation: if we would have even one kid we need a "family" car; getting to 3 or more kids basically requires a minivan.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#25

Post by testfoobar »

irateswami wrote: post #15

This is an actual conversation I had to have with my wife, having a third kid definitely requires a larger vehicle as the vast majority of cars today simply don't work for a family of five. Child car seats are too wide and the backseats of most cars are too narrow, and the price jump to a vehicle that would be able to handle three child car seats at once is enormous. Throw in some dogs, a couple pieces of luggage tha…

Glad you found a vehicle that worked for you.

Minivans have locked this market segment up for years. Honda Odyssey & Toyota Sienna are the market leaders.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#26

Post by VBprogrammer »

kube-system wrote: post #17
irateswami wrote: post #15

This is an actual conversation I had to have with my wife, having a third kid definitely requires a larger vehicle as the vast majority of cars today simply don't work for a family of five. Child car seats are too wide and the backseats of most cars are too narrow, and the price jump to a vehicle that would be able to handle three child car seats at once is enormous. Throw in some dogs, a couple pieces of luggage tha…

When I was young, this was what minivans were for: families with three kids.

Throw in one kids best friend who is always around and maybe a grandparent who lives alone, going up to a 7 seater starts to get appealing pretty quickly.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#27

Post by arcticbull »

In general there's a strong negative correlation between development of a society and birth rate. Also income. It's extremely powerful, and applies literally all over the world. I suspect that in America over the last few decades, development continued. Child-safety laws came along for the ride. [1, 2]

Income is a less compelling argument in America as wages have remained totally constant on an inflation adjusted basis for ages.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Total-fertility-rate-TFR...

[2] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2016/december/link...

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#28

Post by gowld »

kube-system wrote: post #17
irateswami wrote: post #15

This is an actual conversation I had to have with my wife, having a third kid definitely requires a larger vehicle as the vast majority of cars today simply don't work for a family of five. Child car seats are too wide and the backseats of most cars are too narrow, and the price jump to a vehicle that would be able to handle three child car seats at once is enormous. Throw in some dogs, a couple pieces of luggage tha…

When I was young, this was what minivans were for: families with three kids.

Minivans seat 7-8, which is 6 kids.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#30

Post by drfuchs »

munificent wrote: post #16
svachalek wrote: post #7

This reads like a textbook example of "correlation is not causation". You think there'd be ...some? people talking about how they decided not to have a child because she/he wouldn't fit in the car if it's going to have a measurable effect on birth rates but at least personally I have never, ever heard this one.

I have elementary school age kids, so I know lots of parents. Anecdotally, there is a big jump between having two kids and having more than two. I've had a lot of conversations with friends on their third pregnancy about having to upgrade to a bigger car because with the size of car seats, you can't fit three of them in one row of a typical sedan. And I've likewise had conversations with parents who decided (like my…

"Going from two kids to three, you have to switch from one-on-one to zone defense."
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