31–40 of 411 posts
The unspoken assertion is that we want a high birth rate. Why do we want a high birth rate?
Africa has a high birth rate. Should we crack down on that? Or are you just saying it’s a problem when rich, low-crime nations have high birth rates?
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.
Just to reinforce your point: the idea that Americans are deciding not to have children because they can't fit modern child seats in their cars is outright laughable. Americans drive massive cars compared to the rest of the world; if there is any society where car size would not prove to be a hindrance to having children it would be America.
I bet this is not a hinderance in the rest of the world because many of those other places have either:
1. a lack of child seat laws
2. effective public transportation.
It's not like Europe is full of A-segment cars with 3 car seats in the back.
The twin costs of childcare and a reduction in parental work hours (often mom's) and as a result future career and income advancement potential can be substantial drag on a family's income. Each additional child just prolongs this drag.
Multigenerational households where grandparents provide childcare are one solution around this problem that I've seen.
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.
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 bas…
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/11/28/...
It was recently discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25445643
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.
The unspoken assertion is that we want a high birth rate. Why do we want a high birth rate?
> Why do we want a high birth rate? Economic pyramid scheme, such as entitlements and economic growth mandates that rely on it. A lower birth rate is preferred (less resource contention and impact on the ecosystems we rely on for survival), we should be driving it down with economic incentives (faster than it’s falling naturally). It happens naturally as women are empowered and educated (per Our World In Data [1]). […
What would be an example be of an economic policy that would maintain stability while bringing the birth rate down below the replacement rate?
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 bas…
There's a great article that investigates this and presents a more refined analysis so separate out factors like child-safety laws: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/11/28/... It was recently discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25445643
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 s…
Combine that with requirements to keep kids in various car seats and booster seats until they hit arbitrary age and weight limits, which stretch out longer and longer all the time, and it's still a problem.