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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

#61

Post by toomuchtodo »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #59
toomuchtodo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct cash transfers to those who opt out of having children voluntarily (as their opt out has value they should be compensated for), while accepting that more tax revenue will be needed to support entitlements during the population decline curve. We’re in a sort of resource debt and will end up having to pay it back, balancing gdp cost with quality of life of those here now who will eventually age out. Can’t grow f…

You obviously don't need to pay people to not have kids because the fertility rate is already below the population replacement rate. The hard question would be how to maintain the existing programs that provide social assistance to the elderly without a larger population of working people to pay the taxes to fund them. The existing solution is to run preposterously large deficits every year, which seems problematic/u…

> The hard question would be how to maintain the existing programs that provide social assistance to the elderly without a larger population of working people to pay the taxes to fund them. The existing solution is to run preposterously large deficits every year, which seems problematic/unsustainable.

This boils down to “how much GDP are you willing to burn to keep the elderly cohort comfortable.” How each country handles this demonstrates their ingenuity and character. Can you be both compassionate and efficient? I think so.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#62

Post by rm445 »

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've heard it, and said it, pertaining to not having a fourth child. Semi tongue-in-cheek but having to buy a van would be one extra inconvenience.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#63

Post by jimbob45 »

minikites wrote: post #50
jimbob45 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we don’t want to be Japan, which is about to become an expansion state of immigrants since their birth rate can’t support their future population. 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?

>an expansion state of immigrants Why is immigration bad?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/c...

Roy Beck here is far more articulate than I could be in the 6.5 minutes I have to type this answer.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#64

Post by AnthonyMouse »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #61
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You obviously don't need to pay people to not have kids because the fertility rate is already below the population replacement rate. The hard question would be how to maintain the existing programs that provide social assistance to the elderly without a larger population of working people to pay the taxes to fund them. The existing solution is to run preposterously large deficits every year, which seems problematic/u…

> The hard question would be how to maintain the existing programs that provide social assistance to the elderly without a larger population of working people to pay the taxes to fund them. The existing solution is to run preposterously large deficits every year, which seems problematic/unsustainable. This boils down to “how much GDP are you willing to burn to keep the elderly cohort comfortable.” How each country ha…

Unfortunately in a democracy it also demonstrates how large a percentage of likely voters are elderly, which also seems like it could cause serious problems during that sort of demographic shift. (Notice that almost everywhere, people over 65 get a vote but people under ~18 don't.)

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#65

Post by Someone1234 »

cameldrv wrote: post #54
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…

You can do it in almost any car. You just need narrower car seats. Cosco has several that are narrower.

I own a Cosco from Walmart (for travel), and while they're the smallest and lightest legal seats on the market the build and safety is inferior.

There's a reason we own it, and don't use it day-to-day. It is a fine occasional "grandparent seat" or for travel, but if it is your daily driver and need three across, the Radian is a safer & much better built alternative.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#66

Post by giantg2 »

giantg2 wrote: post #12
minikites wrote: post #8

The unspoken assertion is that we want a high birth rate. Why do we want a high birth rate?

Because our entire capitalist economic system is built on consumption, which is largely reliant on the birth rate being above the replacement rate (2.1). This is especially important for some sectors like durable consumer goods, housing, etc.

Why is this downvoted?

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#67

Post by arwhatever »

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…

> The transition from one to two kids is a qualitative change for the kid because it means going from no siblings to siblings. That transitively makes it somewhat of a qualitative change for parents. It means the kids always have a playmate and someone their age on vacations.

... Or fightmates, as my mother herself warned me. :-)

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#68

Post by milesvp »

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 wasn't going to have more than 2 kids, partly for reasons around travel logistics, and car seats play a surprisingly large role in that. Car seats needs to be rear facing until children are big enough, but most cars expect everyone to be leaning back and so rear facing car seats can be tricky for tall drivers. Part of our planning involved spacing children so we'd only have 1 rear facing car seat at a time. I'm tall enough that I can't have a rear facing car seat behind me in most cars (even SUVs). If I hadn't had twins the second go round my calculus would have stuck. Instead we had to get a minivan.

Now I'm not saying this is a strong effect nationally, the effect wasn't particularly strong for me since other costs were a bigger deterrent than a new car payment, but there is an effect and I'm sure I'm not the only one who did that math.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#69

Post by ortusdux »

josephcsible wrote: post #21
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

That's the one! From the conclusions: "A (positive) net health benefit emerges only in dangerous bicycling environments under optimistic assumptions as to the efficacy of helmets and a minor behavioral response."

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#70

Post by [deleted] »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #64
toomuchtodo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The hard question would be how to maintain the existing programs that provide social assistance to the elderly without a larger population of working people to pay the taxes to fund them. The existing solution is to run preposterously large deficits every year, which seems problematic/unsustainable. This boils down to “how much GDP are you willing to burn to keep the elderly cohort comfortable.” How each country ha…

Unfortunately in a democracy it also demonstrates how large a percentage of likely voters are elderly, which also seems like it could cause serious problems during that sort of demographic shift. (Notice that almost everywhere, people over 65 get a vote but people under ~18 don't.)

[deleted]
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