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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

#101

Post by toast0 »

kube-system wrote: post #14

> They discovered that tightening those laws had no detectable effects on the rates of births of first and second children, but was accompanied by a drop, on average, of 0.73 percentage points in the number of women giving birth to a third while the first two were young enough to need safety seats. That may not sound much, but it is a significant fraction of the 9.36% of women in the sample who did become third-time…

> Yikes. The front passenger seat is not an acceptable place to put a car seat anyway.

That's what my pickup trucks says. But it only has the one row of seats, so it's put the car seat in the front or put it in the bed.

My understanding is it's legal and reasonable to fill up the rear seats with children in child seats, and then put the largest child in the front seat. Bonus points if you can disable the passenger airbag (many cars will do it automatically and indicate it, a very small number have a manual switch).

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#102

Post by analog31 »

testfoobar wrote: post #33

The reality for a lot of families is that having children is frighteningly expensive. 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 pr…

A lot of people move away from home to find work, especially if educated, and don't have access to grandparents. Also, as people are waiting longer to have kids, the grandparents are older and not as capable -- or may even be in need of care themselves.

In addition to childcare, there's also health care and education to pay for. Middle class families get virtually no help on either front.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#103

Post by dragonwriter »

giantg2 wrote: post #94
dragonwriter wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Economists study many things other than "the economy". And, even moreso than is already notoriously the case with the economy, their predictions on those many other things tend to be based on conclusions drawn by abstract reasoning from ideologically-motivated assumptions with little empirical basis that are poor predictors of behavior of the real world.

If that's the way you see it, then who do you look for to data? Seems like you can't trust anyone if you can't trust your own evaluation of an individual paper based on statistics.

> If that's the way you see it, then who do you look for to data?

The subject of discussion wasn't data, but an abstract behavioral generalization that isn't drawn from data.

But I wouldn't generally look to economists as my first source of data on things that aren't the economy, either.

> Seems like you can't trust anyone if you can't trust your own evaluation of an individual paper based on statistics

When did I ever say anything to which that would even approximately be relevant?

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#104

Post by DonHopkins »

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.

Whatever happened to station wagons, with all those extra flip-up seats in the back bay?

This is the new Wagon Queen Family Truckster. This is a damn fine automobile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzXN5sQ5g-U&ab_channel=Foste...

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#105

Post by nsxwolf »

anonAndOn wrote: post #42
kube-system wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Minivans are only un-cool until you are forced to appreciate their practicality. They can transport groups of kids and all their gear, a bunch of dogs, a surprising amount of furniture or even large sheets of lumber or drywall. I would only consider replacing my minivan with an electric minivan.

Got the Pacifica a few years ago, never looked back. Probably will buy a new one in a few years.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#106

Post by hombre_fatal »

anonAndOn wrote: post #42
kube-system wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Minivans are only un-cool until you are forced to appreciate their practicality. They can transport groups of kids and all their gear, a bunch of dogs, a surprising amount of furniture or even large sheets of lumber or drywall. I would only consider replacing my minivan with an electric minivan.

I was a triplet in the 80s where the fullsize van was a family favorite, and I haven’t seen vans much since.

Why did the fullsize van fall out of style? (Assuming it did)

It doesn’t seem much bigger than the other goliath SUVs and pickup trucks that saturate our US streets.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#107

Post by nsxwolf »

organsnyder wrote: post #99
anonAndOn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minivans are only un-cool until you are forced to appreciate their practicality. They can transport groups of kids and all their gear, a bunch of dogs, a surprising amount of furniture or even large sheets of lumber or drywall. I would only consider replacing my minivan with an electric minivan.

Not full electric, but we've been loving our Pacifica PHEV. You do sacrifice a bit of practicality—no towing capability, and the middle seats don't fold into the floor like the gas version (the battery is down there)—but in the summer we sometimes go months without refueling. I fully concur on the practicality. The only vehicle more versatile than a minivan is full-size van (my family's conversion van growing up was…

Thanks for the heads up on the PHEV and the stow-and-go seats. That one would be a no-go for us because we it to haul stuff all the time. With the seats fully stowed it's practically as good as a pickup truck.

Of course, you have to get all the toy cars and goldfish crackers off the floor first if you want the seats to actually stow.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#109

Post by bonoboTP »

dljsjr wrote: post #34
kube-system wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure but when I was young it wasn't mandated for children to be in car seats until the age of 8 like TFA mentions. I was sitting in the back seat but I was definitely not in a car seat once I was around 4-5.

When I was young in the 90s, our car didn't even have seat belts for the back seats and child seats were unheard of.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#110

Post by gnud »

jimbob45 wrote: post #31
minikites wrote: post #8

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

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?

> Africa has a high birth rate. Should we crack down on that?

Yes, please. We know from experience that the way to get the birth rate down is to get in place education and work for women, and some form of socialized support for the elderly (like pensions). So let's do that for the countries in Africa that lack it!

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