Basement Fertility • Hacker News Board

Re: Basement Fertility

#71

Post by Jolter » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

hunglee2 wrote: post #15

lotsofpulp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a big component of rising opportunity cost for raising families is simply the fact that women now have opportunities. A lot of societies are about to find out the burden women were implicitly carrying simply because they had no choice, either due to lack of financial independence, birth control, or civil rights.

yes, this is absolutely true. Hans Rosling did one his most well know presentations on the the impact of female education to the eradication of poverty via two mechanism - female entry into the market economy + reduction in the number of births. That said though, all developed economies are now so far down this road that we are below the replacement rate and will die out in a few generations without a course correcti…

Yet populations across Europe are not shrinking. Birth rates may go up and down but people still want to move there. Seems to work, so far.

To use the phrase “die out” stinks 30’s Germany to me, and I think you could stand to think twice before using such verbiage.

Re: Basement Fertility

#72

Post by Jolter » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

hunglee2 wrote: post #39

yoyohello13 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is that course correction going to be? Unfortunately, it seems like the US is choosing to reduce opportunities for women, rather that reducing the economic burden of raising a family.

no idea, there have been no examples of any country successfully reversing declining fertility rate. In fact, it seems only massive unplanned societal disruption - famine, war, invasion - increases the rate. Iraq for instance has had a population boom since the two US led invasions, 50% of its population are now under the age of 15.

Wait - it almost seems like you think having a higher birth rate would be good for America? How so?

Re: Basement Fertility

#73

Post by cgrealy » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 9:22 PM UTC

antiverse wrote: post #51

dfxm12 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is low fertility rate seen as a bad thing? It's mostly seen as a bad thing in the lens of ethnic nationalist ideology that low fertility rates will change the demographics of a country (see Great Replacement [0]). After all, if Musk (and other capitalists) needed, they can get labor from other countries south of America's borders, but there is a push to not make these workers Americans! This isn't an issue only i…

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement >[...] is a white nationalist far-right conspiracy theory [...] Native Americans would disagree.

The "Great Replacement" theory originated in the 2010s and is specifically about white people being replaced (in case anyone was in any doubt, it's racist bullshit).

It's a (bullshit paranoid) predictive theory about the modern day that has nothing to do with the historical genocide of Native Americans by white people.

Re: Basement Fertility

#74

Post by Jolter » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 9:23 PM UTC

There are so many additional factors affecting fertility that it’s not even funny.

How about making a map of countries with free/subsidized childcare and comparing it to that fertility map? I’m pretty sure you’d find nearly the same correlation as with “not living with your parents”.

Re: Basement Fertility

#75

Post by bombcar » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

mellavora wrote: post #70

gruez wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? That would imply total factor productivity didn't grow at all "over the last 100+ years", which seems doubtful given all the innovations brought about during that time period.

I don't have a source, nor do I fully believe the original poster, but do consider: 7x population growth, shift from 80% rural to 90% urban. Where "rural" is low economic engagement and "urban" is a job-holder. shift from single-earning families to dual-earner, where again a stay-at-home mom does not increase the size of the economy while a working one does (and please, I know this is unfair and the tremendous value…

That's the basic argument, which I don't have at hand, but there have been some very specific "improvement in output" moments in history but those are in the long past and most of what we have now over time is basically the same as growth of population in the US.

Re: Basement Fertility

#76

Post by User23 » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 9:25 PM UTC

finiteseries wrote: post #59

tony_cannistra wrote: post #44

It feels like there's an implicit "More Kids Good" tone that pervades this. What's the "right" value for TFR? Why does it have to be higher? Why is it bad that it is lower in some places? The ecosystem we exist in / that sustains us surely has a carrying capacity.

China will depopulate >50% by 2100 (conservatively) and we’re still worrying about mid 20th century concepts like carrying capacities as if we aren’t a highly advanced (and depopulating) tool making species entirely capable of creating ecosystems wholesale and affecting said capacities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

Subsaharan Africa is going to keep human population growth going to at least ten billion persons by 2100[1], even with China[2] and the rest of the world's reduced population growth[3].

[1] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/9...

[2] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/1...

[1] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/9...

Re: Basement Fertility

#77

Post by bombcar » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 9:27 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #58

bombcar wrote: post #3

A huge difference is even a few generations ago, the "growing family" would be the one owning the house, and grandparents (their parents) would move in with them - now it's inverted; only the grandparents have a house or can afford one, and so the "growing" or potentially growing family is living with them. It doesn't seem as much a difference but it is a really big one.

How did all those whole generations of parents and grandparents lost their houses and who took those houses?

Back then they didn't lose houses, they sold them because they didn't need them anymore, and moved in with kids for eldercare, basically.

Houses weren't limited in availability, other things were the limiting factors - and sometimes "move in with" would mean moving in next door or into what were called "mother-in-law" houses.

Re: Basement Fertility

#78

Post by jimbob45 » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 9:28 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #55

jimbob45 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2.1 is the right value. That's replacement rate. Anything above is subject to healthy debate.

Replacement rate and “right” are not necessarily congruous. If you have the opinion that there are insufficient resources in the world to live the lifestyle you want for yourself or those you care about, you may think a lower fertility rate is more “right”. And if you think your tribe is in a competition for resources with all the other tribes, then you may want a higher fertility rate for your tribe and a lower one…

Any less than 2.1 and you have to have an uncomfortable conversation about which nation is going to be the sacrifice. Any more and you have to worry about overpopulation.

That said, I'm of the opinion that we'll never really need to have any tough conversations about birth rates because they've fallen so drastically across the board. It seems that it will be enough to universally encourage higher birth rates in every nation for the foreseeable future (with the expected outcome being that most will still struggle to hit 2.1).

Re: Basement Fertility

#79

Post by bell-cot » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 9:32 PM UTC

cs137 wrote: post #19

missedthecue wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism doesn't require for constant population growth. But public pension schemes do. And there are geopolitical advantages to being bigger than your foes. Look at Japan. Japan's population has been on the decline for about 1.5 generations. They still get as much food, shelter, and entertainment as any other developed economy. They have hobbies, travel, discretionary income... The worries there aren't about capit…

Public pensions are pretty much gone these days, for better or worse. I don't think an inverted pyramid is as bad as it sounds. It's a check against ageism and falling wages (there's no longer a horde of hungry young people who want the jobs) and, given how little of the work people do is actually necessary--white-collar jobs are 85% sending passive-aggressive emails--I think society can afford it. It might be the on…

If the inverted pyramid is in an "old-fashioned" economy and society, where the great majority of adults generally work hard until the last few years of their lives, and families mostly do their own service work, then the inverted pyramid might not be a serious problem.

But if you're hoping for something closer to the modern, Western ideal - education until age ~25, work until age ~60, retirement until age ~90 - then the inverted pyramid is going to need at least one of:

(1) Armies of imported service workers - to staff all the nursing homes, retirement homes, cruise ships, restaurants, etc. that the huge "top" of that pyramid need / want.

(2) Armies of robots so advanced that they can fill the great majority of those jobs. WithOUT requiring an extra army of humans to build, pay for, maintain, run, etc. those service worker robots.

(3) Huge changes in medical technology and social expectations, so that most of those service workers are never needed.

Re: Basement Fertility

#80

Post by fleddr » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 9:33 PM UTC

ismail wrote: post #41

A Typical WEIRD (western, educated, industrialised, rich, democratic) finding. For much of human history children have been raised in multi-generational homes. Just being raised by parents is relatively new. I recall reading in a book [0] that proposes this as one of the reasons we have such an issue with mental health etc. with our children. This also seriously hampers learning as wisdom is not passed down. [0] free…

What is striking in this development is the destruction of our social fabric.

From African village model to the nuclear family is a massive step, made possible by the nation state. Arguably this impoverishes community/extended family life. The most extreme form can regularly be read in the news: somebody found dead in their home, undetected for weeks or months.

But not even that is enough. Even within the scope of the nuclear family are we further individualizing. Each partner in the couple is to be fully economically independent from the other. Note that I'm not suggesting any traditional angle here, I'm purely talking about individualism in general. Even within our very own family, we no longer dare to rely on each other, to be dependent on each other.

If I were to pick a cliche busy urban family, they have very few shared moments. They may not even eat together. They relax on their own individual device, often in separate rooms. And we outsource care for both our young and the old.

We drifted far from our roots.