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What Will the World Look Like with Less Babies?

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Re: What Will the World Look Like with Less Babies?

#71

Post by silisili »

nly wrote: post #62
silisili wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. My wife and I have done the math multiple times, and we'd actually -lose- money if she went back to work. I remember childcare being rather communal in the US, where I lived, as recently as the early 90s. Now that the media and social media has turned everyone against each other, the only way out seemingly is to subsidize child care.

Well, a support network is one thing. My grandparents certainly babysat me on occasion, but me and my partner are quite far away (over an hours drive) away from any close family. Naturally my parents are also a lot older than my grandparents were as well, so it would be less fair on them. I really don't think the phenomenon of people having fewer kids or having kids later is a mystery!

When I was growing up in the 80s, working class neighborhood, most wives had a part time job. Whoever was off that day would watch the kids. I remember sitting in random houses with 7 or so other kids, eating mac n cheese or bologna sandwiches, waiting for our moms to come pick us up after work.

As an adult with my own kid now, it would seem such an idea is a pipe dream.

Re: What Will the World Look Like with Less Babies?

#72

Post by ehnto »

silisili wrote: post #40
nly wrote: post #27

Well I can't speak for anybody else, but me and my partner are pushing mid to late 30s and simply haven't got there because of cost and lack of financial stability. It's difficult to impossible to survive on a single income like my parents did to raise me, and the cost of childcare is the same as losing one income regardless. For better or worse the economy has been reshaped around the assumption of dual income, full…

You're right. My wife and I have done the math multiple times, and we'd actually -lose- money if she went back to work. I remember childcare being rather communal in the US, where I lived, as recently as the early 90s. Now that the media and social media has turned everyone against each other, the only way out seemingly is to subsidize child care.

Genuine question, is it possible childcare facilities are being extortionate, or is it generally a low margin industry?

There are a lot of costs increasing that exceed inflation and frankly, exceed fair value exchange, but many of us are caught between a rock and a hard place. Rent is a great example, cars are another. These things aren't true universally, and it seems other countries are able to provide higher quality of life and cheaper services. Are we just being fleeced, are companies expecting more than their fair share?

Re: What Will the World Look Like with Less Babies?

#73

Post by aziaziazi »

DeathArrow wrote: post #4

This is a rather serious issue but very few people care. It is at least as important as global warming. Media and politicians don't care at all.

This comparaison is very strange: less population means less consumption, which is highly correlated with GHG emissions. A drastic reduction could cause serious short term issues for humanity (not for any other form of life) but were not here at all, curves are stabilizing around 2kids.

You shouldn't be afraid to let go of the gas pedal on the freeway, the car won't stop straight away. Especially if your speed is exponential for 300 years and everyone know keeping accelerating is gonna harm the majority life conditions.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population?time=1500..lat...

Re: What Will the World Look Like with Less Babies?

#74

Post by rklaehn »

pavlov wrote: post #59
DeathArrow wrote: post #4

This is a rather serious issue but very few people care. It is at least as important as global warming. Media and politicians don't care at all.

They are connected though. I know many people under the age of 35 who choose not to have kids because they don't want to bring children into a world threatened by climate change. Here in Finland, a female child born today has a >50% chance to live to an age of 100. That means our new children will probably still be alive in 2123. The projections for worst-case climate change over that time span are terrifying. You ca…

For every single decade in the 20th century there was some kind of doom hanging over our head.

Imagine deciding to have kids in the 80s where the two superpowers were pointing insane amounts of nuclear weapons at each oter. Or in the 70s when people feared a new ice age. Not to mention 1910 or 1930.

You may say "but this time it is real". The nuclear threat in the 80s was very real as well. As was WW1 and WW2.

Finland has done it's part against climate change. They built a large nuclear power plant, and can run the rest of the economy using PV and wind. Retire ICE vehicles, and then be proud of yourself and be more optimistic.

Even in the worst case scenarios the climate in finland will be just fine...

Re: What Will the World Look Like with Less Babies?

#75

Post by highwaylights »

This article is selectively excluding large chunks of the planet.

It mentions the developed world, but then continues to suggest that birth rates are falling below 2 everywhere when they most certainly are not.

Niger: 6.89

Nigeria: 5.31

Mali: 6.04

Somalia, Chad, DR Congo are all over 6.

There are going to be young people around when you get old, they’re just going to originate from different parts of the world. Assuming you don’t die suddenly then when you get to the end of your life someone is going to have to care for you whether you have children to do that or not.

Re: What Will the World Look Like with Less Babies?

#77

Post by defrost »

rklaehn wrote: post #54
defrost wrote: post #39

Between four and six billion humans seems like a good target. There were only 2.5 billion in 1950, since then automation has advanced leaps and bounds meaning an advanced lifestyle with fewer workers and less resource drain is entirely possible with a more sustainable population size.

Why? There are huge stretches of the world that are basically uninhabited. Even in densely populated places like Europe there are large areas with low population density. People are crowding in cities and then complaining that there are too many people. Resource drain is no longer an issue once we got an economy running on photovoltaics and nuclear energy. Everything can be recycled given enough energy.

> There are huge stretches of the world that are basically uninhabited.

Like the proposed site for Resolution Copper, say?

Nobody there save the people that got pushed aside when Europeans arrived in the US and I guess there's no issue with pushing them on again, treaties are meaningless and 8 billion people need their appliances.

> Resource drain is no longer an issue once we got an economy running on photovoltaics

Quickly now, just how much additional copper, lithium, vanadium, iron, aluminium, etc do we need to get there?

And once we are there will this be just like building roads to fix traffic only to find that traffic increases to swamp the new roads?

Last question, do you have any actual experience with 800 million tonne per annum resource mining (that's just iron ore mined in my state alone) or is your experience of life limited to ordering stuff and having it turn up?

Your comment has the whiff of Magical Tech thinking to it.

Re: What Will the World Look Like with Less Babies?

#78

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

I'm not really concerned about this.

I think the people like myself who really want to have babies are going to have babies one way or another. And it's not a question of "is it right" that they have more, or less, or quite the same stuff that I grew up with -- I didn't grow up with much, and I have even less now than I did then in some important senses, but I love life all the same if not more and I think my kids will too.

And I even think this would be true regardless of whether we were living together in a cramped apartment in the inner city together or a big mansion out in the suburbs. An apartment looks twice as big when you're half the size of an adult. What matters is whether the kids feel like they're loved and cherished and desired, desired to be there, desired to be part of the family.

In my darker moments I wonder if perhaps, when I was younger and less keen on having kids myself, it was because I was myself missing so desperately that last part. But I found it in the arms of my beloved, and I think there are many like me.

Re: What Will the World Look Like with Less Babies?

#79

Post by silisili »

ehnto wrote: post #72
silisili wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. My wife and I have done the math multiple times, and we'd actually -lose- money if she went back to work. I remember childcare being rather communal in the US, where I lived, as recently as the early 90s. Now that the media and social media has turned everyone against each other, the only way out seemingly is to subsidize child care.

Genuine question, is it possible childcare facilities are being extortionate, or is it generally a low margin industry? There are a lot of costs increasing that exceed inflation and frankly, exceed fair value exchange, but many of us are caught between a rock and a hard place. Rent is a great example, cars are another. These things aren't true universally, and it seems other countries are able to provide higher quali…

See other comment I'd made here. In my lifetime, 'daycare' on the whole has went from a favor or job for some teenager, to a viable profession.

Today, strict regulations and cost of compliance and well, wages to pay the employees contribute to the exorbitant costs.

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