Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

Post by coldtea » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #26

This is a problem that'll solve itself eventually; the desire to have children is to some degree inheritable, so the people with genes that make them still likely to have children in modern society will outbreed the people with genes that make them unlikely to have children in modern society. Similarly the cultures that make people more likely to have children will outspread those that make people less likely to have…

Post by javajosh » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 2:42 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #13

I'd also note that plummeting birthrates are also happening in countries that are known for great social welfare, lots of government support for new mothers, and a more egalitarian society overall, like Finland. A lot of people simply don't want kids. Kids take a huge amount of time and investment for about 2 decades of one's life, and that can have a large, significant negative impact on quality of life, especially…

Post by salmonfamine » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 2:42 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #13

I'd also note that plummeting birthrates are also happening in countries that are known for great social welfare, lots of government support for new mothers, and a more egalitarian society overall, like Finland. A lot of people simply don't want kids. Kids take a huge amount of time and investment for about 2 decades of one's life, and that can have a large, significant negative impact on quality of life, especially…

Post by seneca » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 2:44 PM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #38

seneca wrote: post #23

The lack of sub-replacement rate fertility is happening almost everywhere. It's just hidden in many western countries by mass immigration, but even that is a temporary solution as the source countries face population decline themselves. The knockon effects from this are hard to anticipate, but the known ones are pretty scary. Modern economies don't work when there are more elders to care for than there are working ad…

>Population collapse may be the headline of the century if we can't figure out a way to turn it around. It will turn itself around eventually because some subsets of society keep having large numbers of children in spite of the pressures of modernity, such as the Amish and ultra-orthdox Jews with fertility rates of around 7-8. These cultures will eventually come to dominate as the lower-fertility cultures die out. It…

Post by taylodl » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 2:45 PM UTC

thunderbird120 wrote: post #24

DrThunder wrote: post #2

I feel like the col is just an excuse for people that don't really want them anyway. Throughout history people have had children with very little material possessions. Talk to someone who went through the great depression about how you don't have enough money etc. to have kids. I think we've just brainwashed ourselves into believing you need to be ultra wealthy to give kids a good childhood. If you literally cannot a…

Raising kids is difficult and time consuming. As people gain more opportunities to do other things than raise kids they chose to do those other things instead. It's an opportunity cost issue, not a literal cost issue. That's why the birth rates goes down rather than up as you climb income percentiles. People with more money have more opportunities. The only real force to counteract that is cultural/social pressure to…