The ratio of housing cost vs real income almost tripled over the last 20 years in Sweden. Add a looming climate crisis and a self-fulfillment-oriented culture and you get very few new babies.
> The ratio of housing cost vs real income almost tripled over the last 20 years in Sweden I think this is all that needs to be said on these articles. (There's a lot more that _could_ be said, such as how few actual birthing HN readers there are, but I think the economics is really simple at the root of it.) Besides, even the countries with really the worst outlook and conditions aren't falling all that fast. Russia…
Also the rising inaccessibility of child care. All other industries get some productivity boost, but in child care it is the opposite (productivity is going down per worker over time).
A few common counterarguments and my responses: Kids don't have to be super expensive! This is true, but it's also true for most people they are. To make them not expensive, you have to avoid a lot of things that most people consider a normal, middle-class part of a regular lifestyle or a middle-class way of raising children. I won't dispute that there are probably smarter low-cost ways to raise kids, but we're talki…
Couple of thoughts. (1) To me, immigration can indeed fill the gap. An endless supply of people wish to leave poorer , or hotter (which is a problem with climate change) countries, for richer ones. This will hurt the poorer countries that end up with an ageing population. OTOH if those poorer countries are becoming too hot to live in, that's a good move for people , although awful for those left behind. (2) Cost of r…
As I pointed out already, it is not in fact endless, and most of those poorer countries are steadily becoming richer. South Korea used to be poor as shit, not so much anymore. Eastern Europe has improved massively, parts of it have caught up to parts of Western Europe. China isn't nearly as poor as it was a few decades ago either.
The ratio of housing cost vs real income almost tripled over the last 20 years in Sweden. Add a looming climate crisis and a self-fulfillment-oriented culture and you get very few new babies.
> The ratio of housing cost vs real income almost tripled over the last 20 years in Sweden I think this is all that needs to be said on these articles. (There's a lot more that _could_ be said, such as how few actual birthing HN readers there are, but I think the economics is really simple at the root of it.) Besides, even the countries with really the worst outlook and conditions aren't falling all that fast. Russia…
Russia's not a great example to look at. They're one of the only 'Western' countries that's historically actually maintained a healthy fertility rate. The big catch in their numbers is that in the 90s the country turned into a near anarchic hellhole. But they managed to pull out of that and have had a growing fertility rate since 1998, which has been met with an ever widening array of pro-natal incentives, and a generally very pro-family culture as well. [1]
More relevant is something like Japan. [2] They are currently losing 1 in every 200 people, every year. And that rate of decline is still accelerating. And they have a similar fertility rate to Finland 1.37 vs 1.42. The only difference is that Japan has had its low fertility rate for longer, and so it's closer to the equilibrium rate of loss that such a fertility rate implies, while Finland is closer to their older higher fertility rates.
Crossposting from my own Reddit comment about the same article: No, it's just that the policies aren't changing fast enough to match the drop in culture pressure/attitudes that used to push people to have kids (especially religious ones). Major things that have pushed people to have kids: * De facto retirement plan / can actually make you richer (sorta) * Cultural/religious pressure * Emotional personal reasons: you…
> Major things that have pushed people to have kids What about evolutionary pressure - the biological impulse? Or, are we humans post-evolution and have overridden the innate impulse to reproduce?
Yes, that's the emotional angle I mentioned.
> Or, are we humans post-evolution and have overridden the innate impulse to reproduce?
Not entirely, but it it's absolutely common for many people to say they just don't want kids.
Also, the primary thing there is the inmate impulse to have sex, not reproduce. It's just that we've managed to disconnect sex from reproduction.
> Major things that have pushed people to have kids What about evolutionary pressure - the biological impulse? Or, are we humans post-evolution and have overridden the innate impulse to reproduce?
Robust access to contraceptives allows for the act without the burden of the result (if undesired). https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-... https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#contraception
Is the impulse to reproduce the same as the impulse to have sex?
Robust access to contraceptives allows for the act without the burden of the result (if undesired). https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-... https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#contraception
Is the impulse to reproduce the same as the impulse to have sex?
What does the fertility rate and surveys of people of reproductive age tell us?
But what is driving the housing prices up in the Nordics? Population decline would suggest weakening demand. The EU is famous for long lasting housing so lack of new inventory shouldn't hit supply side that hard.
Population decline lags affordable property shortages (see Japan [1], where property price declines are following after rural population declines). The results of fertility decisions take years, or even decades, to see (although total fertility rate and annual births is a lower lag indicator). For example, declining school enrollment in the US is from fertility decisions made half a decade ago [2], because that's abo…
We are thinking about a second kid now, and realized...we kind of screwed up. Women are really most fertile from their 20s to very early 30s (and also have the best chance of a healthy baby, etc...), it is a time when most people aren't even thinking about getting married yet these days, let alone having kids! When you finally figure out you are ready...well...it is much harder to have a kid.
So we really needed to think of this a few years ago. It might still be possible, but now it is an uphill battle and will be a much higher risk pregnancy to boot.
Most the statistics cut off at ~200-300+k income catch all bucket which drowns out the rich averages. See my source above capturing higher income buckets which pronounce the U. Near equal (higher) fertility at both extremes might be, but not proof of, the hypothesis the dirt poor and filthy rich are the fertility rate you get when opportunity cost looks near 0. A bucket you often see stopping at 300+k imo far too low…
I still don't understand how the opportunity cost can be 0 for the rich. Women still have to get pregnant, and sacrifice a lot of things at the cost of 1 year per kid. Like sure, they'll have nannies, but the years of "when you can have fun and do all the self-fulfillment stuff" is gone. Usually that cohort of people are also fairly educated, so they have even more connections and opportunities to lose during those l…
Pregnancy applies to the poor too.
But agreed, there are costs that might not be offset by the rewards. Nevertheless the statistics remain filthy rich and dirt poor are acting as mirrors on the curve.
Couple of thoughts. (1) To me, immigration can indeed fill the gap. An endless supply of people wish to leave poorer , or hotter (which is a problem with climate change) countries, for richer ones. This will hurt the poorer countries that end up with an ageing population. OTOH if those poorer countries are becoming too hot to live in, that's a good move for people , although awful for those left behind. (2) Cost of r…
As I pointed out already, it is not in fact endless, and most of those poorer countries are steadily becoming richer. South Korea used to be poor as shit, not so much anymore. Eastern Europe has improved massively, parts of it have caught up to parts of Western Europe. China isn't nearly as poor as it was a few decades ago either.
I was thinking of countries more like India and Nigeria, both of which, despite becoming richer and having lower fertility themselves, have populations projected to exceed China's, and both projected to become too hot to live in without big problems. Its not literally an "endless" supply, but its easily enough to cover gaps in the west. If fertility fell 75% in the west, could probably fill it with people from those countries. And that might be a win-win in certain ways. The west then doesn't have an aging population. People in too hot countries get to move. The suffering happens to old people left in poor hot countries, which is a sad thing. In the end yes you are correct its not endless, but this must be a very long way off.
Population decline lags affordable property shortages (see Japan [1], where property price declines are following after rural population declines). The results of fertility decisions take years, or even decades, to see (although total fertility rate and annual births is a lower lag indicator). For example, declining school enrollment in the US is from fertility decisions made half a decade ago [2], because that's abo…
We are thinking about a second kid now, and realized...we kind of screwed up. Women are really most fertile from their 20s to very early 30s (and also have the best chance of a healthy baby, etc...), it is a time when most people aren't even thinking about getting married yet these days, let alone having kids! When you finally figure out you are ready...well...it is much harder to have a kid. So we really needed to t…
If the woman is 35 and over it is called a geriatric pregnancy. Need to do a bunch of additional tests to make sure the kid doesn't have genetic defects.