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Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?

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Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?

#81

Post by toomuchtodo »

thijson wrote: post #80
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fun (?) fact: Birth defect risk for an over 40 pregnancy is the same as with a first cousin.

Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?

#82

Post by bequanna »

shadowgovt wrote: post #19

I hate to ask a stupid question, but... So what? The housing prices are extraordinary and the cost for people to live so far north is significant. Maybe we don't need a lot of people being born up north. There's certainly enough people on the planet to make up for any headcount-shortfall with immigration (and in Norway in particular, quite a few people born there move away these days because cost of living is so high…

This is assuming that all people/groups are essentially equally productive, which is not true.

People in more developed countries are >10x more productive than people in undeveloped countries.

Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?

#83

Post by moribvndvs »

irrational wrote: post #48
pjc50 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Wait, how do you know there are few actual birthing HN readers? How many children have I had?

69420

Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?

#84

Post by shadowgovt »

bequanna wrote: post #82
shadowgovt wrote: post #19

I hate to ask a stupid question, but... So what? The housing prices are extraordinary and the cost for people to live so far north is significant. Maybe we don't need a lot of people being born up north. There's certainly enough people on the planet to make up for any headcount-shortfall with immigration (and in Norway in particular, quite a few people born there move away these days because cost of living is so high…

This is assuming that all people/groups are essentially equally productive, which is not true. People in more developed countries are >10x more productive than people in undeveloped countries.

So they move to Norway to make up the shortfall and become more productive. It's not like the magic of birth is what makes people in more developed countries 10x more productive.

Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?

#85

Post by saalweachter »

AlbertCory wrote: post #18

Hungary did succeed in raising its fertility rate, but in the last few years it's also been falling. https://www.statista.com/statistics/332502/fertility-rate-in... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?page=&lo... I suspect that a couple years is not enough to draw any conclusions.

It wouldn't surprise me if policies to boost birth rates partially (mostly?) just shift births forward for a few years -- you have a number of people currently waiting to have kids but putting it off, and the policies induce them to have kids now instead of in 1, 3, 5 years.

Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?

#86

Post by ipaddr »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #14
pjc50 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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.

Mass immigration seems to be the global reason.

Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?

#87

Post by api »

ipaddr wrote: post #86
stonemetal12 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mass immigration seems to be the global reason.

Only makes sense if you also restrict housing supply, otherwise we just build more housing.

If we had high birth rates without building housing that would also drive up housing prices.

Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?

#88

Post by api »

pjc50 wrote: post #9
brtkdotse wrote: post #3

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…

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every...

I'm very much a believer that housing costs are at the root of a whole lot of what's wrong with... everything.

It's long past debate and long past time for neighborhoods to come up with a "vision." We need state and national level mandates for zoning reform and density increase, and if you're against it too bad. NIMBYs had 50 years to come up with something other than obstructionism.

Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?

#89

Post by ryandvm »

I don't understand worrying about falling birthrates.

There are 8 billion of us. I think it's a little premature to be worrying about the extinction of homo sapiens. Something tells me when we're not all working 40+ hours a week scrabbling for the same 20% of the resources, just maybe our birth rate will sort itself out.

Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?

#90

Post by shadowgovt »

PrimalDual wrote: post #63

Every time fertility decline comes up I consistently see the same arguments about why fertility is declining: people are just not comfortable enough to want to have children. I just don’t buy this. I have seen reasons like workspace discrimination, lack of parental leave, economic uncertainty and poverty in general used as reasons why young adults are not choosing to have children and it doesn’t quite make sense to m…

Alternatively, we just don't worry about it.

We are a planet trying to find the resources for eight billion human beings and we already know the backbone of our global agriculture solution is an unsustainable fossil-fuel-based phosphate cycle.

People choosing to not have replacement-number of children is one of the more humane ways to balance the cold equations for subsequent generations.

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