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The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

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Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#31

Post by blagie »

pjc50 wrote: post #12

> Nobody knows Have you tried asking them? In particular, asking the women who are making the career-or-children decision? South Korea is invoked, but it seems like the population there has almost perfectly levelled out at just over 51m: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/kor/sou... of which 20m live in Seoul. This discussion comes up a lot on HN, and it seems to be one where there are answers, but…

No, the population has not "levelled out" in Korea.

These dynamics have a pretty long timeline. To give an extreme example, if you, for example, have a city with 10M old people who can't have kids anymore, you can reliably predict the population will be 0 once they pass.

The demographic pyramid of South Korea is scary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_Korea#/m...

Learn how to read these plots and what they mean.

There are almost no young people.

There are almost no kids in South Korea.

Unless there is mass immigration, the population of South Korea will implode.

Even if people began breeding like rabbits today, there is nothing that can be done; when the 0-20 year old population is of working age, there will be a massive number of old people, and almost no one of working age.

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#32

Post by bryanrasmussen »

brokegrammer wrote: post #11
incomingpain wrote: post #3

In canada, aged 20-29, 46% were still living with their parents. If you live in a big city like toronto, the number is way higher. Kids living at home aren't saying "I still live in my parent's basement" "oh, lets have a baby!" this really is the depth of the issue. Confidence isn't going to have you change this answer.

Children in overpopulated countries like India have been living with their parents for generations. Now that children are leaving the house in those countries, the growth rate is decreasing. I doubt living with parents is affecting reproduction. People don't want kids for mysterious reasons that we have yet to discover.

>Children in overpopulated countries like India have been living with their parents for generations.

which has a different culture than the West.

Living with their parents may be a benefit for arranged marriages. Now they are moving out, arranged marriages maybe are dropping, but they don't have the culture to make non-arranged marriages (all the above is of course just assumption)

Now in many Western cultures there is not any sort of arranged marriage etiquette, you live on your own and you invite people over for sex, a person who lives at home is categorized as a loser. I can certainly see why living at home in one of these cultures would end up not providing the necessary ingredients for marriage to be on the roadmap.

Aside from all this I suppose access to birth control takes away the whole got in trouble, need to get married aspect of the past.

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#33

Post by Jedd »

Is this a new theory?

I'm sure this has been a fairly commonly perceived trope amongst late-X and millenials for several years now.

Presumably accelerated during 2016-2020, and once again ramping up quickly, for our stateside friends - but I haven't heard of any part of the planet being burdened by an over-abundance of optimism about the (affordability of the) future.

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#34

Post by easywood »

"On a farm, a child is an investment. In a city, it's a liability".

In the past few decades, we have globally seen a massive shift towards living in a city. Even in times of war and pestilence, people needed extra hands on the farm. But when living in a city, children are just an extra burden on your time and budget. I feel articles like this are over-analyzing the issue.

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#35

Post by baxtr »

hectorchu wrote: post #2

This post argues that collapsing birth rates aren’t just about housing or money — they’re a rational response to the sense that the future is unstable, meaningless, or even dangerous. It introduces the concept of “temporal inflation” — the idea that just like money loses value in hyperinflation, time loses value when people can’t trust the future. Would love to hear if this resonates with others.

Not getting kids is a cultural issue.

My mom used to say exactly the same, but she still got 3 kids with very little money because her social groups expected her to have children.

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#37

Post by lnsru »

In shrinking economy like current Germany’s economy the future does not look bright. White collar jobs are moved to Malaysia, Poland and Serbia at extreme rate. And will never come back. I recently worked at the companies moving whole departments to the mentioned countries. I am sure, living from salary to salary in a rented apartment does not provide much optimism about future. Especially when one can barely afford rent of bigger apartment. Having a child in a city adds a pile of extra cost: bigger apartment plus few hundred for kindergarten. Children are simply for very rich families.

Re: The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth Rates

#38

Post by baxtr »

pjc50 wrote: post #12

> Nobody knows Have you tried asking them? In particular, asking the women who are making the career-or-children decision? South Korea is invoked, but it seems like the population there has almost perfectly levelled out at just over 51m: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/kor/sou... of which 20m live in Seoul. This discussion comes up a lot on HN, and it seems to be one where there are answers, but…

It’s sad that there seems not be structured research on this topic.

Also important to ask people who had children 30-50 years ago why they decided to have children and then to compare to today.

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