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What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

derekthompson.org

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Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#51

Post by nervousvarun »

0_____0 wrote: post #29
bdavbdav wrote: post #19

(Purely anecdotally, my own and my peers experience) We’re seeing educated people waiting longer in life to have children. Fertility drops, assistance from older generations drops, the village has gone, nursery and care prices are ridiculously high, support from the government (UK) is a bit of a farce if you’re earning anything more than a living wage in cities, the opportunity cost of a parent putting a (more develo…

Costs $2500-4000/mo for infant care where I am. On top of a $3000/mo mortgage. NE USA. When I see a family of 5 my first thought is "holy fuck they must be loaded." Either that or they have one parent who cannot be employed outside the home.

Another option: In our case we both WFH which allows us to live near my wife's parents. Which means we have the luxury of an involved, local grandparent as an option over infant/childcare. We literally put the $ we'd budgeted for childcare into a 529.

Certainly don't want to speak for everyone but at least for us it's an enormous cost savings and is a "win-win" for everyone involved.

Another (seemingly less often discussed) advantage to WFH.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#53

Post by toomuchtodo »

missedthecue wrote: post #37
phkahler wrote: post #6

What will it take to have a stable society that doesn't depend on indefinite economic/population growth?

It would take a TFR of 2.1, so depending where you live, a 40-250% increase in fertility. There is no form of civilization that works with an imploding population and inverted demographic pyramid. Not even hunter gatherers could function like that

You’re answering the wrong question. That’s the answer to “how do we maintain the status quo?” We can absolutely exist in a world where growth does not exist from ever increasing population, but profits will evaporate as inflation increases and labor supply contracts. As a sibling comment mentions, automation will be a component.

Those in power should be building for a changing world where labor has more power, the cost of labor goes up, and it becomes increasingly scarce. They’re not ready to make peace with this though (or unwilling to between now and death). One of the few things we do well as a species is kick the can into the future, or steal from it, depending on perspective.

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#54

Post by zebomon »

Good read. I've been reflecting recently on the idea of demand-side economic growth as something that happens across two variables: consumption and reproduction. Until very recently in history, only the reproduction variable ever moved the big number much at all. It could be that as each of our own energy needs continues to increase, especially as compute-hungry AI proliferates and personalized medicine extends lifespans, it becomes culturally more normal for populations to fall.

Though as others have pointed out, nothing about our society seems to be set up to accommodate that at all, which makes it terrifying.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#55

Post by SamuelAdams »

As a new parent, it’s money. Daycare costs $400 USD per week in my area, from 7am-6pm, 5 days a week.

So for one child that is roughly 20,000 USD annually.

Once you hit the 3-5 kid mark, it usually does not make sense for the spouse to work, unless they are earning well above 6 figures.

So then you’re going down to one income supporting a family of 3-5. That’s risky for a variety of reasons.

If you want actual actions congress can take:

1. Expand limits on the dependent HSA account to allow more than 5,000 annually. Daycare alone is much more than 5,000 USD, it seems making that completely tax free will help.

2. Subsidize the entire cost of daycare. This will never happen but by golly it will work.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#56

Post by msgodel »

mcoliver wrote: post #50

Having children younger. This builds villages and generates the community flywheel. The problem now is that it's close to impossible for the vast majority of younger people to buy a home with a single income. So the choice becomes dual income and farm out the raising of your children (requires even more money and negates the benefits of enjoying your children which is part of the reason to have them in the first plac…

Older generations need to be more comfortable with their kids getting married and having children before moving out.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#57

Post by ceejayoz »

plantwallshoe wrote: post #22

Was it a side effect of the war ending or a side effect of having a generation of financially stable young men via the GI bill?

The GI bill is American; the baby boom is not. Other countries saw the same phenomoenon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-20th_century_baby_boom

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#58

Post by Demoder »

thrance wrote: post #43
sparklingmango wrote: post #13

Optimism. And unfortunately based on the doom and gloom that the news and social media constantly shoves in our faces, we have a short supply of that.

Doom and gloom that is somewhat substantiated by material reality. The world is getting warmer and nothing is done about it. Far right populism is getting more and more popular, with no end in sight. No way am I bringing kids in this environment.

I have a feeling that far right populism was worse in 1930s

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#59

Post by [deleted] »

thrance wrote: post #43
sparklingmango wrote: post #13

Optimism. And unfortunately based on the doom and gloom that the news and social media constantly shoves in our faces, we have a short supply of that.

Doom and gloom that is somewhat substantiated by material reality. The world is getting warmer and nothing is done about it. Far right populism is getting more and more popular, with no end in sight. No way am I bringing kids in this environment.

[deleted]

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#60

Post by parpfish »

bdavbdav wrote: post #19

(Purely anecdotally, my own and my peers experience) We’re seeing educated people waiting longer in life to have children. Fertility drops, assistance from older generations drops, the village has gone, nursery and care prices are ridiculously high, support from the government (UK) is a bit of a farce if you’re earning anything more than a living wage in cities, the opportunity cost of a parent putting a (more develo…

one of my theories for why we specifically see highly-educated people waiting longer or opting out is that it's a consequence of tiger-mom/helicopter-parent upbringings

its a double-blow to deciding to have kids -- a) they were raised to pursue personal/career excellence which deprioritized becoming a parent, and b) when they look back at their parental role models they see an unsustainable level of over-involvement that they don't have the time/money to match and think that that's what's expected of being parents.

if we started normalizing more hands-off parenting styles where we let kids be kids and don't expect as much from parents, everybody wins.

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