541–550 of 927 posts
We have none of these things today. A small amount of cash is not going to fix it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Things should be made better I agree, But at the same time. Every single generation before ours had worse life outcomes in everyway than us. They had lower lifespans, struggled with food insecurity, Lack of travel accomodations, no access to education for the majority, nothing. Yet if you speak to anyone from those generation or even from our generation who have lives similar to them, they have far more positivity an…
Have you ever seen that meme about having less days off than a medieval peasant? Yes, I can get chicago, new york, italian, or tokyo style pizza from my phone, in about an hour in a city that is none of those places. Still even my weekends include work. A strong effort in high school, college, grad school and at my jobs has led to fairly regular weekend work and working after putting the LOs down for bedtime, not con…
But tell me this, If society is overworking so much.
How is the average screen time of an american adult around 4-5 hours per day ? thats 8-10 hours per couple per day. Are you saying most of that time spent on facebook, tiktok, youtube and instagram overworking time ?
Do americans work hard ? absolutely way more than europeans who have a much better work life balance, tons of holidays, maternity leave, paternity leave, none of which america has.
Chinese and american workers are some of the hardest workers on earth.
Then tell me this. How is it that western europe with better work life balance has even worse birth rates (significantly worse for significantly many more years) than america ?
Western Europe already has more rights and it doesnt work. Whatever semblance of sanity they have in birth rates (as horrible as those metrics are) most of the children are born to single income regressive households mostly north african, morocon, and pakistani immigrants in western europe and uk. So, if you exclude those, the birth rates of families with more rights, more work life balance, is even worse than the official stats.
Rights or no rights isnt the issue, but a discussion on what’s promoted by society should be had, more rights doesnt mean more children. Coercion, promotion of ideals, behavioural nudging are standard things every single country and its government does, (a good book on this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State)
So More rights, more work life balance while are amazing ideals that society should definitely work on, like it has for thousands of years with on average significant better results if one sees growth in 100 yr cycles.
More rights is not the solution to birth rates, atleast its not the existing bottleneck in most western societies and cultures that’s for sure.
My anecdotal experience, which illustrates how changing societal norms may be contributing. Around 1960, my grandmother scandalously fell pregnant with my mother in her late teens. The child was adopted out - well, not out - in. To her own grandmother, to be raised as a "younger sister" to her own mother. Around 1980, my mother scandalously fell pregnant with me, in her late teens. Despite family disapproval, the chi…
Having kids when you are young and financially not established is just irresponsible, but particularly female bodies don’t do well having kids older when you are established enough to do so responsibly. I’m having this problem right now with my spouse (we have a kid, but are thinking about another), it’s just super hard to get pregnant without medical help.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s strange to see that anecdote so highly upvoted when it’s so trivial to look at birth rates by parental age. Reduced teen pregnancies are not the driving factor in recent fertility rate declines at all. It is interesting how an appeal to emotion with a difficult story can lead so many to overlook the obvious shortcomings in that explanation. Honestly this entire comment section has a lot of people making guesses…
Maybe it has something to do with the “you are not good enough” treadmill the modern world has everyone on. I don’t think people of yesteryear contemplated if they were ready to start a family. I don’t think they contemplated if a job was the “right fit”, and I doubt they scoured the world looking for their soulmate. So, if you live in our current time period where you are never “complete”, then you may have a hard t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When people feel the game is unfair, they quit. When the game is society, the society ceases to exist. It's wild that we find it harder to change the system than to walk away from it entirely. People opt out in a thousand small ways - refusing to have kids, refusing to participate, numbing themselves with distractions, or just mentally checking out. If the core pitch of society is "keep grinding or suffer," it’s not…
It’s symptoms all the way down. If the system decides it needs more births it will ban abortion, and that’s not a moral failure on the system’s part, it’s an indictment of the symptoms itself.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In modern relationships, men just want to work and come home to a cooked meal and clean house As a man in a "modern relationship" I strenuously object to this. I mean yeah I want that (who wouldn't?), but I know I'm not going to get it because my partner has a job too so we have to help each other. Literally every one of my married male friends also regularly cooks and cleans.
Some men are stepping up. but others aren't. Many women don't want to have kids because they can't find a qualified partner they feel will be a good dad and good husband.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[citation needed]? A very cursory Google of this nets me a Pew study; the stat we're looking for is: > fathers’ overall work time (including unpaid work at home) is actually two hours more than that of mothers. > Women still perform substantially more labor at home than men do across the US population. This is a different claim. (A household could be equitable — both partners performing roughly the same amount of wor…
IMHO, many of the traditional unpaid labor tasks go towards maintaining the home (repairs, landscaping, car repairs, etc)z In 2025, some of that labor is recaptured by the man, as that improves the value of the family home or cars. Also, if your family chooses to rent (which seems to be a trend now for millennials), the man doesn’t have a lawn to cut or a car to fix.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I agree, his experience is also salient. Ease of access to birth control and ease and safety of abortion will be having a very detectable impact on the birthrate. Not saying they need to be restricted, just that they're very relevant data points.
it is heavily politicized, atleast for the forseable future, until society reaches a conclusion, people will lie with statistics, smear their opponents in discussion as bigots, sexists, whatever. But sooner or later it needs to be asked and acted upon. Should society structure itself to penalise abortions, and reward births of children. Did our old religious and conservative societies where parents and grandparents h…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No - being a mom and having to work full time sucks. Being a full time mom probably isn't that bad.
In many HCOL cities, for many couples, SAHM isn't a financially feasible option. Also, as a full-time mom, you’ve given up autonomy to your husband (since he controls the finances). While women can leave the relationship whenever they want, their careers often suffer, and they can’t just pick up where they left off.
Sure - a combination of a race to the bottom on working hourse and supply/demand for housing.
We need major tax breaks for single income households and to legalise building homes.