Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

derekthompson.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

611–620 of 927 posts

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

#611

Post by IshKebab »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #189
IshKebab wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a significant factor because it doesn't come into play until all of your children are at least like 8. Nobody is thinking "I'll have to drive them to music lessons in 10 years instead of letting them play outside". I think the obvious factors are far more likely - people are poorer, childcare is more expensive, stay-at-home parents are less common.

I think the level of obsessive care people feel obliged to deliver to their single child prior to age of 8 is a part of the same story. You can see how radically it changes even with the second child (not to mention the third) but half of the parents never get there nowadays and think it's the norm.

I actually have two children and this is nonsense. Obviously the first child gets more attention than the second, but not in terms of the amount of time and money the childcare involves. And most people (in the UK at least) are not delivering obsessive levels of care. Some are of course, but most aren't.

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

#612

Post by superice »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #534
superice wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get it, you like stories of individuals. We should figure out a way you can listen to more stories, so you can form an even better opinion! Perhaps we write them out, shorten them a bit. Or perhaps group them by similarity. And then if we count the types of story per category… and boom, we’ve invented statistics!

I know how to use statistics to tell nearly any story though, and I would love to trust statistics… It has to do with unknown unknowns.

And I know how to tell any story, it's called lying. Whether you are lying with statistics or lying in a story does not matter. In the end it all comes down to whether you can validate what you've been told. Most people however will skip validation in favor of 'this sounds reasonable' and most people have a worse intuition for statistics than for stories. That's on them though, let's not blame statistics for that shortcoming.

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

#613

Post by MangoToupe »

lmm wrote: post #552
MangoToupe wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a stable population to have a stable society. I'm not sure why you're connecting the two.

Are there any historical cases of societies remaining stable despite massive population decline?

We live in such unprecedented times I'm again unsure why you would choose population growth rate as a factor to single out as particularly interesting and not, say, wealth inequality, climate stability, relative access to basic resources goods and services, perception of the competence of the ruling class, etc etc

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

#614

Post by hdgvhicv »

nothercastle wrote: post #547
itake wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Almost all the traditional male tasks got automated or delegated away for your 30 yo male. Live in an apartment, no maintenance take the car to a mechanic if it even breaks anymore, all that’s left is work and earn money.

Important to remember many traditionally female tasks were also automated and simplified - washing machines, fridges, air fryers, dishwashers etc all reduce the time spent on those “inside the home” tasks.

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

#615

Post by interloxia »

121789 wrote: post #528
labcomputer wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data doesn't exactly support your argument though: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/births-by-age-of-mother Just looking at raw number of births by age of mother: * 15-19 peaked in 1989 and has decreased 35% since then * 25-29 is higher than at any point in the 20th century * 30-34 is higher than at any point in the 20th century * 35-39 is higher than at any point in the 20th century * 40-44 is higher than the…

You are looking at the full world numbers, which isn’t really what’s being discussed in this thread. Try filtering for South Korea or the US

Change in births, by age of mother, United States

Estimated number of births each year by the age of the mother. 1950-2023 relative change. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/births-by-age-of-mother?s...

Birth rate by women's age group, United States https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fertility-rate-by-age-gro...

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

#616

Post by hdgvhicv »

zmgsabst wrote: post #387
epicureanideal wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stats are rigged and biased by not counting the types of work men do, and if they did count it they wouldn’t reach the “right” conclusions so wouldn’t be published. This is written about quite a bit.

Similar to how we talk about the Wage Gap but not the Death Gap, ie, that men do an order of magnitude more dying in the workplace.

And after. Women live on average 3 years longer than men, at least in the U.K.

In theory male retirement age should thus be 3 years lower, but until very recently in the U.K. female retirement age was 5 years lower, meaning women had 8 more years of claiming a pension.

When this was equalised there were massive protests.

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

#617

Post by actionfromafar »

more_corn wrote: post #369
actionfromafar wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are married though. A bunch a guys stand no chance of being or staying married because they just don’t offer what it takes

Meh, I’ve never met a man who was incapable of doing what it takes. It’s not rocket surgery. Just mostly don’t be a dick and treat your wife how you’d want to be treated. If there’s anything more to it please let me know (for the sake of my marriage)

You are right, that's all it takes. You're lucky though to not have met a man incapable of doing what it takes. I see them all the time, being total dicks.

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

#618

Post by [deleted] »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #36

These studies never seem to look at time spent parenting, between baby-boom years and now. My parents parented a few hours a week and were entirely typical. I parented ceaselessly, just like my parenting-peers. My parents world was possible because kids roamed with peers (and without adults) for many hours a week. This was my childhood, my parents childhood, my grandparents childhood. My kids grew up under 24/7 adult…

[deleted]

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

#619

Post by fwsgonzo »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #580
Aeolun wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad I mean, it was a thing for most of human history. There’s a reason biology makes you capable of having children at a young age. Isn’t it kinda bizarre that we think it’s weird?

>> actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad Except for the negatively impacting the ability to get the education needed for basic jobs. > I mean, it was a thing for most of human history. During most of human history there was a broad support system already in place. For modern new parents, that experience extended support varies from mostly gone to totally gone. Exasperating that: In markets with jobs, rents are 1mo ty…

Yep, we are new parents and we are almost 40. There just wasn't any moment before where it was possible to start a family. We are comfortable but utterly alone in our box, with no grandparents or extended family in sight. Also, with the expectation that outside is for cars. So, there's 1-2 hours at the end of the day for us which is largely cleaning and de-stressing. If anyone had laid this fully out for us before we made this choice, it would have been an easy heck no.

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

#620

Post by npteljes »

Aeolun wrote: post #539
UncleMeat wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abortions are not the primary reason why teen pregnancy is way down. There's actual data, you know. Fewer teen pregnancies is a reason why birth rates in the US are declining. But it isn't driven by abortion. And it is insane to me that I'm now seeing this "oh actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad" thing pop up all over the place.

> actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad I mean, it was a thing for most of human history. There’s a reason biology makes you capable of having children at a young age. Isn’t it kinda bizarre that we think it’s weird?

>There’s a reason biology makes you capable of having children at a young age

Biology and evolution doesn't really have a huge baseline. You basically have to survive until you reproduce successfully. Successfully here meaning that the offspring also has to do the same. If this is sustainable - the species is viable.

But, us humans like to know better. That's what the entire civilization is all about. And on the path of knowing better, we found that getting pregnant early actually is a detriment to the individual, their immediate surroundings, and society as a whole as well*. So, we do things like birth control and education and things like that.

Which is far from bizarre, if you look at human activity as a whole. Basically every facet of life goes against "biology" or rather basic nature, if you think about it. We augment ourselves and distance ourselves from it to a very large degree - stay indoors a lot, use clothing, learn abstract knowledge, look at screens, eat processed food, observe the myriad of societal rules. Which all are kinda weird - but they also aren't, if you consider the history of humanity.

*https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-...

Post reply on HN