India's surprise baby bust • Hacker News Board

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#11

Post by staminade » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 3:15 PM UTC

Unless they roll-back women's rights and improvements in child mortality, societies will need to radically overhaul their entire relationship to supporting parenthood in order to reverse this trend. The economic costs of having children at a replacement rate are simply too high.

We need universal childcare services, provided by the state and available to all, and other childcare-enabling reforms like automatic right to work from home and other flexible working arrangements for those with children.

These won't be popular with everyone, but you'll won't solve the demographic crisis without them.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#12

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 3:15 PM UTC

> But demographers have long shown that what really counts is girls’ education.

That makes sense. I know that having less people is not a good thing, but I was brought up with the "impending population crisis" thing drilled into my head, so it's difficult for me to be alarmed.

I'm also all for getting women into parity with men. I know that there are a lot of men that will say that this is a bad thing, but I was raised amongst a lot of extremely capable women.

I feel that we need to support parents, if we want more kids. Right now, in the US, having kids is economically devastating, and there's almost no support from the government. I'll bet India is worse (but I could be wrong).

I feel that nature has controls built in. We see it all the time, in other species. I feel that if we drop too far down, the switch will be turned back on again.

[EDITED TO REMOVE TRIGGER WORDS]

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#13

Post by hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 3:16 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #5

What’s the problem? We’re committed to destroying livable human habitat for 100M’s to 1B’s of people via global warming. That’ll be less painful if there are fewer people. Lower populations should lead to lower emissions growth too.

[flagged]

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#14

Post by vachina » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 3:16 PM UTC

i_idiot wrote: post #8

What's the strong case against population dwindling other than supporting aging population? Given the AI armageddon, it just makes sense to reduce the population. If there's less population, we need less production and less workers. Of course, countries have to deal with oldest population for a brief period of time.

The top 1% is freaking out at the thought of population shrinking because the cogs of the machine won’t turn itself.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#15

Post by wg0 » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 3:16 PM UTC

Maybe economic struggle is not letting people take such a delicate and demanding responsibility. It's getting very difficult everywhere. It's not that just cost of living or housing affordability is a Western problem.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#16

Post by mywittyname » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 3:17 PM UTC

> One study showed how the arrival of cable television in Indian villages in the 2000s led to a moderate fall in fertility. Soap operas depicting urban, middle-class women with small families may have changed norms (though some wonder whether people were just watching TV rather than having sex).

The latter part seems like the most meaningful cause world wide. Sex is a boredom activity and we just aren't bored in the slightest, ever. I think most married people know that long power outages are the most romantic thing that can happen (though, less now with cell phones).

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#17

Post by Ajedi32 » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 3:18 PM UTC

i_idiot wrote: post #8

What's the strong case against population dwindling other than supporting aging population? Given the AI armageddon, it just makes sense to reduce the population. If there's less population, we need less production and less workers. Of course, countries have to deal with oldest population for a brief period of time.

Well, in the extreme case, human extinction seems like a pretty bad thing.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#18

Post by kakacik » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 3:18 PM UTC

H8crilA wrote: post #10

ggm wrote: post #3

... as predicted by demographers for the last ?10? Years? Longer?

Every single population goes through a baby bust when a certain level of development is achieved - women education seems to be a particularly strongly correlated sub-component.

Could be easily verified in wealthy societies where women are still delegated into mostly keeping household & raise kids roles (I don't think I need to name few samples).

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#19

Post by vachina » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 3:19 PM UTC

davidedwardc wrote: post #4

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#20

Post by miroljub » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 3:19 PM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #12

> But demographers have long shown that what really counts is girls’ education. That makes sense. I know that having less people is not a good thing, but I was brought up with the "impending population crisis" thing drilled into my head, so it's difficult for me to be alarmed. I'm also all for getting women into parity with men. I know that there are a lot of men that will say that this is a bad thing, but I was rais…

[flagged]