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

India's surprise baby bust

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 1001 posts

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#201

Post by foobarian »

SoftTalker wrote: post #190
trgn wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i put off children because it takes longer to establish a foothold. not because i loved to travel or eat out necessarily, or felt i needed to prioritize hedonistic activities over building a family. but, during that time of getting my degree, figuring out my career, get some savings, etc.. those were the things to fill up time with. i'd trade it all for having kids younger though. it's just that they would have come…

A lot of people think they need to do this but it's really not true. You don't need to have life all figured out before you have kids. And in terms of avoiding complications and having energy, 18-25 years old is probably the best time.

Maybe that is exactly the mechanism this happens with. People don't necessarily make these choices consciously, they might be railroaded into them by the environment in an industrialized society

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#202

Post by m_fayer »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #69

This has happened to every single society [*] as it industrializes [0], and offering extensive support and incentives to parents (e.g. as has been tried in Scandinavian countries) does very little to reverse this trend [1, 2]. My hypothesis is that as societies industrialize, they afford their population more and more activities that are simply more fun and rewarding than having children. So many people I know put of…

I have a different pet explanation from the other replies here, and I honestly don't get why it's not talked about more.

Basically, our economic reality and expectations have come into conflict with biology and human lifespan.

If you want a secured dignified life and basic prerequisites to starting a family, every year that takes a little longer. And these days, almost everyone wants that dignified middle class life before they start a family.

A degree, an advanced degree, a good enough job, sufficient housing, a little fun to boot. Not until 25, 28, 30, 33, 35.

But we're supposed to have children in our early 20s. That's when we're strong and energetic enough, with good backs, and grand parents fit and willing to pitch in.

When we finally feel ready in our mid 30s, we find that time has conspired against us. Our parents are far away and often ailing and demanding care and attention. We have less energy and more stress and dread the lost sleep. We have the wisdom and worldliness to know just how hard this is going to be. And once we've metabolised all those things, that's when we realize that conception is no longer a question of a great night out and a few drinks. How many kids will be born at the end of that gauntlet? We're finding out right now.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#203

Post by boelboel »

FeteCommuniste wrote: post #181
boelboel wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some evidence that mobile phone access is one of the biggest drivers in this. This talks about teen fertility but I'd imagine it's similar in other age categories as well. https://homepages.uc.edu/~moscoshn/Personal_webpage/papers/S...

Interesting. Once you have a cellphone to amuse yourself, perpetuating the species is just too much bother?

Phone + PC/TV probably takes an hour or two of people their day on average. If they didn't have access to it I assume they'd be meeting up with other people out of boredom and that'd lead to sex, doesn't seem too strange.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#204

Post by card_zero »

ninininino wrote: post #170
trgn wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i put off children because it takes longer to establish a foothold. not because i loved to travel or eat out necessarily, or felt i needed to prioritize hedonistic activities over building a family. but, during that time of getting my degree, figuring out my career, get some savings, etc.. those were the things to fill up time with. i'd trade it all for having kids younger though. it's just that they would have come…

Respectfully, you don't know why you put off children. You may tell yourself a story of why you have, but for example if there was an environmental contaminant shaping population level stats on endocrines and hormones that reduced human sex drive and desire for children, you wouldn't necessarily be conscious of that.

That sounds more like "hormone-driven people don't know why they had children".

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#205

Post by m_fayer »

everdrive wrote: post #189
trgn wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i put off children because it takes longer to establish a foothold. not because i loved to travel or eat out necessarily, or felt i needed to prioritize hedonistic activities over building a family. but, during that time of getting my degree, figuring out my career, get some savings, etc.. those were the things to fill up time with. i'd trade it all for having kids younger though. it's just that they would have come…

Everyone claims it's the cost, but poor people used to have kids constantly. When I lived in Baltimore the guy on my block grew up there. They had 12 kids in a ~1100 sq foot row home with two bedrooms and 1 (or no?) bathroom. You can find similar stories everywhere.

We've gotten smarter, to our detriment.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#206

Post by dismalaf »

A big part of people having lots of kids was infant mortality, the need for physical labour (farming) and lack of old age security (kids take care of parents). All 3 of these issues are mostly gone so now parents try to focus resources into ensuring their children are as successful as possible instead of as numerous as possible.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#207

Post by danny_codes »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #70
vachina wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If the "cogs of the machine" freeze up and economy tanks the top 1% will be fine. You might not be.

Depends what we mean by freeze up. Revolutions usually mean some part of the elite class gets killed or exiled. Happens all the time.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#208

Post by MSFT_Edging »

taeric wrote: post #197
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the "bring them into this world" thing is overdone, but a big part of me feels it to my core. I haven't seen a firefly in a couple years. If I had a child today, describing this bug to a child would be almost mythical. How many things that we've taken for granted will a child born today never get to experience? Not shallow things like iPods, but genuine miracles of nature we're wiping out at an accelerating pa…

An odd example, as fireflies are still pretty big in the places they have always been, aren't they? I know when I get to visit my childhood states, they are still there. Similar for cicadas and other bugs of my youth that I didn't realize were far more local than I expected.

It was just a recently notable example. Even as of 2-3 years ago I used to see them a decent amount. They're a highly visible marker of an insect population that is dropping like a rock.

They're also a beautiful creature that I could imagine wishing a child of mine could experience the same way I did, which better illustrates the tragedy of the damage we're doing to the planet.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#209

Post by danny_codes »

g3f32r wrote: post #173
lenkite wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gradual population decline empowers lower-income workers. As seen after the Black Death, a scarcity of labor drives real wages up and lower the cost of basic goods and rent. Basically, the billionaires dislike it and hence are changing the message. They want you to be ants.

> Gradual population decline empowers lower-income workers. Remember this line the next time immigration/H1b debates heat up. The same mathematics are at play.

Except for outsourcing, of course. The labor pool isn't limited domestically for many kinds of work. And for tech specifically, the labor pool is highly mobile. So if another country becomes the best place to go, then the labor pool will move there. The simple analysis probably results in, counter-intuitively, the opposite of what you want, which is a decline in the competitiveness of American tech

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#210

Post by MSFT_Edging »

SamPatt wrote: post #192
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the "bring them into this world" thing is overdone, but a big part of me feels it to my core. I haven't seen a firefly in a couple years. If I had a child today, describing this bug to a child would be almost mythical. How many things that we've taken for granted will a child born today never get to experience? Not shallow things like iPods, but genuine miracles of nature we're wiping out at an accelerating pa…

>I can't in good conscious bring a child into a world that so many are focused on absolutely destroying. Who is focused on destroying the world? I don't think hardly any super villains exist. People might have a different assessment of what destroying the world means than you do.

Many people think a well manicured lawn sprayed with pesticides is preferable to local wildflowers and shrubs.

They "have a different assessment" but they're still contributing to an extinction event. You don't need to be a super villain. You can simply be selfish. Once scaled to many many selfish people, you have a collective villain.

Post reply on HN