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

301–310 of 1001 posts

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#301

Post by thijson »

xeonmc wrote: post #222
m_fayer wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So support should be provided for incentivizing younger parenthood then, like guaranteed tuition assistance per children born?

Giving birth to future tax payers should confer sizable tax deductions for the parents.

I'm not sure that's enough to reverse the demographic slide though, it's been tried.

For our ancestors, they married young, and didn't have access to birth control. Babies weren't really planned, they just happened.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#302

Post by whatever1 »

fangorn wrote: post #289

FT's "Why birth rates are falling everywhere all at once" was published, and discussed, recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48168928 https://www.ft.com/content/fba35eca-df3a-4ad6-b42d-eb08eb7c9... https://archive.is/6VpWy Spoiler: smartphones, social media, housing.

Also it’s not ok anymore to rape/get married to 13yo girls.

And now with a smartphone every girl knows that it is not ok.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#303

Post by everdrive »

happytoexplain wrote: post #292
everdrive wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly every metric gets worse - likelihood to get pregnant - likelihood to bring child to term - health risk to mother during pregnancy and child birth - health risk to baby during pregnancy and child birth - increased likelihood of multiple birth defects - increased likelihood of genetic abnormalities I'm not casting aspersions. My wife and I had kids when she was 38 and 40 respectively. But, the numbers for the ri…

So even if it takes a year instead of one night to get pregnant, which wouldn't really affect long-scale statistics that much, more pregnancies fail, and more people may choose not to try at all because of the risks. That makes sense.

It's got an effect but agreed it's not the biggest effect given what else is going on. I think time might be the bigger factor here when simply discussing biology. If you have kids every ~3 years and don't start until you're 35, you have maybe 1.75 years of kids left in you before it starts getting tenuous. (ie, before the woman is over 40) That same math works out differently if your first kid is at 20.

None of this touches on industrialization and higher education, which seem to be the more universal effects, even if one of their bigger effects is merely to delay motherhood.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#304

Post by WarmWash »

danny_codes wrote: post #217
RickJWagner wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would destroy the incentive to save. Why put aside a dollar now, only to have it taxed every year? Better to spend it while it’s whole. That changes future value calculations, too. These are things not to mess with lightly.

Depends on implementation. For example, a wealth tax that has a "cap" at some ludicrous amount of wealth, like $10M, would effect very few people and therefore be insignificant for the average worker. So 99% of people would continue saving with no change at all to their behavior. The externalities could be nice though, since it'd distribute capital more efficiently. Sort of a general stimulant to the economy.

This line of thinking though assumes it would have no impact on the largest players though. It hinges on a "calling their bluff", that high NW individuals won't change anything despite now being forced to annually liquidate assets to cover taxes. And this doesn't even touch on the immense impracticality of annually valuing assets. Or how to manage assets in illiquid markets, or how to sell 30% of a painting to cover 1% of it's mark-to-market value by year end.

The reason wealth taxes never go anywhere is because when you sit down and learn what wealth is, how it works, and what is practical, it makes the most sense by far to just tax things whenever they go back to cash.

Really the only genuine tax loop-hole is the step-up basis on inheritance. Everything else is just an elaborate deferral to pay taxes later.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#305

Post by m_fayer »

happytoexplain wrote: post #292
everdrive wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly every metric gets worse - likelihood to get pregnant - likelihood to bring child to term - health risk to mother during pregnancy and child birth - health risk to baby during pregnancy and child birth - increased likelihood of multiple birth defects - increased likelihood of genetic abnormalities I'm not casting aspersions. My wife and I had kids when she was 38 and 40 respectively. But, the numbers for the ri…

So even if it takes a year instead of one night to get pregnant, which wouldn't really affect long-scale statistics that much, more pregnancies fail, and more people may choose not to try at all because of the risks. That makes sense.

That or go "one and done" after having enough fun with:

- Stress on the relationship of trying and failing for a long time - Stress of fertility treatments, if needed - Likelihood of dealing with inevitable miscarriages on the way to a birth - Overall "medicalization" of pregnancy in middle age, and the stress of all that contact with the medical system

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#306

Post by none2585 »

bluescrn wrote: post #293
submain wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that enough though? Women change their entire bodies, sacrifice years of their lives, and go through considerable stress to have a baby. And at the end, the benefits of that ordeal are not clear. Society would need to offer something to offset all those costs.

'The benefits of continuing the existence of the species are not clear'

Unironically why care if this species continues?

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#307

Post by em-bee »

nemomarx wrote: post #267
Henchman21 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right why would we change the behavior that got us here? Just provide some incentives and problem solved right? How about we undo the mess we’ve created through industrialization? Change the world so people WANT to have kids again?

Why did people want to have them in the past, and what shifts do you think could undo industrialization enough to return to that? The economic value of kids and the relative surety that kids will provide for you in your old age are I think very hard to reclaim now, and that was a pretty strong motivator for most of history. You could end all retirement funds and pension systems and so on, maybe?

how about making your pension depend on the number of kids? take an average pension now: X=100%, take half of it as a base, and then add a quarter or one fifth per child. so a childless person gets half the current pension, 1 child gives you 75% or 70%, 2 children 100% or 90%, 3 children 125% or 110%, etc...

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#308

Post by riversflow »

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.

I have more energy in my 30s than my 20s

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#309

Post by m_fayer »

submain wrote: post #275
xeonmc wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So support should be provided for incentivizing younger parenthood then, like guaranteed tuition assistance per children born?

Is that enough though? Women change their entire bodies, sacrifice years of their lives, and go through considerable stress to have a baby. And at the end, the benefits of that ordeal are not clear. Society would need to offer something to offset all those costs.

We need a whole new generation of fertility medicine aimed not just at conception but the rest of it as well.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#310

Post by vkou »

g3f32r wrote: post #214
mekdoonggi wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. And that's good! That's freedom of choice. Similarly, my wife wanted children, and there's no amount of money that could replace the joy of having our child. Everything is better when we have the freedom to make a choice.

> Yep. And that's good! That's freedom of choice. Is it? Was it actually her choice? Or was she propagandized into being a fully-available consumer? Was she fed a steady diet of anti-natalist/anti-family formation and pro-independence (pro-consume) media and government policies from the moment she was born?

Thank you for bringing up this incredibly rational, and not at all offensive or infantalizing presumption - one that hypothesizes that my spouse is incapable of thinking and deciding for herself.

You are, of course, the sole free-thinking, unpropagandized person in the world.

Post reply on HN