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India's surprise baby bust

economist.com

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Re: India's surprise baby bust

#331

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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?

> like guaranteed tuition assistance per children born?

It needs to be a massive package of subsidies.

Children used to be a private good. Child-labor laws and the cost of raising kids flipped that. Children remain a public benefit, but that benefit is realized without paying for the cost. In essence, the cost of all prenatal, neonatal and pediatric healthcare; schooling; the opportunity cost in career and recreation the parents incur from having to raise kids; and the direct costs of feeding, clothing, nannying, et cetera children need to be directly subsidized, probably with a cash bonus on top.

In America this would probably be a ca. $50k/child benefit at the low end.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#332

Post by pixl97 »

none2585 wrote: post #306
bluescrn wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Unironically why care if this species continues?

Because it will be very messy and involve a lot of suffering if unmanaged.

The population just doesn't disappear, it can pretty quickly shrink in just a generation or two leaving huge amounts of infrastructure unmaintained and falling apart with huge amounts of debt that will ensure what remains of society ends up in chaos.

That and the most likely part of the population to shrink is the ones we consider more stable and rational. Cults and religious breeding groups will increasing become the majority of the population leading to some 'interesting fun times'.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#333

Post by arjie »

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'm the same as you. I, too, think it's just opportunity cost. Even a superficial model will show some effect as median income rises https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-02-14/Fertility_Ra...

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#334

Post by pixl97 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #296
dh2022 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my city of Seattle you simply cannot have more than one kid in your twenties. You simply do not have the income to pay the Seattle rent / mortgages and pay daycare for more than one kid at the start of your career. Forget about going to a concert or a restaurant: there is simply no money for it. Young people in Seattle either live in studios or 1 bedroom apartments, or live with roommates, or with their parents. Y…

And yet I bet there are thousands of young people in Seattle having kids. These limits are all about what kind of life you want for yourself, and not about what is possible.

I mean, living in a garbage dump is possible, millions of of people do it around the world.

The problem as a country you are doing to disappear demographically if you're choices are near suffering versus having kids.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#335

Post by geodel »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #38

>But when Indian school textbooks are reprinted this summer, they will carry a very different message. They will warn not of the dangers of having too many babies, but of the risks of having too few. The Chinese have discovered that it is easy to crank down the fertility rate, but impossible to raise it again when you want to do that. And they have brutal totalitarianism on their side.

Right. That will just turn the clock back. Because people are so clueless, stupid, they don't see around and notice this endless overcrowding is making their lives living hell. They don't read or see about lack of jobs, constant layoffs, housing shortage or anything else.

Just a warning about lack of cheap labor for 1 percenters in India should make every boy and girl in India to fulfill national duty to make more babies.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#336

Post by tasuki »

Spooky23 wrote: post #253
Daishiman wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't need to have life all figured out before you have kids. Sure, you just need to do away with international trips, going out, losing your group of friends, losing your chances for higher education and career progression and all of the associated prestige.

The only thing you lose there are the trips. If anything your social life can blossom. My wife was a city treasurer and had a masters. I was a .gov and later a tech executive.

> If anything your social life can blossom.

Yes, if you value spending time with parents of same-aged children. My social life is still fine, but the people I spend my time with are competely different. Not better, nor worse, just entirely different.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#337

Post by arjie »

pelagicAustral wrote: post #29

> But as India and others hurtle through their demographic transition, the consequences will not be pain-free. Pain for whom? The people profiting from cheap labor probably. Why is such a massive sin to scale down? To slow down a bit, I don't think the whole world is about to collapse, but even if it was, I rather that than turning it all into the hellscapes we see on some of the most overpopulated places in the worl…

Well, the welfare state for most nations will suffer. The reason it's a massive sin to scale down is that with a scaled down economy you can't sustain the old without greater sacrifices by the young. So you need someone to pay the price and neither wishes to. For my part, I think. one way or the other my Millennial generation should probably give up the US welfare state. We can still save the next generations.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#338

Post by b65e8bee43c2ed0 »

guyzero wrote: post #323
throwyawayyyy wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if Japan is the world's future, isn't that kind of... good? It's not the first place I think of when I think of a failing country.

Japan is not without problems related to a shrinking population i.e. https://eastasiaforum.org/2026/05/21/japans-immigration-poli... but it's a problem easily solved by just letting in more immigrants.

[flagged]

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#339

Post by forlorn_mammoth »

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.

SamPatt, it isn't necessarily individuals making individual decisions. Yeah, very few supervillains.

But perhaps you've heard talk of things like "6th mass extinction event" or "global climate change"?

both of which are direct consequences of our industrialized society?

Look, I'm personally grateful for modern medicine and indoor plumbing, to name a few things. I don't want to go back to some idealized hunter-gatherer past (yes, I've tried it).

And regardless of the actual truth of ecological and climate collapse, or your particular views on the actual truth of these, enough people see enough convincing evidence that the parent poster's view is supported by enough people to matter.

We live in a blessed window.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#340

Post by voiceofchoice »

inglor_cz wrote: post #242
Veserv wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in [0] the birth rate is relatively flat between 1950-1970 and then suddenly starts a rapid reduction. Developed countries have already been industrialized for 100 years by that point. The modern work day and access to many modern fun and rewarding activitys have been available for literal decades. Mass urbanization already occurred. Many of the modern household appliances have been in use for decades. Antibio…

Yeah, the big secret out there is that half of people once born might have been unwanted and "accidental", if not more.

And those in turn might not want to be here themselves and when given the choice decide to break the chain.
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