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India's surprise baby bust

economist.com

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Re: India's surprise baby bust

#351

Post by voiceofchoice »

happytoexplain wrote: post #285
submain wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It comes down to the opportunity cost for women to have babies. On pre-industrialized societies, women have barely a choice. On industrialized ones they do. And it turns out that, when given the choice, they choose not to have babies.

The implication of "and it turns out..." is that all else is equal, but clearly it's not. Would women still choose to have babies if they didn't have to work also ? I admit that it's basically moot - we can't seem to figure out how to have a society where both members of a couple are free to choose whether or not to work. I'm only pointing out that this trend doesn't mean what you're implying about women's desires.

If you don't think child rearing is work then you won't understand why women choose not to have kids in the first place. You cannot be a parent and choose not to work, period. Just because you're not getting paid and ordered around by an adult boss doesn't mean being a trad wife is magically somehow not work. In fact, at least with a regular 9-5 you get PTO and time off.

If you scoff at the idea of flipping burgers your whole life then just imagine it's changing diapers instead.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#352

Post by hobo_mark »

niemandhier wrote: post #349
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…

There is the idea floating around in Europe, to nullify people’s student debts if they have children. So two kids during university would mean even the measly amount you have to pay back for an European subsided degree would be gone. I do hope that will be put into effect. I also believe that this will be better for gender equality than all the other measures taken so far. I was in too many meetings, where the CV of…

What are these European student debts you speak of, outside of the UK (which emphatically does not want to be considered part of Europe)?

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#353

Post by 9dev »

guyzero wrote: post #346
b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Japan is already accepting immigrants! It's right there in the article I linked! It's just a question of raising the quota slightly. It's hardly going to solve every problem, it will keep restaurants from closing.

"allowing to enter the country" and "accepting" are two very distinct things.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#354

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#355

Post by silexia »

The purpose of life is reproduction and having your own kids is the greatest joy in life. I am a very successful and wealthy entrepreneur who can do anything I wish with my time and I have done everything; travel, rock climbing, super cars, wine tasting, etc etc. Time with my kids is all that matters to me.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#356

Post by saintvlad »

vkou wrote: post #310
g3f32r wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

FWIW, I think we all (I am including myself here) underestimate the degree to which our beliefs are formed by the culture we inhabit.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#357

Post by em-bee »

snihalani wrote: post #278
zkmon wrote: post #6

This has a religious angle. Some religions believe in having as many babies as possible. Other religions are seeing the effect and realizing their mistake.

I keep hearing some religions push for this. I don't understand how it benefits them

you need to look at the origin. if we accept that this is written in the holy scriptures of the espective religions then the question is how did it benefit the people at the time it was written. never mind today because religions aren't free to just change scripture.

if we further assume that those scriptures were actually inspired by god or some other non human entity then the question is practically unanswerable because the benefit for that creator lie beyond our human life experience.

there are however a few potential theories for why it makes sense. for one god is described as existing beyond space and time. so god would know that birthrates were necessary to spread humanity across the planet, and maybe that was the goal. god would also know that the birthrate would eventually decline, so this would help be to counteract that decline.

we can also ask ourselves, what would be the benefit of a growing population today?

if the purpose of humanity is to push forward an ever advancing civilization, that is, to develop and to thrive, then maybe the goal is to maximize the potential of this planet to feed that many people, or to challenge us to be more efficient at food production. isn't population growth one potential driver for innovation?

or thinking beyond, maybe the goal is to actually push us to colonize space.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#358

Post by nercht12 »

The problem with society is that people are commonly selfish, so the majority of people only do things that benefit them. Children benefited ancient societies.

The problem with industrialized societies is that people lost all markers of adulthood. Everything became about worshiping convenience, and once convenience (for short-term pleasure) became "god", people wanted to avoid things they saw as unnecessarily difficult.

To reverse the trend, we need people to understand that the difficulty of life isn't a bad thing, that struggle and suffering aren't bad, they are essential for growth in becoming a better, happier person in the long run.

Would you rather be an ever-weakening wimp? Most people unconsciously say "yes", afraid of the world. Kids are afraid of the chaos in life - suffering that happens when life throws you curve balls, like "what would I do without monetary support?". Even "adults" now are really kids are heart - afraid of losing social security, medicare, etc. "Welfare" programs don't end the dilemma - they only reinforce the childishness and dependency on gov for support.

We need more bold people, people who aren't afraid to suffer because they see the light at the end of the road. Courage separates the men from the boys.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#359

Post by alongson »

m_fayer wrote: post #202
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…

This is exactly it.

It’s simply the biological clock running out due to convenience and security.

It’ll require a huge culture shift to make kids convenient.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#360

Post by thinkthatover »

arjie wrote: post #337
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.

why not just eliminate the $170K payroll cap? that gets us most (certainly not all) of the way there.
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