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India's surprise baby bust

economist.com

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Re: India's surprise baby bust

#401

Post by thanhhaimai »

onetimeusename wrote: post #390
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…

I was surprised to find that just as recently as 1970 the median age of first marriage for men was ~23 and ~21 for women.[1] The average age at first child birth for women in 1970 was ~22.[2] There was a change that took place in the late 70s it looks like, probably acquiring education, that started to pretty dramatically raise the age of first marriage and first childbirth. So for me this was realizing that there wa…

In 1970, a single minimum wage income can raise a family and save up for extra.

In 2026, a single minimum wage income can barely survive by themselves with no saving in most part of the US.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#402

Post by Gareth321 »

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.

Implied in their comment is that they don’t want to be homeless and hungry, which I think is a fair prerequisite before having children.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#403

Post by bdangubic »

decimalenough wrote: post #395
Lammy wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to gender this, and I feel like people would be more receptive to the issue if it wasn't. Everybody ages: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12801554/

Gender does matter though. Men can sire offspring into their 60s, women have marked decline in fertility starting from 32 and hit an absolute wall (menopause) by their fifties.

Men offspring-ing in their 60's and dying 10 years later is perfect way to build a society where kids get to grow up without their fathers when they need them the most

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#404

Post by kylehotchkiss »

Is this a surprise to people there though? There was a big boom around independence and people wanted to give their own children a better life. India doesn't have a free national public school system like other countries do, which I believe is a big factor.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#405

Post by pjc50 »

everdrive wrote: post #272
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…

Also, women's overall fertility drops off a cliff after 30, but this is downplayed because the extreme sensitivity of the issue.

People forget that there's been a multi generational messaging of preventing women from having kids without economic security; this used to be done by the parents rejecting marriages that didn't bring enough dowry and extreme punishment for extra-marital relationships.

Now contraception has decoupled these things. You can have the relationship you want, and put off children until "sufficient" economic conditions have been reached.

(It is good news that India is at or below replacement rate! The conversation would be very different if in a few decades time India had to find twice as much food and oil!)

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#406

Post by em-bee »

M95D wrote: post #318
em-bee wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potholes are indeed a problem actually, less people would mean less traffic, and less wear on the roads, therefore also less potholes.

That's not how potholes form. It depends on wheather, not traffic.

weather, mainly rain, is only responsible for weakening the soil under the pavement, the actual holes are created by traffic. so as long as there is no traffic, holes would not form. especially holes getting larger also depends on traffic.

freezing and thawing can also be an issue, but obviously only in areas where it gets cold enough.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#407

Post by dividefuel »

b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote: post #364
staminade wrote: post #11

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…

>but you'll won't solve the demographic crisis without them. you won't solve it with them either. all of that feel good crap would bump the TFR of an average civilized country by 0.2. how can you have access to all the data in the world and still believe that the reasons are economical and not cultural?

I agree it's primarily cultural. I wonder whether there's anything that a non-totalitarian government can do that would significantly change the cultural side of it.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#408

Post by pjc50 »

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…

> was in too many meetings, where the CV of a young woman was critically evaluated for her propensity to get pregnant as soon as the probationary period was over

When was this? In much of Europe that's been illegal employment discrimination for decades. But I suppose employers are less worried if they can be confident that it's unlikely that any of their employees will have children.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#409

Post by _DeadFred_ »

happytoexplain wrote: post #273
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…

Yes, absolutely. I agreed with the parent too, but I think your explanation is not as different as it seems. I think your framing is just more direct and correct. However, one big caveat: "If you want a secured dignified life and basic prerequisites to starting a family" What you're saying is more relevant to the state of already-developed nations, that are now all in a slow decline. Not so much to newly developed na…

If you are referring to the US in your unsupported decline assertion the numbers don't support what you are saying (I disagree the US is more in decline than it was in the 70s/80s. It has different structural problems today, like housing and wealth concentration, but that isn't the same thing).

There's much stronger relationships to religiosity and fertility rates (with a much larger than income based gaps), regional/cultural choices and fertility rates, than income. India, which we are discussion here, supposedly a country where the quality of life is rising, has surprisingly low fertility rates.

IN your example it's much more likely Bob is no longer religious, Bob has moved to an area (or a culture has set in) where having less children is the norm/social structure. Among my social group having a child was very much 'catching' with friends having clusters of children around the same time. A culture of not having children would create the same opposite effect. Instead of talk about coming babies, shared excitement, feeling left out/un-adult, surrounded by hormones, if you have a culture of talking about not having children/justifying delaying/etc you now have 'not having children' as the 'catching' social outbreak.

Paying people to have kids/social promotion has not changed things anywhere. Or in the case of India being discussed, improving conditions have resulted in less children. There is something else going on than your assertion that 'American's are just too aspirational' is impacting India's fertility rate.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#410

Post by pjc50 »

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?

We spent decades fighting teen pregnancy for this?
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