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India's surprise baby bust

economist.com

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Re: India's surprise baby bust

#421

Post by drdaeman »

voiceofchoice wrote: post #251
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…

For the first time ever people can finally choose not to have kids. Is it really any surprise people would opt out? Go spend a day with kids and you'll see why people would rather not deal with the mess. Especially women who actually end up doing the majority of the work. Add to that the extinction level pressures like climate change and the absolute lack of any benefit whatsoever in being a parent, who is crazy enou…

The way I understand it, the modern sentiment is to have children meaningfully, raising them being a project parents actively invest into. Contraception brought choice, choice brought up consideration and planning. This all opened the can of "what are we doing" and "why do we do it" and "how do we do it right", that tended to be ignored in previous eras (where having or not having children was not exactly a real choice).

And for little I know about raising children is that it's one hell of a job, that requires extensive knowledge, skill, and constant heavy investment, all being an unbreakable commitment for almost two decades. Messing anything up means another human suffers the consequences. In my mind, a would-be parents have to be really competent to be confident to be able to accept the responsibility, and even then screwups are a given. Skipping on any of that, even unintentionally or from inadequate skills, means a person out there will be left to figure out how to deal with the aftermath of their upbringing. The fact a lot of people skip on all of that and just do it is no excuse.

And thus, personally, I never felt like having children. Not seriously, not after thinking about it in any depth. I messed up two cats already, messing up a human is unnecessary.

IMHO, if a society really needs new people because can't figure out how to support old ones otherwise, it should invest into professional parenting and employ people who are genuinely enthusiastic about doing that work.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#422

Post by vladms »

dividefuel wrote: post #389
VirusNewbie wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. But this is by and large not true. I've traveled, eaten at expensive restaurants, enjoyed a child free existence into my mid thirties and having kids is a blast [*] My wife was adamantly against having kids when we got together in our twenties, and she c…

How people feel about having kids doesn't seem to be a uniform thing. The majority of parents certainly seem to love their children, but I do see a lot of mixed opinions about whether they love being parents . In my peer group, it's been about 50/50 between people who seem to really enjoy parenthood and others who are struggling. There are many reasons for struggling, like how they or their spouse handle the stress a…

In my childless group of friends the ratio of happy to unhappy seems similar. What if it is not about the children but about the people? Each has its preferences, and damn I have seen a lot that have no clue what they like and continue doing things that makes them unhappy.

Maybe we should have like with "open university day", "open raise a child day". Some might like it more than imagine, some might hate it more than imagine.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#423

Post by pj_mukh »

scoofy wrote: post #388
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…

This is really the message of Abundance . If you want people to have kids, you need to make sure they are economically secure by the time they are of childbearing age... which means before they are 30. To do that, you cannot have supply constrained zero-sum shortage anywhere in society. It means that the cost of an apartment needs to be at-or-below the cost to build that apartment so people can just save up and buy o…

Agreed with all of this but,

"cost of an apartment needs to be at-or-below the cost to build that apartment"

That's not true, its that the cost to build the apartment is far too high and the cost is totally passed on to a the public, thereby hovering up any disposable income that might go towards having a child.

There can be a profit margin, but the cost needs to be low.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#424

Post by magicalhippo »

niemandhier wrote: post #377
hobo_mark wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In Germany the government pays your university time. You get about 800€ per month for housing and basic needs. At least if your family is not too well off. 50% of this have to be paid back, free of interest and capped at 10k€. That is not much, but keep in mind that we earn much less than Americans and have much higher taxes.

Similar in Norway. Except you have to pass exams to get part of it written off, if not you have to pay back 100%.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#425

Post by croes »

dagurp wrote: post #413
onesociety2022 wrote: post #361

Naive question- why does the human population need to keep growing? Why can’t we let it shrink? If AI and robotics are going to come to fruition in the next 50 years, why do we need so many people?

it wouldn't be a bad thing except that we're heading towards a future where there's too many old people for the economy to sustain itself.

This will happen either way because there is no infinite growth

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#426

Post by 01100011 »

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…

Agree and there are many reasons more.

I'll add religion to the mix. We're less religious now. Even folks who are religious now(at least in the Christian West) seem to practice a different religion than we did 50 years ago. Religion does many things, good and bad, but it definitely prizes children and reproduction. If it didn't, it would quickly get replaced by a mode of thought/belief which did. I'm not advocating for religion here, just stating that it likely plays a large role in reproduction.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#428

Post by madhacker »

Less children less taxing on the planet. Not everyone needs a replacement copy of themselves. The world population in 2026 is approximately 8.3 billion people. It is projected to continue growing, reaching around 10 billion by 2060.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#430

Post by autoexec »

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.

> You don't need to have life all figured out before you have kids.

You do need to be able to afford to care for them and be reasonably capable of providing them with a stable and healthy environment to grow up in though. People who are one or two missed paychecks away from homelessness probably shouldn't be thinking about having children, and sadly that's a whole lot of people.

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