India's surprise baby bust • Hacker News Board

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#441

Post by em-bee » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 10:08 PM UTC

rluna828 wrote: post #416

scoofy wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Some mathematicians ran some numbers and diferent societies have different lowlying fruit. None of his improvements get societies to 2.1, but will theoretically move them to ~1.8. I'll find the source if people ask. 1. End toxic masculinity (machismo) in middle east and LatAM. No woman who knows how to read want to beaten or enslaved. 2. Jobs and Housing: Europe and America respectively. More three bed-room houses wo…

incidentally a few years ago china banned tutoring, but to my understanding it was mainly because most tutoring places were scams, and maybe also because mostly rich parents would spend the money, thus giving them an advantage.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#442

Post by co-ent » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 10:11 PM UTC

nercht12 wrote: post #358

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 difficu…

Oh look at that: the poster advocating for an effective, positive, and personal change instead of thrashing about in the status quo is downvoted. Imagine that. Personal responsibility is an anathema and we are doomed to this path for it.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#443

Post by diddid » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 10:11 PM UTC

I’m always a bit confused by this, don’t we want this? If the end goal is to have ai and robots do it all, and there are no jobs left, what would children provide if they aren’t down payments on a future work force? Only people that wanted children would have children as all the old childless people would be taken care of by the states robots. I mean not exactly like that but something like that. Ai isn’t taken anyone’s job is there is nobody there to take it from. Or is that line of think too… something.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#444

Post by quickthrowman » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 10:14 PM UTC

happytoexplain wrote: post #66

calepayson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shot in the dark but my sense is that a lot of our economics presumes growth and, if we don’t get it, a lot of terrible stuff happens. I feel pretty confident that ai will eventually be a large driver of growth but I do worry about whether it'll come soon enough.

>a lot of our economics presumes growth and, if we don’t get it, a lot of terrible stuff happens What does this actually mean? Every time I try to wrap my head around why it's bad e.g. for a business to make a constant profit, rather than an increasing profit; or for the population to dip to some number and settle there, rather than increase; the explanations seem to become circular very quickly. I know it's partiall…

> What does this actually mean? Every time I try to wrap my head around why it's bad e.g. for a business to make a constant profit, rather than an increasing profit;

It’s very simple.

If you make $1M in profit in a year and the following year you also make $1M but inflation was 3%, you earned 3% less money than you did the year before. The nominal profit was the same but the real profit was lower.

To earn the same real return with 3% inflation you would need to earn $1.03M the year after you earn $1M. If your profits grew less than inflation, you made less money and your company is worth less as a result.

Monetary policy people figures out that a small amount of controlled inflation that incentivizes investing is better than deflation which encourages people to hoard cash. Some people disagree with that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_and_nominal_value

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#445

Post by robocat » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 10:14 PM UTC

b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote: post #338

guyzero wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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Both New Zealand and Australia have about 30% of the population born overseas. Immigration does lead to some stresses but it also has bonuses. Immigration seems to clearly help in the short term.

But yes, immigration doesn't solve the demographics issue, because immigrant citizens also get old and expect government support.

Immigrants do often have good sized families so that brings in a fresh generation of New Zealanders. Plenty of my married friends are from mixed cultures.

In some cultures their children give more time to care for their own parents or elderly family. New Zealand born children seem less likely to do so.

The local born often whine because whinging is a significant part of our colonial heritage from England.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#446

Post by scoofy » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 10:16 PM UTC

pj_mukh wrote: post #423

scoofy wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My point is only that we can see the value capture of the housing shortage by looking at the delta of housing development COGS and housing prices. I generally agree with you that there is plenty of room for profit margin, but when we see housing prices diverging significantly from lowest-cost construction prices, then we can measure our shortage.

My main point is that, because housing takes a very long time to build en masse, you'd want the housing to start being built before people need it.

It's like any other strategic reserve we have. Since demand can spike, and we can rarely see the spikes coming, but we know they will come, just be prepared by subsidizing the development of that thing. We do it for food, oil, weapons, vaccines, you name it. If we know we will need it in the future anyway, and it take a long time to produce, we create strategic reserves. We should do that for housing.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#447

Post by nikanj » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 10:16 PM UTC

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…

Take an average 22-year old. Tell them they just won the lottery, and never have to worry about money ever again. Do you think they'll be interested in starting a family?

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#448

Post by cindyllm » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 10:17 PM UTC

co-ent wrote: post #442

nercht12 wrote: post #358

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 difficu…

Oh look at that: the poster advocating for an effective, positive, and personal change instead of thrashing about in the status quo is downvoted. Imagine that. Personal responsibility is an anathema and we are doomed to this path for it.

[dead]

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#449

Post by scoofy » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 10:18 PM UTC

shimman wrote: post #432

scoofy wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No, that is you are reading into what abundance is. Abundance is mostly neoliberal economic ideas repackaged for the current iteration of consultants where workers are entirely excluded from the processes, unions are the enemy, and regulation is actually evil this time (pinky swear this time!). Thank fuck voters aren't buying this garbage. I also find your retort equally misleading. Social housing is a solved issue.…

You clearly did not read the book or understand the message. I say this as someone who thinks we need a wealth tax (or at least a tax on unrealized semi-liquid capital gains).

>America has always been deeply antidemocratic

Okay, buddy. No need to open a history book to understand what an undemocratic state actually looks like. There are plenty of actual, totalitarian monarchies that still exist.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#450

Post by b65e8bee43c2ed0 » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 10:18 PM UTC

cjs_ac wrote: post #367

b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Not decline, but Australia considered its population too small after the Second World War and very successfully integrated immigrants from an increasing diversity of source countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-war_immigration_to_Austra...

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