India's surprise baby bust • Hacker News Board

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#541

Post by Rury » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 12:24 AM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #426

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…

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 f…

Yes, I don't think this is a single faceted issue. I've yet to see anyone here mention animals yet... but numerous animals in captivity have also been shown to have far lower breeding/fertility rates. Factors like restricted space, lack of mate choice, and disrupted natural instincts can all influence animal behavior, and I see no reason why the same can't apply to us?

I know for me personally, it's not economic reasons as to why I have not had children, but more a problem of finding the right mate at the right time. Some people just aren't socially fit for each other...

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#542

Post by guyzero » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 12:26 AM UTC

dyauspitr wrote: post #525

guyzero wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan, a country famous for no one knowing what its culture is.

Reading about it in books and watching anime won’t prevent them from going functionally extinct in less than 200 years.

No one cares. Japanese culture today is nothing like it was 200 years ago.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#543

Post by linkregister » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 12:27 AM UTC

spullara wrote: post #345

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…

There are so many factors. I think the biggest one is that the developed world looked at women and said "hey, they are just as smart and capable as men and if they work at companies we have 2x the workers" which is obviously true but what it leads to is a DINK society - and it locks you in. It is just much, much harder to raise children when both parents work and they don't live near their parents and other familial…

I agree that women's employment is the common factor in all societies with reduced birth rates.

> In 1957 it was 96/100k teen women had babies, 62/100k in 1991 and now down to the current rate of 11/100k

That's per 1k, not 100k [1]. 96/100k would be an insignificant amount. 96/1000 of girls and women ages 15-19 means that any given year, 10% had a baby, which is a substantial contribution to overall birth rates.

1. Teen Births in the United States: Overview and Recent Trends, https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45184

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#544

Post by trumpdong » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 12:30 AM UTC

ianm218 wrote: post #224

i_idiot wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, isn't it already difficult for the not-rich to add to families? Add to that the uncertainty with income and future. Unless socialism is widely adopted, I am not sure humans can enjoy better lives especially with additional burden of kids. Hell, people can't afford homes now. I don't see a widely agreed upon or convincing positive ending. I already see (read about to be accurate) effects of AI on young graduates…

When people say "people can't afford homes now" your referring to places like NY, MA, and CA where people can't afford homes because the local governments have made it basically impossible to build to match the demand in the areas? I.e. Massachusetts despite being one of the most desirable places to live ranks 50th in housing production per capita. You're not sure humans can enjoy better lives in the future? Like you…

That's not a weird one-off problem with those local governments, it's a symptom of something fundamental to human society.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#545

Post by trumpdong » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 12:31 AM UTC

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.

I think the Chinese discovered that because they lowered fertility rates at a time they were naturally lowering anyway (as we see everywhere else). They can accelerate or, probably, slow down the natural progression but can't reverse it.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#546

Post by vkou » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 12:34 AM UTC

jiggawatts wrote: post #487

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…

I’m in my fourties’ unable to afford a three bedroom apartment in my city with an income in the top two or three percentile. I’ve had boomers tell me with a straight face that “they did it” so it can’t be that hard despite a 5x increase in housing costs relative to income. I’d have to spend every single post tax dollar for two decades to afford an actual house. Not counting interest and other taxes and council rates.…

Meanwhile, I grew up in an 800 sq ft apartment that housed my parents, my father's parents, me, and my sibling.

Objectively, you don't need a house with a lawn and a back yard to have children, and have them grow up healthy and successful.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#547

Post by stego-tech » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 12:38 AM UTC

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…

It’s a valid theory, and I certainly think it’s a contributor, but I would also argue that the “boom” years of fertility in modernity have been tied to periods of widespread benefit for most, if not all. When prospective parents and grandparents see the potential for a brighter future, there’s more societal pressure to have kids because their success will naturally boost your own. Then when the vice starts tightening, the idea is that having more kids improves your own prospects of survival and comfort in old age.

Then the systems of the world had to make a choice: pay for the old at the expense of the new, or support the new by capping benefits on the old. This takes the form of social welfare programs in most developed countries, but industrialization also clamped down wealth in the hands of those who owned the means of production, and kept it from the hands of labor absent mechanisms of redistribution. Industrialization by its nature necessitates a larger investment to begin competing with established players in ways former artisans and businesses lacked: machinery, labor, logistics, technology, real estate, and materials all require expensive, up-front, and lengthy investment before potential payoff in an industrialized world that pre-industry societies didn’t have to deal (as much) with, thus locking most Capital and wealth into the hands of those who already had it to begin with. An aristocracy on steroids, choking and hoarding the lifeblood of a healthy economy into their private coffers.

This plays out differently in each country depending on its economic maturity and what function it served in the global marketplace, but the outcome was the same: with entertainment being plentiful and cheap compared to the immense risks and costs of child rearing in an increasingly dim future lacking in a cohesive, collaborative narrative to be inspired by, fertility collapsed.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#548

Post by unmole » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 12:45 AM 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…

This narrative simply doesn't hold up at the population level.

If you just look at India, richer and more developed states have lower fertility compared to poorer, less developed states.

Within states, richer and more educated couples have fewer children compared to poorer less educated children.

These patterns are pretty much universal.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#549

Post by decidu0us9034 » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 12:45 AM UTC

spullara wrote: post #345

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…

There are so many factors. I think the biggest one is that the developed world looked at women and said "hey, they are just as smart and capable as men and if they work at companies we have 2x the workers" which is obviously true but what it leads to is a DINK society - and it locks you in. It is just much, much harder to raise children when both parents work and they don't live near their parents and other familial…

I love how the original post says this happens across vastly different societies regardless of all these different variables people are offering as possible explanations. For example, in India (which this article is about), women have a much lower rate of workforce participation than other industrialized countries. I think a lot of people who are replying are men and don't understand how physically tasking and painful pregnancy is. It seems like most women are fine having two if there's a high chance they'll make it to adulthood and they have access to family planning/contraceptives. That makes sense to me. Not sure why this is so confounding to people. Not much more of an explanation needed than that lol

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#550

Post by 3stacks » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 12:45 AM UTC

hedora wrote: post #5

What’s the problem? We’re committed to destroying livable human habitat for 100M’s to 1B’s of people via global warming. That’ll be less painful if there are fewer people. Lower populations should lead to lower emissions growth too.

You are so delusional