India's surprise baby bust • Hacker News Board

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#601

Post by matchbok3 » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 2:05 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #87

btilly wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could rant about the stupidity of spending fossil fuels, to grow biofuels, for no net gain in energy. But with a definite cost in engine wear. That said, like Democracy, capitalism is the worst economic system, except all of the others that have been tried. And there have been enough alternate experiments that I wouldn't want to literally bet my life on the next one working better.

Europe has done fairly well imho balancing socialism with capitalism and free market mechanisms, good patterns exist today I argue, even if they need tweaks and improvement. Importantly, these demographic curves are locked in for decades into the future, so might as well get comfortable with forward curve of change, we aren't going back to the historical demographic growth curve in anyone's lifetime, if ever. Plan, f…

Europe's "socialist" only works because they depend on the USA for military protection and tech innovation. Or oil revenues.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#602

Post by matchbok3 » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 2:06 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #79

btilly wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other 99% is even more dependent on the machine than the top 1%. They can build themselves reinforced bunkers, just in case. What is your plan if, say, the food distribution infrastructure breaks down? Does that sound like an extremely unlikely outcome? Back in 2008, we came within hours of credit cards stopping working. Projections say that if credit cards stop working, food distribution breaks down. Mass hunger…

This is a call for community and durable systems that serve the human instead of traditional systems built to aggregate and funnel capital to a few. The fertility crisis is a capital crisis (taxpayers needed to pay back debt issued today decades into the future, workers for corporate profits), not a crisis for the individual. I see it as an exciting opportunity to maintain and improve quality of life for humans while…

Corporate profits are good, they help companies make new things.

Do you think they should lose money? How would you be typing on a computer if that evil, evil company didn't make a profit?

There is a reason every communist society has failed.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#603

Post by incompatible » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 2:10 AM UTC

none2585 wrote: post #306

bluescrn wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'The benefits of continuing the existence of the species are not clear'

Unironically why care if this species continues?

The impact of humans on most other species, and the environment in general, isn't exactly positive.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#604

Post by brandonmenc » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 2:13 AM UTC

thanhhaimai wrote: post #401

onetimeusename wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not really.

My parents married in 1972 at age 18. Rust belt. Both worked. While comfortable, we were always worried about money and layoffs.

Friends whose parents didn't do as well as mine or who were single income households fared far worse. Definitely didn't end up with saved "extra" money.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#605

Post by thewhitetulip » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 2:15 AM UTC

matchbok3 wrote: post #579

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…

The world is not even close to 1% "overpopulated". The 1% indulge? The greatest thing a person can do is raise a child and build a legacy. No class warfare or nonsense about climate change can change that. If you want a smaller world, fine. Then give up your 401k, retirement funds, and government care in old age. Because my kids are the ones paying for 100% of that. Think of someone other than yourself.

Well, government care doesn't exist in India government pension doesn't exist.

Govt schools are under fudned so if you're serious about education and have money your kids go to private schools.

Even healthcare is private and costly as the free govt hospitals are chroniclly underfunded.

Public transport doesn't exist except for a few handful of cities

So I'm sorry, your points don't apply to India.

It's good that India's population is going to reduce

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#606

Post by thewhitetulip » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 2:18 AM UTC

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…

> societies will need to radically overhaul their entire relationship to supporting parenthood in order to reverse this trend.

Absolutely impossible to do in the modern age, not just in India.

Everyone is set in their lifestyle.

This reason and cost of living crisis + AI + pollution + lack of any support whatsoever is causing this baby bust but govt thinks it van give a one time $ 300 money grant for the 3rd kid! It takes about $ 1.5k to get delivery done in a good hospital in the cities. Checkup and pre delivery costs are above $ 500 at the least over 8 months.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#607

Post by xyzzyz » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 2:19 AM UTC

chr1 wrote: post #583

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…

Cost of a great apartment by 1920 standards is affordable to anyone before they are 30, the problem is that they want to add lots of nice but non-essential things to that house driving the price up. If you subsidize building houses, you merely will drive up standard of living without moving childbearing age. The problem is about priorities not resource constraints. And solution will be either enough people/countries…

Exactly. If you subsidize the abundance for everyone, the effect will just be raised expectations floor.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#608

Post by saulpw » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 2:21 AM UTC

BobaFloutist wrote: post #133

saulpw wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are the second most populous animal on the planet. We are in no danger of extinction.

I don't know where you got that idea, but we're not even the most populous species of vertebrates on the planet (that might be chickens). If you include arthropods, ants make it not even remotely close.

"Land vertebrates", #1 is chickens, #2 is humans. But colloquially "animal" does not include ants or fish.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#609

Post by Ifkaluva » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 2:26 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…

I’m going to try to win the award for the most controversial theory on this thread.

The real reason we are having population shrinkage is because evolution did a crappy job. It didn’t tune us to want to have kids, it tuned us to want to have sex, and it linked to sex to reproduction.

As we got smarter, and eventually develop contraception, we are essentially reward hacking evolution’s crude hack.

What’s going to happen over the next few decades is that a few variants here and there are going to spread throughout the population that actually lead to more kids, not just through desire for sex. It will be a population crash, followed by a recovery.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#610

Post by riknos314 » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 2:26 AM UTC

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…

> There was a change that took place in the late 70s it looks like

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/