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…
> 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. I’m 24 and have enough money. I want kids. I think I won’t be able to have any. Most of my friends are in the same boat.
If not money, what are the types of issue you face?
This has a religious angle. Some religions believe in having as many babies as possible. Other religions are seeing the effect and realizing their mistake.
I keep hearing some religions push for this. I don't understand how it benefits them
It perpetuates the religion. The anti-breeding religions died out like dinosaurs.
I never made any value judgment on whether it’s bad or good. “Hedonism” is simply the focus of individual pleasure and happiness above all else, and everything I listed is an example of things that lead to individual happiness that are antithetical to having many children.
Why do you think people have children then? Is that not (perhaps a bad) attempt at hedonism? I've heard (esp women) say "I can't be happy unless I have children". Then they have children, and... it often turns into "why isn't the father helping more".
The degeneracy of these millennials who want to maintain healthy sleep habits...
Funny enough I know lots of millennials without children with horrible sleep patterns and habits. But you might be up to something: people are too stressed/anxious/depressed (without children) that adding children seems to them like an impossible burden. Now, I am not sure children would not sometimes actually improve their state (biology kicking in), but definitely is a gamble.
Children surely help you get your shit together. Otoh if you don't have your shit together, adding children into the mix is a little unfair to the children.
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…
I'm going to get flagged to hell but 'we' do not.
Women do.
Men can happily wait till their 80s to have three children.
We need to get over the fantasy that biology doesn't drive survival.
If anyone is upset by that please help fund artificial womb research. There isn't nearly enough money in the space for the sole thing that can prevent human extinction at worst or soylent green at best.
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…
Even with extensive support and subsidies from the state, having children is an economic loss for the individual in today's society. Back in agricultural society, having children was an economic gain, because you could put them to do work for you.
Now if the state wants children it would need to pay both for the missed fun times and also the missed career opportunities that come from having children.
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…
> This is effectively impossible in a democratic society
Why exactly would a democratic society oppose this? Are you conflating democratic and capitalist?
Most if not all postwar European societies had ambitious social housing projects that aimed to secure housing for young workers.
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.…
A different perspective from Poland: house affordability is equally as bad, so the argument could have been "young people don't have babies because they can't afford three bedroom apartments".
But the country had a major baby boom in the 80s, during a (relatively mild) civil war and in the middle of a major economic crisis, when getting anything other than vinegar was a huge problem.
And I clearly remember ppl living with 3 kids in studio apartments, playing with a lot of kids while waiting in mile long-lines for totally mundane rationed foodstuffs, school classes starting at 2 pm and ending at 8pm (too many kids), and my parents reaching out via their network to a director of orthopedic shoe factory because even money couldn't get you that kind of stuff.
And in the 40 years since we had sustained growth rates comparable only to China or South Korea, and similar problems with childbirths.
I don't buy any economic arguments.
I'm always surprised this topic comes up all the time and there's all sorts of navel gazing about economics and housing and other reasons people want to have fewer kids. It seems to me that the simplest and most likely explanation is: Having kids was never a primary motivation. Having sex was. Kids were just a hard-to-avoid downstream consequence of that. Once you have the pill, which makes it much easier to have sex…
I don't think the data support the conclusion that contraceptives are the main driver behind the decline in fertility. Contraceptives have been available for a long time and fertility is continually decreasing even when nothing changes in the availability of contraceptives.
having kids is a blast true, but you didn't know until you had them, and society keeps telling us otherwise. we need to change the message and educate youth about becoming parents. but also create a culture where having children is welcome. in the west we complain about kids running around, making noise, being not under control. and most importantly we blame the parents. in china every child is treated like a treasur…
Despite that, China has a fertility rate of 0.93, which is among the lowest in the world, and certainly much lower than the US (1.6). So it doesn't seem that that cultural difference boosts the fertility rate all that much.
china destroyed its fertility rate with the one-child policy. so that is not comparable.