The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007 • Hacker News Board

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#101

Post by komali2 » Wed, May 17, 2023, 9:44 AM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #49

> The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007. This decline cannot be explained by demographic, economic, or policy changes. What a load of bull. Obviously, there is no single one explanation - the entire point of such articles is that they don't get just how bad the combination of causes actually is. To explain: my generation (i.e. 1990 and onwards) have experienced multiple and, to make it worse, overlapping d…

From your perspective, do you think there's a good possibility the USA will improve the living conditions of our generation and the zoomers? I'm very skeptical and that's why I don't live there anymore, but I'm curious about those who are sticking it out. Is the hope that there'll be some kind of political change, a slow shifting to more progressive politicians?

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#102

Post by numpad0 » Wed, May 17, 2023, 9:44 AM UTC

shp0ngle wrote: post #3

Just offset the lack of new people being born by opening up borders to everyone, problem solved!

I always thought this type of argument assumes that the immigrants will magically locate and fix societal problems that lead to the decline as they integrate, and that that would be an unreasonable expectation.

Could this be saying that future dystopian megalopolises should sustain own existences by capturing free-ranged humans roaming wastelands, promise them successes and citizenships, and then letting them die without offsprings?

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#103

Post by lapcat » Wed, May 17, 2023, 9:44 AM UTC

mihaic wrote: post #72

red_admiral wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* (sociologic) fear of climate change (will the world still be habitable in 20 years' time) or commitment to make a small positive impact on climate change by not having kids I'm not saying this is true or rational (there are actually blog posts in the rationalist community along the lines of "no, having kids does not cause climate change") but it's definitely a sentiment I've encountered.

That feels actually anti-rational, since if the people that care about the environment stop having children that means the people that are passing on their life outlook are mostly ignorant of the environment. It must be a US thing more though, as I haven't personally heard people say fear of environmental damage to keep them from having kids.

> That feels actually anti-rational, since if the people that care about the environment stop having children that means the people that are passing on their life outlook are mostly ignorant of the environment.

This assumes that parents successfully pass on their life outlook to their children, but if that were true then society would have never changed.

I don't share the life outlook of my parents.

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#104

Post by hardware2win » Wed, May 17, 2023, 9:45 AM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #91

hardware2win wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>will the world still be habitable in 20 years' time I dont know anyone that is seriously worried about this in such a way And dont get me wrong - we arent climate change deniers, just... pick your battles Why waste your life worrying about something you have tiny impact on?

> I dont know anyone that is seriously worried about this in such a way In 20 years not, but it's reasonable to believe for anyone outside America and Central Europe that wide swaths of the planet - particularly the entirety of Africa and lots of Asia - will be unable to support human life. Hell, we're already seeing issues with water supply even in Central Europe, with France restricting water consumptions because o…

>Anyone who is not worried about the future of the planet is either ridiculously ignorant to reality or completely incompetent.

Worrying here was reflected by drastic actions. Not worrying didnt mean not worrying at all.

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#105

Post by mschuster91 » Wed, May 17, 2023, 9:45 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #56

samwillis wrote: post #29

Unsurprisingly the UK birth rate has done a similar roughly 20% drop of that period: https://www.statista.com/statistics/428262/birth-rate-in-the... Gone from 12.6 to 10.1 per 1k people. Anecdotal evidence, I'm in my mid 30s, a lot of our friends and family are stopping at one kid.

The UK's "no child benefit for children beyond the second" is a clear policy signal as to what the government wants.

The UK's government is, frankly, gone nuts. They complain about no one picking fruits from fields and empty supermarket shelves, they don't want immigration, they don't want population growth, and they don't want imports from the EU.

All of that doesn't add up even in the slightest to anything that makes sense.

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#106

Post by tombert » Wed, May 17, 2023, 9:47 AM UTC

lynx23 wrote: post #76

loxs wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* (policy) - If things don't work out, your wife will divorce you, take half of what you have and enslave you to pay her support for the next 15 years. Actually, she might do that just because she needs more passion while you are hard at work.

Whenever I hear "wedding" I wonder why the male is going for that risk. The obvious unfairness and non-equality during a divorce is the main reason why I never would get married. Its just illogical to put yourself that much at risk.

I mean, disregarding "love" and whatnot, at least in the US, there are lots of bureaucratic benefits to it.

I'm not religious or anything, so a wedding in itself doesn't mean a lot to me, but my wife and I got married in no small part so we could share health insurance, help with her immigration, and lower our tax burden. I don't regret the marriage, I trust my wife, and we've been pretty happy for the last eight years.

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#107

Post by hansworst » Wed, May 17, 2023, 9:47 AM UTC

mihaic wrote: post #72

red_admiral wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* (sociologic) fear of climate change (will the world still be habitable in 20 years' time) or commitment to make a small positive impact on climate change by not having kids I'm not saying this is true or rational (there are actually blog posts in the rationalist community along the lines of "no, having kids does not cause climate change") but it's definitely a sentiment I've encountered.

That feels actually anti-rational, since if the people that care about the environment stop having children that means the people that are passing on their life outlook are mostly ignorant of the environment. It must be a US thing more though, as I haven't personally heard people say fear of environmental damage to keep them from having kids.

There’s a movement called birthstrike with people who are refusing to have kids because of concerns around climate change:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/mar/12/birthst...

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#108

Post by surgical_fire » Wed, May 17, 2023, 9:48 AM UTC

dpflan wrote: post #2

“”” If the recent decline in annual birth rates simply reflects women pushing off having children from their 20s to their 30s, then annual birth rates will eventually rebound and the total number of children the average U.S. woman has over her lifetime will not change. But the decline in annual birth rates since 2007 is consistent with more recent cohorts of women having fewer births. Those cohorts have not completed…

It reduces the amount of young people however no?

If people have children in their early 20's, is conceivable that by the time of their deaths at least 3 generations of their descendants would be alive.

If they instead choose to have descendants in their late thirties, only their children would exist, and perhaps their grandchildren would be in their early infancy.

I know many people that don't even want to have children, and even among the ones that do want, most push it to their late thirties, and stop at 1.

I don't really think it's a problem. It's just how life nowadays is set up, for economic, professional, sociological, and cultural reasons.

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#109

Post by usui » Wed, May 17, 2023, 9:48 AM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #85

throwaw12 wrote: post #23

> This decline cannot be explained by demographic, economic, or policy changes. I disagree with this statement. Put yourself in the shoes of 25 years old and ask why don't you want to have kids? * (economic) difficult to manage finances * (economic) can't buy house, too expensive * (economic) to compete with others in the workplace, I need to work >12 hours/day, can't do with kids or will be laid off. * (sociologic)…

There’s a really fundamental socio-economic change that nobody has touched upon here yet, as it’s such a slow one with such inertia it’s barely noticeable from the ground. Having children used to be a profitable enterprise. You’d get married, bang them out one after another, hope that a decent number survived, raised them cheaply, and put them to work as soon as they were able. Once, and if, they were grown, they wou…

> Once, and if, they were grown, they would then be part of your family enterprise, be it subsistence farming, cobbling, scrivening, or lording, and would add value.

> Now, having a child is a definite cost centre for the individual, for the family.

I get what you're saying, but I mean nowadays it's not like they grow up as a purely sunk cost... A fairly-average-in-all-industrious-matters child will get a job and make an income, and there's a good chance the child will produce more than the input cost. It's up to the family if they're going to share that total wealth with each other though.

In fact, compared to before, there might be even more opportunities for children to increase that "return on investment", if you really want to think that way.

Re: The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007

#110

Post by mschuster91 » Wed, May 17, 2023, 9:48 AM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #101

mschuster91 wrote: post #49

> The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007. This decline cannot be explained by demographic, economic, or policy changes. What a load of bull. Obviously, there is no single one explanation - the entire point of such articles is that they don't get just how bad the combination of causes actually is. To explain: my generation (i.e. 1990 and onwards) have experienced multiple and, to make it worse, overlapping d…

From your perspective, do you think there's a good possibility the USA will improve the living conditions of our generation and the zoomers? I'm very skeptical and that's why I don't live there anymore, but I'm curious about those who are sticking it out. Is the hope that there'll be some kind of political change, a slow shifting to more progressive politicians?

I'm German anyway so I can't say much about the US - but given that Trump of all people still has more popular support in the polls than Biden has, and the average age of Congress members continuously rising? No chance.

For Europe? It's not as bad but still bad - we share the same issue, too many gerontocrats in power and the Boomer generation will dominate voters for the next 15-20 years given they enter pensioner age now and will probably live to age 80-85.