Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 1001 posts

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#111

Post by supertrope »

jdlyga wrote: post #68

Once you have a kid, it's obvious why even besides the costs involved. There's not much sense of community, particularly in the white middle class. People are very individualistic and distrusting of others. There's a good reason for some of this, but to have a community you need to be a community member. And that means letting people in, trusting others and being trustworthy, and being out for the group instead of ju…

The book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam is about the decline of civil society.

Church membership is down. Labor union membership is down. Parents got crushed in the pandemic with school shutdowns, daycare shutdowns, and formula shortages. It takes two incomes to afford a family's lifestyle. Someone has to take care of the kid. Two people have to do the job of three people.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#112

Post by dv_dt »

myrmidon wrote: post #27
dv_dt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting thing is this is Spain's second wave of doing this, and the economic studies on the first wave of it showed visibly positive results. Spain's economy moved in growth, and with a size larger than many other European nations in similar background conditions of flat to negative population growth, but tighter immigration allowances.

I have no doubt that this has positive effects on the national economy as a whole (you get workers, on demand, without really paying for raising, educating, training them), but it is not really sustainable because population growth is low/negative pretty much everywhere, and it also leads to significant pushback from cultural friction and local workers (that dislike competition). You could argue that the whole rise o…

As I see it, the root of unhappiness in voters is nonperformant housing markets and unaddressed growth of inequality where wages are not sharing in growth of profits. This creates a raft of difficult issues. And the rightwing indeed has an effective playbook to exploit these unaddressed shortfalls while blaming immigration. And the center left parties seem unwilling or unable to address the root problems.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#113

Post by ryandrake »

throwawayohio wrote: post #85

Living in a city that this administration has constantly been attacking forced me and my wife, as well as many of our neighbors, to put off our family growth plans. Not only did many of my neighbors lose their jobs, but others are simply fearful of living their lives. We're fine financially, have housing, etc, but at this point why would we go through the stress of raising a child when a masked federal agent might ju…

Many of our family's friends have already left back to their home countries (bringing their own families with them). Risk/reward calculation has abruptly changed. The risk to your life and livelihood is not worth it, and the reward of living in the US has been steadily declining.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#114

Post by bombcar »

stackskipton wrote: post #51
whynotminot wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is often a commonly blamed reason, but I think the data at this point pretty strongly suggests that the more affluent a country is the less kids they have. You look at some of the most third world places in the world without strong economic security, yet somehow they manage to have babies at a higher rate than Western countries do.

Seems like when you give women the choice, many elect to have fewer kids than replacement level. Hell, in many countries in Europe, they basically throw money at anyone having kids and their birthrate has plummeted which would indicate that economics is not only reason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Parental_Glory - Russia tried this, not sure how successful it is.

There needs to be a societal change where motherhood is not only respected but celebrated - why we are now in a society where it's looked down upon (not verbally but by actions) could be pondered.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#115

Post by amanaplanacanal »

bombcar wrote: post #74
llm_nerd wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the "cost of living" explanation for low birthrates is just wrong If you're demanding it be all-or-nothing, then sure it is "wrong". It obviously isn't the only reason. As countries get richer, people have fewer kids. Is it a factor? Of course it is . Children are incredibly expensive if you subscribe to modern norms and expectations. There are many, many, many people who want kids but can't afford it, and i…

> expectations around having and raising a child are very, very different from someone sixty years ago This is at the root of "it's too expensive" - what are in the "needs" column has vastly changed. It is very likely that if you want a large family, one spouse (usually the mother) is going to have to stay at home, or at most work very part time - at least until all kids are into school. The costs otherwise simply do…

I suspect few women are willing to give up all their other options to stay home and make babies their whole life.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#116

Post by hnuser123456 »

daymanstep wrote: post #41
myrmidon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "cost of living" explanation for low birthrates is just wrong, and not even plausible (anecdote: my grandmother had 17 siblings, and they could not even afford proper sunday shoes for all of them, much less current living standards). I think the biggest impact is from kids being obsolete/net negative as both workforce (when young) and retirement scheme (when the parents are old). But there is no reverting…

I can't agree with you enough. I am so sick and tired of the cost of living argument. Back in the 1800s people were living in tiny cramped places and having 5-6 kids while barely able to afford necessities.

I would absolutely start looking for an actual wife if I had any certainty I would not be renting at some point, and my parents sold the detached house they raised my brother and myself in to move into a condo closer downtown, so they didn't even profit. But with rent very nearly doubling from 800 to 1400 for a single bedroom apartment since covid, my savings is evaporating and not even going into something I can sell, so I intentionally got with an infertile girlfriend instead.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#117

Post by globular-toast »

queuebert wrote: post #16

Why do we obsess over growing everything all the time?

Basically it makes people feel good. Growth is exciting and motivates people to do stuff. Shrinkage makes people sad, depressed and more likely to try to protect what they have. It's often irrational, but that's just the way it is.

Growth isn't sustainable, of course. If you're a gardener you get to experience the joy of growth every year, but you have to "pay it back" in autumn and winter as everything dies back and resets. The seasons force it on you in the garden, but we can't force it on ourselves. We'll just keep having summer after summer until it all goes boom.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#119

Post by nradov »

nemomarx wrote: post #67
nradov wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite the hype cycle around humanoid robots it's unlikely that they'll advance enough to be capable of replacing many human workers in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities within our lifetimes. Expect to see lots of really sad stories about elder abuse and neglect because as a society we simply won't have the resources to adequately care for them all.

I kinda expect nursing and people paid to give attention to the elderly to be the last job standing. very hard to replace or automate

Paid by whom? That's the problem. The people with money won't be willing to pay more taxes to fund workers to care for a growing indigent elderly population. It's already causing shortages today and will only get worse.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#120

Post by afpx »

sandworm101 wrote: post #9

Good. As the working population stagnates perhaps employers will attach some value to workers. Of course, without an underclass of immigrant labor, prices will rise and the US will have to import more food. And temporary heathcare workers can be brought in to help the aging population. It's good that America's cordial relationships with key trading partners will facilitate the free movement of goods and labor ... #1…

Necessity is the mother of invention. Americans like to invent things - we'll be fine.
Post reply on HN