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

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

#151

Post by throwaw12 »

t0mislav wrote: post #69
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)…

>12 hours/day I can't even imagine working a minute longer than 8 hours per day, and 12+ hours is woow. Is this common in US? I work 8 hours my whole career (IT). My wife works 6 hours per day. (central Europe)

I am an engineer as well, in western Europe with kids. But I regularly see people committing code at 9pm or commenting on docs at 11pm or see their testing traces (logs) at 1am and on weekends.

I can't compete with them in any way. "Don't work hard, work smarter" doesn't apply here, because I am surrounded by smart people, who also do smart work, when baseline is same, you just need to work more.

Guess who will be liked/praised more and have less chances to be laid off when conditions get worse?

I am lucky though, its not easy to fire people here, can't imagine what's happening in US

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

#152

Post by generic92034 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #96
marginalia_nu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having children requires an element of hope, of faith in a bright the future. If you're convinced of nothing but dark days ahead, bringing children into the world would be a cruelty. Media messaging, especially on social media, has gotten extremely dark and catastrophic. Looking at the screen you'd think the sky was falling several times every day. If global warming isn't doing us in, the nazis are literally back for…

Many people are living genuinely precarious lives. Some are well aware of it, others haven't quite realised it yet or are firmly in denial about it. Humans don't breed when their own lives are precarious and it's rational and realistic to assume the lives of their kids will be even more so. I see no mystery here.

> Humans don't breed when their own lives are precarious and it's rational and realistic to assume the lives of their kids will be even more so.

I do not think this is a generally true notion. There are so many people living in precarious circumstances in large parts of Africa, Asia and South America. But the highest population growth is right there.

Maybe there is some truth to the notion in developed countries.

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

#153

Post by berberous »

than3 wrote: post #127
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)…

don't forget education is expensive, and quite a few have received funding in predatory lending ways where the debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy without even receiving the degree. you need to marry, be debt free, and have a down payment (20% of 700k is 140k down) for a house to have kids. Kids need to happen before 35 for your wife; mortality increases greatly after that. You need 2 with modern medicine, or 4 c…

You think you need two children for one to make it to 18?

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

#154

Post by kbrkbr »

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)…

But why is this trend then not visible in Germany? All of what you say applies there too.

https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bevoel...

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

#155

Post by richeyryan »

progx wrote: post #52
richeyryan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's helping Germany offset an ageing population and declining economic productivity. If age distribution in your population is becoming unbalanced and you can't encourage the current residents to increase the birth rate, what other option is there? https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/migration-drives-german...

I can't see where it help us declininng economic productivity. Other options: family friendly politic, better education, investments in schools, better care in schools (full day care), consistent politic where you can plan your future,.... Today we can read in the newspaper, that 25% of our children in school can not read. Elephant in the room.

If the people don't exist, they can't produce. You can make all the policy decisions you want, but the economy will stagnate if you don't have people working in fields or factories or wiring up houses. Sure, better education might make higher-value workers that produce more economic value. Providing better support for families will help people interested in having children potentially have more children and be economically productive while doing so. If your current citizens don't want to have children, then it doesn't matter.

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

#156

Post by bitlax »

generic92034 wrote: post #136
hardware2win wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ive seen crazy stuff on the internet too! But until I or you manage to meet at least one person with such approach, then I do recommend to do not take it seriously

I have met several people with that idea in "real life". And now?

You're just someone on the internet.

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

#157

Post by generic92034 »

scotty79 wrote: post #62
richeyryan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's helping Germany offset an ageing population and declining economic productivity. If age distribution in your population is becoming unbalanced and you can't encourage the current residents to increase the birth rate, what other option is there? https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/migration-drives-german...

The solution is not to rely on workers to finance your schemes. Most of our economic development is captured by the wealthy. Do you need to sustain the elderly? Have 100% wealth tax at age 60 and use it to pay equal retirement for everybody above 60. Let elderly sustain elderly. 100% too much? Ok, let's say it's only for the money above 10 million. Or 50, or 100, whatever.

I sympathize with the idea in principle, but do you really think people who are that rich will not find ways to evade the tax? Most likely they can prevent such a tax being installed at all. Money = power.

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

#158

Post by balfirevic »

throwaw12 wrote: post #151
t0mislav wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>12 hours/day I can't even imagine working a minute longer than 8 hours per day, and 12+ hours is woow. Is this common in US? I work 8 hours my whole career (IT). My wife works 6 hours per day. (central Europe)

I am an engineer as well, in western Europe with kids. But I regularly see people committing code at 9pm or commenting on docs at 11pm or see their testing traces (logs) at 1am and on weekends. I can't compete with them in any way. "Don't work hard, work smarter" doesn't apply here, because I am surrounded by smart people, who also do smart work, when baseline is same, you just need to work more. Guess who will be li…

> But I regularly see people committing code at 9pm or commenting on docs at 11pm or see their testing traces (logs) at 1am and on weekends

That might not mean much - you'd see the same from me, but I don't work more than 8 hours/day (on average), I just work very irregular hours.

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

#160

Post by X0Refraction »

berberous wrote: post #146
X0Refraction wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one the factors as to why my partner and I have decided against having children. Not because we think it'll make the situation worse, but because we believe they shouldn't have to deal with the significant fallout from resource contention, climate migration etc. that is more than likely on the horizon when they had no hand in creating the problem

This is a weird take to me. Even if climate change turns out to be significantly bad, I have a hard time imagining it would be worse than most times in human history. Only a few generations ago people lived through two world wars. We could have a third world war at some point, or the AI doomers could be right, but would that stop you from having children? This feels to me like someone who doesn’t leave their house be…

Keep in mind that I've said it's one of the factors, not the only factor.

But why should my standards be just better than most times in human history? That seems a low bar to me, most times in human history were miserable for the majority of people compared to the living standards I've become accustomed to.

To be clear, I don't feel there is any moral duty to continue my particular genes and the world population will continue to increase for the foreseeable regardless. If I were to have children I personally would feel guilty if they had it significantly harder than I have and I think the likelihood is that will be the case - it's really as simple as that.

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