We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US • Hacker News Board

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#161

Post by treis » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 3:49 PM UTC

logshipper wrote: post #90

motohagiography wrote: post #64

Birthrates are a powerful, but lagging/post-hoc indicator of public policy effects. It's worth noting that we tend to associate high birthrates with poverty and negative social outcomes. Except, when rates are low we (western countries) use immigration from high-birthrate societies to shore up the population replacement rate, as the article notes. When you look at who is having kids in the US and Canada, the families…

I could not agree more. Whereas historically having kids used to be a "social" decision in various respects, it has now become a socio-economic decision for the reasons you point out. If anything, I would argue that the economic shock of the pandemic (aside from the horror stories you hear from WFH parents who have kids) and the inequality it has exposed in our financial systems has cemented the idea for a lot of mid…

It was always a socio-economic decision. Kids were your retirement plan before we came up with things like 401ks.

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#162

Post by mywittyname » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #147

ianai wrote: post #41

This is probably mostly covid related. But I personally don’t even consider kids. Kids are a life long commitment. I’d only make that commitment if I felt long term stability or at least optimism. Austerity and cynicism dominate the US right now though. It’s a recipe for strife, struggle, and things that rip families and countries apart. It doesn’t have to be this way in the US.

> Austerity and cynicism dominate the US right now though. This is greatly exaggerated by news media and social media, especially with everyone stuck at home. The contrast between what I read online and what I see in the real world has never felt larger. Austerity refers to reduced government spending, which is the opposite of what we’re experiencing right now. We’re spending so much that my CPA friends are working o…

What I experience in real life is pretty bad. My extended family went from being really close and compassionate to hateful and unable to be in the room with others.

Your world might be nice, but not everyone else's is.

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#163

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

stevekemp wrote: post #128

LargeWu wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Childcare can easily run over $1000/mo per child. More for infants. When my 2nd child was born, it cost us over $500/week.

This really does depend where you live; we paid €250/month for daycare for our child from the age of 1 upwards. Even having a baby is very expensive in the USA, in terms of costs for the delivery, and the very very short maternity leave available to the majority of women. By contrast we had almost a year of paid leave, and paid something like €250 for a birth - which was mostly based around the cost of the room we ha…

How does the total fertility rate in your country compare to the US (1.78 in 2020), considering your country's pro-natalism policies?

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#164

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #68

pjc50 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Privilege" is a terrible word to have become entrenched for such a useful concept, because many people instinctively get their backs up about being told they're privileged when they don't have to face a challenge that someone else faces. And it's not just a question of generalization, but a question of whose stories get told through the media. Whose lifestyles make it into the "lifestyle" section.

> Privilege" is a terrible word to have become entrenched for such a useful concept, because many people instinctively get their backs up about being told they're privileged when they don't have to face a challenge that someone else faces. I think people get their backs up because privilege checks as a concept are based largely on stereotypes/generalisations and confrontational behaviour, not empathic individual rela…

> creating competing spaces.

Creating a competing space in which everyone agrees your norms are true is completely inadequate if that's not the space that policy gets made in. And within each country, there is effectively only one of those.

It doesn't matter if you create a "competing space" in which black lives have equal worth to white ones if the police are operating in a very different one defined by "killology". Nothing says "normative" like the barrel of a gun.

Besides, when people do create competing spaces they get denounced as "safe spaces" or "filter bubbles", even if everyone in the space knows full well what goes on outside the bubble.

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#165

Post by shortandsweet » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #64

Birthrates are a powerful, but lagging/post-hoc indicator of public policy effects. It's worth noting that we tend to associate high birthrates with poverty and negative social outcomes. Except, when rates are low we (western countries) use immigration from high-birthrate societies to shore up the population replacement rate, as the article notes. When you look at who is having kids in the US and Canada, the families…

I don't understand your view that population growth is required to manage debt. Isn't it inflation that reduces the future value of such debts?

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#166

Post by rsync » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

boh wrote: post #142

motohagiography wrote: post #64

Birthrates are a powerful, but lagging/post-hoc indicator of public policy effects. It's worth noting that we tend to associate high birthrates with poverty and negative social outcomes. Except, when rates are low we (western countries) use immigration from high-birthrate societies to shore up the population replacement rate, as the article notes. When you look at who is having kids in the US and Canada, the families…

Unfortunately much of the financial system (in the US anyway) is highly dependent on population growth. Many existing entitlements were created during periods of uncommon birth-rates with the expectation that the babies being born will grow and reproduce at the same rate as their parents. This growth hasn't materialized, and much of the existing growth can be attributed to immigrant inflows. Regardless of the environ…

"Unfortunately much of the financial system (in the US anyway) is highly dependent on population growth."

I came to this discussion ctrl-f'ing for "deflation" and while I got zero hits, your comment is close enough ...

I will abstract one level deeper and rephrase what you said as:

"Much of the financial system is highly dependent on economic growth."

There continues to be fervent discussion of the results of QE over the last 10 years and the results of various covid stimulus packages and how these things could be inflationary, etc., etc.

Some of this may come to pass - we may, indeed, find ourselves in geographic or temporal pockets of inflation - possibly very high inflation.

Make no mistake, however: the world we are living in is massively deflationary and even dramatic and innovative attempts to maintain (low) inflation are barely keeping us above water ...

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#167

Post by gadders » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

Teever wrote: post #76

gadders wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a valid perspective, but times have been a lot worse in the past. It's a good job our ancestors didn't think like this.

It's not that they didn't think like this but that they couldn't. Thanks to readily available and affordable birth control individuals have much more freedom to make reproductive choices that benefit themselves. What those individual freedoms do to society as a whole is another issue but it is entirely within the ability of western governments to increase birthrates through policy. The fact that they don't is most in…

True, birth control does make that choice easier.

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#168

Post by tryonenow » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

Tepix wrote: post #74

kmlx wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not overpopulated. this is a myth that has been going on since the 1970s: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/12/12/16766872/overpop...

The author Lyman Stone writes mainly for IFS Institute for Family Studies, which is moderately to strong biased to the right according to https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/institute-for-family-studies/ He also writes for The Federalist, another biased publication: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-federalist/ If you look at the destruction of natural resources world-wide, you don't have to be an expert to see that the…

>which is moderately to strong biased to the right according to

And? Are we really at point where even technical forums like HN are going to discredit people simply for leaning right? Please, keep that partisan ignorance on reddit.

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#169

Post by yortpyperty » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

castlecrasher2 wrote: post #153

yortpyperty wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a new father, I share this perspective. To get an anecdotal sense of our financial struggle, we have 2-4x the net worth that my parents when they were our age, but cannot afford the same house that I grew up in and doubt we ever will.

The exact house or equivalent in a similarly populated area as the one your parents bought in? If the former, I imagine it's because the area has developed significantly since.

Exact house.

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#170

Post by shortandsweet » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 3:54 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #139

yortpyperty wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a new father, I share this perspective. To get an anecdotal sense of our financial struggle, we have 2-4x the net worth that my parents when they were our age, but cannot afford the same house that I grew up in and doubt we ever will.

I’ve been thinking about this lately. Similar to you, the house I grew up in is much more less affordable now than it was when my parents bought it. However, in my case it’s not really the same house any more. At the time, the location was thought to be on the outskirts of town, away from the desirable areas. As the city grew, this location became the desirable area. If I look to what is now considered the outskirts,…

That's what I don't understand, if population growth is stagnant or declining, how is it these housing prices are reaching such heights?