The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by acheron » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #35

GiorgioG wrote: post #2

Maybe if young folks could afford housing they'd have kids...there's a thought.

Is housing really that expensive? When you price out a loan on a starter house it really ain't that bad. I'm a recent first time homebuyer and I don't understand why people think they aren't affordable. There were plenty of cheaper homes that I looked at and even with rates at their highest would be cheaper than my rent. Do people expect a palace? Are there more unmarried people today who can't afford it alone?

In general the “housing is too expensive” people mean “I looked at every available house in both San Francisco and New York City, and didn’t find anything cheap!”

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

#202

Post by mountainb » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

Population declines have happened many times in many places in history, and it sometimes heralds collapse and at other times it is just a temporary phenomenon. Part of the issue is with how you define the metrics and what you consider success. Population increase can correlate with good things and also with bad things. Perhaps much of the problem here is with the idea that gross population numbers should be a governance KPI, rather than more specific measures and goals.

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

#203

Post by Aurornis » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

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…

> There's not much sense of community, particularly in the white middle class. People are very individualistic and distrusting of others.

My experience couldn’t possibly be more different.

Once we had kids it was like our world opened up to a whole new set of communities and other parents. Most of the other parents we’ve met have been very friendly and helpful, and we’ve tried to do the same for others.

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

#204

Post by hattmall » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #150

supertrope wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. Being stay at home parent is one of the most lonely thing you can do. Yes, the parent who works in office and goes bowling with collagues is less lonely. But the one who is spending whole day with a small kid and no one else is much more lonely .They cant go bowling either, becaus…

Stay at home parenting doesn't literally mean physically staying in the house. There's far more opportunities for socialization for those not burdened by work, kids are portable, they like doing stuff, and there's really not ALL that much to taking care of them.

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

#205

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

yoyohello13 wrote: post #48

The primary cause of low birth rates is that society does not value children. Sure we talk a big game, everything is 'for the children' obviously. However, we publicly divest from schools, we invest in technologies that devalue humans and human labor. Growing up we make people believe they need to be millionaires just to not be swallowed up by the 9-to-5 meat grinder (this is true actually). It's no wonder young peop…

> The primary cause of low birth rates is that society does not value children.

I have seen what women go through to bring about a baby, and I would never do it more than 2 times, and that is only to give the 1 kid a sibling.

I also would not partner with the bottom 20% of the population (as a man or a woman), for myriad reasons.

If enough people think like me, then this results in a sub replacement total fertility rate, as the number of people with 3 or more kids will not be significant enough to outweigh the zero and ones.

The only “solution” that seems like it could increase TFR to replacement rate, without violating people’s rights, is getting rid of all old age benefits.

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

#206

Post by bluGill » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #76

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…

>? If you're middle class in 2026, the expectations around having and raising a child are very, very different from someone sixty years ago. I think this is it. Watching children bore me to death. I enjoy it for about an hour and that is it. The child doesn't appreciate having someone hover over them and the parent has better things to do than play children's games all day. When I was a kid kids would walk home by th…

> anymore, someone will rat your ass out to CPS lickity split.

They will, but CPS will investigate and then close the case. It is still annoying, but they mostly understand some people think if you are not there 24x7 you are neglectful.

It doesn't always work out that way, but mostly it does.

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

#207

Post by Balgair » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

I like to hang out on fertility twitter.

It's a strange place. Since the fertility problem is worldwide, you get a lot of ideologies mixing about. There's hardcore CCP folks, free market Mormons, radical Imams, universalist preachers, the whole lot of them. They're all trying to share ideas and jumping on the latest research findings from reputable and crackpot sources.

They're all looking for the recipe to get people to have kids again, and mostly finding nothing.

"Oh it's apartments!"

"Oh it's incentives!"

"Oh it's childcare!"

And then bickering how none of it is real and affects popsquat.

Once some formula is found, then the whole place will fall apart and they'll go back to hating each other again. But for now, it's a nice weird little place.

My take on it is: you have to make your country/society a place where people will want to have children and feel/know that their children's lives will be good ones.

I know that's almost tautological. But it's simplicity cuts through the crap. No amount of baby cash, or white picket fences, or coercion, or lack of birth control, or whatever other set of schemes you can make, none of that matters. Only if the mothers in aggregate truly believe that their children will have good lives, then will they have them.

That's a gigantic task, I know. And I don't have the policy recommendations to enact that. I'm just a dweb on the Internet. But that is my take.

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

#208

Post by Aurornis » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

scottious wrote: post #176

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…

Every morning I get to my son's school about 10 minutes before the doors open. We arrive by bike and we sit ALONE on the benches near the front door. Meanwhile, the curb is full of extra large SUVs idling with kids just waiting inside the cars. The long line of SUVs extends all through the neighborhood. My son and I are alone because people just won't leave their cars until the doors open. A vast majority of the kids…

> Meanwhile, the curb is full of extra large SUVs idling with kids just waiting inside the cars

Anecdotally, when my work schedule was wonky for a while I would do the same with my kids. Those few extra minutes hanging out with them in the morning were something I valued a lot. We got to talk and relax a little bit after the rush of getting ready in the morning. They had all day to spend with their classmates so a few extra minutes in the morning wasn’t going to change much.

A suggestion: If you want to make friends with other parents, morning drop off is the worst time to do it because everyone is going from the rush of morning routines and mentally preparing for their jobs. After school is better, but the best is at events and activities away from school hours completely. Our schools have done parent socials that have been great for meeting people. Sports and activities are also a great way to get introduced to other families.

It also helps to be the one leading the charge. We’ll do things like go to the museum or other activities and then send invites to 5+ other families. Tell them to invite other families.

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

#209

Post by bombcar » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #96

anonymars wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mentioning Social Security and government implies there is some other form of retirement that doesn't inherently depend on younger people still working, doesn't it? I mean, who else going to grow the food and sweep the streets?

The traditional approach to this is: a) make younger female family members do all the work b) make them invisible, politically and socially, so everything looks fine

Even if you don't go to that extreme, you look back only a few generations and even today at immigrants, and you see that the old people never stop working until they're literally bed-ridden.

They might not have GDP-increasing jobs that show up on balance sheets, but grandma watches the kids (effectively working as daycare, off-books), grandpa fixes things, and so on.

By demanding everything be reduced to the nuclear family (or smaller) we've created an unnatural situation on never seen before on a global scale.

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

#210

Post by rjbwork » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #175

rjbwork wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US doesn't want indiscriminate population growth. It wants white people that were born here to reproduce more.

I think capitalists just want cheap labor. The US itself doesn’t have a unified position on population. Plenty of people want a population decrease because they feel everything is overcrowded.

Well, when I say "US" I mean the current administration and the people that have power within it. Maybe that's not their actual intention or desire, but that is the story their policies and actions are telling.