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

Baby Boom or Bust?

historytoday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 114 posts

Re: Baby Boom or Bust?

#31

Post by AlexTWithBeard »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #28
stephc_int13 wrote: post #16

Declining birth rate was already an issue in large cities during antiquity. I even suspect that the pro-family policies we can observe in the religions that were created afterwards were a tentative to fix this problem. In my opinion, our species population is big enough already, and this is the main driving factor of ongoing ecological problems. I think we can adapt to a differently shaped age structure, we don't nee…

> In my opinion, our species population is big enough already, and this is the main driving factor of ongoing ecological problems. That's the reason my wife and I decided to only have one kid. It's a statement. I don't care that future politicians shall have less future taxpayers. I don't believe eternal growth is the only model: I actually think it's unsustainable.

It's not only about gathering taxes. It's also about having someone to wipe your ass once you're too frail to do it yourself.

Re: Baby Boom or Bust?

#32

Post by 22c »

Macabre question, but a serious one.

Has the birth rate dropped below the death rate? If not, then the naive approach to me, would be that this all works out in the wash.

More specifically, does the years of life "lost" due to premature death outweigh the years of life "lost" due to declining birth rates?

We won't really know until:

a) premature deaths return to pre-pandemic levels

b) birth rates recover to pre-pandemic levels

Re: Baby Boom or Bust?

#33

Post by dirtyid »

barry-cotter wrote: post #23
Animats wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World is mostly looking at China after its one-child-policy as the greatest example. China's one-child policy was a success. They were able to put on the brakes during the period between health care getting good and standard of living going up, which is when population goes way up. India didn't do that, and their population shot up beyond the country's water supply. France is just leveling off. Japan is in actual dec…

> China's one-child policy was a success. None of Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan or Hong Kong had forced abortions and they also have declining, aging populations after long periods of rapidly rising living standards. China got to very much the same place they would have anyway but with much more human suffering and barbarity.

>the same place

Not even remotely. One Child Policy prevented 300M births. There are still 600M in PRC trapped in lower-middle income who would have traditionally hedged via more children without family planning. Industrialization + reforms + global demand was not enough to drag everyone in PRC out of middle income - simply too many people. The difference is managing state of 1.4B people with 600M poor as result of family planning vs state of 1.7B with 900M poor without family planning in a geography/economy that relies heavily on imports. Family planning didn't crack down hard enough. A lot of current RC strategic burdens are result of still having too much people.

Re: Baby Boom or Bust?

#34

Post by stephc_int13 »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #28
stephc_int13 wrote: post #16

Declining birth rate was already an issue in large cities during antiquity. I even suspect that the pro-family policies we can observe in the religions that were created afterwards were a tentative to fix this problem. In my opinion, our species population is big enough already, and this is the main driving factor of ongoing ecological problems. I think we can adapt to a differently shaped age structure, we don't nee…

> In my opinion, our species population is big enough already, and this is the main driving factor of ongoing ecological problems. That's the reason my wife and I decided to only have one kid. It's a statement. I don't care that future politicians shall have less future taxpayers. I don't believe eternal growth is the only model: I actually think it's unsustainable.

I agree, there is a limit to sustainability, even if technology is likely to improve I don't see why we should take the risk of pushing the limits.

If the population decline happen to be a seemingly unsurmountable problem 100 years down the road, we'll have more than enough time to react before risking extinction.

Re: Baby Boom or Bust?

#35

Post by Aunche »

barry-cotter wrote: post #23
Animats wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World is mostly looking at China after its one-child-policy as the greatest example. China's one-child policy was a success. They were able to put on the brakes during the period between health care getting good and standard of living going up, which is when population goes way up. India didn't do that, and their population shot up beyond the country's water supply. France is just leveling off. Japan is in actual dec…

> China's one-child policy was a success. None of Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan or Hong Kong had forced abortions and they also have declining, aging populations after long periods of rapidly rising living standards. China got to very much the same place they would have anyway but with much more human suffering and barbarity.

These are all much further developed nations than China 40 years ago. Sure China's birth rate would probably be about the same as it is today without the one child policy, but they would also probably have hundreds of millions more mouths to feed.

Re: Baby Boom or Bust?

#36

Post by stephc_int13 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #25

Children are astronomically expensive. Most working class and middle class parents cannot envision affording a second child so they have just one.

As they should be. Children don't raise themselves, this is real work.

I am not talking about money, but time, opportunity cost.

Rapid population growth has been achieved by forced dedication of half of the population to this task, this is not free.

Re: Baby Boom or Bust?

#37

Post by xondono »

ant6n wrote: post #27
chrisseaton wrote: post #25

Children are astronomically expensive. Most working class and middle class parents cannot envision affording a second child so they have just one.

In the US it really seems to be. I don’t even understand how my American friends can have kids - daycare is so expensive it makes more sense for one parent to just stay home. In Canada, children are already much more affordable (esp. in Quebec). In Europe even more so. Once education, health care and day care are affordable (or free), children are not astronomically exoensive.

We pay for that dearly with lower wages and higher taxes.

Re: Baby Boom or Bust?

#38

Post by yourapostasy »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #16

Declining birth rate was already an issue in large cities during antiquity. I even suspect that the pro-family policies we can observe in the religions that were created afterwards were a tentative to fix this problem. In my opinion, our species population is big enough already, and this is the main driving factor of ongoing ecological problems. I think we can adapt to a differently shaped age structure, we don't nee…

> ...we don't need a pyramid.

The core financial architecture of the world is pinned upon an assumption of monotonically-increasing global population on a 3-7 generation moving average. So far, history has not been kind to those civilizations exhibiting declining populations over sustained multi-generational spans. We're into generation one or two depending upon your definition of a generation, so we have some time before we see how this pans out.

I'm trying to find the data to establish whether we are engaging in the incipient factors of collapse as identified by the WEF [1]. To my untrained mind, demographics are a trailing indicator of those five factors and not a leading indicator, but I haven't rigorously analyzed this hypothesis.

From what I see from my limited perspective, I wouldn't be as cavalier as "we don't need a pyramid". As near as I can tell, this kind of demography at this global scale and technological strategy to try to King Knute hold back the demographic waters is completely uncharted territory for our species recorded history. I'd sure like those who study this at the intersection of demography and technology history to give some pointers to some of the analyses going on in the field. My Google-fu has so far failed to turn up solid leads on comprehensive data surveys.

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/03/why-do-civilizations-...

Re: Baby Boom or Bust?

#39

Post by xondono »

monkeybutton wrote: post #15

My country (Canada) is intent on making up for falling birth rates by increasing immigration. Sometimes I wonder if it is unethical for a rich country like Canada to effectively outsource (offload?) child rearing costs and to some extent education costs to the poorer countries that we are taking immigrants from.

How is that not a win-win scenario?

Moving to Canada improves their standard of living.

Re: Baby Boom or Bust?

#40

Post by steve_adams_86 »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #30
chrisseaton wrote: post #25

Children are astronomically expensive. Most working class and middle class parents cannot envision affording a second child so they have just one.

Well, the only really expensive thing is daycare. I'm afraid there's no ready solution to that - unless we're willing to get back to the idea of extended family and village to raise a kid. PS. I have three kids, I know what I'm talking about.

I’d argue that in a nuclear family culture, kids are also expensive in indirect ways which are hard to account for. You sacrifice a lot of personal time and often health when you need to be there for kids virtually constantly, and while daycare is very expensive in some places ($1200 CAD/month for us) I feel like it’s one of the more manageable costs.

During the pandemic, having no friends or family around to help and needing to work full time jobs is a lot harder to manage than money.

I’m not complaining at all. I just spent a great day with my kids at the ocean and I love having them around. It’s still a daily task to juggle them, work, and my well being without much in the way of outside help. I’m fairly sure my life is shortening considerably as a result of the stress, so like I said, daycare seems pretty cheap in comparison.

Just my take on it - I know some people seem to manage it expertly, and maybe more people do than I realize.

In any case, that cost is still very high these days since both parents typically need to work. Money becomes easier to find than time.

Post reply on HN