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.
We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US
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Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US
#302This 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.
I did not want to have kids. Then one day I realized that for the past 3 billion years my ancestors had been passing the torch. I was not going to be the one to let down the team. I felt a duty to give my genes a chance to fight it out in darwin's cage match. I can not guarantee my genes will win, but if I fail to reproduce I guarantee they will lose. Looking back, I am not sure this justification makes any sense, bu…
Perhaps it would be better for your other genes (shared by living relatives) for you to not have kids and thus not potentially spread the genes that are causing hesitancy around having kids. :)
Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kids might make your life better, but they probably would have been better off had you stuck to your plan of not having them.
Not existing is better than existing? Suicide rates should be 99% then right, because if you’re not a 1%er it’s not worth living. That said, I do fear my kid will live to see something we’ve made apocalyptic movies about. Hell, we all might.
There’s a big difference between never existing, and existing but then dying.
Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you accounted for development induced appreciation? Perhaps a similar home further from the city center would be a more suiting comparison? Anecdotally, in central New York housing prices have gained only modestly. The 2008 financial crisis didn't have a large effect on prices here either. But... development in central New York is near zero.
Given that good jobs remained in the city center, and commutes are not faster than they used to be, the point is not very relevant.
I think that the internet has eliminated the commute for a lot of service sector jobs. I think that a lot of jobs remain in the city center only because that's the way the older generation has always done it.
Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US
#305This study seems relevant https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2378023121996854 > Fewer young adults are engaging in casual sexual intercourse now than in the past, but the reasons for this decline are unknown. And this recently discussed article https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/opinion/sunday/endocrine-... > Scientists are concerned by falling sperm counts and declining egg quality. Endocrine-disrupting chemic…
Didn't a study just come out showing that casual sex is declining because kids have other things (mostly video games) to do?
Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kids might make your life better, but they probably would have been better off had you stuck to your plan of not having them.
Not existing is better than existing? Suicide rates should be 99% then right, because if you’re not a 1%er it’s not worth living. That said, I do fear my kid will live to see something we’ve made apocalyptic movies about. Hell, we all might.
It is antinatalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism), and an idea to which I'm not unsympathetic.
Basically, life is suffering, and from the view of reducing the amount of suffering in the world, it is a good to abstain from bringing more beings into this world to suffer.
Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US
#307I wonder if there's a good way to model the cost of children over the last 100 years? My guess is fewer people are having children due to the financial costs rising considerably.
I don't know that isolating the cost of raising kids is necessary when you can see the drop in overall wealth by generation. Millenials (who are the prime "kid having" generation right now) own far less wealth than any generation that came before them. Is it really in any way surprising that fewer are having kids?
The rent really is too damn high: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a-fut...
Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
Housing and Education are probably the biggest costs. Maybe healthcare too.
Childcare can easily run over $1000/mo per child. More for infants. When my 2nd child was born, it cost us over $500/week.
$1000/mo per child plus needing to spend at least half a million in the desirable parts of the USA for a house are the real reasons.
Got shipped because IMO this is just a bit too much money to spend.
Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don’t mean to butt in, but personally, the fact that I’m typing this on a piece of $300 hardware (phone) that would have cost millions in the 80’s, hundreds of thousands in the 90’s, and definitely over a thousand in the 00’s is a good indicator.
Been to the grocery store, ordered takeout or tried to buy a house lately? The prices of electronics (calculators, watches) fell consistently throughout the 70s which was a period of very high inflation. You can't cherry pick one sector.
Of course.
It is very difficult to get a good number across all sectors. Despite my post, I’m not all that convinced we are in a deflationary period. The bell-weather asset for me would be Gold, and its price since I’ve been alive wouldn’t make me lean towards deflation.
If anything would, I suppose it would be the number of hours worked. That is, how much labor does it take to support a reasonable lifestyle. In my experience — and I’m an old geezer, so take this with a grain of salt — it seems like a lazy bastard can get by in this world a lot easier than 100 years ago. The degree of manual back-breaking labor that went into earning a dollar has decreased significantly. I don’t know how that would get figured in.
Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Rich elites buy-out all properties/flats in cities because its a better overall investment taking to account inflation.
People who slave in that situation consider themselves unhappy and thus consider moving to a houses outside of the city. Due to limited infrastructure outside of the cities -> only a part of outskirts are really habbitable for those families. The demand in this case is higher than supply.
Demand is so low only because city politicians are too inefficient in providing new places with infrastructure.