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

nytimes.com

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

#351

Post by nitrogen »

globular-toast wrote: post #251
opwieurposiu wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your ancestors were just fucking without contraception. They weren't trying to "pass on the torch" or anything silly like that.

Historical creation myths seem to say otherwise. E.g. those referring to seed, or fruit of the loins, or commandments to multiply.

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

#353

Post by fiftyfifty »

This is going to have a huge impact on colleges and universities in ~18 years. Imagine an 8% decrease in high school graduates in one year, on top of the already projected drop in high school graduates over the next 10 years. The decline in high school graduates over the next 10 years is largely due to the drop in birthrate during the 2008/9 economic crash and recession.

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

#354

Post by oh_sigh »

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.

Following this logic, Niger must be filled with stability and optimism, and Norway is similar to the US in instability and pessimistic outlook for the future.

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

#355

Post by com2kid »

shortandsweet wrote: post #170
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #139

Earlier 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?

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

Housing prices around me are directly correlated to school quality. The same house near a good school is literally 1.5x-2x the price.

The supply of good public schools is very limited. A good private school is ~20-30k a year. Figure that is worth 300k, not even counting that that over the years tuition prices will go up.

So people pay to live near one of the handful of good schools.

Seattle stopped busing kids awhile back, instead aiming to keep kids at "local" schools (IMHO to save money), so now unlike the opportunity I had as a kid (test well, get into a good school in the "right" part of town) the city is perpetuating generational poverty.

This has the effect of making pockets of the city have well rated and poorly rated schools. Previously schools were kinda mixed in quality, good programs and teachers at many different schools. Sure some had a reputation, but now the ratings are incredibly bi-modal, and housing prices follow that distribution.

Oh also in the last decade, the population has increased by 21 million. The growth rate is slowing, but it isn't zero. The way American cities are managed, it isn't possible to add sufficient housing. E.g. in 2019 around 40k people moved to the Seattle metro. 14k building permits were granted[1].

To put that in perspective, the most construction friendly city in America, Houston, approved 38k permits. (Not sure if these are for housing units, are permits overall inclusive of multi family dwellings).

FWIW Dallas got ~131k new people (US Census Bureau)

No surprise there is a problem. American cities are not capable of building fast enough.

[1] https://www.wfaa.com/article/money/economy/dallas-fort-worth...

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

#356

Post by ph4 »

ed_balls wrote: post #328
ph4 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first kid was just born last week. The hospital billed my insurance company $45k. This is for an uncomplicated, straight-forward vaginal birth.

is it really $45k in US? Or just the company told you they are billed 45k but they "negotiate" it down to 10k. In my country a birth in private hospital cost $3k...

I'm sure there are all sorts of negotiations and esoteric adjustments going on behind the scenes - $45k was the total of the itemized invoice sent to my insurance company. I'm unsure exactly of how much it will cost me out-of-pocket, but I'm expecting $3-4k.

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

#357

Post by _trampeltier »

andi999 wrote: post #16
that_guy_iain wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people stopped dating, bars are closed, etc. I suspect the decrease in drunken sex is probably a large reason for the decrease.

Actually 300k birth due to drunken sex paints a very dark picture of society.

Not all death on the street are because of alcohol.

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

#358

Post by t0bia_s »

jeffbee wrote: post #223
t0bia_s wrote: post #201

There are so many pregnant couples between our friends. We mostly expect baby boom in our country. In news they say that we have biggest mortality in world due to covid. Well... People are probably not scared that much as agenda says.

Your observations of your own peer cohort are not informative. People get older, their friends get older, they all have babies at the same time. It appears to you like a baby boom but demographically it isn't data. We already have enough vital statistics data to know that 2020 has clobbered the birth rate in the US.

I'm not from US. I just share my personal view.

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

#359

Post by nitrogen »

lcc wrote: post #200
beaconstudios wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But my point is that such a misunderstanding of other people is not a symptom of privilege, its a symptom of being human. You probably don't know how billionaires as a class (and generalising people by a demographic is overgeneralising too) are experiencing covid either, but that isn't a question of privilege. I guess I just don't like the idea of taking a universal human experience and casting it in terms of privile…

David Graeber made a really good argument for why misunderstanding others is exactly a symptom of privilege. The whole article is worth reading (as is the whole book I originally read it in, "The Utopia of Rules"), but here's the argument in a nutshell: "Those born to working-class families invariably score far better at tests of gauging others' feelings than scions of the rich, or professional classes. In a way it's…

Could this be explained by class/cultural differences in the manner of expressing feelings? Maybe poor people would be just as bad at reading the feelings of rich people, but each group can read well within the group.

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

#360

Post by com2kid »

Frost1x wrote: post #124
theNJR wrote: post #96

This 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…

While endocrine disruption or inhibitors are very likely a factor to blame, I think we also have cultural and socioeconomic factors compounding the problem. There are so many who just don't want to deal with the current dating and casual sex culture. The rewards for time investment and effort just aren't that high compared to alternatives available to many, compounded by other factors of daily life competing for that…

Our entire society has been flooded with low effort high (short term) reward entertainment activities.

Psychology has been weaponized to optimize addictive behavior loops. Instead of going outside and talking to people being the norm, now people have to make a concerted effort to pull themselves away from their psychologically addictive pocket sized happy fun device, convince others to do the same, and then arrange a time to go out.

Socializing is messy, painful, and difficult. But for the majority of human civilization, there weren't very many alternatives for entertainment!

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