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Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

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Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#421

Post by namdnay »

sangnoir wrote: post #361
atoav wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is doing well financially I don't think you found the reason. The gist of it is: There are worlds and circumstances into which people want to bring kids. We mostly failed to create that world and those circumstances. If tou want to know what a solution looks like look at western democracies with high birth rates. E.g. France, Ireland, New Zealand, Denmark. The rest is probably due to individualism. Kid…

> Kids cost time and energy and capitalism tells us we should live our best lives. Thought experiment for all the unrestrained free-market folk: how can the free hand of the market can solve for low birthrates? Bonus points if the solution doesn't involve government-issued visas.

> Thought experiment for all the unrestrained free-market folk: how can the free hand of the market can solve for low birthrates

tax cuts for families, subisidies for child birth and care - none of these are contrary to the idea of a free competitive market

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#422

Post by techdragon »

sangnoir wrote: post #361
atoav wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is doing well financially I don't think you found the reason. The gist of it is: There are worlds and circumstances into which people want to bring kids. We mostly failed to create that world and those circumstances. If tou want to know what a solution looks like look at western democracies with high birth rates. E.g. France, Ireland, New Zealand, Denmark. The rest is probably due to individualism. Kid…

> Kids cost time and energy and capitalism tells us we should live our best lives. Thought experiment for all the unrestrained free-market folk: how can the free hand of the market can solve for low birthrates? Bonus points if the solution doesn't involve government-issued visas.

Oh it’s got a few solutions… but you’re probably not going to like them… there’s the whole 13th amendment issue for starters…

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#423

Post by thriftwy »

bowsamic wrote: post #394
pfannkuchen wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you noticed that much, much poorer places often have a much higher birth rate? I think there is something else going on. And I mean poorer in terms of actual living conditions on the ground.

Poorer places have worse education. Worse education corresponds with having more babies. Smart people are more likely to know not to have babies.

So you would assume we have flat out selective removal of being smart trait. Just great.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#424

Post by dukeyukey »

sneed_chucker wrote: post #157
atomicnumber3 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm baffled my peers , who absolutely could afford to, still have no interest. These are people making 150-200k (and at my prior job, 200-400k).

The societal norms and structures that promoted natalism are gone in western countries for much of the population. Raising kids is hard work. Ideally you have them young and live close to your family so that you have grandparents to help with childcare. But our society tells people to wait as long as possible to have kids, and to prioritize career over other things - so once people do have kids, if they ever do so, t…

> and live close to your family so that you have grandparents to help with childcare.

Issue with this now is how concentrated certain industries are. Here in the UK, if I want to work in software, you need to move to a handful of expensive cities. London, Oxford, Cambridge, maybe Bristol or Manchester. Maybe some others if you're happy in a non-software job. Certainly not the rural farming town I grew up in, or anywhere within hours of driving.

So people move away. And now I'm faced with either delaying kids so I can get reasonably set-up in a city where a 500sqft flat costs £300,000 or moving away from all my friends and maybe even further from my family to afford a house.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#425

Post by jonasdegendt »

ardaoweo wrote: post #334

Here in Finland apparently 50% of 35yo males, and 35% of 35yo females have no children. Fertility rate in 2023 was 1.26. In comparison, 2015 saw fertility rate of 1.65, and it has been below replacement level since 1969. 61% of under 40yo people live in rental apartments, this share having risen about 10% from 2010. Also, apartments built today are about 9 square meters smaller on average compares to 10 years ago. I…

3 bedrooms plus a bath on 55 sq/m sounds pretty tightly packed huh, mind sharing a listing? I’m quite curious as to the layout.

I’m in Belgium where we’ve historically built larger than necessary apartments (and houses) so there’s a decent amount of housing stock to raise a family in, but the tides have turned and new apartments are also mostly smaller 1 and 2 bedrooms targeting singles. The latter sucks because if you’re a young family looking for an affordable but modern place (read: energy efficient) your options are slim.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#426

Post by PeterisP »

vidarh wrote: post #172
startupsfail wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is wrong that our society rewards drinking beers with tech bros and “skydiving” hobbies and what not fucking weird stuff. And doesn’t reward that much investments of money and parental time into having healthy and educated kids. Educated and well rounded kids, teenagers and adults don’t come free for society. It requires a lot of work, money, time and love. Ridiculous amounts. To a degree this resource can be stol…

> To a degree this resource can be stolen from other countries, via immigration. But this only works to a degree and at a larger scale it is still a zero sum game. It's going to increasingly become a challenge. China's population is contracting. India has hit replacement and will start to see decline barring immigration over the next 20-30 years. Only sub-Saharan Africa is left with above replacement birth rates. We'…

> We're about to hit increasingly aggressive competition both to hold on to people, and to attract immigrants as more and more countries start getting bitten by demographic shifts.

This has an implied assumption that either more population is always better or that for all of the countries the current population is below the optimum level.

What if for some countries the best population size - the one that provides the best quality of life for its citizens - is close to the current one, not larger? What if for some countries the most favorable population size is below the one they currently have?

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#427

Post by bozhark »

bongodongobob wrote: post #75

You're baffled people aren't having kids? What bubble do you live in? People straight up can't afford housing much less children. The avg American is completely priced out of owning a home right now. Edit: the replies - y'all are out of touch. Visit an average family in the Midwest with a household income of < $100k/yr that doesn't own a home yet.

Midwest ain’t the best metric mate

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#428

Post by newbie578 »

remarkEon wrote: post #265
voidfunc wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't have any interest in kids. They're expensive and they require a ton of sacrifice. I'd rather travel, golf, do hobbies and generally enjoy my life. The only people that seem to want me to have babies are my parents so they can have grand kids... too which I've told them "Thank you for having me, but that's not a valid reason for me to sacrifice my life". I don't really care about the preservation of the h…

Whenever I encounter this attitude I like to remind that person that they should have no voice, whatsoever, in what happens in government and politics anymore. I don't want people who are self-selecting themselves out of the future having any say in what happens for my children. It's fine that you don't want kids, enjoy the golf course I guess. But in general I will discount your opinions to zero on anything else of…

Absolutely well said. I agree a 100%. If someone wants to be selfish, let him be, but don’t expect the rest of us to give much credence to his opinions since he very well doesn’t care about our society.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#429

Post by OJFord »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #16

Anecdata: I am 31 and have 3 young kids. They have 0 cousins and, on top of that, 0... second cousins? Cousins-once-removed? Whatever the one is for my cousin's kids. My kids are my grandma's only great-grandkids. And I have... 6 cousins. On top of that, at my last job, on my team of 15, I was the only one with kids, and only 1 of those 15 engineers were under the age of 30. At my current job, my team is 8, and again…

> 0... second cousins? Cousins-once-removed? Whatever the one is for my cousin's kids.

Your cousins are theirs once-removed, i.e. 'cousin but one generation up'.

Second cousins are their children, i.e. same generation but up and across first.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#430

Post by The_Colonel »

sangnoir wrote: post #361
atoav wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is doing well financially I don't think you found the reason. The gist of it is: There are worlds and circumstances into which people want to bring kids. We mostly failed to create that world and those circumstances. If tou want to know what a solution looks like look at western democracies with high birth rates. E.g. France, Ireland, New Zealand, Denmark. The rest is probably due to individualism. Kid…

> Kids cost time and energy and capitalism tells us we should live our best lives. Thought experiment for all the unrestrained free-market folk: how can the free hand of the market can solve for low birthrates? Bonus points if the solution doesn't involve government-issued visas.

Free market is a kind of natural selection. People with inner desire to procreate will spread themselves, people without it won't. Pro-natalist cultures (e. g. orthodox jews) will procreate as well.

This inner desire wasn't selected for strongly in the past because there were other mechanisms to nudge people to procreate (social norms, lack of birth control), but I expect it will play a much bigger role in the following generations.

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