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Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

economist.com

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Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#51

Post by jxramos »

irateswami wrote: post #15

This is an actual conversation I had to have with my wife, having a third kid definitely requires a larger vehicle as the vast majority of cars today simply don't work for a family of five. Child car seats are too wide and the backseats of most cars are too narrow, and the price jump to a vehicle that would be able to handle three child car seats at once is enormous. Throw in some dogs, a couple pieces of luggage tha…

There's an individual on YouTube who does a great job reviewing carseat fits into various vehicles. The example below he fits 3 car seats in the back of a Ford Focus, which most people wouldn't consider to be a large car.

Alex on Autos https://youtu.be/RTh06yWql_s?t=223

It can be done. There's also a great product called the MultiMac sold in the UK and I think the EU. Fits 4 in the back seat, worth checking out if available in your locale. It won't ship to the US for regulatory reasons. https://youtu.be/zybM8cltCxU?t=179

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#52

Post by Pet_Ant »

giantg2 wrote: post #9

I can see this as being correlated, but I don't see this as being causative. And that's from someone who thinks some of the child/society safety laws are a bit absurd. I think maybe it could go something like this: child safety laws are more prevalent/stringent in advanced society, living in an advanced society carries a higher cost of living, as the cost of living goes up (without matching income raises, like the US…

See this comment from this very thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25446153

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#53

Post by kube-system »

gowld wrote: post #28
kube-system wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was young, this was what minivans were for: families with three kids.

Minivans seat 7-8, which is 6 kids.

You can't fill every back seat with a car seat. You will have issues accessing the rear if you put 3 in the middle row, the rear seat often isn't wide enough to accommodate three seats

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#54

Post by cameldrv »

irateswami wrote: post #15

This is an actual conversation I had to have with my wife, having a third kid definitely requires a larger vehicle as the vast majority of cars today simply don't work for a family of five. Child car seats are too wide and the backseats of most cars are too narrow, and the price jump to a vehicle that would be able to handle three child car seats at once is enormous. Throw in some dogs, a couple pieces of luggage tha…

You can do it in almost any car. You just need narrower car seats. Cosco has several that are narrower.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#55

Post by dragonwriter »

gowld wrote: post #39
dzdt wrote: post #24

I think there is a plausible mechanism for causation here. It adds to the expensiveness of children -- many smaller vehicles are not even compatible with the big car seats required, or with having more than two car seats in use. There is kind of a calculation: if we would have even one kid we need a "family" car; getting to 3 or more kids basically requires a minivan.

A Full-size sedan fits 3 child-seats, if you choose an appropriate thin design of seat.

> A Full-size sedan fits 3 child-seats, if you choose an appropriate thin design of seat.

If all three are of such a design, which only exist meeting the requirements for child safety seats for older children. If any one is an infant seat, that doesn't work.

If you have N children of ages requiring safety seats, you will for some period of that require at least 1 infant seat and N-1 other seats to transport them all legally.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#56

Post by grillvogel »

irateswami wrote: post #15

This is an actual conversation I had to have with my wife, having a third kid definitely requires a larger vehicle as the vast majority of cars today simply don't work for a family of five. Child car seats are too wide and the backseats of most cars are too narrow, and the price jump to a vehicle that would be able to handle three child car seats at once is enormous. Throw in some dogs, a couple pieces of luggage tha…

just get a minivan

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#57

Post by Someone1234 »

war1025 wrote: post #44
irateswami wrote: post #15

This is an actual conversation I had to have with my wife, having a third kid definitely requires a larger vehicle as the vast majority of cars today simply don't work for a family of five. Child car seats are too wide and the backseats of most cars are too narrow, and the price jump to a vehicle that would be able to handle three child car seats at once is enormous. Throw in some dogs, a couple pieces of luggage tha…

We ended up buying Diono Radian carseats [1], which are marketed as "the 3-across car seat" We can fit our three kids in the back of our Honda Civic perfectly well. But we've had exactly the same conversation. In order to have a fourth kid, we'd need to swap out our vehicles. House is fine, insurance is fine, income is fine, but we'd need to upgrade vehicles, and that seems to be just enough friction to make the idea…

The Radian is definitely king of three across. But they're premium priced ($200 each, or $600 for three), and sacrifice comfort particularly for longer trips.

In general people who have never had kids don't seem to grasp that the average (non-Radian) car-seat is BIGGER than an adult side-to-side. The Radian series has a niche because they produced a car-seat the same size as an adult (with no loss of safety), but had to sacrifice comfort to do so.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#58

Post by Nacraile »

fosap wrote: post #13
svachalek wrote: post #7

This reads like a textbook example of "correlation is not causation". You think there'd be ...some? people talking about how they decided not to have a child because she/he wouldn't fit in the car if it's going to have a measurable effect on birth rates but at least personally I have never, ever heard this one.

Please RFA. "The reduction they saw was confined to households that did actually have access to a car" "They discovered that tightening these laws had no detectable effects on the rate of first and second children". Also, if i understand it correctly, you have about 50 quasi experiments, one for each state.

Please RFA more ;)

"the third-child deterrent appears stronger among wealthier families"

So this has both the most and least effect on families that have little reason to care about needing a bigger car (because they can easily afford it, or they can't afford any car at all, respectively). When you go fishing for a correlation, form a post-hoc hypothesis for its mechanism, and then other data fits that hypothesis poorly, it's a strong sign you've found yourself a red herring. Which is the usual result of failing to properly understand the distinction between correlation and causation.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#59

Post by AnthonyMouse »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #47
giantg2 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pretty much agree. What would be an example be of an economic policy that would maintain stability while bringing the birth rate down below the replacement rate?

Direct cash transfers to those who opt out of having children voluntarily (as their opt out has value they should be compensated for), while accepting that more tax revenue will be needed to support entitlements during the population decline curve. We’re in a sort of resource debt and will end up having to pay it back, balancing gdp cost with quality of life of those here now who will eventually age out. Can’t grow f…

You obviously don't need to pay people to not have kids because the fertility rate is already below the population replacement rate.

The hard question would be how to maintain the existing programs that provide social assistance to the elderly without a larger population of working people to pay the taxes to fund them. The existing solution is to run preposterously large deficits every year, which seems problematic/unsustainable.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#60

Post by giantg2 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #47
giantg2 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pretty much agree. What would be an example be of an economic policy that would maintain stability while bringing the birth rate down below the replacement rate?

Direct cash transfers to those who opt out of having children voluntarily (as their opt out has value they should be compensated for), while accepting that more tax revenue will be needed to support entitlements during the population decline curve. We’re in a sort of resource debt and will end up having to pay it back, balancing gdp cost with quality of life of those here now who will eventually age out. Can’t grow f…

"Can’t grow forever in a physical system with constraints."

Agreed.

But I think any economic system with a shrinking population will be disruptive. Like those payments to people not having kids will result in decreased GDP, need increased taxes (we already do), and see large parts of industry shut down because of the decrease in consumption. Our whole system is consumption based.

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