51–60 of 226 posts
This post argues that collapsing birth rates aren’t just about housing or money — they’re a rational response to the sense that the future is unstable, meaningless, or even dangerous. It introduces the concept of “temporal inflation” — the idea that just like money loses value in hyperinflation, time loses value when people can’t trust the future. Would love to hear if this resonates with others.
Is this AI generated?
This post argues that collapsing birth rates aren’t just about housing or money — they’re a rational response to the sense that the future is unstable, meaningless, or even dangerous. It introduces the concept of “temporal inflation” — the idea that just like money loses value in hyperinflation, time loses value when people can’t trust the future. Would love to hear if this resonates with others.
Not getting kids is a cultural issue. My mom used to say exactly the same, but she still got 3 kids with very little money because her social groups expected her to have children.
Catholic?
He is right, if he also stops well short of saying what he might. But "the politicians", as always, are only doing what the people are telling them to. The human species has decided to shut down.
The human species has eight billion people. If the birthrate is still low when it's four billion, or two billion, I'll start to have concern for the species.
> Nobody knows Have you tried asking them? In particular, asking the women who are making the career-or-children decision? South Korea is invoked, but it seems like the population there has almost perfectly levelled out at just over 51m: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/kor/sou... of which 20m live in Seoul. This discussion comes up a lot on HN, and it seems to be one where there are answers, but…
On South Korea, you might want to consider this chart instead: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/KOR/sou...
KOR's Fertility rate has been under 1.25 for two decades. It follows then that "stable" population can only be the result of three factors:
1. Pushing the population curve out through longer lives;
2. Immigration;
3. Time-effect offsets of the fertility rate; for instance, if it's the projected fertility rate of females born in a given year, it would take roughly 20-40 years for the fertility rate to have its effect on the population curve.
We are enough people on the planet. Why does this read like we have to have kids? I'm completly fine not having kids surprise \o/
I think we very rapidly went from a world with high child mortality rates, no access to birth control and children being at least moderately useful on the farm or doing some other work quite young to a world where having children is both a choice and very very expensive. This happened depending on where you live in the course of 1-3 generations. We are still grappling with how you incentivize and promote parenthood w…
Six figures? False because poor people have been having children forever and continue too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not surprised. Housing went up a lot in recent years and it is not affordable for most young people. And if you have to rent, why not rent your parent's?
Housing in the West was basically turned into another pillar of retiree funding. Old people extract tremendous financial gains from younger generations by either a) selling them decrepit real estate at extremely high prices or b) collecting very high rents on buildings that are even older than themselves (even in the US, which is the king of corporate landlording, they are a small minority; most landlords are natural…
My personal favorite reason is just that this is the outcome of birth control. At no other point in history could people decide how many kids they want, and when you give people the choice, they just aren't going to choose very many.
French Aristocrats had difficulty affording children as well. My theory is that as a society becomes wealthier, the acceptable minimum standard for child rearing grows at an even faster rate, until it becomes unattainable for a growing number of people. Raising kids is cheap. People who live in mud huts who have never heard of money can afford to raise kids. Avoiding negative social stigma is what people can't afford…
This narrative that "people aren't having children because the future is bleak and they're expensive," is wildly overblown. Yes, it's what people say when you ask them. That's not the same as it being the actual reason.