India's surprise baby bust

For anyone interested in really digging deep into this trend, I recommend picking up the book “After the Spike” by Dylan Spears and Michael Geruso.

It opened my eyes to the mathematical inevitability of short-term population contraction. Seriously, there is no way to avoid short term population contraction at this point. None. Zilch. Zero. We made our proverbial bed in the 1980s.

They convinced me that population contraction is almost certainly bad for people alive today, but also probably for our species as a whole.

Finally, they present a dozen or so hypotheses about what might be at the root of declining birth rates and what we might be able to do to stop reverse current trends.

The thing that made the book a true 5/5 for me is that they end with questions, not false certainty. Basically, demographers aren’t completely sure what’s driving the trends nor do they have fully baked conclusions about how it can be solved or if that’s even possible.

It will if nothing changes. That’s a certainty. But yes something might change.

Get poorer, or get in a better location. Preschool is covered free here, with a pittance for after-school care (which is covered if your income is below something like 3x the poverty line).

Having kids is wildly subsidized for the poor - plot all the bennies available to a family at 2x the poverty line.

I think the real interesting question isn't "why don't people have children" but more "why do those who have one or two kids not have more?" It seems everyone around came from a family of 6+ or knew those who did, yet everyone has 1 or 2 kids, three if the first two were both the same sex.

In a farming culture, children are a profit center:

1) Production of children costs nothing. People married young and children just happen, there are no expensive fertility treatments, etc.

2) children are free labor for decades, helping their dad (family?) expand the acreage. More land = high status for dad. Even today, children can work in the family business without any pay. A child can be free labor, but only for family.

3) After the children become adults, they don't automatically get any share of the land, they have to wait and be loyal to get their share of the inheritance.

4) Children are expected to take care of elders until they die. (free caregiving). Compared to taking care of an infant, which just lasts about an year or so, taking care of old people is extremely resource intensive. People used to do it because thats how social/cultural expectations were set.

5) Religions/culture standardize this by creating the culture/religious texts/etc -- women must produce more children (more followers for the religion) and children (specifically young) must obey their parents.

Now, children are a cost center. They cost a lot to produce, raise, don't confer high status (no free labor to expand production or acreage), and most critical factor no more free caregiving. Adults in these generations are realizing they are on their own when it comes to taking care of them when they are old. Then, why children?

The second thing is divorce is extremely punitive on men. Children happen, a man needs to be punished for the rest of his life and lead a significantly degraded life for decades. Decent men suffer the consequences of the toxic/abusive partners who are enabled by the state to steal as much as they can. When the laws change to be a bit more fair, magically divorce rates plunge. Divorce Plunged in Kentucky. Equal Custody for Fathers Is a Big Reason Why: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/the-equal-custody-experiment...

Some people point to poor people have lots of kids --> kids don't cost anything. Yes, poor people do have more kids, because divorce is divorced of disastrous consequences. If you have nothing, the state can't transfer/take much from you. As soon as you surpass the subsistence levels and have a job that pays above min wage, you have to worry about the inevitable consequences of divorce. You lose the primary home, pay a TON in child support, alimony, lose half your assets, pay for childcare, childrens health insurance and activities and still be the bad guy who gets to see his children only for a few hours. Women get most everything. Charlie Munger's on incentives: "Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome." This site has some examples: http://www.realworlddivorce.com/

If there is one thing Americans need to think about, work with your elected representatives, change the divorce laws. Young men are watching whats happening to their dads and

Note: Some of this is US specific, but largely applicable to most countries. Other countries are copying the worst divorce laws of US.