All the comments are about having babies but as the article points out the actual proximate reason the US population is declining right now is the immigration enforcement approach taken by the Trump administration. Fewer people are coming the the US (including legally), and more people (including legal residents) are being deported or are leaving, and as a result there is net outflow of people from the country. The situation will only worsen with the incipient war on H1B and other visas.
The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
661–670 of 1001 posts
Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
#662Why do we obsess over growing everything all the time?
I think people really fail to understand the gravity of an inverted demographic pyramid, going from 2 young people supporting 1 old, to 1 young person supporting 2 old. That's .5 -> 2x, a 4x increase in burden (taxes / extra work).
Better for the environment though. I know people who chose not to have kids because they were worried about climate change and overpopulation.
Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
#663I like to hang out on fertility twitter. It's a strange place. Since the fertility problem is worldwide, you get a lot of ideologies mixing about. There's hardcore CCP folks, free market Mormons, radical Imams, universalist preachers, the whole lot of them. They're all trying to share ideas and jumping on the latest research findings from reputable and crackpot sources. They're all looking for the recipe to get peopl…
"Only if the mothers in aggregate truly believe that their children will have good lives, then will they have them." Then please explain why birth rates throughout human history, when life was vastly more difficult and dangerous than it is now, were so much higher? Nobody had to meet this bar you set before. Let's just be honest here. There were three recent developments, all of which were, by themselves, good things…
> Your comment just reeks of someone who is disconnected from the historical realities of 99.99999% of the humans who have ever lived.
I was kinda nodding at points at your comment, or at least stroking my chin thinking, until the end. I had a feeling. You just came here to scold people.
Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
#664Marvelous.
Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
#665Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
#666I like to hang out on fertility twitter. It's a strange place. Since the fertility problem is worldwide, you get a lot of ideologies mixing about. There's hardcore CCP folks, free market Mormons, radical Imams, universalist preachers, the whole lot of them. They're all trying to share ideas and jumping on the latest research findings from reputable and crackpot sources. They're all looking for the recipe to get peopl…
There is another way to go about this. Statistically immigrants from Latin America have lower crime rates than the average American. It is possible to increase population AND decrease the crime rate by allowing immigrants into the country. Personally, as someone with capital, having people who also work hard for less salary is beneficial. Most native born Americans are much poorer than I am so I understand their fear…
The “average crime rate” argument is disingenuous for an analogous reason to Waymo reporting that their cars are safer than the average driver is disingenuous: it lumps me in with Doris who last passed her vision test a decade ago but now has two cataracts. It also ignores that crimes in immigrant communities are less likely to be reported in the first place.
Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
#667Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that perfectly aligns with their take. People in their 30s, married, tend to have more stable lives. They are in a position where they feel they are able to give that child a good life.
Peak fertility though is early 20s. By the time people are in their 30s, having trouble getting pregnant is a more common problem.
Exactly. So since we observe that actual birth rates among women in their 30s displays a different trend than that of women in their 20s, despite decreased natural fertility, there has to be more going on.
Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
#668I like to hang out on fertility twitter. It's a strange place. Since the fertility problem is worldwide, you get a lot of ideologies mixing about. There's hardcore CCP folks, free market Mormons, radical Imams, universalist preachers, the whole lot of them. They're all trying to share ideas and jumping on the latest research findings from reputable and crackpot sources. They're all looking for the recipe to get peopl…
My take is that modern culture just doesn't want kids. It doesn't matter how cheap you make having a family, for many it's just not remotely the same culture as it was 50-70 years ago.
Then, for most, it was, at 20-ish, find a partner ASAP and have a family. That was "the culture".
Today it's "have a great career, travel, party, netflix, game, ... and maybe someday think about kids"
There's other stats like in the USA in the 50s, being single was seen as just a transition until you met someone. 78% of adults were married, 22% single. Today, being single is way more common, > 50% and while many of those might want a parter, tons don't see it as a priority.
Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
#669Once you have a kid, it's obvious why even besides the costs involved. There's not much sense of community, particularly in the white middle class. People are very individualistic and distrusting of others. There's a good reason for some of this, but to have a community you need to be a community member. And that means letting people in, trusting others and being trustworthy, and being out for the group instead of ju…
There’s no evidence to suggest that any of this is true.
Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
#670I like to hang out on fertility twitter. It's a strange place. Since the fertility problem is worldwide, you get a lot of ideologies mixing about. There's hardcore CCP folks, free market Mormons, radical Imams, universalist preachers, the whole lot of them. They're all trying to share ideas and jumping on the latest research findings from reputable and crackpot sources. They're all looking for the recipe to get peopl…
I generally agree with this, but I want to add another thing that I feel is easily overlooked in both the groups you listed and your post: having men who'd make women comfortable having kids. The alpha-bro intimidation, casual assault/misogyny, disregard for mothers' careers, and lack of community don't exactly scream "great time to have a baby" (I'm not even going to touch the current topic dominating the news). Whi…
> having men who'd make women comfortable having kids
This is maybe the most underrated comment in this whole lively thread. Completely agree on all fronts. Men are a huge, huge problem in this equation: in the US, anyway, many of them simply refuse to catch up to simple human values about respect, mutuality, and emotional intelligence.
At root it's about entitlement. Scores of women, seeing this very, very clearly since age 5 in the boys and men around them, get to adulthood and, sanely in my view, just say "no thanks". Why shouldn't they?