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The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

bloomberg.com

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Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#741

Post by hinkley »

levocardia wrote: post #661

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 s…

We decided that brain drain wasn’t something we wanted to do anymore. We also have an uptick of expats as people worry this is 1937 all over again.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#742

Post by 8note »

Balgair wrote: post #207

I 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'd have guessed that teenagers dont have enough places where theyre unsupervised or otherwise surveiled such that they can have sex without thinking about the possible results of said sex.

"its the advertising" could be another one. people today are put on a heavy track with very high expectation about everything that needs to be done before even considering parenthood - same thing as with the trades. everyone is trained to think being a parent before getting other accomplishments makes you a failure

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#743

Post by hinkley »

t0bia_s wrote: post #592

Total Fertility Rate (births per woman) un US: 2015 | 1.83 2016 | 1.80 2017 | 1.75 2018 | 1.71 2019 | 1.68 2020 | 1.62 2021 | 1.63 2022 | 1.67 2023 | 1.62 2024 | 1.62 2025 | 1.62 2026 | 1.61 Politizacion of long term trend wont help here.

And yet, birthrates jacked up for 2 decades after communism collapsed, stayed high until the bank crisis, tanked both times Trump came into office, recovered a couple years into Covid.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#744

Post by 8note »

alephnerd wrote: post #324
lukeschlather wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No amount of baby cash There is an amount of baby cash that would work. But we're talking enough cash to hire a competent housekeeper/nanny until the child is old enough to take care of themself.

> hire a competent housekeeper/nanny They would need similar support as well and it's a tower of nannies all the way down (it truly does take a village to raise a kid). More critically, assuming that you need a housekeeper or nanny in a two parent working household is legitimately ridiculous. And I say this as a 1.5 gen immigrant with a sibling who was raised in a 2 bedroom apartment in the Bay Area while both parent…

there's also other options - your own parents, and other new parents and their parents.

"it takes a village" is an old saying that isnt going anywhere

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#746

Post by hinkley »

joewhale wrote: post #429

One factor is that people are obsessed with removing any friction in their life that stands in the way of whatever they believe makes them happy at the end of the day. Which for a lot of the US is just being alone and unbothered with a TV or a phone. Having responsibilities and caring for others is actually good for the human soul. Being inconvenienced is a part of real life. I’m not trying to convince everyone that…

Hill climbing algorithms. We were warned about those in undergrad classes. Others were not.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#747

Post by antisthenes »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #329
Balgair wrote: post #207

I 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 on it is: you have to make your country/society a place where people will want to have children and feel/know that their children's lives will be good ones. Anecdata of one - but I think one non-trivial contributor that I haven't seen people talking about is... From my experience and the experience of most of my friends and family... people actively DON'T want kids until about 30 - and often times that's to…

> It seems like all my single friends around 30 talk about how the dating pool is terrible

Let's call it out specifically - few women want to have kids. I'm using an app right now and for every 1 woman who has "wants kids" in their profile, there's probably 2-3 women who say they don't want kids or "aren't sure".

And these aren't young women either, the age range is roughly 29-35, so even on the older side of optimal age for having kids.

Regardless of what men want, if so few women want to have kids - fertility will drop like a rock.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#748

Post by good8675309 »

jdlyga wrote: post #68

Once 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…

I’m a father of 4 and I’m overloaded with community, have you tried finding a good church? That’s where people have found community for thousands of years.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#749

Post by oxag3n »

Balgair wrote: post #207

I 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…

It's also age. According to CDC, mean age at first birth: 27.5.

I wanted more kids but was hit with an auto-immune in my mid-30s, so the choice becomes no more kids or high risk of a disabled kid/fatal outcome for both of us.

Mean age was 21.5 in 1970.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#750

Post by good8675309 »

nlavezzo wrote: post #170
jdlyga wrote: post #68

Once 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…

This is absolutely not our experience, but we've been intentional about joining communities / activities that involve lots of in-person time together. Church is a huge one (especially joining small groups / service groups), but we also do 4H (they have them in urban areas too!), and my wife started an educational co-op with cool field trips, and we organize neighborhood events like caroling at retirement homes, a pre…

Same boat, with 4 kids between church and co-op we barely have enough time for the amount of friends we have. Finding a good church might be a challenge for people but it’s worth the time and research, we just moved to be closer to a good one.
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