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What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

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Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#801

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

sebmellen wrote: post #764
tenebrisalietum wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a child, but don't have a house, you'll probably stay with your parents. They probably would rather you have your own house so they can have privacy and such. A lot of the "multiple generations of families under one roof" type thinking are only practical if you have a large property, which was more common and much cheaper before the industrial revolution, tract housing, high rise apartments, and $2000/mo.…

I had my first child at 24 on a shoestring budget in a 700 sq. ft. apartment and it has been completely manageable. Children are way less expensive than you might think (definitely cheaper than an adult) and if you’re creative you can find good quality, full-time daycare or childcare for $10-15k/yr. Does this add extra work? Oh yes, absolutely it does. But while having children means you sacrifice certain things, the…

> and if you’re creative you can find good quality, full-time daycare or childcare for $10-15k/yr.

For people still making only the mid 5-figures, that's a significant chunk of money.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#802

Post by 0xffff2 »

mulmen wrote: post #121
0xffff2 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stable in terms of population, not all of the stuff you're talking about.

Why is a stable population good or desirable?

First, we categorically lack the technology for wide-scale colonization of space or other planets. Second, no matter how much people like to deny it, the Earth does have some finite carrying capacity. We can argue indefinitely about what exactly that carrying capacity is, but it exists. It follows from those two facts that unbounded population growth is not possible. A continually shrinking population eventually leads to extinction, thus leaving a stable population as the only option that doesn't lead to either extinction or widespread chaos and calamity.

It's not really clear to me what the point of this question is. Are you advocating for infinite growth? For eventual extinction? Perhaps for a slow, long-term contraction but not extinction (i.e. eventual stability)? The latter is certainly what makes the most sense to me, but I'm just some random guy on the internet.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#803

Post by ModernMech »

missedthecue wrote: post #798
adam_arthur wrote: post #797

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this true for very wealthy people, or only for above average earners? There are many examples of very wealthy people having lots of children. Children are still a significant investment for high earners, but at a certain wealth level it becomes inconsequential. Quick google shows some support for this idea: "There is a new emerging trend where better-off men and women are more likely to have children than less wel…

The birth rate for billionaires under 50 in the US is 1.05

You can't use what billionaires do to indicate what regular people would do if they had enough money to raise a family.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#804

Post by adamrezich »

Jaygles wrote: post #794
coldtea wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People today think a 18-19 year old (which is still a legal adult in most places and for most purposes, can drive, go to war, live alone, work, and was always considered an adult throughout history) is "a child". Of course kind of makes sense when 30 and 40 year olds also behave and live like children and find "adulting" out of their capabilities.

For most of human history, people didn't have to worry about - Exposure to exotic chemicals in every day items - Regularly operating a multi-thousand pound machine just to travel - Adversaries thousands of miles away working tirelessly to misinform and scam you - Massive conglomerates working tirelessly to manipulate your behavior - Being compared to the best in the world (in their skills and hobbies etc.) - Competin…

Have you seen Idiocracy, specifically the very beginning of the film?

These excuses sound similar to those made by the “prosperous yuppie couple” (who end up never having children)—contrasted with “trashy” couple, who churn out progeny without a care in the world.

https://thescriptsavant.com/movies/Idiocracy.pdf

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#805

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #229
itake wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many HCOL cities, for many couples, SAHM isn't a financially feasible option. Also, as a full-time mom, you’ve given up autonomy to your husband (since he controls the finances). While women can leave the relationship whenever they want, their careers often suffer, and they can’t just pick up where they left off.

Women can leave and get alimony, child support, and often times greater custody of the kids. Men don’t want to take that risk, so many men opt out of marriage as well.

That notion was the origin of the MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) movement before it got taken over by misogynistic incels that were never going to get a woman anyways. The ultimate in sour grapes mentality. Like saying "You can't fire me because I quit" before you were even hired to begin with.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#806

Post by missedthecue »

dividefuel wrote: post #207
PakistaniDenzel wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No - being a mom and having to work full time sucks. Being a full time mom probably isn't that bad.

If you read forums of new parents (e.g. parenting subreddits), the common consensus is that being a stay at home parent is far harder than a job.

I have two cousins who became stay at home dads, and something really interesting is that the mothers claim that being a stay-at-home parent is exhausting grueling thankless work, and the fathers who are stay-at-home seem to love it! It seems that generally speaking, either fathers are too negligent, mothers are too neurotic, or some mixture of the two is happening.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#807

Post by missedthecue »

drewhk wrote: post #689
hraedon wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Working" is a pretty generous description of a policy that, at a cost of 3-4% of GDP, has raised the fertility rate from its low of 1.23 in 2011 to about 1.55 today. That 1.5ish TFR is pretty stable, too: there's been almost no improvement since 2016. No country has figured this out, and if getting to (just!) replacement rate requires healthcare-like expenditures as a % of GDP, it is genuinely unclear to me how we d…

Not it is not stable, it was 1.38 last year (source, from the central statistics authority: https://www.ksh.hu/stadat_files/nep/hu/nep0006.html ). This year will be even worse, see top left chart: https://www.ksh.hu/heti-monitor/nepmozgalom.html (live births per month) (edit: added translation of unit)

It's pretty clear theyre going to drop below their 2011 baseline soon. In other words, 5% of GDP into pronatal policies and transfers will have at best delayed the inevitable drop by a couple years.

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#808

Post by seanmcdirmid »

sebmellen wrote: post #704
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having kids when you are young and financially not established is just irresponsible, but particularly female bodies don’t do well having kids older when you are established enough to do so responsibly. I’m having this problem right now with my spouse (we have a kid, but are thinking about another), it’s just super hard to get pregnant without medical help.

Why? Can you defend this for me? I'm genuinely asking. Why is it irresponsible to have a child when you're young and financially not established? Why is it any more irresponsible to do that than to have children at a geriatric age? Children are resilient, and so are parents. In my opinion, this idea that you have to have everything perfectly set up in life before you can contemplate having a child is ridiculous.

> Why is it irresponsible to have a child when you're young and financially not established?

Just imagine being the kid in that situation. Your parents are still almost kids themselves, they are working min wage jobs and had to drop out of college. Seriously, this isn't rocket science: we are having kids older because growing up in a financial stable household is just good for kids. If you have a trust fund or are somehow have enough time and money to have kids at 22, then go ahead and have kids. Just most of us didn't.

> Why is it any more irresponsible to do that than to have children at a geriatric age?

You totally ignored the "financially not established" of my statement.

> In my opinion, this idea that you have to have everything perfectly set up in life before you can contemplate having a child is ridiculous.

Did you just make a straw man? Because I didn't state an "idea that you have to have everything perfectly set up in life".

Re: What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?

#809

Post by missedthecue »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #575
stackskipton wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also #4, there is plenty of women who don't want kids. Women having kids was not option until advent of modern birth control unless they were totally celibate. My wife has zero interest in having kids but enjoys being married, if this were 100 years ago, she likely would have kids by now.

This is almost 100% the answer, despite it pissing literally everyone off. I really feel like the only long term solution is getting artificial wombs figured out. Last I checked, we're closer than I thought, but people are still hung up on all the ethical questions that will probably evaporate when we realize it's the only way people are largely going to have kids at all.

There is currently no scientific effort to develop an artificial womb anywhere on earth. There are several well funded efforts to get the age at which premature babies can be expected to reliably survive down to 20-21 weeks. But that's not the same thing.

If you've ever seen pharmaceutical ads, they almost always advise against taking the medication while pregnant, or to advise your physician. It's because so much of human gestation is still a black box. We do not understand how it works, only that chemicals and medication can seriously disrupt it in ways we cannot yet grasp. There is so much inter-cerebral and hormonal communication between mother and fetus that is yet to be discovered and understood, and a lot of that will depend on mapping out general cerebral mechanics, something we also haven't yet done.

People act like artificial wombs are 10-20 years away, but we are so far away we don't even have a roadmap. We don't even have an understanding of all the things we need to understand. We are in a pre-renaissance of sorts, and artificial wombs are inter-galactic space travel.

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