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The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

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

#911

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…

Eh, historically, both worse and better living conditions led to more kids.

It’s not that simple.

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

#912

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 like to hang out on fertility twitter.

This is why I love the internet because this sentence alone holds so much treasure.

Seriously, the issue is more our economic system. It is certainly not humanity in danger of dying out with 8 billion people, on the contrary...

Some argue the wrong people procreate, but meh...

Personally I just think less people want children because they find other things to do.

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

#913

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not alone, Kraig911. It's very hard to be a parent in modern society. My wife and I's friends have basically vanished from our lives, they have zero initiative or interest in coming over to see the kids or help in any way. They say they do, but they rely on us to take the initiative and make social things happen. After dozens of rejections or silence from dozens of them, it's rejection fatigue with the friends…

It's not that being a parent is harder - it's actually easier (excluding the post-WWII American boom years which were a fluke). It's that the floor of being single has risen to stratospheric highs. Being single used to be: boring (no internet, tv, constant dopamine drip. Having kids was an escape from mundane boredom.) Being single used to be: lonely (now we have dating and hookup apps, online games, tons of in-perso…

Agreed. By just about every measure, we're much better off than the past, yet have fewer kids. Statistics have supported this correlation (richer -> fewer kids) for a century, across the board around the worldwide, yet people often still get the causality exactly backwards: it's too expensive to have kids.

Real median incomes have risen, decade after decade.

And because of this, consumption in key categories has improved. For example:

Housing floor space per person, same trend.

Life expectancy, same trend.

Leisure has increased.

Tourism has increased.

Yet the common discussion is that it is unaffordable or impossible to have kids. It's backwards. My grandparents were dirt poor and each came from families with 8-10 people. I'm comparatively very rich and have no kids. The explanation that it's so unaffordable I think is mostly wrong. It's that not having kids for many people is a better deal than before.

The cost of kids isn't unaffordable per se, but rather opportunity cost is too high.

As an example I just came back from travelling the world for six months. I'm rich enough to do that. Which also means the opportunity cost is so great, that it's a lot to sacrifice to have kids. My grandparents had none of that opportunity cost precisely because they weren't rich.

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

#914

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Few women want to have kids. I'm using an app right now

I'm on an app where you can discuss wedding dresses and most women are interested in having children!

I'm joking of course. But a dating app embedded in hookup culture isn't a representative sample of women.

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

#915

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…

Free childcare makes it so much easier. Can’t imagine leaving 80% of my salary at the daycare, but some in the UK do that.

In most countries it's 80% if your household salary is such to support it + household expenses, and approaching 0% if it's not.

And it's intense just for the first few youngest years, when the ratio of daycare employee : baby is 1:2 to 1:4. That doesn't last more than a few years, in which most parents/grandparents want to spend a lot of time with the baby anyway, and less at work.

But from age 4-18 school takes care of the vast majority of daycare hours while you're at work. Even after-school programs become cheap, a group of fifteen 12 year olds can be managed by one daycare employee.

Europe's fifteen minute cities also help, I was going home from school/activities by myself from a young age, because the whole town is walkable/bikeable easily and safely.

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

#916

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 personally think we over urbanised. If i look at my friends circle, most of the urban ones are childless and the rural ones have 2~4 kids. Super anecdotal and totally non scientific observation.

There might be a confounder though, with the causality working backwards.

Rural housing is way cheaper than urban housing.

Urban cultural offering is way more lively than rural cultural offering.

If you want kids you need space, and have no time for fun, so you optimize. You stop paying for cultural offering you don't need, and opt for cheaping housing you do need.

Doesn't mean that urban/rural life makes you have children, rather the opposite. The choice in having children dictates whether you choose rural or urban life.

Not saying it's like this, just offering an alternative theory.

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

#917
post #709

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 literally the only purpose of life to pass on our genetics to our offsprings in a Darwinian sense.

Please don't post the same sentence 3 times in one thread.

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

#918

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Female/leftist projection at its finest. There is no single group more entitled than the AWFL.

There's a book about male domestic violence perpetrators which you really ought to read. It's called "Why Does He Do That?". Author is Bancroft. The vast majority of men in the US are not abusers. But he describes a degree of entitlement to women -- their bodies and minds -- that, in my decades of clinical experience with families and couples, applies to most men in our culture. It's a little parable: > Once upon a t…

Thank you for posting this. This parable does sadly ring true.

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

#919
post #702

This is happening everywhere , including nations with great social systems/healthcare/parental leave/etc. And it happens even when nations try throwing money at the problem. While economic concerns may be worsening the issue - I don't think they're the root cause as many would like to say. I think the root cause is that we have outsmarted our biology. Once you give people education on the risks of sex and pregnancy,…

Everyone is talking about it like a problem that need correcting. Why? Less people seems like it could be better for everyone and everything already here, assuming "great social systems" are in place.

> it could be better for everyone

Unless the life-expectancy also falls significantly, the rising dependency ratio would become an even larger problem.

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

#920

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…

Israel had a net birth rate increase from 2000-2025 despite being at war and under regular rocket barrages for much of that time. While they aren't immune from the global fertility decline, doesn't that skew against "their children will have good lives" at least a little?

I mean, rockets kill about 3 people per year in Israel. I wouldn't overestimate its effect.

Comparatively about 400-500 die in traffic, similar for suicide, about 150-200 from homicide by their fellow countrymen, 1500 from falling, 10 thousand from heartattacks, same for cancer.

I think Israel is uniquely in a very strong nation building phase, culturally. It has a settler and colonist mentality, to bring people and expand. It has had a very high migration percentage throughout its history. Its population has about tenfolded in the past 50 years, not just due to birth. Most of its secular population is also largely in favour of building and expanding Israel as a jewish state, not in a theocratic sense but in a civic/nationality sense. Many Israelis see having children as a form of national continuity in a way that crosses secular-religious lines.

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