Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

921–930 of 1001 posts

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

#921

Post by kashunstva »

tormeh wrote: post #898

Becoming a parent is basically a destruction of the self. My sister and her husband get 1-2 hours of time for themselves per day, and then they are too tired to do anything but watch TV. They've ceased to exist as individuals, basically. To them, work and the office are their places of relaxation. They're not on HN to explain this to anyone because they just don't have the time.

> Becoming a parent is basically a destruction of the self.

I am a parent and have definitely felt very stressed on account of children. But as for feeling like my "self" was destroyed, I can't really say I ever experienced that; and I'm not even sure about the idea of a fixed immutable self anyway. I'm not advocating for having children, or against having children; but I don't think I was crushed as a human being because of my choice.

My last child is graduating from high school this year. She's a violinist and I'm a pianist. I've always accompanied her since she was 3; and we do a lot of musical collaborations. I definitely feel like my sense of self is expanded by all of this. But maybe I just got lucky.

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

#922

Post by lotsofpulp »

cgsmith wrote: post #588
scottious wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every morning I get to my son's school about 10 minutes before the doors open. We arrive by bike and we sit ALONE on the benches near the front door. Meanwhile, the curb is full of extra large SUVs idling with kids just waiting inside the cars. The long line of SUVs extends all through the neighborhood. My son and I are alone because people just won't leave their cars until the doors open. A vast majority of the kids…

This is exactly how it was for me and my family when we lived in Wisconsin. We live in Germany now. Everyone walks to school or bikes - there is community.

The funny thing about that in the context of this thread is Wisconsin has a Total Fertility Rate of 1.7 and Germany has a TFR of 1.3.

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

#923

Post by [deleted] »

slaw wrote: post #843
tuna74 wrote: post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People in their 20's will see peak world population in their lifetime. It will be fascinating to see how society changes over the decades that follow that." I am 45. I have fairly big* chance of making the global population curve actually drop! *OK, not really, but you get the point I hope....

All projections show world population growth until at least 2100, thanks to Africa birth rate above 4.

[deleted]

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

#924

Post by rune-dev »

dan_mctree wrote: post #411
hackinthebochs wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dimension of this issue that never gets air time is that we've made having kids almost completely intentional. The richer a country becomes, the more intentional having kids becomes. The dynamic we see with rich countries is that as having kids becomes more intentional, there's also the increase in reasons why people would choose to delay or forego having kids.

Yes, this absolutely appears to be the main reason. Both in practical terms through birth control, but also through cultural terms in that it's now seen as a choice rather than as an obvious thing you do. To change this course, we probably need to change the culture first so that a birth control ban will be supported. That's currently not looking likely, so population collapse it is

How is forcing people to have children they don’t want a good outcome?

How about we set up society in such a way that choosing to have children is a more appealing option.

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

#925

Post by lotsofpulp »

Gud wrote: post #899
prirun wrote: post #757

There are big economic differences and expectations between when I was growing up in the 60's and now. My parents married right out of high school, which was pretty much the norm I think. I lived on a dead-end street where nearly every house had kids my age. Dads worked, moms didn't. Moms might babysit, iron, do laundry for others, etc., but moms took care of the house and the kids. The houses were 850 sq ft, most wi…

Everyone should ask themselves why the working class and middle class can’t afford to have the same lifestyles that were possible 60 years ago, While 0.1% of the population live like God kings. Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk sure as shit don’t feel the effects of “inflation”.

Everyone should ask themselves how much healthcare, and how high quality of healthcare, and how much defined benefit pensions old people received during prirun’s parents’ young days.

It’s 2/3rd of all federal government spend today, and doesn’t even included all the state and local government spend. There are cities and states spending double digit percentages on paying for pensions and retiree healthcare for labor that happened in the past.

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...

You can liquidate all the equity rich people have (which will cause its price to drop precipitously and so you won’t get as much you think it will), but it won’t make a lick of a difference, because the numbers show the wealth transfer from working to non working is far, far greater than it was when prirun’s parents were young.

That is one of the reasons prirun’s dad had much more purchasing power. The president just said the country’s goal is to make sure the people who own land are prioritized over those who don’t, by keeping house prices high.

https://youtu.be/ToJxd3HBviE

That would not have helped prirun’s dad buy a house out of high school. Everything we do is to benefit the asset owners and the old, at the expense of the young and yet to be born. And it’s happening all over the world.

We don’t want young people to have more fruits of their labor, we want the fruits of their labor to be eaten by old people to meet their expectations of quality of life because they are a bigger voting bloc.

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

#926

Post by tormeh »

kashunstva wrote: post #921
tormeh wrote: post #898

Becoming a parent is basically a destruction of the self. My sister and her husband get 1-2 hours of time for themselves per day, and then they are too tired to do anything but watch TV. They've ceased to exist as individuals, basically. To them, work and the office are their places of relaxation. They're not on HN to explain this to anyone because they just don't have the time.

> Becoming a parent is basically a destruction of the self. I am a parent and have definitely felt very stressed on account of children. But as for feeling like my "self" was destroyed, I can't really say I ever experienced that; and I'm not even sure about the idea of a fixed immutable self anyway. I'm not advocating for having children, or against having children; but I don't think I was crushed as a human being be…

I should have made clear that being a parent _of young children_ is destruction of the self. I'm sure once the kids are all old enough to use the toilet independently and otherwise entertain themselves it will be different. But right now their situation reminds me less of a lifestyle and more some kind of punishment.

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

#927

Post by dbspin »

bombcar wrote: post #127
dbspin wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's a country in Europe that funds childcare remotely to the level of cost. The most generous I'm aware of is certain states / cities in Germany that provide free 'Kita', essentially Kindergarten. In addition to maternity leave, national insurance etc. But this certainly doesn't cover the numerous costs (including time off work etc) associated with having kids. Would be an interesting experiment to…

We do pay people to have kids in the USA - once you're on welfare. Your WIC and EBT allowances go up per kid. And even if you're not that poor, you get subsidized kids through things like the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. It's annoying that while some of those support 3+ kids, many "top out" at three and stop increasing. I've often thought of searching for "sponsorships" for additional children (…

You've missed my point... Those allowances and subsidies don't remotely cover the cost of having children. Especially in the US with the wild costs of hospital childbirth itself.

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

#928

Post by acdha »

charcircuit wrote: post #637
philipwhiuk wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No view on fatherhood? Quelle surprise

That is also important, but I think it is a step separate from the birth rate.

They’re pretty tightly coupled. Mothers do the hardest part but human children are incredibly expensive in terms of the time investment. If society wants to have more children, one of the easiest ways to reduce that burden is by sharing the load evenly across both parents. This is also important for political reasons: dads who do half of the work are more likely to understand why the expenses for things like government-provided childcare are good societal investments.

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

#929

Post by 4gotunameagain »

munificent wrote: post #756
dan_mctree wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this absolutely appears to be the main reason. Both in practical terms through birth control, but also through cultural terms in that it's now seen as a choice rather than as an obvious thing you do. To change this course, we probably need to change the culture first so that a birth control ban will be supported. That's currently not looking likely, so population collapse it is

> To change this course, we probably need to change the culture first so that a birth control ban will be supported. This is the most casually psychotic thing I've read on HN. You're advocating forcing women to bear children they don't want and taking away control over their own body.

We need to strike the right balance between personal benefit/freedom and societal benefit.

Clearly we are way too on the individualistic side of the pendulum now.

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

#930

Post by tsoukase »

frm88 wrote: post #907
tsoukase wrote: post #833

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Childless women don't age well. If they are saved from the effects of a never-pregnant climax on their arteries/metabolism, they will face a dementia cared by nieces. Not that mothers don't have these but physically and psychologically they are much less burdensome. The hormone flooding of pregnancy is a health blessing.

Needs citation for your argument. All I read today on this subject claims the contrary: "Associations between number of children, age at becoming a parent, and dementia risk were similar for both sexes. Lifestyle and socioeconomic factors are more likely to explain the observed associations than normal pregnancy-related physiological changes." https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9976501/

The article doesn't compare 0 with N children.

Caring for elderly depends on the role of family in society. In my country family still plays a huge role so having no direct descendants has it's impact.

Post reply on HN