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India's surprise baby bust

economist.com

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Re: India's surprise baby bust

#921

Post by abc123abc123 »

RadiozRadioz wrote: post #911
matchbok3 wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Climate change is most certainly not an extinction level event. 2. I spend many days with kids. They are great. I suggest you do the same and experience the human experience. Someone had to deal with the piece of crap you were when you were 2 years old, after all. 3. You'll stop praising the lack of children when you are 80 and nobody young wants to take care of you. You will have a lonely, lonely existence.

> You'll stop praising the lack of children when you are 80 and nobody young wants to take care of you. You will have a lonely, lonely existence. I have always considered this to be a selfish sentiment. Wanting children so that you yourself are less lonely. That isn't to say it's a bad thing, mind you.

Yep, difficult to imagine a more egoistic personality. I'm afraid to be alone when I'm old, so I'll create little slaves to take care of me. I don't know how many families I know where the children live on other continents and the parents live by themselves, and see them once a year.

So you'd better brush up on your social skills, having children is no guarantee that someone will take care of you when you are old.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#922

Post by globnomulous »

voiceofchoice wrote: post #904
globnomulous wrote: post #819

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My love for my daughter and my wife enrich my life and contribute more to my happiness than anything else, by far. As you wrote, the majority of the very, very hard work has fallen to my wife. I wouldn't fault any woman, or man, for not wanting it. Still, my wife and I both feel that parenting is the best thing we've ever done or will ever do. It's everything I hoped it would be -- and much more besides. The benefits…

Honestly that's fantastic and I'm glad it turned out that way for you. The world needs parents who actually raise their kids and want to. I only encourage people to do the requisite research to make sure they make the right choice for themselves, because for many it's not.

Agreed. Another comment in the thread describes the author's horrible, abuse-filled upbringing as the child of young parents who both weren't prepared for children and, in at least one case, didn't want them and blamed him for their circumstances. I can't fathom any of that and my heart breaks for the guy and the kid he used to be.

It's really unfortunate that people who are likeliest to make terrible choices are probably also likely to make the choice to have kids. A lot of people who choose not to have kids generally know themselves well enough to make the right choice, which also means that they'd probably be better parents than a lot of the clueless people who wind up with kids they never should have had.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#923

Post by matchbok3 »

abc123abc123 wrote: post #918
matchbok3 wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is hard to explain to 20 year olds that bragging about their trip to Europe means nothing when you are 45.

How strange. My experiences when I was young mean way more to me, than say, a trip to the US now. Now it's just boring routine, back then, everything was new and fresh. You must have had a very boring time when you were young. It is very sad.

Not sure what you are referring to. My point was that "traveling" is meaningless when you have a family.

The personal attack is immature. Grow up champ, you'll be happier!

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#924

Post by matchbok3 »

abc123abc123 wrote: post #921
RadiozRadioz wrote: post #911

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'll stop praising the lack of children when you are 80 and nobody young wants to take care of you. You will have a lonely, lonely existence. I have always considered this to be a selfish sentiment. Wanting children so that you yourself are less lonely. That isn't to say it's a bad thing, mind you.

Yep, difficult to imagine a more egoistic personality. I'm afraid to be alone when I'm old, so I'll create little slaves to take care of me. I don't know how many families I know where the children live on other continents and the parents live by themselves, and see them once a year. So you'd better brush up on your social skills, having children is no guarantee that someone will take care of you when you are old.

Slaves? Get real kid. Obviously nothing is guaranteed. But family is family, and is worth having.

You clearly are a angry, bitter person. Perhaps that is why you are alone.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#925

Post by InsideOutSanta »

i_idiot wrote: post #8

What's the strong case against population dwindling other than supporting aging population? Given the AI armageddon, it just makes sense to reduce the population. If there's less population, we need less production and less workers. Of course, countries have to deal with oldest population for a brief period of time.

Yeah, a large portion of this is caused by better access to birth control, anyway. This is a good signal of a society becoming healthier and wealthier and should be celebrated.

Given the constant productivity improvements, elder care is not something that can only be solved by having constantly growing populations.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#926

Post by Ifkaluva »

skissane wrote: post #789
Ifkaluva wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m going to try to win the award for the most controversial theory on this thread. The real reason we are having population shrinkage is because evolution did a crappy job. It didn’t tune us to want to have kids, it tuned us to want to have sex, and it linked to sex to reproduction. As we got smarter, and eventually develop contraception, we are essentially reward hacking evolution’s crude hack. What’s going to happ…

Last month, the US Census Bureau released their 2025 population estimates. In the ~5 years from April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025, it estimates Kiryas Joel's population grew from 32,956 to 47,147 – a 43.1% increase. [0] That's not spectacular in the figures themselves–you'll see bigger bumps when new suburbs are established–but it is spectacular in being almost all due to natural increase instead of migration. Evolution…

I’ve heard this theory before. I think in the medium term it will have some effect, but a lot of these ultra religious groups have high attrition.

In the long run, evolution will have to do the job properly and actually genetically make us want more kids.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#927

Post by Izkata »

trumpdong wrote: post #832
Izkata wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking along those lines, a desire to "have children" may have even been bad - no built in stopping point. New child every year, resources overwhelmed...

There was a science fiction story I read about that once, an alien species that would die if they didn't give birth every year. I think they tried everything from hormone modification to mass baby dump pits but they couldn't maintain a stable society for longer than about fifty years when overpopulation killed everyone, so thrt just gave up. Actually more than one, because I also read one about scientists deciphering…

The first one sounded familiar and I've definitely read the plot summary of this before, but not the book so I don't know if the rest of that description applies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God%27s_Eye

The other one appears to be https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15744759-three-worlds-co... (summary and review at https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/up854p/three... )

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#928

Post by missedthecue »

Angostura wrote: post #771
throwaway629532 wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want people to have kids, you need to make sure they are economically secure by the time they are of childbearing age... which means before they are 30. I’m 24 and have enough money. I want kids. I think I won’t be able to have any. Most of my friends are in the same boat.

If not money, what are the types of issue you face?

Pairing seems to be the primary issue. The old social technology we had to increase the amounts of intersexual cooperation have for various reasons been discarded, but they have not been replaced with anything.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#929

Post by missedthecue »

autoexec wrote: post #411
everdrive wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, women's overall fertility drops off a cliff after 30, but this is downplayed because the extreme sensitivity of the issue.

It's not just women either. The older the father is the more you get risks for certain things like mental illness in the child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_age_effect

A 60 year old man can reliably have children. It is essentially impossible for a 60 year old woman to have children. The risk of defects from poor sperm increase from about 2% in your twenties to 4% in your sixties.

However, men do have a biological clock and that clock is simply that they are proxied to women's clocks. Mick Jagger can get a young girlfriend and have babies in his old age because he is famous with lots of money. The typical man cannot do this and should not plan on being able to do this. The data tells us that if a man reaches 45 without children, it is extremely unlikely that he will ever have kids, even if his sperm tests perfectly in the lab.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#930

Post by missedthecue »

nikanj wrote: post #447
m_fayer wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a different pet explanation from the other replies here, and I honestly don't get why it's not talked about more. Basically, our economic reality and expectations have come into conflict with biology and human lifespan. If you want a secured dignified life and basic prerequisites to starting a family, every year that takes a little longer. And these days, almost everyone wants that dignified middle class life…

Take an average 22-year old. Tell them they just won the lottery, and never have to worry about money ever again. Do you think they'll be interested in starting a family?

There are studies on this in both Sweden and the US. Young men who win the lottery have children at higher rates than the control group. Young women who in the lottery have children at equal or lower rates than the control group.
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