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India's surprise baby bust

economist.com

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Re: India's surprise baby bust

#991

Post by Auracle »

BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #160
Auracle wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t necessarily disagree with your overall point, but for some reason at least in US society you’re no longer allowed to broadly talk having kids like you used to be able to. Let me break that norm for a second. So, are other activities more fun than child rearing? Often, yeah. Definitely less stressful. Rewarding? Not in a million goddamned years. Nothing, absolutely nothing, compares to when your kid first walk…

> you’re no longer allowed to broadly talk having kids like you used to be able to I'm not sure that this is the case, could you expand?

I've noticed it in my friend group. My friends will freely talk about parenting and how great it is until one of the childless (by choice) friends show up. It's like we don't want them to feel bad or make it seem like we're criticizing their choice.

Also, I've definitely seen pro-parenthood posts be downvoted on Reddit. I don't mean anything obnoxious, just literally people talking about how they like parenting or how rewarding it is when it's relevant to the conversation. Obviously that's a super liberal group and that's where we see almost all of the decline, though.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#992

Post by kixiQu »

ycombinete wrote: post #989
kixiQu wrote: post #985

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://wol.iza.org/articles/how-does-grandparent-childcare-... In theory very little of it has to be about women specifically, but practice is different. (The expectations that used to exist for ~teenage girls to babysit for free for their relatives are somewhat undersold relative to adult labor, maybe)

What are we doing where looking after children is seen as a con for “the labor supply of senior workers”, and “the labor supply of young mothers”. Won’t someone think of the labour supply! Childcare is labour. It is work. It’s the most important work in a society.

I fully agree! It is in keeping with that sense that it is important that I object to a system where society expects non-parents to do it for free within a mesh of social obligation, and where that burden falls disproportionately on one gender.

My great-great-grandmother was made to drop out of school to take care of her nephew after the child's mother died. This, too, is what a "village" looks like – stunting a girl's future for the needs of someone else's child.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#993

Post by dgoldstein0 »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #781
dgoldstein0 wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics almost certainly play a role, but I think the better way to think about it is how we economize time too. if you are chasing a career, putting in 40,50,60 hours a week - how can you take time off to have a kid? who is going to take care of the kid? Increasingly having kids has gotten more expensive - housing, childcare costs, and general expected investment/supervision of children. In agricultural societ…

I was home alone, it was fine. What do you mean by "kids can't roam around outdoors unsupervised"?

In the US at least, we've gotten to the point that kids under 10 are rarely trusted to be alone and parents risk neglect charges by leaving them. Even the 10-13 range could be a risk. The problem is if someone calls the cops or social services, enough of those departments will take it seriously that as a parent, you really don't want to risk it.

It's a problem, because it's raised the bar for expected supervision effort, likely far beyond what is really needed.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#994

Post by [deleted] »

nercht12 wrote: post #439
nercht12 wrote: post #358

The problem with society is that people are commonly selfish, so the majority of people only do things that benefit them. Children benefited ancient societies. The problem with industrialized societies is that people lost all markers of adulthood. Everything became about worshiping convenience, and once convenience (for short-term pleasure) became "god", people wanted to avoid things they saw as unnecessarily difficu…

The downvotes explain why the world is declining in population. Most people fail to see this is the problem.

[deleted]

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#995

Post by karakoram »

obscurette wrote: post #916
karakoram wrote: post #899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Daycare costs alone are ludicrous, somewhere in the region of 2000-3000 euros PER MONTH. Very attractive numbers. I should look into the daycare business. I am guessing the people running daycare centers probably have several tax incentives too.

You probably don't. Although I'm not from Netherland and can't say for sure, but it probably means that regulation and expenses are also ludicrous.

you are most probably right.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#996

Post by N_Lens »

goodpoint wrote: post #735
N_Lens wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever heard of Malthus?

Yes, a deeply flawed theory.

The point is Malthus was very popular in his day and his predictions appeared iron clad, just like predictions about population collapse seem to be today. Many countries enacted population control programs due to his influence.

Reality often has a funny way of evading predictions.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#997

Post by ezst »

trumpdong wrote: post #822
ezst wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I wonder why. Teen pregnancy sounds so amazing and inconsequential for individuals and societies alike that teens should just be inoculated as a rite of passage or something...

compared to the alternative, it definitely is. The problems with it are mostly artificial ones our society created. If you were God and redesigned human society from scratch, why wouldn't you have them procreate in their most healthy, fertile, and horny years?

Because teenagers are not known for having the best judgement? Because parenting comes with commitments and obligations that, early in life, conflict with other things that are seen as desirable for a well functioning society (education, equality, opportunities)? Having more experience in life generally makes you a better/better-prepared parent?

Don't read me wrong, I'm not stating that the current economic/social pressure is good at producing healthy/happy parents/families, it just doesn't seem good either to turn teenagers into parents. The "sweet spot" probably lies in between, and what you say is very much an appeal to extremes.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#998

Post by ignoramous »

sirwhinesalot wrote: post #834
chrismorgan wrote: post #795

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I’m reading you correctly, you seem to think that two kids takes twice as much effort as one kid? People broadly agree that cost and effort both grow sublinearly. Especially effort, though it is of course much harder to quantify. But personally I suspect that even four kids (serially) may not cross the twice-as-much-effort threshold. Aging affects the amounts and types of effort required, too. Four kids in paralle…

I'm a father of 2. If not for my mother in law I would have gone insane by now. Way harder than 1. 1 was mainly hard because we had no idea what we were doing. With 1 it is pretty easy for a parent to take over while the other rests. Not so with 2 kids. Dealing with a rowdy toddler and a puking newborn at the same time is draining in a way that is impossible to describe.

> Dealing with a rowdy toddler and a puking newborn at the same time is draining in a way that is impossible to describe.

Rowdy toddler with rowdy twins is when you start feeling the singularity.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#999

Post by gradstudent »

jiggawatts wrote: post #645
gradstudent wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nice house in a nice suburb! There's your problem. Everyone wants to live in the same set of well established well resourced neighbourhoods. But there's too many of us. Go out in the 'burbs and accept that owning a house implies a commute you will dislike (among a host of other compromises).

Are you joking right now? I’d have to move a thousand kilometres to some shit hole country town to afford a house on a salary I earn by working as a principal consultant in the central business district! Now imagine the same scenario but with a school teacher, nanny, gardener, or inset job title here that is tied to a specific location. When “existence here with the rest of us who have pulled the ladder up after us”…

> I’d have to move a thousand kilometres to some shit hole country town to afford a house on a salary I earn by working as a principal consultant in the central business district!

I didn't suggest anyone should quit their job. What I said was consider making tradeoffs. Space and affordability in exchange for a longer commute and other distance-related headaches.

>Our children our are our future and they’re being told to jump through flaming hoops… that aren’t even in the same city as their parents!

Nobody is owed the same opportunity as their parents. If the children of the well off have the right to live where they grew up then entire suburbs become enclaves of generational rights-holders.

Many of these problems would go away if cities de-centralised; from one central hub business district to many business districts. The problem, as I see it anyway, is unwillingness to invest in resources and infrastructure, to make satellite developments attractive for business and residents.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#1000

Post by bfeynman »

conductr wrote: post #981
bfeynman wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to break it to you but those are almost all economic problems in the grand scheme of things.

I disagree on some cases. If I want my child to have roots, same community, same friends, same school, etc. then I can’t move around. That’s not an economic decision. Likewise, sure things like nannies can be hired to increase my flexibility. But, there’s a noneconomic factor of me just not wanting my kids to be raised by nannies. This requires my presence and engagement. These are part of a noneconomic value system.…

factors are not invariant under different economic levels though. For example - if you didn't need to work you can spend all the time in the world with your kids. Someone who has no money and relatively low mobility and has to work night shifts at a factory does not even have the option to consider staying home like that.
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