5 ms·

Eh, in spite of the judgey-sounding title (and defensive sounding replies here on HN), a skim suggests this is just factual data, without suggestions as to why

by Mz 10y ago

Eh, in spite of the judgey-sounding title (and defensive sounding replies here on HN), a skim suggests this is just factual data, without suggestions as to why this is a trend. I think one factor that gets largely overlooked is that these are people who grew up in The Information Age. My 29 year old son has told me that long before he knew sex was supposed to be enjoyable, he understood it could lead to life altering responsibilities (baby, long term ties to the mother) or even deadly disease. Lots of marriages are not happy -- even if it doesn't end in divorce, you can just be stuck with a sucky situation. I don't see any reason to assume we need to have everyone aspiring to marriage. With 7 billion people on the planet, it is not like there is some population shortage that needs to be remedied.

jxramos 10y ago
But there's a difference between population shortage and looming population shortage based on sub-replacement fertility rates. I think folks alive today are going to witness some pretty unprecedented things. Someone posted this on HN sometime back, or maybe one of the articles from it http://graphics.wsj.com/2050-demographic-destiny/ http://graphics.wsj.com/2050-demographic-destiny/ I've been wondering when this stuff is going to hit and what it's going to look like tangibly.
- Mz 10y ago
  It's interesting, but it is also unnecessarily negative in subtle ways, such as: Empowering women tends to lower fertility rates. Everything I have read indicates that empowering women -- a topic I am highly interested in, what with being a woman -- first lowers infant mortality rates. In country after country after country, fertility rates fall after child mortality rates come down. The result is a swell in population during that period when mortality rates are declining but fertility rates are not. I have read quite a few articles on the ways in which we are increasingly using technology to empower seniors to remain independent and stay in their own home longer while getting the support they need as they age. People are living longer in part because of general improvements to health. This bizarre idea we have that everyone over age 65 should be retired is modern crazy talk. When 65 was picked as the age at which Social Security would start, I believe 67 was the average life expectancy. This was envisioned as taking care of seniors in extreme old age, in the last couple of years of their life, after most of them had worked very physically hard in factories or on farms. It was not envisioned as "All humans have some god given right to a permanent vacation of a decade or more merely for surviving to the magic number." Change is coming. That doesn't mean it is necessarily something terrible.
zzalpha 10y ago
I don't see any reason to assume we need to have everyone aspiring to marriage. With 7 billion people on the planet, it is not like there is some population shortage that needs to be remedied. To me, the real question should be if this is symptomatic of larger issues. Perhaps people aren't getting married because they don't want to. If so, eh, more power to 'em. But if it's because of, say, a lack of economic opportunities, lack of adequate health care coverage, lack of adequate savings, excess debt, increasing inflation, etc, etc, well, those are issues that need to be dealt with, not to "save" marriage, but to ensure the economy and broader society function in a way that best benefits everyone.

by Mz 10y ago

jxramos 10y ago

But there's a difference between population shortage and looming population shortage based on sub-replacement fertility rates. I think folks alive today are going to witness some pretty unprecedented things. Someone posted this on HN sometime back, or maybe one of the articles from it http://graphics.wsj.com/2050-demographic-destiny/ http://graphics.wsj.com/2050-demographic-destiny/ I've been wondering when this stuff is going to hit and what it's going to look like tangibly.

Mz 10y ago
It's interesting, but it is also unnecessarily negative in subtle ways, such as: Empowering women tends to lower fertility rates. Everything I have read indicates that empowering women -- a topic I am highly interested in, what with being a woman -- first lowers infant mortality rates. In country after country after country, fertility rates fall after child mortality rates come down. The result is a swell in population during that period when mortality rates are declining but fertility rates are not. I have read quite a few articles on the ways in which we are increasingly using technology to empower seniors to remain independent and stay in their own home longer while getting the support they need as they age. People are living longer in part because of general improvements to health. This bizarre idea we have that everyone over age 65 should be retired is modern crazy talk. When 65 was picked as the age at which Social Security would start, I believe 67 was the average life expectancy. This was envisioned as taking care of seniors in extreme old age, in the last couple of years of their life, after most of them had worked very physically hard in factories or on farms. It was not envisioned as "All humans have some god given right to a permanent vacation of a decade or more merely for surviving to the magic number." Change is coming. That doesn't mean it is necessarily something terrible.

zzalpha 10y ago

I don't see any reason to assume we need to have everyone aspiring to marriage. With 7 billion people on the planet, it is not like there is some population shortage that needs to be remedied. To me, the real question should be if this is symptomatic of larger issues. Perhaps people aren't getting married because they don't want to. If so, eh, more power to 'em. But if it's because of, say, a lack of economic opportunities, lack of adequate health care coverage, lack of adequate savings, excess debt, increasing inflation, etc, etc, well, those are issues that need to be dealt with, not to "save" marriage, but to ensure the economy and broader society function in a way that best benefits everyone.