6 ms·

As half of a thirty somethings couple that wants children but can’t afford the financial implications in the Bay Area, it seems pretty clear to me why fertility

As half of a thirty somethings couple that wants children but can’t afford the financial implications in the Bay Area, it seems pretty clear to me why fertility is down.

jacquesm 8y ago
Well, you could of course move but in the end it is mostly about priorities.
- wetpaws 8y ago
  Going from expensive area with good job market to slightly less expensive area with little to no job market. Rrright.
  - urda 8y ago
    The Bay is not the be-all and end-all for jobs. Full stop. In fact, it's likely going to be on the downturn if they can't get the housing situation and the growing income gap under control. If a couple wants kids, and they can't pull it off in the Bay Area and it's a high priority item, you can bet they are on the way out.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    You could move to a much less expensive area with a reasonable job market. It's not all black-and-white, people stare themselves blind on what their take home pay is but quality of life is at least as important. I would not move to the valley for any kind of money given that it would stop me from having the life that I would like to live. It's not as if SV is the only place in the world with a job market. Though if you're early 20's and have nothing to lose in the world then it might be a good spot to start simply because what you make there in a couple of years can buy you a home cash somewhere else if you play it smart and keep your costs way down.
    - Teknoman117 8y ago
      This is what I did (as far as a job goes). While southern California is still really expensive by national standards, the cost of living is half that of the bay area while the pay isn't that much less.
    - fossuser 8y ago
      You honestly don't even have to keep your costs way down. If you just live with roommates and don't actively try and spend a ton of money you'll be able to save enough in seven to ten years to probably buy a house somewhere else (or at least cover 60% of it). The trick is that reestablishing an entire friend network and getting comfortable in an area takes time. The first year or two in a place is usually more difficult and I suspect this gets even harder as you get older and people are paired off. If you live in the bay area in your 20s with roommates and then pick up and move to Austin or Boulder at 30 it's probably hard to make friends (though I'd guess dating is probably a lot easier).
  - diminoten 8y ago
    Job market is different now, some of those Bay Area jobs are mobile, at least within the Pacific time zone.
  - ddebernardy 8y ago
    FWIW I'd pick the latter in a heart beat - in it right now, if anything. I can't name anything more life fulfilling than having kids.
  - dionidium 8y ago
    A version of your comment is posted in response to every suggestion that somebody leave expensive coastal areas. One wonders what the heck you think is going on in the rest of the country. There are jobs in other cities. The idea that there is "little or no job market" outside of NYC and San Francisco is -- I'm sorry, there's no other way to say it -- absurd. The fact that you forward this claim with such smugness -- "rrrright" -- makes it all the more baffling. Where are you getting these ideas? Click-bait articles about the Rust Belt? A few figures on median income. These cities were chosen at random: - Cincinnati-Middletown Ohio metro area was $60,260 - Indianapolis-Carmel Indiana metro area was $56,750 - Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro-Franklin Tennessee metro area was $60,030 Compare to: - Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Washington metro area was $78,612 - San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA Metro Area was $96,677 - New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metro Area was $71,897 So, look, San Francisco is an outlier, even by the standards of big, growing cities with lots of jobs. But look at those others. The median income in Cincinnati is about $10k less than in New York City. Do you think the cost of living in New York City is only about $10k more per year than in Cincinnati? Of course not. The cost of living differences between the cities in that first group and the cities in the second group far, far, far outpace those earnings differences. So, you're wrong on both counts. The cheaper cities aren't "slightly less expensive;" they are vastly less expensive.
    - magduf 8y ago
      There's "jobs" in all those places, but not necessarily jobs the OP can do. I lived in the NYC area for a short time, and the job market there for my specialty and experience was terrible. Here in the DC area, it's excellent. Places like Indianapolis, Nashville, etc., would also likely be terrible for me. Certain industries and specialties are concentrated mainly in certain areas, so if you're specialized, you have to stick to those places.
      - dionidium 8y ago
        Yes, of course. If you're a deep sea fisherman, it's trivially provable that you can't do that job in Nebraska :) But that's never what these guys mean. It's always casually advanced as a blanket statement about the hopelessness of living somewhere that you can't smell the ocean. I don't know why it became popular to demonstrate such obvious ignorance about the job markets of inland cities, but here we are. I, for example, know precisely nothing about the job market in, say, Salt Lake City, but that's why I don't make statements on the internet about the job market in Salt Lake City.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    > Going from expensive area with good job market to slightly less expensive area with little to no job market. You forgot many options, such as slightly less expensive area with good job market. Or much less expensive area with reasonable job market. I'm not even sure I know of a place that's only slightly less expensive but has little to no job market.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
souprock 8y ago
Each day on my walk to work, I pass by a couple houses for sale. They are on .25 acre lots, less than a mile from the beach, and likely to sell for about $250,000 each. That is, uh, about 10% of the San Francisco cost or 20% of the general Bay Area cost. Salaries are more like 50%, and of course that also means a lower income tax bracket. Other stuff is cheaper too, like food and gasoline. Last I checked, the price of gasoline was about 50% of what you have to pay. The finances work out fine. I have 11 kids. At age 35, probably 2/3 of the childbearing years are gone. (could be all gone, could have another dozen years) You'd better hurry.
- nuna 8y ago
  where
  - souprock 8y ago
    Indialantic, FL This is a 4-bedroom house, supposedly for $275,000 but likely to go cheaper: https://www.trulia.com/p/fl/indialantic/421-e-riviera-blvd-indialantic-fl-32903--1068558733 https://www.trulia.com/p/fl/indialantic/421-e-riviera-blvd-i... There are a couple smaller places, a tad cheaper, on neighboring streets. One can work for Raytheon, Northrop Grummen, Harris, Lockheed Martin, Thales, GE (trains), and several cybersecurity startups. All of those are doing well. Doing less well I think, there is also: Intersil (a wireless chip company), DRS (a military optics company), NASA contractors, etc. I don't believe this place is particularly special. All across America, there are smallish cities in which the finances work out for tech professionals.
    - nuna 8y ago
      thanks for replying, the schools here are awful so I am looking at other places as options

As half of a thirty somethings couple that wants children but can’t afford the financial implications in the Bay Area, it seems pretty clear to me why fertility is down.

jacquesm 8y ago

Well, you could of course move but in the end it is mostly about priorities.

wetpaws 8y ago
Going from expensive area with good job market to slightly less expensive area with little to no job market. Rrright.
- urda 8y ago
  The Bay is not the be-all and end-all for jobs. Full stop. In fact, it's likely going to be on the downturn if they can't get the housing situation and the growing income gap under control. If a couple wants kids, and they can't pull it off in the Bay Area and it's a high priority item, you can bet they are on the way out.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  You could move to a much less expensive area with a reasonable job market. It's not all black-and-white, people stare themselves blind on what their take home pay is but quality of life is at least as important. I would not move to the valley for any kind of money given that it would stop me from having the life that I would like to live. It's not as if SV is the only place in the world with a job market. Though if you're early 20's and have nothing to lose in the world then it might be a good spot to start simply because what you make there in a couple of years can buy you a home cash somewhere else if you play it smart and keep your costs way down.
  - Teknoman117 8y ago
    This is what I did (as far as a job goes). While southern California is still really expensive by national standards, the cost of living is half that of the bay area while the pay isn't that much less.
  - fossuser 8y ago
    You honestly don't even have to keep your costs way down. If you just live with roommates and don't actively try and spend a ton of money you'll be able to save enough in seven to ten years to probably buy a house somewhere else (or at least cover 60% of it). The trick is that reestablishing an entire friend network and getting comfortable in an area takes time. The first year or two in a place is usually more difficult and I suspect this gets even harder as you get older and people are paired off. If you live in the bay area in your 20s with roommates and then pick up and move to Austin or Boulder at 30 it's probably hard to make friends (though I'd guess dating is probably a lot easier).
- diminoten 8y ago
  Job market is different now, some of those Bay Area jobs are mobile, at least within the Pacific time zone.
- ddebernardy 8y ago
  FWIW I'd pick the latter in a heart beat - in it right now, if anything. I can't name anything more life fulfilling than having kids.
- dionidium 8y ago
  A version of your comment is posted in response to every suggestion that somebody leave expensive coastal areas. One wonders what the heck you think is going on in the rest of the country. There are jobs in other cities. The idea that there is "little or no job market" outside of NYC and San Francisco is -- I'm sorry, there's no other way to say it -- absurd. The fact that you forward this claim with such smugness -- "rrrright" -- makes it all the more baffling. Where are you getting these ideas? Click-bait articles about the Rust Belt? A few figures on median income. These cities were chosen at random: - Cincinnati-Middletown Ohio metro area was $60,260 - Indianapolis-Carmel Indiana metro area was $56,750 - Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro-Franklin Tennessee metro area was $60,030 Compare to: - Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Washington metro area was $78,612 - San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA Metro Area was $96,677 - New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metro Area was $71,897 So, look, San Francisco is an outlier, even by the standards of big, growing cities with lots of jobs. But look at those others. The median income in Cincinnati is about $10k less than in New York City. Do you think the cost of living in New York City is only about $10k more per year than in Cincinnati? Of course not. The cost of living differences between the cities in that first group and the cities in the second group far, far, far outpace those earnings differences. So, you're wrong on both counts. The cheaper cities aren't "slightly less expensive;" they are vastly less expensive.
  - magduf 8y ago
    There's "jobs" in all those places, but not necessarily jobs the OP can do. I lived in the NYC area for a short time, and the job market there for my specialty and experience was terrible. Here in the DC area, it's excellent. Places like Indianapolis, Nashville, etc., would also likely be terrible for me. Certain industries and specialties are concentrated mainly in certain areas, so if you're specialized, you have to stick to those places.
    - dionidium 8y ago
      Yes, of course. If you're a deep sea fisherman, it's trivially provable that you can't do that job in Nebraska :) But that's never what these guys mean. It's always casually advanced as a blanket statement about the hopelessness of living somewhere that you can't smell the ocean. I don't know why it became popular to demonstrate such obvious ignorance about the job markets of inland cities, but here we are. I, for example, know precisely nothing about the job market in, say, Salt Lake City, but that's why I don't make statements on the internet about the job market in Salt Lake City.
- kodablah 8y ago
  > Going from expensive area with good job market to slightly less expensive area with little to no job market. You forgot many options, such as slightly less expensive area with good job market. Or much less expensive area with reasonable job market. I'm not even sure I know of a place that's only slightly less expensive but has little to no job market.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

souprock 8y ago

Each day on my walk to work, I pass by a couple houses for sale. They are on .25 acre lots, less than a mile from the beach, and likely to sell for about $250,000 each. That is, uh, about 10% of the San Francisco cost or 20% of the general Bay Area cost. Salaries are more like 50%, and of course that also means a lower income tax bracket. Other stuff is cheaper too, like food and gasoline. Last I checked, the price of gasoline was about 50% of what you have to pay. The finances work out fine. I have 11 kids. At age 35, probably 2/3 of the childbearing years are gone. (could be all gone, could have another dozen years) You'd better hurry.

nuna 8y ago
where
- souprock 8y ago
  Indialantic, FL This is a 4-bedroom house, supposedly for $275,000 but likely to go cheaper: https://www.trulia.com/p/fl/indialantic/421-e-riviera-blvd-indialantic-fl-32903--1068558733 https://www.trulia.com/p/fl/indialantic/421-e-riviera-blvd-i... There are a couple smaller places, a tad cheaper, on neighboring streets. One can work for Raytheon, Northrop Grummen, Harris, Lockheed Martin, Thales, GE (trains), and several cybersecurity startups. All of those are doing well. Doing less well I think, there is also: Intersil (a wireless chip company), DRS (a military optics company), NASA contractors, etc. I don't believe this place is particularly special. All across America, there are smallish cities in which the finances work out for tech professionals.
  - nuna 8y ago
    thanks for replying, the schools here are awful so I am looking at other places as options