22 ms·

The birthrate in the U.S. is the lowest it’s been in 30 years

89 points by pm24601 8y ago

Ancalagon 8y ago
I know how obvious this connection probably seems to everyone, but I find it so fascinating that birthrates can be such a good indicator of economic health. Hopefully Millenial birthrates are only delayed, not completely reduced by the economic challenges they face.
salawat 8y ago
There were a couple points in there that could, may, should have been left on the cutting room floor. Some good points were made however. Social Security in its original Ponzi-Schemesque form will end up even worse for wear with declining birthrates. (Not saying Social Security is bad in concept, but it only works in times of sharp population growth, and even then, banking on the youth to carry you just because seems squicky to many ). The observation of millenials being reluctant to have children is also spot on. Many that I have spoken to in the demographic are very much a "lost generation". They've seen parent's and elder's life savings disappear. They have a harder and harder time adjusting to a world that seems specifically tuned to resist and feed off of them. See financial product/debt product proliferation. It's harder to find opportunity when one has an additional complication of digital footprint to manage with a dearth of interest in anyone older than them willing or interested in making sure the past engraved on the net doesn't mark them for life. The hamfisted "feminist" overtones aside, the article makes a chilling point. Long cycle economic predation and the social pressures to avoid debt first and foremost are an effective suicide switch at the population scale. An entire generation has been shaped by these pressures, and with no relief in sight, a drastic shift in values may be needed to avoid a grievous societal destabilization. Interesting times indeed.
- AIX2ESXI 8y ago
  Great critical analysis. Generally, I avoid Vox articles due to the unsubtle feminist ideologies that are interwoven in their articles. Saw a recent cringe Vox interview with Jordan Peterson that kept trying put words in his mouth and avoided the issues he brought up as usual. Personally, I see the writing on the wall for America and am doing everything I can to move out of here in the next 4 years. As a young American cis gendered man in his 30's, I see no future for myself outside of being someone's mortgage hound or alimony sugar daddy. I can have a higher quality of life and and my SMV will be higher in most developing countries. I wonder if we will start seeing a massive exodus from America by professional Gen X/ millennials.
  - devereaux 8y ago
    > I avoid Vox articles due to the unsubtle feminist ideologies > (...) recent cringe Vox interview with Jordan Peterson that kept trying put words in his mouth > (...) I see no future for myself outside of being someone's mortgage hound or alimony sugar daddy. That escalated quickly!
    - soontobemd55 8y ago
      I feel this too. Most of my cis male friends won't date people that will make less money than them. I know I won't.
      - kasey_junk 8y ago
        Is your intention to have a partner that walks in lockstep through career paths over the course of a long career? How do you intend to deal with illness, career changes & family raising?
        dominotw 8y ago
        I think lower earning person can make up by doing extra chores and house work. That's what I do now. Not sure how fair that is but I think it's fair.
      - AIX2ESXI 8y ago
        Yup. Most men will actually marry down economically, but women generally marry up economically. Perhaps when this is finally noticed, men will only marry their equals. With women graduating college at higher rates, perhaps this changes? https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/marrying-down-why-men-are-the-ones-now-looking-for-wealthy-wives-20170831-gy7ykl.html https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/marrying-down-why-men-are-the...
        Jedd 8y ago
        > Most men will actually marry down economically, but women generally marry up economically. If the first phrase is true, then the second must also be. Of course we're conflating income with wealth (or 'economical value'), which may be fraught. > Perhaps when this is finally noticed, men will only marry their equals. I think asking all men to think the way you think is going to be disappointing. I also think that proposing the evaluation of people based on income and/or economic potential is breathtakingly depressing.
- grawprog 8y ago
  ...as much as I know it's pointless commenting on things... Here's my perspective. I'm thirty, I've been in a relationship since I was 17...the same relationship..we've talked about kids a lot...at this point...I really don't think even with both of us steadily working for several years now at decent jobs we can afford to raise a kid. We've agreed we don't feel like it's fair to raise a child without being able to provide a decent standard of life and our own standard of life ia not the best as it is, despite both of us working full time, with regular overtime, at skilled jobs. As far as online presence goes...clearly as I'm shadowbanned on here I haven't quite grasped the...uh...I would say subtlties, I suppose, of having a reasonable online presence. I haven't gotten used to the idea of the internet being a place where one posts real personal information, despite having been on the internet since the early nineties....I still see it as a place where identities don't matter and people who post personal information online are fucking idiots. In all honesty, i've never really participated much on online communities until recently but still go about it with that nineties mindset not really understanding people are fairly hypersensitive (a bunch of little bitches) to stuff online these days.. I keep a fairly strict separation between stuff I do on a computer online and everything else in my life. I realize it's a necessity to start mixing the two...but I find it hard to combine an online presence with my real life stuff. It's one of these thing's i've beeen working on though because i've found that's what all my friends and people I know have done.
- kartan 8y ago
  > (Not saying Social Security is bad in concept, but it only works in times of sharp population growth, and even then, banking on the youth to carry you just because seems squicky to many ). Social Security works with economic growth. It doesn't matter if you get 10 babies or 10 robots. Automation makes possible to keep proper living standards without exponential population growth. Social Security, as other services like education, stops working because it is not shared. Actually, with enough automation, it is easier to satisfy a smaller population. There are 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the United States. Self-driving trucks mean that you need 3.5 million fewer babies to carry out that task. Just 3 million if you actually need 500,000 people to maintain the software. So, I agree with you that in the past Social Security was depending on population growth. That has been changing fast for the past 50 years. There is no economical reason to not have Social Security in the future.
  - darawk 8y ago
    I believe you mean that some theoretical structure vaguely like social security could work, in principle, without population growth. However, the social security system we actually have acquires its funds from the income of individuals. You could structure social security as a tax on capital, but that isn't how it currently works.
    - kartan 8y ago
      > You could structure social security as a tax on capital, but that isn't how it currently works. Yes. 100% true. I just mean that it can be changed. It is not an economic constraint, but it is the current situation.
  - koolba 8y ago
    Self driving trucks don’t pay payroll taxes (as distinct from general income tax). The engineers and mechanics maintaining them do, but if the net cost of them plus the tech isn’t cheaper than the current human driving approach then the industry wouldn’t be switching to it anyway.
  - chillwaves 8y ago
- crdoconnor 8y ago
  The narrative that social security will eventually bankrupt the country (or the updated version: "it's a ponzi") dates back to its inception 80 years ago and it's been pretty consistent ever since: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/post_9910_b_7988992.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/post_9910_b_7988... While the economy has grown about ~400% dependency ratios have gone up about 11% I think. Social security's affordability has always been about political choice - e.g. tax cuts for the wealthy or money for pensioners.
- sametmax 8y ago
  Also a lot of people don't want children. It's a lot of responsabilities and constraints, so you need to feel the desired for it. The new generation grew with aids, feel less influenced by the authority selling the one family lifestyle and use more contraception. Now wait for Vasalgel to take off. When males will have total control of their involvment in pregnancy, you will see the numbers go down even more. And probably some serious changes in the man/woman dynamics.
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    > Also a lot of people don't want children. It's a lot of responsabilities and constraints, so you need to feel the desired for it. This is true, but are enough people feeling liberated enough to not have kids to have this be a significant part of the lowered birth rate?
    - sametmax 8y ago
      Well, health aside, to not have kids, you have to actively avoid it. Or be very ugly.
  - u90g4u8904 8y ago
    There's a problem with that argument. http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/05/23/birth-rate-drop http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/05/23/birth-rate-drop Stephanie Coontz, professor of history and family studies at The Evergreen State College: "I think the most important and concerning thing about this is not the number of people who are voluntarily childless, but the tremendous gap between the number of children women said they wanted to have and the number that they will probably have. Early this year, the gap reached its highest level in 40 years. I think we need to think very seriously about what it is that pushes people into this kind of 'delaying.'"
    - sametmax 8y ago
      There is a problem with that argument. You often need a man to make the baby.
8bitsrule 8y ago
Isn't just economic, methinks: Millennials also tend to be more perceptive about the costs of overpopulation and the approach of global warming. The wisdom of Small Is Beautiful is not so lost on them.
- hugh4life 8y ago
  "Small Is Beautiful" Um, E. F. Schumacher had 8 kids. He was more concerned with how people interacted with each other and not overpopulation.
- deleted 8y ago
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- alf-pogz 8y ago
  Speak for yourself. I'm petrified by the prospect of lack of growth. It is what our economy is built on, and a larger population could result in better science. There is plenty of land in the United States. Even our cities in the rust belt are underpopulated.
  - AIX2ESXI 8y ago
    Exactly, have you seen these mid west ghost towns? Scary dystopian stuff.
    - chillwaves 8y ago
      They are ghost towns because there are no jobs, not because there are no people. You got cause and effect backwards. At the same time, prosperous cities are booming and rents are rising. It's polarizing.
  - chillwaves 8y ago
    The value of general labor generally decreases with advancements in tools (automation). There are enough people in the US now, enough children, that our education system could focus better on technological and scientific advances for those who show the aptitude (by increasing opportunity and decreasing inequal access to education and jobs).
seem_2211 8y ago
I think it's cutting in at both ends of the economic spectrum as well. For millennials the world over you have a choice in your early twenties - you can get a degree, move to a big city and focus on your career. This means you probably get married/start settling down closer to 30, and limit yourself at 1-2 children (if any). Or you can stay closer to where you grew up and focus on your family at a younger age. The American situation is increasingly sharp on both ends - if you're making $40k as a household in rural America, you're financially screwed if anything bad happens to you - in ways that aren't even relevant in other countries (thank you no state healthcare / no maternity leave), but at the top end, you're also pushed out - because you've graduated with $40k + in loans, and can't buy a house for less than $500k+ (and what, $1m+ in the Bay Area). Structurally things are very bad for millennials. But things will change - it's never as bad as the news makes it out to be. In the next ten years the voting power blocs will change, and politicians will be forced to change policy in our favour. I only hope we don't screw the coming generations like the boomers did for us with their lack of foresight.
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  you could buy a reasonable home for about $229,000 in many areas with some jobs, but even that is still a massive financial burden that is not easily solved with "just get some tenants" Back in the day, house prices were 1 year's salary. Now it's more like 6-7 years of salary, with a high tax assessment and no job security or pensions too. Sent from my car
ryanx435 8y ago
It's not economic. People have been poor for hundreds and thousands and millions of years, and yet they still had children.
- deleted 8y ago
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- jessaustin 8y ago
  It's not just economic; it's a combination of great expectations and poor results. Millennials have been lied to, nonstop, for their entire lives. They are a resource to be mined, not citizens to be valued as they were always told. Maybe some of them have realized it, but many seem to be just locking up. It's similar to what I saw in people my own age in Japan around 1999-2000. Sure they might be materially more wealthy than e.g. a subsistence farmer, but no one ever told the subsistence farmer that student loans were a sure path to a great career.
- asdsa5325 8y ago
  This. I'd blame the real cause on a mix of disinterest, economics, and toxic social media.
- kartan 8y ago
  But nowadays people can choose if they want to have children. In the past, that was not so easy, at least if you wanted to have sex. Once people can choose to not children, factors like the economy affect population growth.
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    In the past it was not infrequent among cultures to choose not to keep children via various forms of infanticide. Some prophylactic and abortive options existed as well. Though, yes, not as assured or safe as present methods.
- wvenable 8y ago
  Children used to be a source of labor and providing generational wealth. Now children are a source of financial cost, not benefit, and thus it doesn't make sense for poor people to have them.
IkmoIkmo 8y ago
I'm not sure I completely agree with the economic argument, particularly because birth rates and wealthiness tend to move in opposite directions and because a comparative analysis doesn't show that strong welfare states which protect a person's income, income stability and alleviate all the costs of being a parent, don't show strong birth rates either. It feels like getting children is still very much a choice, but that our cultural norms about what a 'proper life' means has changed. No longer as a young person do I feel as compelled to marry, get a home in a suburb with a yard and a dog not to be cast out or judged. It's not because it's more difficult for me to afford kids than my parents or their parents, who struggled financially more than I do and had to work more hours, had less leisure time, fewer luxuries etc. I think it's a bit too easy to say 'kids these days saw parent' savings disappear in the financial crisis' as if their parents' parents didn't see their parents in world war ii, and their grandparents in the great depression as a reason not to have kids. Again, wealth and birth rates move in opposite directions. Kids used to be a form of welfare system, too, you had no state or business to give you a pension or pay for your care, but your kids did. Now we're rich enough where kids aren't needed as an economic asset (working the land) or welfare asset (caring for you in retirement). But to say they're less affordable than before, I'm not so sure. Most of the predictions about the welfare state are true, though. In that some of its effects mimic a ponzi scheme. I'd urge everyone and anyone to look up an age pyramid for their country from 1950 and onwards. It's absolutely telling. Preferably an animation. e.g. Japan here: https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/1950/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/1950/ You can click through every 5 years. It's like a snake with food passing through it's body, starting with a big blob of young people who gradually move into old age, without replacement. The proportion of young (suppose an arbitrary <40 or >=40) to old completely flips over. In Japan it was 75% in 1950, but just 44.5% in 2010. If you take 65+ as a threshold, it was just 5% in 1950, but 23% in 2010. That's 4x as many retirees to support on a dwindling young (mostly) working population. 5% 65+ and 95 <65 is a 1:19 retiree to young (often working) person. 23% vs 77% is less than 1:4. And that matters a ton because there's a gigantic age asymmetry in terms of expenditure by age group in certain fields. Take healthcare expenses by age: https://jamanetwork.com/data/Journals/JAMA/935941/joi160128f2.png https://jamanetwork.com/data/Journals/JAMA/935941/joi160128f... You basically spend a ton at birth and as an old person. With low birth rates and massive improvements to healthcare increasing life expectancy, we're heading for a disaster. The tax base is rapidly depleting and the tax burden is rapidly increasing.
matte_black 8y ago
There is a theory that the root cause of these problems is the continued dismantling of traditional gender roles. If women had not entered the workforce in massive numbers things could have continued based on old trajectories. The male breadwinner/housewife lifestyle was a formula that made it ideal for raising children cheaply, even if it didn’t seem like the most equitable. If I had a good job and settled with a wife straight out of college I’m sure I’d be a father to two children by now. My income could easily support a non-working spouse and some kids. But many of the women around me were not the type to settle so early, so I chased the money and ever more ambitious women. And with no family to support, I had dangerous amounts of money to spend on ever increasing prices and property. And if I should marry a woman with equal earning power as me, we will be able to spend even more on whatever inflated prices are set before us. If you’ve ever been in a gay household with two men earning typical male salaries and no children, one thing you notice is that they always have tons of purchasing power. What do you think that does to the economy when it scales out?
- kartan 8y ago
  > There is a theory that the root cause of these problems is the continued dismantling of traditional gender roles. Except that Japan has kept traditional gender roles, where the woman leaves her job when marries, and they have one of the lower fertility rates in the world. At the same time, Sweden with very strong gender equality has a higher fertility rate than other European countries. Even that it is still low compared with historical hights.
  - Tohhou 8y ago
    Western countries have lower rates than Japan when you exclude for native birth rates. Western countries get a big boost in birth rate when you account for non-natives having population booms.
    - sudouser 8y ago
      this, an often overlooked factor are immigrants’ contributions to SS in the united states
nunez 8y ago
Why would we have kids and suffer when we could not have kids and enjoy life to the fullest? We make just enough to have a really good life without kids or have a really stressful life with them. We don’t even have a house yet (and I mostly don’t want one, but that’s another conversation). I ran the numbers, and I didn’t like the outcome. Everyone that I know that has kids is sleep deprived, unable to do much of anything outside of the house and are in a lot of debt. Some people think that kids make up for all of that. Not us.
- baudehlo 8y ago
  I was totally the same. Just had my first 9mo ago. I’m exhausted. I’m 44 years old (and not financially stable yet due to divorce). It’s hard work at this age. But is it worth it? Absolutely. I had no affection for children at all before this. I don’t (even now) like other people’s kids that much. But today I came home from a long day of filing SR&ED paperwork (Canadian research tax benefit) and my daughter would just not go to sleep - awful night. But I’m happy. The wonderful things about having kids aren’t in the shitty crap you go through every day. They are in the look that child gives you when you get home. That lasts forever.
  - maroonblazer 8y ago
    My situation is not too dissimilar - 52 yrs old, divorced, w/ a 12 yr old boy. The first few years ARE difficult, but the older they get both the easier and more fun it becomes. They're increasingly self-sufficient which means your focus can shift from the mundane (diapers, etc) to educating them about life. My kid was unplanned, which was especially challenging in that I never had a particular desire to be a parent. So far it's been rewarding. I have his mom to thank for at least half of that.
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    44 with a 9 month old? I feel for you :). I consider myself a late starter by having my first kid seven and a half years ago (I am also 44 right now). Many times I've considered that this would definitely be easier if I were twenty years younger. Wouldn't be nearly so financially stable however, so that's a trade off. I'm totally with you on how awesome kids are. They are hard work, expensive, and ... totally worth it. Wouldn't give up my boy & girl for anything. Ambivalent about other people's kids, but I try to be polite.
5DFractalTetris 8y ago
Man makes panda of man. People are watching us constantly, everyone has more-or-less enough food, there's a ton of shiny stuff and panda tasks in the enclosure, there's nasty loud machines everywhere, and if you have some young they're like this tiny very-vulnerable creature who will be shortly moved to a different enclosure to be watched by different creatures. May not be economic!!
sbinthree 8y ago
As a 24 year old married man sitting in the nursery with my premature son, I feel truly sad that more people cannot experience this. I don't have a house, I rent my apartment, we share a car and we both (were) working. So what? Time marches on. So many people seem cynical about having kids or doing anything else involving sacrificing happiness for meaning. And yet people complain of indulgence and a lack of meaning? It confuses me. You can have difficult but meaningful if you want: start a company and a family. You can also have happy and (likely) less meaningful: go all in on hedonism. People can't seem to cope with all the opportunity and optionality modern life presents. Makes people anxious it seems. So much self loathing (don't have kids for the environment?). If you don't want kids, don't have them. If you do, have them. They will not starve and you won't either. Life will never be easy, to expect it to be is somewhere in between whining and delusion.
- chillwaves 8y ago
  I mean, if folks are working for $10 an hour and living at home, it is not exactly the time to start a family. And I am not going to use the fact they own a (financed) iphone as an excuse to chide them.
- throw_this_one 8y ago
  People shouldn't have kids if they're not ready. If a guy has a kid with a woman and then they get divorced in 5 years. That kid will turn out worse. Also, if everybody has kids early, the population of the world is going to rise above the carrying capacity of the planet. Which will cause future famines, wars, etc. Finally, maybe other people derive meaning from other things. What life experiences would you have had if you didn't have a kid at 24? From 24-35 you could've experienced a music scene more deeply, traveled the world and become fluent in languages, worked on a Phd in a field. But you chose a kid, which is great! But other people chose otherwise. I agree that having a kid is a MUST-DO in life. But maybe later is better.
  - Programmer88 8y ago
    Our population growth comes almost entirely from Africa. Africans who are aware of this are quite happy with the thought of the world becoming more Africanized (most people like themselves, even if their societies aren't known for being super productive or well run). They won't stop having children any time soon. Ironically, the genes being selected out of the gene pool are the genes of people in productive and highly organized societies. Especially those genes that lend themselves towards selflessness and universal empathy/friendliness. What I mean is, you aren't doing the world a favor by not having children. If you want to enjoy your money and play Nintendo Switch in lieu of passing on your genes, that's fine. But it's not a moral high ground.
xxxdarrenxxx 8y ago
I miss one factor and that is egocentrism. Why have children if you have your inner child still being enticed to all that is. This era is marked with individualiTy. What is the statistic on entrepreneurs, on indie developers to name a few. How many people would play (video) games in their 20's all day in previous generations. I seriously think this factor is heavily overlooked. Showing pictures of your kids was the defacto social exchange, now it's showing pictures of yourself. Many parents report a "hole", a lack of identity or general anxiety after kids leave the nest. This suggests raising kids means it requires a lot less me time. I also suspect life-behind-a-screen is an accomplice to this somewhere in the equation. Tldr; The selfie way
throwawaymanbot 8y ago
The GOPConservative have engineered a situation whereby its too expensive to have a family. The US currently is a country where employers are allowed to not have to pay for an employees health insurance-- where health insurance companies are allowed to jack up prices for no reason knowing that their buddies in congress will not investigate and noone makes enough money to spend whats left out of their paychecks after paying nearly 60% of their monthly salary on the inflated rents they allow their Party donation REIT buddies set. Want to know why theres less kids? Check out the price of just birthing one. Socialize the healthcare at least, and well have lots of babies.

89 points by pm24601 8y ago

I know how obvious this connection probably seems to everyone, but I find it so fascinating that birthrates can be such a good indicator of economic health. Hopefully Millenial birthrates are only delayed, not completely reduced by the economic challenges they face.

salawat 8y ago

There were a couple points in there that could, may, should have been left on the cutting room floor. Some good points were made however. Social Security in its original Ponzi-Schemesque form will end up even worse for wear with declining birthrates. (Not saying Social Security is bad in concept, but it only works in times of sharp population growth, and even then, banking on the youth to carry you just because seems squicky to many ). The observation of millenials being reluctant to have children is also spot on. Many that I have spoken to in the demographic are very much a "lost generation". They've seen parent's and elder's life savings disappear. They have a harder and harder time adjusting to a world that seems specifically tuned to resist and feed off of them. See financial product/debt product proliferation. It's harder to find opportunity when one has an additional complication of digital footprint to manage with a dearth of interest in anyone older than them willing or interested in making sure the past engraved on the net doesn't mark them for life. The hamfisted "feminist" overtones aside, the article makes a chilling point. Long cycle economic predation and the social pressures to avoid debt first and foremost are an effective suicide switch at the population scale. An entire generation has been shaped by these pressures, and with no relief in sight, a drastic shift in values may be needed to avoid a grievous societal destabilization. Interesting times indeed.

AIX2ESXI 8y ago
Great critical analysis. Generally, I avoid Vox articles due to the unsubtle feminist ideologies that are interwoven in their articles. Saw a recent cringe Vox interview with Jordan Peterson that kept trying put words in his mouth and avoided the issues he brought up as usual. Personally, I see the writing on the wall for America and am doing everything I can to move out of here in the next 4 years. As a young American cis gendered man in his 30's, I see no future for myself outside of being someone's mortgage hound or alimony sugar daddy. I can have a higher quality of life and and my SMV will be higher in most developing countries. I wonder if we will start seeing a massive exodus from America by professional Gen X/ millennials.
- devereaux 8y ago
  > I avoid Vox articles due to the unsubtle feminist ideologies > (...) recent cringe Vox interview with Jordan Peterson that kept trying put words in his mouth > (...) I see no future for myself outside of being someone's mortgage hound or alimony sugar daddy. That escalated quickly!
  - soontobemd55 8y ago
    I feel this too. Most of my cis male friends won't date people that will make less money than them. I know I won't.
    - kasey_junk 8y ago
      Is your intention to have a partner that walks in lockstep through career paths over the course of a long career? How do you intend to deal with illness, career changes & family raising?
      - dominotw 8y ago
        I think lower earning person can make up by doing extra chores and house work. That's what I do now. Not sure how fair that is but I think it's fair.
    - AIX2ESXI 8y ago
      Yup. Most men will actually marry down economically, but women generally marry up economically. Perhaps when this is finally noticed, men will only marry their equals. With women graduating college at higher rates, perhaps this changes? https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/marrying-down-why-men-are-the-ones-now-looking-for-wealthy-wives-20170831-gy7ykl.html https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/marrying-down-why-men-are-the...
      - Jedd 8y ago
        > Most men will actually marry down economically, but women generally marry up economically. If the first phrase is true, then the second must also be. Of course we're conflating income with wealth (or 'economical value'), which may be fraught. > Perhaps when this is finally noticed, men will only marry their equals. I think asking all men to think the way you think is going to be disappointing. I also think that proposing the evaluation of people based on income and/or economic potential is breathtakingly depressing.
grawprog 8y ago
...as much as I know it's pointless commenting on things... Here's my perspective. I'm thirty, I've been in a relationship since I was 17...the same relationship..we've talked about kids a lot...at this point...I really don't think even with both of us steadily working for several years now at decent jobs we can afford to raise a kid. We've agreed we don't feel like it's fair to raise a child without being able to provide a decent standard of life and our own standard of life ia not the best as it is, despite both of us working full time, with regular overtime, at skilled jobs. As far as online presence goes...clearly as I'm shadowbanned on here I haven't quite grasped the...uh...I would say subtlties, I suppose, of having a reasonable online presence. I haven't gotten used to the idea of the internet being a place where one posts real personal information, despite having been on the internet since the early nineties....I still see it as a place where identities don't matter and people who post personal information online are fucking idiots. In all honesty, i've never really participated much on online communities until recently but still go about it with that nineties mindset not really understanding people are fairly hypersensitive (a bunch of little bitches) to stuff online these days.. I keep a fairly strict separation between stuff I do on a computer online and everything else in my life. I realize it's a necessity to start mixing the two...but I find it hard to combine an online presence with my real life stuff. It's one of these thing's i've beeen working on though because i've found that's what all my friends and people I know have done.
kartan 8y ago
> (Not saying Social Security is bad in concept, but it only works in times of sharp population growth, and even then, banking on the youth to carry you just because seems squicky to many ). Social Security works with economic growth. It doesn't matter if you get 10 babies or 10 robots. Automation makes possible to keep proper living standards without exponential population growth. Social Security, as other services like education, stops working because it is not shared. Actually, with enough automation, it is easier to satisfy a smaller population. There are 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the United States. Self-driving trucks mean that you need 3.5 million fewer babies to carry out that task. Just 3 million if you actually need 500,000 people to maintain the software. So, I agree with you that in the past Social Security was depending on population growth. That has been changing fast for the past 50 years. There is no economical reason to not have Social Security in the future.
- darawk 8y ago
  I believe you mean that some theoretical structure vaguely like social security could work, in principle, without population growth. However, the social security system we actually have acquires its funds from the income of individuals. You could structure social security as a tax on capital, but that isn't how it currently works.
  - kartan 8y ago
    > You could structure social security as a tax on capital, but that isn't how it currently works. Yes. 100% true. I just mean that it can be changed. It is not an economic constraint, but it is the current situation.
- koolba 8y ago
  Self driving trucks don’t pay payroll taxes (as distinct from general income tax). The engineers and mechanics maintaining them do, but if the net cost of them plus the tech isn’t cheaper than the current human driving approach then the industry wouldn’t be switching to it anyway.
- chillwaves 8y ago
crdoconnor 8y ago
The narrative that social security will eventually bankrupt the country (or the updated version: "it's a ponzi") dates back to its inception 80 years ago and it's been pretty consistent ever since: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/post_9910_b_7988992.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/post_9910_b_7988... While the economy has grown about ~400% dependency ratios have gone up about 11% I think. Social security's affordability has always been about political choice - e.g. tax cuts for the wealthy or money for pensioners.
sametmax 8y ago
Also a lot of people don't want children. It's a lot of responsabilities and constraints, so you need to feel the desired for it. The new generation grew with aids, feel less influenced by the authority selling the one family lifestyle and use more contraception. Now wait for Vasalgel to take off. When males will have total control of their involvment in pregnancy, you will see the numbers go down even more. And probably some serious changes in the man/woman dynamics.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  > Also a lot of people don't want children. It's a lot of responsabilities and constraints, so you need to feel the desired for it. This is true, but are enough people feeling liberated enough to not have kids to have this be a significant part of the lowered birth rate?
  - sametmax 8y ago
    Well, health aside, to not have kids, you have to actively avoid it. Or be very ugly.
- u90g4u8904 8y ago
  There's a problem with that argument. http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/05/23/birth-rate-drop http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/05/23/birth-rate-drop Stephanie Coontz, professor of history and family studies at The Evergreen State College: "I think the most important and concerning thing about this is not the number of people who are voluntarily childless, but the tremendous gap between the number of children women said they wanted to have and the number that they will probably have. Early this year, the gap reached its highest level in 40 years. I think we need to think very seriously about what it is that pushes people into this kind of 'delaying.'"
  - sametmax 8y ago
    There is a problem with that argument. You often need a man to make the baby.

8bitsrule 8y ago

Isn't just economic, methinks: Millennials also tend to be more perceptive about the costs of overpopulation and the approach of global warming. The wisdom of Small Is Beautiful is not so lost on them.

hugh4life 8y ago
"Small Is Beautiful" Um, E. F. Schumacher had 8 kids. He was more concerned with how people interacted with each other and not overpopulation.
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alf-pogz 8y ago
Speak for yourself. I'm petrified by the prospect of lack of growth. It is what our economy is built on, and a larger population could result in better science. There is plenty of land in the United States. Even our cities in the rust belt are underpopulated.
- AIX2ESXI 8y ago
  Exactly, have you seen these mid west ghost towns? Scary dystopian stuff.
  - chillwaves 8y ago
    They are ghost towns because there are no jobs, not because there are no people. You got cause and effect backwards. At the same time, prosperous cities are booming and rents are rising. It's polarizing.
- chillwaves 8y ago
  The value of general labor generally decreases with advancements in tools (automation). There are enough people in the US now, enough children, that our education system could focus better on technological and scientific advances for those who show the aptitude (by increasing opportunity and decreasing inequal access to education and jobs).

seem_2211 8y ago

I think it's cutting in at both ends of the economic spectrum as well. For millennials the world over you have a choice in your early twenties - you can get a degree, move to a big city and focus on your career. This means you probably get married/start settling down closer to 30, and limit yourself at 1-2 children (if any). Or you can stay closer to where you grew up and focus on your family at a younger age. The American situation is increasingly sharp on both ends - if you're making $40k as a household in rural America, you're financially screwed if anything bad happens to you - in ways that aren't even relevant in other countries (thank you no state healthcare / no maternity leave), but at the top end, you're also pushed out - because you've graduated with $40k + in loans, and can't buy a house for less than $500k+ (and what, $1m+ in the Bay Area). Structurally things are very bad for millennials. But things will change - it's never as bad as the news makes it out to be. In the next ten years the voting power blocs will change, and politicians will be forced to change policy in our favour. I only hope we don't screw the coming generations like the boomers did for us with their lack of foresight.

anoncoward111 8y ago
you could buy a reasonable home for about $229,000 in many areas with some jobs, but even that is still a massive financial burden that is not easily solved with "just get some tenants" Back in the day, house prices were 1 year's salary. Now it's more like 6-7 years of salary, with a high tax assessment and no job security or pensions too. Sent from my car

ryanx435 8y ago

It's not economic. People have been poor for hundreds and thousands and millions of years, and yet they still had children.

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jessaustin 8y ago
It's not just economic; it's a combination of great expectations and poor results. Millennials have been lied to, nonstop, for their entire lives. They are a resource to be mined, not citizens to be valued as they were always told. Maybe some of them have realized it, but many seem to be just locking up. It's similar to what I saw in people my own age in Japan around 1999-2000. Sure they might be materially more wealthy than e.g. a subsistence farmer, but no one ever told the subsistence farmer that student loans were a sure path to a great career.
asdsa5325 8y ago
This. I'd blame the real cause on a mix of disinterest, economics, and toxic social media.
kartan 8y ago
But nowadays people can choose if they want to have children. In the past, that was not so easy, at least if you wanted to have sex. Once people can choose to not children, factors like the economy affect population growth.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  In the past it was not infrequent among cultures to choose not to keep children via various forms of infanticide. Some prophylactic and abortive options existed as well. Though, yes, not as assured or safe as present methods.
wvenable 8y ago
Children used to be a source of labor and providing generational wealth. Now children are a source of financial cost, not benefit, and thus it doesn't make sense for poor people to have them.

IkmoIkmo 8y ago

I'm not sure I completely agree with the economic argument, particularly because birth rates and wealthiness tend to move in opposite directions and because a comparative analysis doesn't show that strong welfare states which protect a person's income, income stability and alleviate all the costs of being a parent, don't show strong birth rates either. It feels like getting children is still very much a choice, but that our cultural norms about what a 'proper life' means has changed. No longer as a young person do I feel as compelled to marry, get a home in a suburb with a yard and a dog not to be cast out or judged. It's not because it's more difficult for me to afford kids than my parents or their parents, who struggled financially more than I do and had to work more hours, had less leisure time, fewer luxuries etc. I think it's a bit too easy to say 'kids these days saw parent' savings disappear in the financial crisis' as if their parents' parents didn't see their parents in world war ii, and their grandparents in the great depression as a reason not to have kids. Again, wealth and birth rates move in opposite directions. Kids used to be a form of welfare system, too, you had no state or business to give you a pension or pay for your care, but your kids did. Now we're rich enough where kids aren't needed as an economic asset (working the land) or welfare asset (caring for you in retirement). But to say they're less affordable than before, I'm not so sure. Most of the predictions about the welfare state are true, though. In that some of its effects mimic a ponzi scheme. I'd urge everyone and anyone to look up an age pyramid for their country from 1950 and onwards. It's absolutely telling. Preferably an animation. e.g. Japan here: https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/1950/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/1950/ You can click through every 5 years. It's like a snake with food passing through it's body, starting with a big blob of young people who gradually move into old age, without replacement. The proportion of young (suppose an arbitrary <40 or >=40) to old completely flips over. In Japan it was 75% in 1950, but just 44.5% in 2010. If you take 65+ as a threshold, it was just 5% in 1950, but 23% in 2010. That's 4x as many retirees to support on a dwindling young (mostly) working population. 5% 65+ and 95 <65 is a 1:19 retiree to young (often working) person. 23% vs 77% is less than 1:4. And that matters a ton because there's a gigantic age asymmetry in terms of expenditure by age group in certain fields. Take healthcare expenses by age: https://jamanetwork.com/data/Journals/JAMA/935941/joi160128f2.png https://jamanetwork.com/data/Journals/JAMA/935941/joi160128f... You basically spend a ton at birth and as an old person. With low birth rates and massive improvements to healthcare increasing life expectancy, we're heading for a disaster. The tax base is rapidly depleting and the tax burden is rapidly increasing.

matte_black 8y ago

There is a theory that the root cause of these problems is the continued dismantling of traditional gender roles. If women had not entered the workforce in massive numbers things could have continued based on old trajectories. The male breadwinner/housewife lifestyle was a formula that made it ideal for raising children cheaply, even if it didn’t seem like the most equitable. If I had a good job and settled with a wife straight out of college I’m sure I’d be a father to two children by now. My income could easily support a non-working spouse and some kids. But many of the women around me were not the type to settle so early, so I chased the money and ever more ambitious women. And with no family to support, I had dangerous amounts of money to spend on ever increasing prices and property. And if I should marry a woman with equal earning power as me, we will be able to spend even more on whatever inflated prices are set before us. If you’ve ever been in a gay household with two men earning typical male salaries and no children, one thing you notice is that they always have tons of purchasing power. What do you think that does to the economy when it scales out?

kartan 8y ago
> There is a theory that the root cause of these problems is the continued dismantling of traditional gender roles. Except that Japan has kept traditional gender roles, where the woman leaves her job when marries, and they have one of the lower fertility rates in the world. At the same time, Sweden with very strong gender equality has a higher fertility rate than other European countries. Even that it is still low compared with historical hights.
- Tohhou 8y ago
  Western countries have lower rates than Japan when you exclude for native birth rates. Western countries get a big boost in birth rate when you account for non-natives having population booms.
  - sudouser 8y ago
    this, an often overlooked factor are immigrants’ contributions to SS in the united states

nunez 8y ago

Why would we have kids and suffer when we could not have kids and enjoy life to the fullest? We make just enough to have a really good life without kids or have a really stressful life with them. We don’t even have a house yet (and I mostly don’t want one, but that’s another conversation). I ran the numbers, and I didn’t like the outcome. Everyone that I know that has kids is sleep deprived, unable to do much of anything outside of the house and are in a lot of debt. Some people think that kids make up for all of that. Not us.

baudehlo 8y ago
I was totally the same. Just had my first 9mo ago. I’m exhausted. I’m 44 years old (and not financially stable yet due to divorce). It’s hard work at this age. But is it worth it? Absolutely. I had no affection for children at all before this. I don’t (even now) like other people’s kids that much. But today I came home from a long day of filing SR&ED paperwork (Canadian research tax benefit) and my daughter would just not go to sleep - awful night. But I’m happy. The wonderful things about having kids aren’t in the shitty crap you go through every day. They are in the look that child gives you when you get home. That lasts forever.
- maroonblazer 8y ago
  My situation is not too dissimilar - 52 yrs old, divorced, w/ a 12 yr old boy. The first few years ARE difficult, but the older they get both the easier and more fun it becomes. They're increasingly self-sufficient which means your focus can shift from the mundane (diapers, etc) to educating them about life. My kid was unplanned, which was especially challenging in that I never had a particular desire to be a parent. So far it's been rewarding. I have his mom to thank for at least half of that.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  44 with a 9 month old? I feel for you :). I consider myself a late starter by having my first kid seven and a half years ago (I am also 44 right now). Many times I've considered that this would definitely be easier if I were twenty years younger. Wouldn't be nearly so financially stable however, so that's a trade off. I'm totally with you on how awesome kids are. They are hard work, expensive, and ... totally worth it. Wouldn't give up my boy & girl for anything. Ambivalent about other people's kids, but I try to be polite.

5DFractalTetris 8y ago

Man makes panda of man. People are watching us constantly, everyone has more-or-less enough food, there's a ton of shiny stuff and panda tasks in the enclosure, there's nasty loud machines everywhere, and if you have some young they're like this tiny very-vulnerable creature who will be shortly moved to a different enclosure to be watched by different creatures. May not be economic!!

sbinthree 8y ago

As a 24 year old married man sitting in the nursery with my premature son, I feel truly sad that more people cannot experience this. I don't have a house, I rent my apartment, we share a car and we both (were) working. So what? Time marches on. So many people seem cynical about having kids or doing anything else involving sacrificing happiness for meaning. And yet people complain of indulgence and a lack of meaning? It confuses me. You can have difficult but meaningful if you want: start a company and a family. You can also have happy and (likely) less meaningful: go all in on hedonism. People can't seem to cope with all the opportunity and optionality modern life presents. Makes people anxious it seems. So much self loathing (don't have kids for the environment?). If you don't want kids, don't have them. If you do, have them. They will not starve and you won't either. Life will never be easy, to expect it to be is somewhere in between whining and delusion.

chillwaves 8y ago
I mean, if folks are working for $10 an hour and living at home, it is not exactly the time to start a family. And I am not going to use the fact they own a (financed) iphone as an excuse to chide them.
throw_this_one 8y ago
People shouldn't have kids if they're not ready. If a guy has a kid with a woman and then they get divorced in 5 years. That kid will turn out worse. Also, if everybody has kids early, the population of the world is going to rise above the carrying capacity of the planet. Which will cause future famines, wars, etc. Finally, maybe other people derive meaning from other things. What life experiences would you have had if you didn't have a kid at 24? From 24-35 you could've experienced a music scene more deeply, traveled the world and become fluent in languages, worked on a Phd in a field. But you chose a kid, which is great! But other people chose otherwise. I agree that having a kid is a MUST-DO in life. But maybe later is better.
- Programmer88 8y ago
  Our population growth comes almost entirely from Africa. Africans who are aware of this are quite happy with the thought of the world becoming more Africanized (most people like themselves, even if their societies aren't known for being super productive or well run). They won't stop having children any time soon. Ironically, the genes being selected out of the gene pool are the genes of people in productive and highly organized societies. Especially those genes that lend themselves towards selflessness and universal empathy/friendliness. What I mean is, you aren't doing the world a favor by not having children. If you want to enjoy your money and play Nintendo Switch in lieu of passing on your genes, that's fine. But it's not a moral high ground.

xxxdarrenxxx 8y ago

I miss one factor and that is egocentrism. Why have children if you have your inner child still being enticed to all that is. This era is marked with individualiTy. What is the statistic on entrepreneurs, on indie developers to name a few. How many people would play (video) games in their 20's all day in previous generations. I seriously think this factor is heavily overlooked. Showing pictures of your kids was the defacto social exchange, now it's showing pictures of yourself. Many parents report a "hole", a lack of identity or general anxiety after kids leave the nest. This suggests raising kids means it requires a lot less me time. I also suspect life-behind-a-screen is an accomplice to this somewhere in the equation. Tldr; The selfie way

throwawaymanbot 8y ago

The GOPConservative have engineered a situation whereby its too expensive to have a family. The US currently is a country where employers are allowed to not have to pay for an employees health insurance-- where health insurance companies are allowed to jack up prices for no reason knowing that their buddies in congress will not investigate and noone makes enough money to spend whats left out of their paychecks after paying nearly 60% of their monthly salary on the inflated rents they allow their Party donation REIT buddies set. Want to know why theres less kids? Check out the price of just birthing one. Socialize the healthcare at least, and well have lots of babies.