4 ms·
Correlation is not causation. Low birth rates and high home values are both also highly correlated to education and women in the workforce and high income and
by kanox 8y ago
Correlation is not causation.
Low birth rates and high home values are both also highly correlated to education and women in the workforce and high income and economic growth and trendy hipster bars and many other nice things.
Picking just two items and claiming that "people don't have children because homes are expensive" is not very enlightening at all.
- surfmike 8y agoThe article specifically says they might not be causal. The correlation is interested, however; anecdotally I know many of my friends feel like buying a house is a necessary prerequisite before having kids so a causative effect is plausible.
- lev99 8y agoI haven't gotten a dog because I feel like renting isn't stable enough environment for a dog. I get the owning a home is a prerequisite for children point of view.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- chongli 8y agoYou could also say that women in the workforce are correlated with high home prices and educated women are correlated with women in the workplace. I think there really is no root cause here. They're all interconnected factors.
- asdsa5325 8y agoLiterally from the article: > As a further caveat, the correlation observed here is by no means proof that home value growth causes fertility declines. One alternative explanation could be the possibility that there is clustering into certain counties of people with careers that pay well enough for expensive homes but make it difficult to have children before 30; this could cause both trends observed in the chart above. There are many other confounding factors that could explain this relationship as well, such as the possibility that cultural values or the cost of child care varies across counties with some correlation to home values.
- baybal2 8y agoWhat they seem to forget to talk about at all are that people are moving around, and especially in US. Moving to quieter town then you are well off and stable career-wise is certainly what a lot of people do.
- cruzai 8y ago100% agreed with this, We know that prices of the home have been going up, we also know that employment is going up, so why not saying unemployment rate with that. This is what happens when you have a lot of positive results. You will have a bias, and this is a classic example of a highly biased study.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoRelevant: https://smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2283#comic https://smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2283#comic
- zip1234 8y agoIn my area, the place where the highest home prices are is where the empty nesters buy because they have the cash to do so. Obviously, they won't be having more children. An effect as simple as that could explain this effect.