5 ms·

There's correlation here, but likely not causation. The real underlying cause in the drop in birth rates is an increase in working hours, an increase in commut

There's correlation here, but likely not causation. The real underlying cause in the drop in birth rates is an increase in working hours, an increase in commuting times, an increase in college tuition and health care costs, and also an increase in divorce rates. These days, even getting married is an expensive financial arrangement. Having kids is just another layer on that. Housing prices have increased because of cheap loans and supply-restrictive regulations.

hshehehjdjdjd 8y ago
Getting married is expensive? How so?
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  The legal fees themselves aren't very expensive. If you can resist the societal pressures to have a large and extravagant wedding with many guests, then even the wedding itself isn't particularly expensive. The main cost of getting married is getting divorced. Legal fees add up a lot here, and the division of assets is costly. Now, you could argue your marriage won't end in divorce, but 60% of marriages in the US do.
  - fixermark 8y ago
    Perhaps worth noting: that "60% of marriages end in divorce" number is quirky when you pull back the skin. 60% of marriages end in divorce, but most people who marry do not get divorced from their first marriage. The 60% number is bumped out due to the segment of the population that get married 3 or 4 times.
    - anoncoward111 8y ago
      Interesting, thank you :) I'm still seeing divorce rates of 30-40% for first marriages, depending on generation. Anecdotally, I know a lot of people who are either divorced in their 30s, or still unmarried in their 30s. Considering the difficulties a woman has conceiving beyond their mid 30s, I think the explanation is here in our faces. My grandma had 5 kids and was married at 19.
      - maccard 8y ago
        > My grandma had 5 kids and was married at 19. Funny that you've mentioned correlation and no causation, and then brought this up. How old was your grandma when she had her first kid?
  - watwut 8y ago
    That division of assets is cheaper if you married someone who earns as much as you.
- tathougies 8y ago
  Getting married in a traditional way is cheap, but most people blow off tradition to get some fancy pinterest barn, with fancy pinterest lights, with some fancy pinterest minister, some fancy pinterest vows, and fancy pinterest invitations. We paid $80 for a marriage license. The church was free. The ceremony was free. The celebrant was free. The wedding was free. We also got married in the most beautiful church in San Francisco (in my opinion at least) We were going to use the church hall for the reception, but my parents wanted us to get another reception venue. That would have been free. A traditional cake and punch reception with some music would have set us back maybe $300, but even that could have been foregone. My wife's parents didn't do any of that. Just got married the old-fashioned way.
  - anoncoward111 8y ago
    I am really happy for you, and wish you the best in your marriage :)
- krinchan 8y ago
  Let's not mention the taxes for getting married w/out children. Unless you have dependents (children) or one income (which makes one spouse the other spouse's dependent), getting married as a DINC (Dual Income, No Children) is a fiscal disaster in the US right now.
jsonne 8y ago
How do you square that with somewhere like Denmark with it's equally abysmal yet they have way less working hours and a large social safety net?
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  I've visited Denmark before as an American :) It's a pretty nice place-- sure there are pretty generous payments to most members of society, but there is still some petty crime and different social classes and lack of major mobility. I am not precisely sure if they have less working hours. I mean, anecdotally, I don't know any Danes who have 10 minute commutes working 4 days a week, 6 hours a day or something like that, and making $7,000 post tax per month. Like, that sounds mythical in America and in Denmark. I would just equate Denmark's birthrate either to cultural differences (white birth rates are lower than arab, latino, african etc), or to the same pressures that American workers have-- the Danish pressures are just slightly less extreme.
  - hvidgaard 8y ago
    The average distance from home to work for a Dane i ~21km (13 miles). Most Danes have a regulated average work week of 37 hours (unless otherwise is specified in the contract), and we have strong unions.
  - rsynnott 8y ago
    > ure there are pretty generous payments to most members of society, but there is still some petty crime and different social classes and lack of major mobility. By most metrics, Denmark has one of the largest degrees of social mobility in the world. The US usually comes out worst or second-worst in the developed world (the UK is gaining on it lately).
    - anoncoward111 8y ago
      the rent, salary, taxation, net worth and expectancy data for denmark's 5 million danes is comporable to the AVERAGE american city/suburban resident of similar background in the USA we just have 100 million people that are literally in debt up to their eyeballs and die horrible unhealthy deaths every year. im not saying this system is justified, im saying it skews our statistics. the US is like south africa-- a deliberately created class distinction between the rich and the poor which heavily skews along racial lines, but not always.
simonbarker87 8y ago
Odd that you can see a correlation but claim no causation and then list nearly half a dozen reasons why birth rates a falling. Is it possible that you could add rising house costs to your list and that, as with list things, a number of factors fees into falling birth rates?
arendtio 8y ago
Since when you need to be married to have kids? Sounds like correlation, but likely not causation.
- adrianN 8y ago
  The better question is since when can you have kids without being married? Until quite recently you were ostracized if you had kids out of wedlock and illegitimate children had fewer rights.
  - arendtio 8y ago
    The answer to your question is: Since a few million years. Nevertheless, I understand your point. My point was more along the lines of criticizing 'correlation vs. cause' and providing equally weak arguments. What I believe is that there are multiple factors at work here. So higher home prices are probably one reason why people are deciding against children, but most certainly not the only one. And 'deciding against children' doesn't mean they will never have any children, maybe they just wait a few more years before they get the first and in the end there will be one less for some couples.
- tathougies 8y ago
  Well if a father wants to have unassailable parental rights over his children, he still ought to be married. If he's okay being beholden to the mother's whims, then there's no need for marriage.
collyw 8y ago
Maybe it that people want to do different things with their lives and have more choices available. I even see higher divorce rates as a positive thing in some ways. 50 years ago it may not have been a valid choice for a woman to leave an abusive husband and set up on her own. Now they have a lot more choice in that regard.
brixon 8y ago
There are just cultural changes. When I was young it was expected that if you could have kids then you would. You needed them especially as you got old. Today this is not a view shared by all, more and more people are making their own decisions about having kids. In my family it seems that each generation is having less and less kids. My great grandparents had a 7-10, my grandparents had 5, my parents had 2, I had 1. I think the world has enough people, so for me one kid was plenty.
WhompingWindows 8y ago
There's likely not causation with any individual factor, because it's a multivariable model. There are probably a dozen factors that contribute to the birth rate, including those you mentioned and probably many others.
sdenton4 8y ago
Agreed. There's also been a strong link between birth rates and education (especially for women). And education leads to strong knowledge based economies leads to higher home prices... Or, if you like, places with high housing prices require higher earners to pay the rent/mortgage, who tend to have higher education levels and thus fewer kids.
gideon_b 8y ago
There is likely some degree of causation, though it would be difficult to measure. As an anecdote, almost everyone I know moves to a less expensive area and buys a larger house when they start a family. Live downtown, have babies, move to the 'burbs. My parents did it, and I will probably do it too. This type of situation muddies the data because we are contributing the trend but the housing price isn't changing whether we have babies. It only changes where we have babies. It's unclear whether the data shows that housing prices affect the brith rate or whether people just move to cheaper neighbourhoods when they want to have babies.

hshehehjdjdjd 8y ago

Getting married is expensive? How so?

anoncoward111 8y ago
The legal fees themselves aren't very expensive. If you can resist the societal pressures to have a large and extravagant wedding with many guests, then even the wedding itself isn't particularly expensive. The main cost of getting married is getting divorced. Legal fees add up a lot here, and the division of assets is costly. Now, you could argue your marriage won't end in divorce, but 60% of marriages in the US do.
- fixermark 8y ago
  Perhaps worth noting: that "60% of marriages end in divorce" number is quirky when you pull back the skin. 60% of marriages end in divorce, but most people who marry do not get divorced from their first marriage. The 60% number is bumped out due to the segment of the population that get married 3 or 4 times.
  - anoncoward111 8y ago
    Interesting, thank you :) I'm still seeing divorce rates of 30-40% for first marriages, depending on generation. Anecdotally, I know a lot of people who are either divorced in their 30s, or still unmarried in their 30s. Considering the difficulties a woman has conceiving beyond their mid 30s, I think the explanation is here in our faces. My grandma had 5 kids and was married at 19.
    - maccard 8y ago
      > My grandma had 5 kids and was married at 19. Funny that you've mentioned correlation and no causation, and then brought this up. How old was your grandma when she had her first kid?
- watwut 8y ago
  That division of assets is cheaper if you married someone who earns as much as you.
tathougies 8y ago
Getting married in a traditional way is cheap, but most people blow off tradition to get some fancy pinterest barn, with fancy pinterest lights, with some fancy pinterest minister, some fancy pinterest vows, and fancy pinterest invitations. We paid $80 for a marriage license. The church was free. The ceremony was free. The celebrant was free. The wedding was free. We also got married in the most beautiful church in San Francisco (in my opinion at least) We were going to use the church hall for the reception, but my parents wanted us to get another reception venue. That would have been free. A traditional cake and punch reception with some music would have set us back maybe $300, but even that could have been foregone. My wife's parents didn't do any of that. Just got married the old-fashioned way.
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  I am really happy for you, and wish you the best in your marriage :)
krinchan 8y ago
Let's not mention the taxes for getting married w/out children. Unless you have dependents (children) or one income (which makes one spouse the other spouse's dependent), getting married as a DINC (Dual Income, No Children) is a fiscal disaster in the US right now.

jsonne 8y ago

How do you square that with somewhere like Denmark with it's equally abysmal yet they have way less working hours and a large social safety net?

anoncoward111 8y ago
I've visited Denmark before as an American :) It's a pretty nice place-- sure there are pretty generous payments to most members of society, but there is still some petty crime and different social classes and lack of major mobility. I am not precisely sure if they have less working hours. I mean, anecdotally, I don't know any Danes who have 10 minute commutes working 4 days a week, 6 hours a day or something like that, and making $7,000 post tax per month. Like, that sounds mythical in America and in Denmark. I would just equate Denmark's birthrate either to cultural differences (white birth rates are lower than arab, latino, african etc), or to the same pressures that American workers have-- the Danish pressures are just slightly less extreme.
- hvidgaard 8y ago
  The average distance from home to work for a Dane i ~21km (13 miles). Most Danes have a regulated average work week of 37 hours (unless otherwise is specified in the contract), and we have strong unions.
- rsynnott 8y ago
  > ure there are pretty generous payments to most members of society, but there is still some petty crime and different social classes and lack of major mobility. By most metrics, Denmark has one of the largest degrees of social mobility in the world. The US usually comes out worst or second-worst in the developed world (the UK is gaining on it lately).
  - anoncoward111 8y ago
    the rent, salary, taxation, net worth and expectancy data for denmark's 5 million danes is comporable to the AVERAGE american city/suburban resident of similar background in the USA we just have 100 million people that are literally in debt up to their eyeballs and die horrible unhealthy deaths every year. im not saying this system is justified, im saying it skews our statistics. the US is like south africa-- a deliberately created class distinction between the rich and the poor which heavily skews along racial lines, but not always.

simonbarker87 8y ago

Odd that you can see a correlation but claim no causation and then list nearly half a dozen reasons why birth rates a falling. Is it possible that you could add rising house costs to your list and that, as with list things, a number of factors fees into falling birth rates?

arendtio 8y ago

Since when you need to be married to have kids? Sounds like correlation, but likely not causation.

adrianN 8y ago
The better question is since when can you have kids without being married? Until quite recently you were ostracized if you had kids out of wedlock and illegitimate children had fewer rights.
- arendtio 8y ago
  The answer to your question is: Since a few million years. Nevertheless, I understand your point. My point was more along the lines of criticizing 'correlation vs. cause' and providing equally weak arguments. What I believe is that there are multiple factors at work here. So higher home prices are probably one reason why people are deciding against children, but most certainly not the only one. And 'deciding against children' doesn't mean they will never have any children, maybe they just wait a few more years before they get the first and in the end there will be one less for some couples.
tathougies 8y ago
Well if a father wants to have unassailable parental rights over his children, he still ought to be married. If he's okay being beholden to the mother's whims, then there's no need for marriage.

collyw 8y ago

Maybe it that people want to do different things with their lives and have more choices available. I even see higher divorce rates as a positive thing in some ways. 50 years ago it may not have been a valid choice for a woman to leave an abusive husband and set up on her own. Now they have a lot more choice in that regard.

brixon 8y ago

There are just cultural changes. When I was young it was expected that if you could have kids then you would. You needed them especially as you got old. Today this is not a view shared by all, more and more people are making their own decisions about having kids. In my family it seems that each generation is having less and less kids. My great grandparents had a 7-10, my grandparents had 5, my parents had 2, I had 1. I think the world has enough people, so for me one kid was plenty.

WhompingWindows 8y ago

There's likely not causation with any individual factor, because it's a multivariable model. There are probably a dozen factors that contribute to the birth rate, including those you mentioned and probably many others.

sdenton4 8y ago

Agreed. There's also been a strong link between birth rates and education (especially for women). And education leads to strong knowledge based economies leads to higher home prices... Or, if you like, places with high housing prices require higher earners to pay the rent/mortgage, who tend to have higher education levels and thus fewer kids.

gideon_b 8y ago

There is likely some degree of causation, though it would be difficult to measure. As an anecdote, almost everyone I know moves to a less expensive area and buys a larger house when they start a family. Live downtown, have babies, move to the 'burbs. My parents did it, and I will probably do it too. This type of situation muddies the data because we are contributing the trend but the housing price isn't changing whether we have babies. It only changes where we have babies. It's unclear whether the data shows that housing prices affect the brith rate or whether people just move to cheaper neighbourhoods when they want to have babies.