3 ms·

well, you probably want to have one son and many daughters. You can trade your daughters for money (dowry, bride price, etc) and put a lot resources into you so

by smabie 6y ago

well, you probably want to have one son and many daughters. You can trade your daughters for money (dowry, bride price, etc) and put a lot resources into you son so he becomes successful and get as much reproductive access as possible. If course this is a evolutionary perspective, if you're talking about what is strictly rational for maximizing happiness, you should go with zero kids: https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-having-children-make-people-happier-in-the-long-run https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-having-children-make-people-...

jbay808 6y ago
From the evolutionary perspective you "should" have about as many sons as daughters, which is why you do.
- OJFord 6y ago
  Not really, everyone (or just every woman, or man, however) could be predisposed to whether they give birth to sons or daughters; on average then it'd still work out OK. (Might even be better, since it'd discourage interbreeding.)
  - jbay808 6y ago
    That's a very interesting proposal, but I wonder how it would work out in practice. As all eggs have one X chromosome, that effectively creates a system three sexes: Female, Male (X-gamete predisposition) and Male (Y-gamete predisposition), which we can call F, Mx, and My. The "x" and "y" predispositions might also be heritable with some frequency ("h"). Perhaps the predisposition is not absolute, but just a probability "p" favouring one gamete over the other. I wonder what kind of equilibrium this system would come to. For now I'll assume that females have no preference for Mx over My or vise-versa. For reductio-ad-absurdum, let's imagine what would happen with p=1 and h=1. Then Mx fathers have only daughters, and after one generation, the population is entirely My and F. After two generations, it's only My, and there is no third generation. Next let's see what would happen with p=1 and h=0. Again, Mx fathers have only daughters; My fathers now have 50% My sons and 50% Mx sons. Starting from a population that is 50% F, 25% Mx, and 25% My, the second generation is again 50% F, 25% Mx, and 25% My, and with all parents having an equal number of offspring. So at a glance that looks like a stable population, but we'd need to look deeper to see whether any initial small unbalance between F, My, Mx returns to that equilibrium or diverges, and also whether there's any advantage to a higher "h" or a lower "p" that could gradually cause those traits to spread. For example if some kids with a "p=0.5" gene have an advantage over p=1, then over time the Mx and My distinction will get wiped out and we'd just end up with M and F. I'm too lazy to analyze it but it would be an interesting system to simulate!
thrav 6y ago
Until the kids leave the house. Then the parents overtake their no child counterparts like crazy. I’d also be curious to see this broken out by economic situation. I’d wager parents who don’t feel financially burdened by children score far happier than those that are stressed financially.
- paradox242 6y ago
  Can confirm, we are older but waited until we were financially stable before having children. I am loving it.
mantap 6y ago
If you have zero kids there's a reasonable chance you will spend your last years alone with nobody to care for you. Doesn't seem very rational.
maximente 6y ago
this analysis is not that impressive. it is flat out lazy to take huge, disparate groups and act like having a kid or not is a variable we can causally use to evaluate, well, anything. and let's not kid ourselves, it starts at the title (does having children /make/ people happy), and contains some weak tea "statistically signifcant" analysis without anything else that markedly affects happiness - income, location, ... it's just: here's a graph, here's a significance test, here's a narrative. no attempts or tests to try and evaluate while controlling for any other things e.g. income. don't let this analysis influence your thinking too much.

by smabie 6y ago

jbay808 6y ago

From the evolutionary perspective you "should" have about as many sons as daughters, which is why you do.

OJFord 6y ago
Not really, everyone (or just every woman, or man, however) could be predisposed to whether they give birth to sons or daughters; on average then it'd still work out OK. (Might even be better, since it'd discourage interbreeding.)
- jbay808 6y ago
  That's a very interesting proposal, but I wonder how it would work out in practice. As all eggs have one X chromosome, that effectively creates a system three sexes: Female, Male (X-gamete predisposition) and Male (Y-gamete predisposition), which we can call F, Mx, and My. The "x" and "y" predispositions might also be heritable with some frequency ("h"). Perhaps the predisposition is not absolute, but just a probability "p" favouring one gamete over the other. I wonder what kind of equilibrium this system would come to. For now I'll assume that females have no preference for Mx over My or vise-versa. For reductio-ad-absurdum, let's imagine what would happen with p=1 and h=1. Then Mx fathers have only daughters, and after one generation, the population is entirely My and F. After two generations, it's only My, and there is no third generation. Next let's see what would happen with p=1 and h=0. Again, Mx fathers have only daughters; My fathers now have 50% My sons and 50% Mx sons. Starting from a population that is 50% F, 25% Mx, and 25% My, the second generation is again 50% F, 25% Mx, and 25% My, and with all parents having an equal number of offspring. So at a glance that looks like a stable population, but we'd need to look deeper to see whether any initial small unbalance between F, My, Mx returns to that equilibrium or diverges, and also whether there's any advantage to a higher "h" or a lower "p" that could gradually cause those traits to spread. For example if some kids with a "p=0.5" gene have an advantage over p=1, then over time the Mx and My distinction will get wiped out and we'd just end up with M and F. I'm too lazy to analyze it but it would be an interesting system to simulate!

thrav 6y ago

Until the kids leave the house. Then the parents overtake their no child counterparts like crazy. I’d also be curious to see this broken out by economic situation. I’d wager parents who don’t feel financially burdened by children score far happier than those that are stressed financially.

paradox242 6y ago
Can confirm, we are older but waited until we were financially stable before having children. I am loving it.

mantap 6y ago

If you have zero kids there's a reasonable chance you will spend your last years alone with nobody to care for you. Doesn't seem very rational.

maximente 6y ago

this analysis is not that impressive. it is flat out lazy to take huge, disparate groups and act like having a kid or not is a variable we can causally use to evaluate, well, anything. and let's not kid ourselves, it starts at the title (does having children /make/ people happy), and contains some weak tea "statistically signifcant" analysis without anything else that markedly affects happiness - income, location, ... it's just: here's a graph, here's a significance test, here's a narrative. no attempts or tests to try and evaluate while controlling for any other things e.g. income. don't let this analysis influence your thinking too much.