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Birthrates are a powerful, but lagging/post-hoc indicator of public policy effects. It's worth noting that we tend to associate high birthrates with poverty and

Birthrates are a powerful, but lagging/post-hoc indicator of public policy effects. It's worth noting that we tend to associate high birthrates with poverty and negative social outcomes. Except, when rates are low we (western countries) use immigration from high-birthrate societies to shore up the population replacement rate, as the article notes. When you look at who is having kids in the US and Canada, the families, (or specifically, women) who have 2 or more children are either exceptionally wealthy (90th+ pc) or exceptionally poor. I'd speculate this is because if you are either rich or poor you have stability in that your life circumstances aren't going to change that radically, and hypothesize it's mainly educated middle class people who are having kids below the population replacement rate, if at all, because their lives do not find a relatively stable equilibrium. The mix of the promise of upward mobility that is always just out of reach, and the risk of "losing it all," creates a condition of constant low-level stress similar to other species that do not breed in captivity. If you have the Malthusian or environmentalist worldview that fewer people is better, this is a positive (if cynical) development. But even that's not going to work because public debt and entitlements mean shoring up a replacement rate population with immigration from high-birthrate societies. The other thing is the people who are having kids create even more polarized opportunity, where the life outcomes of a 3-kid wealthy home vs. the outcomes of a 3-kid working class or public-dependent home are going to be alien to each other. An (increasingly rare) person from a single-kid middle class home is not only a social minority, but has to create more of their own opportunities because they are an outsider to both societies. IMO, the covid baby bust is only a symptom of a much larger and longer term macro-decline, and just the beginning of the real and inevitable consequences of the post-war baby-boom generation.

boh 6y ago
Unfortunately much of the financial system (in the US anyway) is highly dependent on population growth. Many existing entitlements were created during periods of uncommon birth-rates with the expectation that the babies being born will grow and reproduce at the same rate as their parents. This growth hasn't materialized, and much of the existing growth can be attributed to immigrant inflows. Regardless of the environmental arguments against overpopulation, we are living in a competitive world, and historically, declining birth-rates have often not been favorable for sustaining sociopolitical influence and relevance or economic growth and stability. We are however, living in a unique time were robots and AI can potentially pick up the slack for whatever losses of productivity a lower population may cause. We will however still have to operate in a period of growing stagnation and inequality. Wealth will be less available through incomes (as it already is), and inequality, without the proper counter measures, can inflate to the levels more familiar in Jane Austen's time. You have more economic growth if you give 1 million people $100 dollars (since they are more likely to spend it on goods/services) vs giving $100 million to one person (who will likely spend the bulk of their money on financial instruments). An economy needs many people to spend money to grow, we’re now expected to have less people with less money to spend.
- rsync 6y ago
  "Unfortunately much of the financial system (in the US anyway) is highly dependent on population growth." I came to this discussion ctrl-f'ing for "deflation" and while I got zero hits, your comment is close enough ... I will abstract one level deeper and rephrase what you said as: "Much of the financial system is highly dependent on economic growth." There continues to be fervent discussion of the results of QE over the last 10 years and the results of various covid stimulus packages and how these things could be inflationary, etc., etc. Some of this may come to pass - we may, indeed, find ourselves in geographic or temporal pockets of inflation - possibly very high inflation. Make no mistake, however: the world we are living in is massively deflationary and even dramatic and innovative attempts to maintain (low) inflation are barely keeping us above water ...
  - shortandsweet 6y ago
    Why do you feel we're living in deflationary times?
    - lurquer 6y ago
      Don’t mean to butt in, but personally, the fact that I’m typing this on a piece of $300 hardware (phone) that would have cost millions in the 80’s, hundreds of thousands in the 90’s, and definitely over a thousand in the 00’s is a good indicator.
      - ryder9 6y ago
        that's economies of scale and manufacturing momentum, nothing to do with deflation
      - u801e 6y ago
        I think computer hardware is one of the few things that decreased in price over time. The price of most other good and services has definitely increased since the '80s.
      - Supermancho 6y ago
laurent92 6y ago
> when birthrates are low we use immigration This is why I don’t believe in ecology. Every 5% we save on water, is being used by our leaders to stuff more population on the same land. It defeats the purpose of saving: Public policies cancel individual efforts, such as my friends who chose to have no kids for ecology. Capitalism is a way of forwarding global constraints to individuals, and exponential house prices communicates that the territory cannot survive with more people. Yet, not only do we increase population (so all those “no kids” friends are up for disappointment), but we bring those newcomers to the levels of consumption of middle classes, using lowered prices so they can afford 70% of mid-class consumption levels. Since our leaders break the relationship between environmental constraints and costs, by offering free housing, food and subsidized public services, people believe it is ok to be 120 people per square kilometer, and we can afford to love and welcome more people. No! Each additional individual emits greenhouse gases! We’re already emitting ~3x the affordable rate! We should have taken the naturally decreasing population to smoothly become more sustainable, but our government decided to add 0,5-1% population per year, artificially! Our land can’t afford more people!
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  The only solution is having fewer babies worldwide. National borders don’t stop people from moving where opportunity is.
  - laurent92 6y ago
    Imposing our point of view to other countries would be neocolonialism. A country should be free to make more babies, if that come from another assignation of resources and if they have control. Unless we start that their babies is our problem (Sorry it’s a bit crude - but this topic is a minefield anyway so I’m just stepping on each of them to test them). India or China seem to deal well with extremely high density of population (...because their political system can withstand extreme inequality/poverty), while the West’s balance is lower. But with the same density as China, Africa overflows a lot. Maybe “their babies is our problem” is a natural consequence of the Marrakech Pact (which blurs the lines of economic migrants, paving the road to guaranteeing they can migrate)?
bookmarkable 6y ago
Interesting analysis, but I think you are discounting the number of people in each of these groups. Percentage basis, yes, the rich and poor will have more children. But both groups are not the 80% of the middle (using your 10% cutoffs on either end). So I don't think children from the non-rich and non-poor society are going to be aliens in the world anytime soon. Sadly though, fewer will know life with siblings. To meet groups of siblings, you'll find more rich and poor - but only at their birth. Any number of those will change positions in society in any direction.
logshipper 6y ago
I could not agree more. Whereas historically having kids used to be a "social" decision in various respects, it has now become a socio-economic decision for the reasons you point out. If anything, I would argue that the economic shock of the pandemic (aside from the horror stories you hear from WFH parents who have kids) and the inequality it has exposed in our financial systems has cemented the idea for a lot of middle class millenials to have no kids/fewer kids.
- treis 6y ago
  It was always a socio-economic decision. Kids were your retirement plan before we came up with things like 401ks.
  - tenacious_tuna 6y ago
    This is a very interesting perspective to me, because I know it’s relatively common in non-Western (or maybe just non-American?) cultures that parents move back in with their kids when they get old, or more generally that extended familial units are far more cohesive than they are in the States. ....Which then means your extended family (and own children) are indeed a ‘retirement plan’, because the expectation is that they’ll be around to support you when you’re unable to support yourself. But the intensely individualistic American lifestyle doesn’t lend itself to that thinking very well, so there’s less incentive for folks to have kids for their own interest. (Indeed, as a mid-20s couple, we’re more often told the ways in which children _limit_ the lives of the parents, rather than augment them.)
yortpyperty 6y ago
As a new father, I share this perspective. To get an anecdotal sense of our financial struggle, we have 2-4x the net worth that my parents when they were our age, but cannot afford the same house that I grew up in and doubt we ever will.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  I’ve been thinking about this lately. Similar to you, the house I grew up in is much more less affordable now than it was when my parents bought it. However, in my case it’s not really the same house any more. At the time, the location was thought to be on the outskirts of town, away from the desirable areas. As the city grew, this location became the desirable area. If I look to what is now considered the outskirts, I still see new construction in the $300K range (pre-COVID anyway), which is similar to the inflation-adjusted price of the house I grew up in. At some point we can’t escape supply and demand with more buyers fighting over the same limited housing supply. Many of my friends have been moving to less popular cities and up and coming towns as they start raising families, and it pays off. Obviously not an option for everyone’s situation, but thankfully the increase in remote work is relieving some of the pressure in overcrowded cities.
  - bcrosby95 6y ago
    Same, but the "outskirts" has gone from a 30 minute drive to work to a 2 hour drive to work. At some point something has to give.
  - shortandsweet 6y ago
    That's what I don't understand, if population growth is stagnant or declining, how is it these housing prices are reaching such heights?
    - whatshisface 6y ago
      Because nobody wants to hold currency for extended periods of time.
nathancahill 6y ago
A different environmentalist worldview that I was raised with (as one of four kids of environmentalist parents): Kids raised with an environmental mindset will have a larger positive impact than having fewer or no children. Their impact will outweigh their environmental footprint.
- tenacious_tuna 6y ago
  I’m curious how the logic works for that. I’ve always assumed that there’s effectively no way for an individual human to net-negative their own emissions/energy consumption/whatnot, just because of the sheer amount of material they need/use/consume (at least, in a Western society). A few outliers (Greta Thornberg?) may be able to effect sufficient policy to counteract their own environmental impact, but in the general case I don’t see how raising a kid with a strongly environmental-conscious mindset is at all better than just... not having a kid.
  - nathancahill 6y ago
    I've given a lot of thought to this. Here's a few points I think about: 0. Your own environmental impact is significantly reduced, so the baseline to "counteract" is lower than "Western society". 1. Change happens incrementally. Moving the needle in small ways slowly changes the big picture. Greta is moving the needle in big ways within her lifetime, but like you say, that's not the norm. 2. Raising awareness and leading by example can have an outsized impact in your community. 3. Voting and other political involvement (won't turn this political, but every vote matters, especially for local issues that might be decided by 50-100 votes). 4. Supporting companies that align with your values. Consider the total dollar spend of an individual over the course of their life. 5. Charitable giving. Tons of great work is being done around the world by non-profits. Even if you don't pursue a career in non-profit work, donating is tax deductible and goes a long way. 6. Raising your own children with a similar mindset.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      7. Inventing and supporting new sources of energy, materials, and efficiency.
TacticalCoder 6y ago
> An (increasingly rare) person from a single-kid middle class home is not only a social minority, but has to create more of their own opportunities because they are an outsider to both societies. I don't follow: is a single kid from a middle class family an outsider to kids from other middle class families where they have 2 or 3 kids? I mean, I understand that middle class is neither rich nor poor, but what's the difference for a unique child compared to middle class families with serveral kids? Do the siblings typically provide opportunities for their brothers/sisters? (I'm personally launching atm a new endeavor with my brother but I don't see that as particularly common).
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  I'm also not sure what they're getting at but here's my anecdote FWIW. I never fit in well with the other welfare kids that came from families with many kids. Nor did I fit in with the middle class and up kids always flexing their Nikes, vacations, cars, and other vapid things I could never dream of getting. My circumstance did allow me to mingle with the various classes and see how they live and succeed. The poor families rapidly introduce the kids to low pay manual labor jobs in grocery stores, farms and the like. The better off families got their kids fun summer jobs near their summer homes working banana stands or giving guided tours. The differences become even more stark in college, for those who went that is. The relationships gained from introductions made by the well offs family and friends pay massive dividends immediately if you speak the right language. By which I mean one doesn't speak like a poor person. Between private job offers, highly paid internships, and favor trading the poor kids don't just have the deck stacked against them, they're playing with the cards and chips that've fallen off the table, but only against the other poors. The one constant between classes is drug use. There's a lot of drug use in all these groups, even the DARE/ROTC/AP kids. The difference is that the poor kids self medicating away their shit hand, while the rich kids are rebelling against their parents, self medicating their home problems like abuse and emotional neglect, or trying to get an edge in classes/work. Rarely do well off kids fall into hardcore addiction. I've seen a lot of kids taken to very expensive rehab clinics multiple times. Poor kids don't get these vacations and access to world class shrinks. Siblings tend to follow the familial mean. Sure sometimes a rich family has a complete failure of a child, but most of the time they're mediocre middle management coasting through life on their laurels continuing the time honored tradition of trading favors with and smoothing over the rough patches for their kids and siblings. Siblings in poor families do the same things, but with limited means comes limited success.
shortandsweet 6y ago
I don't understand your view that population growth is required to manage debt. Isn't it inflation that reduces the future value of such debts?
- motohagiography 6y ago
  Population growth ostensibly creates economic growth, which generates tax receipts to pay down public debt. We're about to hit a wave of massive inflation, which rewards asset owners and punishes workers and savers. Further, I used to think that millennials were poorer than they think they are, but then it clicked they absolutely understand, and that's why they behave exactly like the poor people they subconsciously recognize they in fact are. If you took the traditional criticisms of how the poor manage their lives you'd get things like, a lack of long term planning, blowing money on gaudy status signalling to attract other poor partners or mates, a temporary and transactional attitude to work, lots of unsecured high interest debt, hyperbolic reactions to perceived slights, superstitious beliefs, extreme promiscuity, isolating and sabotaging people who make their own way as not being authentic, a lot of people would unironically say those are racist and classist stereotypes, without seeing that they accurately describe the lives of ostensibly middle class white millennials. They know they're poor and they're acting like it, and they have less hope than policymakers imagine. Inflation wouldn't make a difference because they don't have any savings, and they don't have assets, it's just another force they're subject to. "So we drink and dance and screw, because there's nothing else to do..."
  - imtringued 6y ago
    >They know they're poor and they're acting like it, and they have less hope than policymakers imagine. Inflation wouldn't make a difference because they don't have any savings, and they don't have assets, it's just another force they're subject to. The entire point is that inflation forces asset owners to do something useful. Inflation is beneficial to those who are dependent on an income.
  - N1H1L 6y ago
    Millennials actually are less promiscuous and have sex later and less often than their previous generations. So your points are not only classist, but wrong too.
Balgair 6y ago
> I'd speculate this is because if you are either rich or poor you have stability in that your life circumstances aren't going to change that radically, In the U.S. this may be due not to 'stability', but Medicaid. To be clear, Medicaid benefits are a hot mess of bureaucracy. To paraphrase Voltaire: 'The point of Medicaid is to ensure that no two people are covered under the same set of rules'. That said, Medicaid covers ~22% of the U.S. population. The Medicaid yearly income cut-off for a 2-person household is ~$57k/year. Most of the costs of a pregnancy are covered under Medicaid [0]. What are such costs? Well, again, it's very complicated, no birth is 'standard'. And googling this is going to lead to a wide range of answers. But in my local area for a first birth, one baby, no c-section, no epidural, no emergency measures, you're looking at ~$20k out of pocket. And that's with a 'good' HCP. C-sections go to ~$80k, and those are ~20% of first births in my area. Again, the costs will vary wildly depending on many factors. Then you add in check-ups, vaccinations[1], standard illnesses, ear infections, etc. Medicaid will mostly cover these things, while anyone making more than the cut-off must pay them out of pocket with their HCP discounts, if applicable (again, caution, it's super complex bureaucracy). The interesting thing is to look at other countries with mostly functional universal healthcare systems. What has happened to their birthrates based on income when you look at how much a mother can be expected to pay for a birth? From what I can recall, there seems to be no real difference as compared to the US, correct? [0] https://www.growingfamilybenefits.com/medicaid-coverage-during-pregnancy/ https://www.growingfamilybenefits.com/medicaid-coverage-duri... [1] They may be free, but it depends on your HCP. Sometimes the nurse to inject will bill pretty high. I've gotten ~$300 bills for vaccinations before.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bcrosby95 6y ago
  I've never heard of anyone paying $80k for a c-section out of pocket, and I know a lot of people that got them. Hell, my wife had to have 2 and the total bills were around $25k, and we paid around $2k out of pocket after insurance.
  - Balgair 6y ago
abootstrapper 6y ago
> When you look at who is having kids in the US and Canada, the families, (or specifically, women) who have 2 or more children are either exceptionally wealthy (90th+ pc) or exceptionally poor Source?
snarf21 6y ago
I agree with you. The only way out of this is via automation. If we have high enough automation, costs will drop despite lack of growth. In the end the world will be a stark 0.001% who own the automation and the flat 99.999% who subsist on leisure and boredom.
- knz 6y ago
  > In the end the world will be a stark 0.001% who own the automation and the flat 99.999% who subsist on leisure and boredom. Leisure? Or poverty? This strikes me as a return to the default state for much of human existence and the current reality for much of the world's population.
  - bilegeek 6y ago
    I agree, and here's where I have to plug the excellent "Rules for Rulers": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs Basically - a bit of an oversimplification, watch the video for a full explanation - democracies only stay democracies because giving people a relatively good life happens to coincide with citizen productivity, which increases leader wealth. If a country relies on a source of revenue that itself doesn't rely on the citizenry, then improving the lives of the citizenry is more or less irrelevant to the leaders, as in authoritarian governments. That's what makes automation so scary. At a certain point, no country will need rely on the majority of the citizenry to produce wealth. Which means we are screwed.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
I have neither the "Malthusian or environmentalist worldview" nor the opposite, which seems to be dangerously close to a "nationalist or eugenics worldview". In other words: any grievances about birth rate on a population-wide level run the risk of spurning legislation or other changes with the purpose of forcing (with varying level of vehemence) individuals to make reproductive choices they otherwise wouldn't. Specifically, it's hard to interpret the universal drop in birth rates among societies as they advance on anything but women exercising their newfound freedom not to have children. Many attempts to reverse the trend will thus look to reverse these changes. To be sure, there are other policy ideas one could advance, and some examples of them working well, such as universal childcare, mandatory parental leave for both genders, and some others that share the distinction of having zero chance to become law in the US. I'm taking the liberty to advocate for ignoring any population-wide concerns about birth rates because even in the most extreme cases such as Germany or Japan, and even moreso in the US where it's relatively mild, the effect just isn't strong enough to lead to any insurmountable problems. Given a bit more automation and medical advances that keep people not just alive but fit, the problems of an ageing population seem to be solvable, especially as long as there is still significant will to immigrate, which does not seem likely to abate.
- motohagiography 6y ago
  Perhaps this is a marker of the divide in worldviews. If we can't develop a country and a society people willingly want to have kids in, what is it for?
  - nonameiguess 6y ago
    People do want to have kids, but the physical process of going through pregnancy and birth is brutal and dangerous. The people who have to do it quite rationally don't want to do it four times in the same decade once they have any other choice, even if it would be socially optimal. The best thing we can do at this point is develop the technology to create babies outside of human wombs.
jtbayly 6y ago
> public debt and entitlements mean shoring up a replacement rate population with immigration from high-birthrate societies There are very few of these left, and the ones that still exist are also in declining fertility, even if still above replacement.
curryst 6y ago
> The mix of the promise of upward mobility that is always just out of reach, and the risk of "losing it all," creates a condition of constant low-level stress similar to other species that do not breed in captivity. I think there's a mix of underlying causes for it, but I think college is one of the big ones. If you want a stable life, college may help. Many people go to college. However it is not conducive to having children while you do it. Then you graduate, and move into the job market. Except it doesn't have the stability it used to. Pensions are gone, and rewards for loyalty remain too low to be compelling most place. So people job hop to get raises. You have to make sure you earn enough to live stably and comfortably, and also fund your retirement after all. Declining real wages also mean that you hit the "comfortable and stable" stage of life later in life (if at all). The push to equalize the gender income gap also puts downward pressure on the birth rate, imo. Pushing women to want to be mothers is wrong, but it does seem that it would increase the birth rate. It may also be harder to get to higher paying jobs while handling pregnancy and children, which could discourage having children. To be clear, I'm not blaming women, those were horrible societal acts and I don't think we should revert them, just noting that the birth rate in a more equal society might be lower. And lastly, I think social media has taken "keeping up with the Jones" to a whole new level where you're trying to compete on a global scale. Even if you can avoid that, there are ads lurking around every corner trying to convince you to spend money on things you don't really need. I'm not against the premise of ads in general, but they're so pervasive now. You can't do anything without someone trying to convince you to buy something. I truly believe it creates more pressure to spend, which creates downward pressure on peoples' ability to save. If ads were really that easy to resist, they wouldn't be worth much, and Google would be a tiny company.

boh 6y ago

Unfortunately much of the financial system (in the US anyway) is highly dependent on population growth. Many existing entitlements were created during periods of uncommon birth-rates with the expectation that the babies being born will grow and reproduce at the same rate as their parents. This growth hasn't materialized, and much of the existing growth can be attributed to immigrant inflows. Regardless of the environmental arguments against overpopulation, we are living in a competitive world, and historically, declining birth-rates have often not been favorable for sustaining sociopolitical influence and relevance or economic growth and stability. We are however, living in a unique time were robots and AI can potentially pick up the slack for whatever losses of productivity a lower population may cause. We will however still have to operate in a period of growing stagnation and inequality. Wealth will be less available through incomes (as it already is), and inequality, without the proper counter measures, can inflate to the levels more familiar in Jane Austen's time. You have more economic growth if you give 1 million people $100 dollars (since they are more likely to spend it on goods/services) vs giving $100 million to one person (who will likely spend the bulk of their money on financial instruments). An economy needs many people to spend money to grow, we’re now expected to have less people with less money to spend.

rsync 6y ago
"Unfortunately much of the financial system (in the US anyway) is highly dependent on population growth." I came to this discussion ctrl-f'ing for "deflation" and while I got zero hits, your comment is close enough ... I will abstract one level deeper and rephrase what you said as: "Much of the financial system is highly dependent on economic growth." There continues to be fervent discussion of the results of QE over the last 10 years and the results of various covid stimulus packages and how these things could be inflationary, etc., etc. Some of this may come to pass - we may, indeed, find ourselves in geographic or temporal pockets of inflation - possibly very high inflation. Make no mistake, however: the world we are living in is massively deflationary and even dramatic and innovative attempts to maintain (low) inflation are barely keeping us above water ...
- shortandsweet 6y ago
  Why do you feel we're living in deflationary times?
  - lurquer 6y ago
    Don’t mean to butt in, but personally, the fact that I’m typing this on a piece of $300 hardware (phone) that would have cost millions in the 80’s, hundreds of thousands in the 90’s, and definitely over a thousand in the 00’s is a good indicator.
    - ryder9 6y ago
      that's economies of scale and manufacturing momentum, nothing to do with deflation
    - u801e 6y ago
      I think computer hardware is one of the few things that decreased in price over time. The price of most other good and services has definitely increased since the '80s.
    - Supermancho 6y ago

laurent92 6y ago

> when birthrates are low we use immigration This is why I don’t believe in ecology. Every 5% we save on water, is being used by our leaders to stuff more population on the same land. It defeats the purpose of saving: Public policies cancel individual efforts, such as my friends who chose to have no kids for ecology. Capitalism is a way of forwarding global constraints to individuals, and exponential house prices communicates that the territory cannot survive with more people. Yet, not only do we increase population (so all those “no kids” friends are up for disappointment), but we bring those newcomers to the levels of consumption of middle classes, using lowered prices so they can afford 70% of mid-class consumption levels. Since our leaders break the relationship between environmental constraints and costs, by offering free housing, food and subsidized public services, people believe it is ok to be 120 people per square kilometer, and we can afford to love and welcome more people. No! Each additional individual emits greenhouse gases! We’re already emitting ~3x the affordable rate! We should have taken the naturally decreasing population to smoothly become more sustainable, but our government decided to add 0,5-1% population per year, artificially! Our land can’t afford more people!

amanaplanacanal 6y ago
The only solution is having fewer babies worldwide. National borders don’t stop people from moving where opportunity is.
- laurent92 6y ago
  Imposing our point of view to other countries would be neocolonialism. A country should be free to make more babies, if that come from another assignation of resources and if they have control. Unless we start that their babies is our problem (Sorry it’s a bit crude - but this topic is a minefield anyway so I’m just stepping on each of them to test them). India or China seem to deal well with extremely high density of population (...because their political system can withstand extreme inequality/poverty), while the West’s balance is lower. But with the same density as China, Africa overflows a lot. Maybe “their babies is our problem” is a natural consequence of the Marrakech Pact (which blurs the lines of economic migrants, paving the road to guaranteeing they can migrate)?

bookmarkable 6y ago

Interesting analysis, but I think you are discounting the number of people in each of these groups. Percentage basis, yes, the rich and poor will have more children. But both groups are not the 80% of the middle (using your 10% cutoffs on either end). So I don't think children from the non-rich and non-poor society are going to be aliens in the world anytime soon. Sadly though, fewer will know life with siblings. To meet groups of siblings, you'll find more rich and poor - but only at their birth. Any number of those will change positions in society in any direction.

logshipper 6y ago

I could not agree more. Whereas historically having kids used to be a "social" decision in various respects, it has now become a socio-economic decision for the reasons you point out. If anything, I would argue that the economic shock of the pandemic (aside from the horror stories you hear from WFH parents who have kids) and the inequality it has exposed in our financial systems has cemented the idea for a lot of middle class millenials to have no kids/fewer kids.

treis 6y ago
It was always a socio-economic decision. Kids were your retirement plan before we came up with things like 401ks.
- tenacious_tuna 6y ago
  This is a very interesting perspective to me, because I know it’s relatively common in non-Western (or maybe just non-American?) cultures that parents move back in with their kids when they get old, or more generally that extended familial units are far more cohesive than they are in the States. ....Which then means your extended family (and own children) are indeed a ‘retirement plan’, because the expectation is that they’ll be around to support you when you’re unable to support yourself. But the intensely individualistic American lifestyle doesn’t lend itself to that thinking very well, so there’s less incentive for folks to have kids for their own interest. (Indeed, as a mid-20s couple, we’re more often told the ways in which children _limit_ the lives of the parents, rather than augment them.)

yortpyperty 6y ago

As a new father, I share this perspective. To get an anecdotal sense of our financial struggle, we have 2-4x the net worth that my parents when they were our age, but cannot afford the same house that I grew up in and doubt we ever will.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
I’ve been thinking about this lately. Similar to you, the house I grew up in is much more less affordable now than it was when my parents bought it. However, in my case it’s not really the same house any more. At the time, the location was thought to be on the outskirts of town, away from the desirable areas. As the city grew, this location became the desirable area. If I look to what is now considered the outskirts, I still see new construction in the $300K range (pre-COVID anyway), which is similar to the inflation-adjusted price of the house I grew up in. At some point we can’t escape supply and demand with more buyers fighting over the same limited housing supply. Many of my friends have been moving to less popular cities and up and coming towns as they start raising families, and it pays off. Obviously not an option for everyone’s situation, but thankfully the increase in remote work is relieving some of the pressure in overcrowded cities.
- bcrosby95 6y ago
  Same, but the "outskirts" has gone from a 30 minute drive to work to a 2 hour drive to work. At some point something has to give.
- shortandsweet 6y ago
  That's what I don't understand, if population growth is stagnant or declining, how is it these housing prices are reaching such heights?
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    Because nobody wants to hold currency for extended periods of time.

nathancahill 6y ago

A different environmentalist worldview that I was raised with (as one of four kids of environmentalist parents): Kids raised with an environmental mindset will have a larger positive impact than having fewer or no children. Their impact will outweigh their environmental footprint.

tenacious_tuna 6y ago
I’m curious how the logic works for that. I’ve always assumed that there’s effectively no way for an individual human to net-negative their own emissions/energy consumption/whatnot, just because of the sheer amount of material they need/use/consume (at least, in a Western society). A few outliers (Greta Thornberg?) may be able to effect sufficient policy to counteract their own environmental impact, but in the general case I don’t see how raising a kid with a strongly environmental-conscious mindset is at all better than just... not having a kid.
- nathancahill 6y ago
  I've given a lot of thought to this. Here's a few points I think about: 0. Your own environmental impact is significantly reduced, so the baseline to "counteract" is lower than "Western society". 1. Change happens incrementally. Moving the needle in small ways slowly changes the big picture. Greta is moving the needle in big ways within her lifetime, but like you say, that's not the norm. 2. Raising awareness and leading by example can have an outsized impact in your community. 3. Voting and other political involvement (won't turn this political, but every vote matters, especially for local issues that might be decided by 50-100 votes). 4. Supporting companies that align with your values. Consider the total dollar spend of an individual over the course of their life. 5. Charitable giving. Tons of great work is being done around the world by non-profits. Even if you don't pursue a career in non-profit work, donating is tax deductible and goes a long way. 6. Raising your own children with a similar mindset.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    7. Inventing and supporting new sources of energy, materials, and efficiency.

TacticalCoder 6y ago

> An (increasingly rare) person from a single-kid middle class home is not only a social minority, but has to create more of their own opportunities because they are an outsider to both societies. I don't follow: is a single kid from a middle class family an outsider to kids from other middle class families where they have 2 or 3 kids? I mean, I understand that middle class is neither rich nor poor, but what's the difference for a unique child compared to middle class families with serveral kids? Do the siblings typically provide opportunities for their brothers/sisters? (I'm personally launching atm a new endeavor with my brother but I don't see that as particularly common).

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
I'm also not sure what they're getting at but here's my anecdote FWIW. I never fit in well with the other welfare kids that came from families with many kids. Nor did I fit in with the middle class and up kids always flexing their Nikes, vacations, cars, and other vapid things I could never dream of getting. My circumstance did allow me to mingle with the various classes and see how they live and succeed. The poor families rapidly introduce the kids to low pay manual labor jobs in grocery stores, farms and the like. The better off families got their kids fun summer jobs near their summer homes working banana stands or giving guided tours. The differences become even more stark in college, for those who went that is. The relationships gained from introductions made by the well offs family and friends pay massive dividends immediately if you speak the right language. By which I mean one doesn't speak like a poor person. Between private job offers, highly paid internships, and favor trading the poor kids don't just have the deck stacked against them, they're playing with the cards and chips that've fallen off the table, but only against the other poors. The one constant between classes is drug use. There's a lot of drug use in all these groups, even the DARE/ROTC/AP kids. The difference is that the poor kids self medicating away their shit hand, while the rich kids are rebelling against their parents, self medicating their home problems like abuse and emotional neglect, or trying to get an edge in classes/work. Rarely do well off kids fall into hardcore addiction. I've seen a lot of kids taken to very expensive rehab clinics multiple times. Poor kids don't get these vacations and access to world class shrinks. Siblings tend to follow the familial mean. Sure sometimes a rich family has a complete failure of a child, but most of the time they're mediocre middle management coasting through life on their laurels continuing the time honored tradition of trading favors with and smoothing over the rough patches for their kids and siblings. Siblings in poor families do the same things, but with limited means comes limited success.

shortandsweet 6y ago

I don't understand your view that population growth is required to manage debt. Isn't it inflation that reduces the future value of such debts?

motohagiography 6y ago
Population growth ostensibly creates economic growth, which generates tax receipts to pay down public debt. We're about to hit a wave of massive inflation, which rewards asset owners and punishes workers and savers. Further, I used to think that millennials were poorer than they think they are, but then it clicked they absolutely understand, and that's why they behave exactly like the poor people they subconsciously recognize they in fact are. If you took the traditional criticisms of how the poor manage their lives you'd get things like, a lack of long term planning, blowing money on gaudy status signalling to attract other poor partners or mates, a temporary and transactional attitude to work, lots of unsecured high interest debt, hyperbolic reactions to perceived slights, superstitious beliefs, extreme promiscuity, isolating and sabotaging people who make their own way as not being authentic, a lot of people would unironically say those are racist and classist stereotypes, without seeing that they accurately describe the lives of ostensibly middle class white millennials. They know they're poor and they're acting like it, and they have less hope than policymakers imagine. Inflation wouldn't make a difference because they don't have any savings, and they don't have assets, it's just another force they're subject to. "So we drink and dance and screw, because there's nothing else to do..."
- imtringued 6y ago
  >They know they're poor and they're acting like it, and they have less hope than policymakers imagine. Inflation wouldn't make a difference because they don't have any savings, and they don't have assets, it's just another force they're subject to. The entire point is that inflation forces asset owners to do something useful. Inflation is beneficial to those who are dependent on an income.
- N1H1L 6y ago
  Millennials actually are less promiscuous and have sex later and less often than their previous generations. So your points are not only classist, but wrong too.

Balgair 6y ago

> I'd speculate this is because if you are either rich or poor you have stability in that your life circumstances aren't going to change that radically, In the U.S. this may be due not to 'stability', but Medicaid. To be clear, Medicaid benefits are a hot mess of bureaucracy. To paraphrase Voltaire: 'The point of Medicaid is to ensure that no two people are covered under the same set of rules'. That said, Medicaid covers ~22% of the U.S. population. The Medicaid yearly income cut-off for a 2-person household is ~$57k/year. Most of the costs of a pregnancy are covered under Medicaid [0]. What are such costs? Well, again, it's very complicated, no birth is 'standard'. And googling this is going to lead to a wide range of answers. But in my local area for a first birth, one baby, no c-section, no epidural, no emergency measures, you're looking at ~$20k out of pocket. And that's with a 'good' HCP. C-sections go to ~$80k, and those are ~20% of first births in my area. Again, the costs will vary wildly depending on many factors. Then you add in check-ups, vaccinations[1], standard illnesses, ear infections, etc. Medicaid will mostly cover these things, while anyone making more than the cut-off must pay them out of pocket with their HCP discounts, if applicable (again, caution, it's super complex bureaucracy). The interesting thing is to look at other countries with mostly functional universal healthcare systems. What has happened to their birthrates based on income when you look at how much a mother can be expected to pay for a birth? From what I can recall, there seems to be no real difference as compared to the US, correct? [0] https://www.growingfamilybenefits.com/medicaid-coverage-during-pregnancy/ https://www.growingfamilybenefits.com/medicaid-coverage-duri... [1] They may be free, but it depends on your HCP. Sometimes the nurse to inject will bill pretty high. I've gotten ~$300 bills for vaccinations before.

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bcrosby95 6y ago
I've never heard of anyone paying $80k for a c-section out of pocket, and I know a lot of people that got them. Hell, my wife had to have 2 and the total bills were around $25k, and we paid around $2k out of pocket after insurance.
- Balgair 6y ago

abootstrapper 6y ago

> When you look at who is having kids in the US and Canada, the families, (or specifically, women) who have 2 or more children are either exceptionally wealthy (90th+ pc) or exceptionally poor Source?

snarf21 6y ago

I agree with you. The only way out of this is via automation. If we have high enough automation, costs will drop despite lack of growth. In the end the world will be a stark 0.001% who own the automation and the flat 99.999% who subsist on leisure and boredom.

knz 6y ago
> In the end the world will be a stark 0.001% who own the automation and the flat 99.999% who subsist on leisure and boredom. Leisure? Or poverty? This strikes me as a return to the default state for much of human existence and the current reality for much of the world's population.
- bilegeek 6y ago
  I agree, and here's where I have to plug the excellent "Rules for Rulers": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs Basically - a bit of an oversimplification, watch the video for a full explanation - democracies only stay democracies because giving people a relatively good life happens to coincide with citizen productivity, which increases leader wealth. If a country relies on a source of revenue that itself doesn't rely on the citizenry, then improving the lives of the citizenry is more or less irrelevant to the leaders, as in authoritarian governments. That's what makes automation so scary. At a certain point, no country will need rely on the majority of the citizenry to produce wealth. Which means we are screwed.

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IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago

I have neither the "Malthusian or environmentalist worldview" nor the opposite, which seems to be dangerously close to a "nationalist or eugenics worldview". In other words: any grievances about birth rate on a population-wide level run the risk of spurning legislation or other changes with the purpose of forcing (with varying level of vehemence) individuals to make reproductive choices they otherwise wouldn't. Specifically, it's hard to interpret the universal drop in birth rates among societies as they advance on anything but women exercising their newfound freedom not to have children. Many attempts to reverse the trend will thus look to reverse these changes. To be sure, there are other policy ideas one could advance, and some examples of them working well, such as universal childcare, mandatory parental leave for both genders, and some others that share the distinction of having zero chance to become law in the US. I'm taking the liberty to advocate for ignoring any population-wide concerns about birth rates because even in the most extreme cases such as Germany or Japan, and even moreso in the US where it's relatively mild, the effect just isn't strong enough to lead to any insurmountable problems. Given a bit more automation and medical advances that keep people not just alive but fit, the problems of an ageing population seem to be solvable, especially as long as there is still significant will to immigrate, which does not seem likely to abate.

motohagiography 6y ago
Perhaps this is a marker of the divide in worldviews. If we can't develop a country and a society people willingly want to have kids in, what is it for?
- nonameiguess 6y ago
  People do want to have kids, but the physical process of going through pregnancy and birth is brutal and dangerous. The people who have to do it quite rationally don't want to do it four times in the same decade once they have any other choice, even if it would be socially optimal. The best thing we can do at this point is develop the technology to create babies outside of human wombs.

jtbayly 6y ago

> public debt and entitlements mean shoring up a replacement rate population with immigration from high-birthrate societies There are very few of these left, and the ones that still exist are also in declining fertility, even if still above replacement.

curryst 6y ago

> The mix of the promise of upward mobility that is always just out of reach, and the risk of "losing it all," creates a condition of constant low-level stress similar to other species that do not breed in captivity. I think there's a mix of underlying causes for it, but I think college is one of the big ones. If you want a stable life, college may help. Many people go to college. However it is not conducive to having children while you do it. Then you graduate, and move into the job market. Except it doesn't have the stability it used to. Pensions are gone, and rewards for loyalty remain too low to be compelling most place. So people job hop to get raises. You have to make sure you earn enough to live stably and comfortably, and also fund your retirement after all. Declining real wages also mean that you hit the "comfortable and stable" stage of life later in life (if at all). The push to equalize the gender income gap also puts downward pressure on the birth rate, imo. Pushing women to want to be mothers is wrong, but it does seem that it would increase the birth rate. It may also be harder to get to higher paying jobs while handling pregnancy and children, which could discourage having children. To be clear, I'm not blaming women, those were horrible societal acts and I don't think we should revert them, just noting that the birth rate in a more equal society might be lower. And lastly, I think social media has taken "keeping up with the Jones" to a whole new level where you're trying to compete on a global scale. Even if you can avoid that, there are ads lurking around every corner trying to convince you to spend money on things you don't really need. I'm not against the premise of ads in general, but they're so pervasive now. You can't do anything without someone trying to convince you to buy something. I truly believe it creates more pressure to spend, which creates downward pressure on peoples' ability to save. If ads were really that easy to resist, they wouldn't be worth much, and Google would be a tiny company.