11 ms·

Baby Boom or Bust?

46 points by Vigier 5y ago

chronogram 5y ago
While the article mainly focuses on France, the world is mostly looking at China after its one-child-policy as the greatest example. France is a good example for other things though. Its extremely pro-pension policies makes it very hostile against the young. Both countries at either end of the world were spending their time breeding babies to try to feed them 50 years later.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I do not see why history would be a good indicator for the article’s question anyway. The fact that birth control is easily and nearly freely available and women have gained economic independence is a big factor.
  - klipt 5y ago
    If you think about it this suggests a strong selective pressure for religious communities that consider birth control sinful.
    - noofen 5y ago
      It also suggests a strong selective pressure for uneducated, unproductive communities that do nothing but breed, take welfare, and vote.
    - peterburkimsher 5y ago
      It's a little more complicated than that: not all religious groups consider all forms of birth control to be sinful, and these trends don't apply in all countries. Increased religiosity won't necessarily increase the birth rate. Disclosure: my mum, Marion Burkimsher, is a demographic researcher specialising in this area. She's also studied fertility of migrants (the TFR statistics are skewed). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marion_Burkimsher/publication/338966806_Investigating_Family_Size_Differentials_by_Religiosity_Across_Europe_National_Contexts_Expectations_and_Outcomes/links/5ebbc512458515626ca5ae4f/Investigating-Family-Size-Differentials-by-Religiosity-Across-Europe-National-Contexts-Expectations-and-Outcomes.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marion_Burkimsher/publi...
      - mensetmanusman 5y ago
        https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/07/why-people-with-no-religion-are-projected-to-decline-as-a-share-of-the-worlds-population/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/07/why-people-... People who identify as secular have about 1 fewer child per couple when compared to the same local averages.
  - xf1cf 5y ago
    I would imagine birth control plays some part. But the economic independence argument I think is the larger factor. Before I get accused of sexism or whatever consider the actual economics of child rearing. 50 years ago assets weren't rapidly inflating and college degrees weren't required for a decent middle class living. The middle class has the best opportunity for raising children successfully (good education, good health, etc). The trade off? Someone has to stay home and tend to the house. It really doesn't matter who does, honestly, but historically this was the woman. The feminists will spin women entering the workforce as empowering. Indeed, it is. But as a result birth rates decline rapidly. The shirking of that traditional role means child care must be offloaded somewhere. Several family members with children have told me that pre-K daycare at a decent, but not great, daycare runs anywhere between $800-$2000 a month. Absurdly expensive. Ignoring the actual _cost_ of having the child, taking care of the child before you can offload that responsibility onto the education system is prohibitive for all but the upper classes these days. These upper class people don't often have children. The alternative is to return to the old system but that requires one income to support a house. If you're not clearing six figures this might not even be possible in all but the most remote parts of the country. This combined with rapid asset inflation means that in reality women entering the workforce wasn't for "empowerment" but rather necessity. With the price of goods going up every single year it's no longer feasible in most parts of the country to have one person stay home. The result? People have less kids. I have no solution to this really. No amount of maternity/paternity leave, pay raises, etc will fix it. We can probably place the blame squarely on the big banks and the federal reserve. But, how do you bring wages back in line so that people can afford to have kids?
- Animats 5y ago
  World is mostly looking at China after its one-child-policy as the greatest example. China's one-child policy was a success. They were able to put on the brakes during the period between health care getting good and standard of living going up, which is when population goes way up. India didn't do that, and their population shot up beyond the country's water supply. France is just leveling off. Japan is in actual decline. China: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/population India: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/population France: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/FRA/france/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/FRA/france/population Japan: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/population
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    Let's wait to see which country, between China and India, can fare better over the next 60 years of economic development. India might not have enough water now but the raw material for solving any problem is found in problem solvers, not the ground.
    - lorlou 5y ago
      The way things stand now, there's like zero evidence that India is doing or may ever do better than China in any regard.
      - whatshisface 5y ago
        India has more working-age people and is facing less of a population cliff than most countries. Whatever problems can be solved by workers, they will be in a better position to solve than anyone else. The US has immigration, India accomplishes the same thing but in one country instead of two continents.
        stephc_int13 5y ago
        China and India already had large populations compared to the western world, two centuries ago, and yet they were not doing better from an economic or military standpoint.
darig 5y ago
History as an academic pursuit Boom or Bust? Propagandist on a pension?
monkeybutton 5y ago
My country (Canada) is intent on making up for falling birth rates by increasing immigration. Sometimes I wonder if it is unethical for a rich country like Canada to effectively outsource (offload?) child rearing costs and to some extent education costs to the poorer countries that we are taking immigrants from.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  What’s the solution though? If Canadians don’t want to have more children, you can’t force them and you probably can’t influence them much, so your other choice is to close down the immigration, which seems like it’s less ethical than the present condition.
  - monkeybutton 5y ago
    I don't know! The cost of living and high cost of raising children here are popular scape goats for why Canadians are having less children. There's already baby bonuses, nationalized child care (in QC) but they do not have enough effect? One thing that isn't addressed is housing. Couples aren't going to want to have kids when all they can afford in a major city is a shoebox condo.
    - xnyan 5y ago
      >One thing that isn't addressed is housing Yeah, I'm not from Canada so you obviously know a lot more about this than me, but essentially 100% of my Canadian friends and family cite this as their top or near top concern right now. Toronto in particular seems wild, though Vancouver may be worse.
    - alexlesuper 5y ago
      Child care costs are a false excuse. If raising children was entirely free, I think the birthrate would barely nudge higher.
- xondono 5y ago
  How is that not a win-win scenario? Moving to Canada improves their standard of living.
stephc_int13 5y ago
Declining birth rate was already an issue in large cities during antiquity. I even suspect that the pro-family policies we can observe in the religions that were created afterwards were a tentative to fix this problem. In my opinion, our species population is big enough already, and this is the main driving factor of ongoing ecological problems. I think we can adapt to a differently shaped age structure, we don't need a pyramid.
- TacticalCoder 5y ago
  > In my opinion, our species population is big enough already, and this is the main driving factor of ongoing ecological problems. That's the reason my wife and I decided to only have one kid. It's a statement. I don't care that future politicians shall have less future taxpayers. I don't believe eternal growth is the only model: I actually think it's unsustainable.
  - AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
    It's not only about gathering taxes. It's also about having someone to wipe your ass once you're too frail to do it yourself.
    - ReactiveJelly 5y ago
      Conceiving a child so they can wipe my ass sounds selfish
      - c048 5y ago
        Expecting someone else's kid to be there to wipe your ass is even more so.
      - AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
        Wiping ass is just another job which someone has to do. And that someone has to be someone's kid.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
stephc_int13 5y ago
The apparent ability of our species to self-regulate its population growth when not disturbed by religion is something that I find to be an unexpected and pleasant surprise.
chrisseaton 5y ago
Children are astronomically expensive. Most working class and middle class parents cannot envision affording a second child so they have just one.
- ant6n 5y ago
  In the US it really seems to be. I don’t even understand how my American friends can have kids - daycare is so expensive it makes more sense for one parent to just stay home. In Canada, children are already much more affordable (esp. in Quebec). In Europe even more so. Once education, health care and day care are affordable (or free), children are not astronomically exoensive.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    If you compare the total fertility rates in Canada and Europe (~1.5), even with their pro natalist policies, America still has a higher fertility rate (~1.7) with abysmal support for parents. Likely attributable to families that opt out of paid formal child care, and Medicaid picks up the slack for those below middle class means.
    - bordercases 5y ago
      American is more culturally diverse than Canada or Europe, I would see how the population breaks down in comparison.
    - ant6n 5y ago
      I’d say the higher birth rates in US are due to religion and poverty. I also wonder how many immigrants continue living like in 2nd/3rd world country.
      - toomuchtodo 5y ago
        The data concurs. When education goes up and religion goes down, fertility rates decline [1]. With regards to immigrants, children of immigrants rapidly align to fertility rates in their host country (at least in the US) [2]. [1] https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-020-8331-7 https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s... [2] https://cis.org/Report/Immigrant-and-NativeBorn-Fertility-2008-2018 https://cis.org/Report/Immigrant-and-NativeBorn-Fertility-20...
22c 5y ago
Macabre question, but a serious one. Has the birth rate dropped below the death rate? If not, then the naive approach to me, would be that this all works out in the wash. More specifically, does the years of life "lost" due to premature death outweigh the years of life "lost" due to declining birth rates? We won't really know until: a) premature deaths return to pre-pandemic levels b) birth rates recover to pre-pandemic levels
- jtbayly 5y ago
  France birth rate per 1000: 11 France death rate per 1000: 9.4 However, the fertility rate (total births per woman) was 1.87 before the pandemic, which is well below the replacement level of 2.1. Fertility rate is really the number that matters, as an aging population eventually hits the years where larger generations die off, and then the death rate is much higher than the birth rate, and the population drops dramatically.
  - 22c 5y ago
    Yes. I agree, birth rates have been lower in many places before the pandemic, probably in gradual decline over the last 60 years. Perhaps I should've clarified that I fully expect that we'll be dealing with an ageing population in the future. The question here is whether or not the pandemic played any significant role. It's possible that it may have even slightly "helped" the problem of an ageing population.
    - jtbayly 5y ago
      Ah. I see what you’re getting at now.
lalaland1125 5y ago
Economic incentives are never going to really work well in improving fertility rates. If you look at the data in the US, the biggest predictor of fertility is religion, with religious people in the US having 2-3x more kids than non religious people. Most of the decline in birthrate within both western Europe and the US can be traced to increasing drops in religion.
- stephc_int13 5y ago
  From what I've read, the biggest predictor is girls education, but this is not incompatible.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    It depends on what you mean by “education.” In the US, the high school graduation rate of women has exceeded that of men since at least 1940. The 20th century fertility rate peak happened in 1965, which also coincided with peak religiosity. During the first part of the 20th century, fertility rates, high school graduation rates, and church attendance all went up at the same time.
  - lalaland1125 5y ago
    Both education and religion play a role, but at least in the US religion has a stronger correlation. The reason why the effect of education in the US is weaker (compared to third world countries) is probably because we require 12 years for all students.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I think the biggest predictor will be women’s financial independence, as well as cheap or free effective birth controls. I suspect the vast majority of women in the past were “coerced” into having the number of children they did, to put it in most charitable terms. If they had the same freedom and access to birth control that women had today, I doubt we would have seen all the 3+ children families we did.
    - mensetmanusman 5y ago
sunshineforever 5y ago
I think that automation will have a significant effect on the ability of society to care for retirees.
diveanon 5y ago
The world doesn't need more people. People will talk all day about adopting a pet, but adopting a child is off the table. There are already millions of children on this planet that desperately need parents, your biological desire to procreate shouldn't supersede that.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  There are about 60,000,000 pets in the U.S. I don’t think you can blame people for wanting pets over kids though, because pets are easy-mode in comparison. E.g. If you want to go on vacation, you can put them in a kennel somewhere.
known 5y ago
Child mortality is the single measure for socioeconomic progress. Children are extremely fragile, requiring a lot of resources to protect/feed, and they're also extremely important to their parents and families https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_and_under-five_mortality_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_an...

46 points by Vigier 5y ago

While the article mainly focuses on France, the world is mostly looking at China after its one-child-policy as the greatest example. France is a good example for other things though. Its extremely pro-pension policies makes it very hostile against the young. Both countries at either end of the world were spending their time breeding babies to try to feed them 50 years later.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
I do not see why history would be a good indicator for the article’s question anyway. The fact that birth control is easily and nearly freely available and women have gained economic independence is a big factor.
- klipt 5y ago
  If you think about it this suggests a strong selective pressure for religious communities that consider birth control sinful.
  - noofen 5y ago
    It also suggests a strong selective pressure for uneducated, unproductive communities that do nothing but breed, take welfare, and vote.
  - peterburkimsher 5y ago
    It's a little more complicated than that: not all religious groups consider all forms of birth control to be sinful, and these trends don't apply in all countries. Increased religiosity won't necessarily increase the birth rate. Disclosure: my mum, Marion Burkimsher, is a demographic researcher specialising in this area. She's also studied fertility of migrants (the TFR statistics are skewed). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marion_Burkimsher/publication/338966806_Investigating_Family_Size_Differentials_by_Religiosity_Across_Europe_National_Contexts_Expectations_and_Outcomes/links/5ebbc512458515626ca5ae4f/Investigating-Family-Size-Differentials-by-Religiosity-Across-Europe-National-Contexts-Expectations-and-Outcomes.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marion_Burkimsher/publi...
    - mensetmanusman 5y ago
      https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/07/why-people-with-no-religion-are-projected-to-decline-as-a-share-of-the-worlds-population/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/07/why-people-... People who identify as secular have about 1 fewer child per couple when compared to the same local averages.
- xf1cf 5y ago
  I would imagine birth control plays some part. But the economic independence argument I think is the larger factor. Before I get accused of sexism or whatever consider the actual economics of child rearing. 50 years ago assets weren't rapidly inflating and college degrees weren't required for a decent middle class living. The middle class has the best opportunity for raising children successfully (good education, good health, etc). The trade off? Someone has to stay home and tend to the house. It really doesn't matter who does, honestly, but historically this was the woman. The feminists will spin women entering the workforce as empowering. Indeed, it is. But as a result birth rates decline rapidly. The shirking of that traditional role means child care must be offloaded somewhere. Several family members with children have told me that pre-K daycare at a decent, but not great, daycare runs anywhere between $800-$2000 a month. Absurdly expensive. Ignoring the actual _cost_ of having the child, taking care of the child before you can offload that responsibility onto the education system is prohibitive for all but the upper classes these days. These upper class people don't often have children. The alternative is to return to the old system but that requires one income to support a house. If you're not clearing six figures this might not even be possible in all but the most remote parts of the country. This combined with rapid asset inflation means that in reality women entering the workforce wasn't for "empowerment" but rather necessity. With the price of goods going up every single year it's no longer feasible in most parts of the country to have one person stay home. The result? People have less kids. I have no solution to this really. No amount of maternity/paternity leave, pay raises, etc will fix it. We can probably place the blame squarely on the big banks and the federal reserve. But, how do you bring wages back in line so that people can afford to have kids?
Animats 5y ago
World is mostly looking at China after its one-child-policy as the greatest example. China's one-child policy was a success. They were able to put on the brakes during the period between health care getting good and standard of living going up, which is when population goes way up. India didn't do that, and their population shot up beyond the country's water supply. France is just leveling off. Japan is in actual decline. China: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/population India: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/population France: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/FRA/france/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/FRA/france/population Japan: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/population
- whatshisface 5y ago
  Let's wait to see which country, between China and India, can fare better over the next 60 years of economic development. India might not have enough water now but the raw material for solving any problem is found in problem solvers, not the ground.
  - lorlou 5y ago
    The way things stand now, there's like zero evidence that India is doing or may ever do better than China in any regard.
    - whatshisface 5y ago
      India has more working-age people and is facing less of a population cliff than most countries. Whatever problems can be solved by workers, they will be in a better position to solve than anyone else. The US has immigration, India accomplishes the same thing but in one country instead of two continents.
      - stephc_int13 5y ago
        China and India already had large populations compared to the western world, two centuries ago, and yet they were not doing better from an economic or military standpoint.

darig 5y ago

History as an academic pursuit Boom or Bust? Propagandist on a pension?

monkeybutton 5y ago

My country (Canada) is intent on making up for falling birth rates by increasing immigration. Sometimes I wonder if it is unethical for a rich country like Canada to effectively outsource (offload?) child rearing costs and to some extent education costs to the poorer countries that we are taking immigrants from.

sokoloff 5y ago
What’s the solution though? If Canadians don’t want to have more children, you can’t force them and you probably can’t influence them much, so your other choice is to close down the immigration, which seems like it’s less ethical than the present condition.
- monkeybutton 5y ago
  I don't know! The cost of living and high cost of raising children here are popular scape goats for why Canadians are having less children. There's already baby bonuses, nationalized child care (in QC) but they do not have enough effect? One thing that isn't addressed is housing. Couples aren't going to want to have kids when all they can afford in a major city is a shoebox condo.
  - xnyan 5y ago
    >One thing that isn't addressed is housing Yeah, I'm not from Canada so you obviously know a lot more about this than me, but essentially 100% of my Canadian friends and family cite this as their top or near top concern right now. Toronto in particular seems wild, though Vancouver may be worse.
  - alexlesuper 5y ago
    Child care costs are a false excuse. If raising children was entirely free, I think the birthrate would barely nudge higher.
xondono 5y ago
How is that not a win-win scenario? Moving to Canada improves their standard of living.

stephc_int13 5y ago

Declining birth rate was already an issue in large cities during antiquity. I even suspect that the pro-family policies we can observe in the religions that were created afterwards were a tentative to fix this problem. In my opinion, our species population is big enough already, and this is the main driving factor of ongoing ecological problems. I think we can adapt to a differently shaped age structure, we don't need a pyramid.

TacticalCoder 5y ago
> In my opinion, our species population is big enough already, and this is the main driving factor of ongoing ecological problems. That's the reason my wife and I decided to only have one kid. It's a statement. I don't care that future politicians shall have less future taxpayers. I don't believe eternal growth is the only model: I actually think it's unsustainable.
- AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
  It's not only about gathering taxes. It's also about having someone to wipe your ass once you're too frail to do it yourself.
  - ReactiveJelly 5y ago
    Conceiving a child so they can wipe my ass sounds selfish
    - c048 5y ago
      Expecting someone else's kid to be there to wipe your ass is even more so.
    - AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
      Wiping ass is just another job which someone has to do. And that someone has to be someone's kid.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

stephc_int13 5y ago

The apparent ability of our species to self-regulate its population growth when not disturbed by religion is something that I find to be an unexpected and pleasant surprise.

chrisseaton 5y ago

Children are astronomically expensive. Most working class and middle class parents cannot envision affording a second child so they have just one.

ant6n 5y ago
In the US it really seems to be. I don’t even understand how my American friends can have kids - daycare is so expensive it makes more sense for one parent to just stay home. In Canada, children are already much more affordable (esp. in Quebec). In Europe even more so. Once education, health care and day care are affordable (or free), children are not astronomically exoensive.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  If you compare the total fertility rates in Canada and Europe (~1.5), even with their pro natalist policies, America still has a higher fertility rate (~1.7) with abysmal support for parents. Likely attributable to families that opt out of paid formal child care, and Medicaid picks up the slack for those below middle class means.
  - bordercases 5y ago
    American is more culturally diverse than Canada or Europe, I would see how the population breaks down in comparison.
  - ant6n 5y ago
    I’d say the higher birth rates in US are due to religion and poverty. I also wonder how many immigrants continue living like in 2nd/3rd world country.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      The data concurs. When education goes up and religion goes down, fertility rates decline [1]. With regards to immigrants, children of immigrants rapidly align to fertility rates in their host country (at least in the US) [2]. [1] https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-020-8331-7 https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s... [2] https://cis.org/Report/Immigrant-and-NativeBorn-Fertility-2008-2018 https://cis.org/Report/Immigrant-and-NativeBorn-Fertility-20...

22c 5y ago

Macabre question, but a serious one. Has the birth rate dropped below the death rate? If not, then the naive approach to me, would be that this all works out in the wash. More specifically, does the years of life "lost" due to premature death outweigh the years of life "lost" due to declining birth rates? We won't really know until: a) premature deaths return to pre-pandemic levels b) birth rates recover to pre-pandemic levels

jtbayly 5y ago
France birth rate per 1000: 11 France death rate per 1000: 9.4 However, the fertility rate (total births per woman) was 1.87 before the pandemic, which is well below the replacement level of 2.1. Fertility rate is really the number that matters, as an aging population eventually hits the years where larger generations die off, and then the death rate is much higher than the birth rate, and the population drops dramatically.
- 22c 5y ago
  Yes. I agree, birth rates have been lower in many places before the pandemic, probably in gradual decline over the last 60 years. Perhaps I should've clarified that I fully expect that we'll be dealing with an ageing population in the future. The question here is whether or not the pandemic played any significant role. It's possible that it may have even slightly "helped" the problem of an ageing population.
  - jtbayly 5y ago
    Ah. I see what you’re getting at now.

lalaland1125 5y ago

Economic incentives are never going to really work well in improving fertility rates. If you look at the data in the US, the biggest predictor of fertility is religion, with religious people in the US having 2-3x more kids than non religious people. Most of the decline in birthrate within both western Europe and the US can be traced to increasing drops in religion.

stephc_int13 5y ago
From what I've read, the biggest predictor is girls education, but this is not incompatible.
- rayiner 5y ago
  It depends on what you mean by “education.” In the US, the high school graduation rate of women has exceeded that of men since at least 1940. The 20th century fertility rate peak happened in 1965, which also coincided with peak religiosity. During the first part of the 20th century, fertility rates, high school graduation rates, and church attendance all went up at the same time.
- lalaland1125 5y ago
  Both education and religion play a role, but at least in the US religion has a stronger correlation. The reason why the effect of education in the US is weaker (compared to third world countries) is probably because we require 12 years for all students.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I think the biggest predictor will be women’s financial independence, as well as cheap or free effective birth controls. I suspect the vast majority of women in the past were “coerced” into having the number of children they did, to put it in most charitable terms. If they had the same freedom and access to birth control that women had today, I doubt we would have seen all the 3+ children families we did.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago

sunshineforever 5y ago

I think that automation will have a significant effect on the ability of society to care for retirees.

diveanon 5y ago

The world doesn't need more people. People will talk all day about adopting a pet, but adopting a child is off the table. There are already millions of children on this planet that desperately need parents, your biological desire to procreate shouldn't supersede that.

mensetmanusman 5y ago
There are about 60,000,000 pets in the U.S. I don’t think you can blame people for wanting pets over kids though, because pets are easy-mode in comparison. E.g. If you want to go on vacation, you can put them in a kennel somewhere.

known 5y ago

Child mortality is the single measure for socioeconomic progress. Children are extremely fragile, requiring a lot of resources to protect/feed, and they're also extremely important to their parents and families https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_and_under-five_mortality_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_an...