7 ms·

It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies (current and historical) would be better able to provide for their children the older they are. The mai

by rconti 4y ago

It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies (current and historical) would be better able to provide for their children the older they are. The main exception I can think is family support; having younger grandparents and great grandparents could be an advantage, I guess? I'm not sure I'd look at a society where people have lots of children so they can put them to work and say "yeah, this is the way society should be!"

mschuster91 4y ago
> It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies (current and historical) would be better able to provide for their children the older they are. When I was born in 1991 and my sister in 1995, a simple police officer and a nurse in half-time could provide for two children with ease, in one of what was even back then one of the most expensive cities in Germany. Today, me (IT worker) and my s/o (public health administration) can barely afford a flat and two cats. Fuck that shit, we need rent controls, higher wages and higher taxes on the rich. Then people like me are not forced to wait until 35 that they can start having children.
- vardump 4y ago
  Rent in Germany is really really cheap. Even in "expensive" cities. Energy, on the other hand, not so.
- moonchrome 4y ago
  I was under the impression that programming and IT is very undervalued in Germany, like you're basically earning slightly above average in most cases. At least that's what I gather from two friends who live there.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    It is an average employment and I'd not even say it's undervalued. We simply don't have the insane amount of VC money that fuels the equally insane US wages in the tech sector - which has both benefits and problems.
    - moonchrome 4y ago
      Benefits being that you're barely making rent as a working couple ?
- dzonga 4y ago
  actually you need more market based rent. remove restrictions that incentivize people not to build housing. tax the rich on land value - which means not have empty lots build a lot of houses encourage a dynamic market that rewards labor and boom you've achieved low rents, high wages
jeffreyrogers 4y ago
In western countries historically men were typically a bit older than their wife but the wife usually was fairly young still. Definitely way younger than now. I think the average maternal age in the US is close to 30 now. This was a rational arrangement since women had fewer economic opportunities. Now women can do basically everything men can do so they choose to defer pregnancy, which has its own consequences that people are now learning to manage and deal with through IVF, egg freezing, etc. Interestingly, genetic mutations from the mother are roughly constant regardless of her age. Paternal genetic mutations rise with age. IIRC a 38 year old man's sperm has double the number of mutations a 28 year old man has.
- herrrk 4y ago
  You sure about that? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_marriage_pattern https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_marriage_pa...
  - jeffreyrogers 4y ago
    > In Yorkshire in the 14th and 15th centuries, the age range for most brides was between 18 and 22 years and the age of the grooms was similar; rural Yorkshire women tended to marry in their late teens to early twenties while their urban counterparts married in their early to middle twenties. In the 15th century, the average Italian bride was 18 and married a groom 10–12 years her senior. An unmarried Tuscan woman 21 years of age would be seen as past marriageable age, the benchmark for which was 19 years, and easily 97 percent of Florentine women were married by the age of 25 years while 21 years was the average age of a contemporary English bride. > Ireland's average age of marriage in 1830 was 23.8 for women and 27.47 for men where they had once been about 21 and 25, respectively, and only about 10% of adults remained unmarried;[22] in 1840, they had respectively risen to 24.4 and 27.7;[23][24] in the decades after the Great Famine, the age of marriage had risen to 28–29 for women and 33 for men and as much as a third of Irishmen and a fourth of Irishwomen never married due to chronic economic problems that discouraged early marriage. Doesn't really contradict what I said, although the age gap between bride and groom was fairly variable (but no country that I'm aware of has a pattern of older bride, younger groom).
creaturemachine 4y ago
Monetarily maybe, but not physically. I'm 42 with a 5-year-old and man do I wish I was doing this in my 30's.
- PakG1 4y ago
  Had those times when your back seized up and you couldn't even lie down properly? :) Been there, done that. If only I had developed better exercise habits when younger. Well, better late than never, though that late sometimes feels like never.

by rconti 4y ago

mschuster91 4y ago

> It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies (current and historical) would be better able to provide for their children the older they are. When I was born in 1991 and my sister in 1995, a simple police officer and a nurse in half-time could provide for two children with ease, in one of what was even back then one of the most expensive cities in Germany. Today, me (IT worker) and my s/o (public health administration) can barely afford a flat and two cats. Fuck that shit, we need rent controls, higher wages and higher taxes on the rich. Then people like me are not forced to wait until 35 that they can start having children.

vardump 4y ago
Rent in Germany is really really cheap. Even in "expensive" cities. Energy, on the other hand, not so.
moonchrome 4y ago
I was under the impression that programming and IT is very undervalued in Germany, like you're basically earning slightly above average in most cases. At least that's what I gather from two friends who live there.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  It is an average employment and I'd not even say it's undervalued. We simply don't have the insane amount of VC money that fuels the equally insane US wages in the tech sector - which has both benefits and problems.
  - moonchrome 4y ago
    Benefits being that you're barely making rent as a working couple ?
dzonga 4y ago
actually you need more market based rent. remove restrictions that incentivize people not to build housing. tax the rich on land value - which means not have empty lots build a lot of houses encourage a dynamic market that rewards labor and boom you've achieved low rents, high wages

jeffreyrogers 4y ago

In western countries historically men were typically a bit older than their wife but the wife usually was fairly young still. Definitely way younger than now. I think the average maternal age in the US is close to 30 now. This was a rational arrangement since women had fewer economic opportunities. Now women can do basically everything men can do so they choose to defer pregnancy, which has its own consequences that people are now learning to manage and deal with through IVF, egg freezing, etc. Interestingly, genetic mutations from the mother are roughly constant regardless of her age. Paternal genetic mutations rise with age. IIRC a 38 year old man's sperm has double the number of mutations a 28 year old man has.

herrrk 4y ago
You sure about that? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_marriage_pattern https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_marriage_pa...
- jeffreyrogers 4y ago
  > In Yorkshire in the 14th and 15th centuries, the age range for most brides was between 18 and 22 years and the age of the grooms was similar; rural Yorkshire women tended to marry in their late teens to early twenties while their urban counterparts married in their early to middle twenties. In the 15th century, the average Italian bride was 18 and married a groom 10–12 years her senior. An unmarried Tuscan woman 21 years of age would be seen as past marriageable age, the benchmark for which was 19 years, and easily 97 percent of Florentine women were married by the age of 25 years while 21 years was the average age of a contemporary English bride. > Ireland's average age of marriage in 1830 was 23.8 for women and 27.47 for men where they had once been about 21 and 25, respectively, and only about 10% of adults remained unmarried;[22] in 1840, they had respectively risen to 24.4 and 27.7;[23][24] in the decades after the Great Famine, the age of marriage had risen to 28–29 for women and 33 for men and as much as a third of Irishmen and a fourth of Irishwomen never married due to chronic economic problems that discouraged early marriage. Doesn't really contradict what I said, although the age gap between bride and groom was fairly variable (but no country that I'm aware of has a pattern of older bride, younger groom).

creaturemachine 4y ago

Monetarily maybe, but not physically. I'm 42 with a 5-year-old and man do I wish I was doing this in my 30's.

PakG1 4y ago
Had those times when your back seized up and you couldn't even lie down properly? :) Been there, done that. If only I had developed better exercise habits when younger. Well, better late than never, though that late sometimes feels like never.