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I don't think it has anything to do with cost or hopelessness. Throughout history people have kept having kids in the worst of situations. Today, people in wea

I don't think it has anything to do with cost or hopelessness. Throughout history people have kept having kids in the worst of situations. Today, people in wealthy secure nations, choose not to have kids (I think) because they just don't want them, and because its easy to not have them. Is there any reason people would start choosing to have more kids once they have the option not to?

kkoncevicius 4y ago
Children are an asset on a farm and a liability in a city. This alone might be enough to explain these trends.
swatcoder 4y ago
I think the often unstated issue is that westernizing societies have been in a subtle, implicit race to extend childhood and adolescence. An educational arms race demands that young "adults" stay non-productive and dependent for longer and longer, home affordability stretches further out from early career professionals, and parent-child relationships have become increasingly about the parent generously supporting the child as long as they can rather than just seeing them out of the nest safely. These are all cultural shifts that mimic aristocratic lifestyles, but ultimately engender inadequacy and helplessness in young adults who aspire to middle class life and make it a very reasonable choice for them to narrow the window in which they start building a secure family.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bluetomcat 4y ago
  This ultimately leads to an increase in the pregnancy age in women, and that unlocks additional second-order effects. Having a first baby at 35 makes it more unlikely that the woman will want and be able to bear a second one. Attention to aging parents may also compete with the possibility for more children. The single child will be given more attention and will grow in a “dust-free” environment. This completes the whole cycle of the cultural shift towards egocentrism.
- throw-ru-938 4y ago
  If it's an arms race, then the solution should be a strategic education reduction treaty?
  - whstl 4y ago
    Well, it should be pragmatism. The several years, sometimes up to a decade of higher education is not necessary for a lot of professions. I myself could have become a good electrical engineer in half the time I did, because half my classes were absolute bullshit. I learned more about sociology and politics from friends than by the two-semester mandatory classes I had on it. And I certainly learned WAY more about entrepreneurship from HN than from my shitty "Entrepreneurship" classes, which were also mandatory. Also notice that while I graduated in electrical engineering, I'm a software engineer now. So about 80% or 90% of what I studied is completely unrelated (unless I have to redo the electrical wiring of the office). However, after interviews I still sometimes have to show my bullshit diploma (which is ironically in a language they don't understand) to work in certain companies or to immigrate to certain countries.
    - idontwantthis 4y ago
      I got a CS degree and literally two of my classes were relevant to software engineering. Fortunately I recognized that and focused on paid work while still in school.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mmarq 4y ago
https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2387/c2387.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2387/c2387.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2963/c2963.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2963/c2963.pdf
BarryMilo 4y ago
I think people here are oversimplifying the issue. It's not about individual choice, it's about social structures. Our societies are by and large not designed to encourage people to have kids. Neighbors don't know and support each other, childcare is expensive, schedules are inflexible, not to mention the incredible financial burden of a child for anyone in a financially restricted situation. Median wages simply don't let you afford children anymore. It used to. We as a society simply don't care about people's ability to have kids.
- Aunche 4y ago
  Even within the US, there is a negative correlation between income and fertility rate. Poor families just make things work. I tutored a student who lived with 7 siblings in a NYC apartment. https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...
  - notch898a 4y ago
    That correlation turns around at the lowest income levels; you get paid per kid. Yes it's not really enough, generally, but if you feed them nothing but gruel and get public benefits for everything then it's actually more profitable to pop out more, especially if you can get 20% from each father if they're plugged in enough to the system that most of the fathers are paying most of the time.
    - anovikov 4y ago
      It doesn't turn around, it stays the same (except for different reasons on different levels of income ladder). Poor people have the most kids, worker class, fewer, middle class, even fewer, and high middle class, fewer still. It might not be the case for the very rich (top 0.01%), because they literally don't care about expenses, and can afford trophy wives 30 years them younger so fertility isn't an issue either.
      - notch898a 4y ago
notch898a 4y ago
In addition to the other noted reasons, I'd like to point out social security changes the dynamic significantly. In modern day, society says it's selfish and bad to have kids for your own retirement. Your kids are supposed to be the tax-stock for everybody else to use up for their retirement. So you take on the lions shares of the losses to raise the kid and then society sucks up the tax money and distributes it to anyone on social security including those who didn't have kids. This creates a massive "free-rider effect" where the incentive is not to have kids yourself, while enjoying the benefits of their labor and distribution payments in your own retirement. Why have kids when others can do the lions share of the investment and you still get your full share of social security money.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  I don’t really think this is true. Both Korea and Japan have poor elder social security (and elder poverty rates to match) yet are some of the lowest fertility countries. China is in a similar position.
  - vt85 4y ago
    [dead]
  - notch898a 4y ago
    Can you explain how I can tease out this multivariate issue to rule out these economic incentives are at play? I think looking at a two dimension "elder social security" and "fertility rate" you are going to see a correlation, but it is confounded by lots of other things including "cost vs personal benefit of raising child", access to contraceptives, education level, etc. I think it would be absolutely wild if you could just look at the numbers for Korea and Japan and just nope out on this one.
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      If you want to do deep data analysis, it helps that the OECD collects a lot of data from Japan, South Korea, the US, and the member countries which are all generally developed. I just don't think, that if it is a factor, that it has much impact, given that the worst countries do not have this factor; the child(ren) is still pretty much the extent of the social safety net. Japan is also notable in that they actually give significantly lower social security payments to women, especially unmarried or divorcees.
throwawaysleep 4y ago
In many of those “worst of situations” children are an asset. Children can be farm labour from a pretty young age.
RandomLensman 4y ago
In some countries there is also a lot of regulation actually not helping, e.g., pregnant women not allowed to work/work in certain ways - and I am not talking about super high risk jobs here.
- notch898a 4y ago
  And once the kid pops out it's "You better watch them for 10 years straight and if you even lose concentration for a second you're going to jail." You almost need your own house and yard because children caught in public nowadays results in criminal charges and CPS visits, and it's entirely impractical to have supervision on children at all times for a decade straight.
  - piva00 4y ago
    > You almost need your own house and yard because children caught in public nowadays results in criminal charges and CPS visits, and it's entirely impractical to have supervision on children at all times for a decade straight. That's not a general thing, it's very specific to the US (and I'd guess even not generalised in the US as a whole). Here in Sweden kids are free to roam, go meet their friends, take the public transit, etc. without parents having to be anxious and scared. The paranoia in the USA is extremely exhausting though, I really feel for all of you.
dagorenouf 4y ago
Speaking for myself: ever-rising cost of living in western countries makes it scary to have kids. I’m only starting to contemplate becoming a home owner at 34, and it will take 2-3 more years until my wife and I can confidently go for it. By the time we have a solid ground under our feet, it will likely be too late (my wife is older).
- hunglee2 4y ago
  I think this is very common analysis, and yet, there is likely never a point where having a kid becomes a financially sensible decision, hence we keep putting them off. The ground is never solid, my recommendation is go ahead and reproduce!
  - rich_sasha 4y ago
    True, but many people conclude, and I totally understand them, that it's not a question of time but rather not for them.
    - hunglee2 4y ago
      yes, indeed that is a different matter, however the poster I was responding to made the point of financial stability / security being the deciding factor so I was addressing that point
- idontwantthis 4y ago
  If I bought you a house in a nice neighborhood, would you honestly start trying to have kids tomorrow?
est 4y ago
> Is there any reason people would start choosing to have more kids once they have the option not to? Easy. In the past, kids are basically free labor for the family business, e.g. you own a farm, more kids == more productivity. Today, most kids from inherits nearly nothing from parent's job. They have their own life and objectives, but to get good jobs, kids need good education, and good education costs money. So kids == burden.
Gatsky 4y ago
It’s mainly driven by gender equality I would have thought. The more educated and autonomous women are, the less they tend to have kids. The most fertile years are spent (quite rightly) enjoying life, getting an education and engaging in productive economic activity. It is the clash of culture with biological reality.
- panny 4y ago
  >The most fertile years are spent (quite rightly) enjoying life You don't think you could enjoy raising offspring of your own?
  - Gatsky 4y ago
    I do enjoy it, but you can see how it compares poorly to other alternatives for the very youthful. Particularly for women. But this is not the point - it isn't even a conscious decision for the most part to have kids late. Modern life is just set up that way. None of my peers were having their first kid at 20. None of my peers were even in a serious relationship at 20. Most weren't in any sort of relationship.
    - panny 4y ago
      >I do enjoy it, but Grass is always greener on the other side I guess.

kkoncevicius 4y ago

Children are an asset on a farm and a liability in a city. This alone might be enough to explain these trends.

swatcoder 4y ago

I think the often unstated issue is that westernizing societies have been in a subtle, implicit race to extend childhood and adolescence. An educational arms race demands that young "adults" stay non-productive and dependent for longer and longer, home affordability stretches further out from early career professionals, and parent-child relationships have become increasingly about the parent generously supporting the child as long as they can rather than just seeing them out of the nest safely. These are all cultural shifts that mimic aristocratic lifestyles, but ultimately engender inadequacy and helplessness in young adults who aspire to middle class life and make it a very reasonable choice for them to narrow the window in which they start building a secure family.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bluetomcat 4y ago
This ultimately leads to an increase in the pregnancy age in women, and that unlocks additional second-order effects. Having a first baby at 35 makes it more unlikely that the woman will want and be able to bear a second one. Attention to aging parents may also compete with the possibility for more children. The single child will be given more attention and will grow in a “dust-free” environment. This completes the whole cycle of the cultural shift towards egocentrism.
throw-ru-938 4y ago
If it's an arms race, then the solution should be a strategic education reduction treaty?
- whstl 4y ago
  Well, it should be pragmatism. The several years, sometimes up to a decade of higher education is not necessary for a lot of professions. I myself could have become a good electrical engineer in half the time I did, because half my classes were absolute bullshit. I learned more about sociology and politics from friends than by the two-semester mandatory classes I had on it. And I certainly learned WAY more about entrepreneurship from HN than from my shitty "Entrepreneurship" classes, which were also mandatory. Also notice that while I graduated in electrical engineering, I'm a software engineer now. So about 80% or 90% of what I studied is completely unrelated (unless I have to redo the electrical wiring of the office). However, after interviews I still sometimes have to show my bullshit diploma (which is ironically in a language they don't understand) to work in certain companies or to immigrate to certain countries.
  - idontwantthis 4y ago
    I got a CS degree and literally two of my classes were relevant to software engineering. Fortunately I recognized that and focused on paid work while still in school.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mmarq 4y ago

https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2387/c2387.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2387/c2387.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2963/c2963.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2963/c2963.pdf

BarryMilo 4y ago

I think people here are oversimplifying the issue. It's not about individual choice, it's about social structures. Our societies are by and large not designed to encourage people to have kids. Neighbors don't know and support each other, childcare is expensive, schedules are inflexible, not to mention the incredible financial burden of a child for anyone in a financially restricted situation. Median wages simply don't let you afford children anymore. It used to. We as a society simply don't care about people's ability to have kids.

Aunche 4y ago
Even within the US, there is a negative correlation between income and fertility rate. Poor families just make things work. I tutored a student who lived with 7 siblings in a NYC apartment. https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...
- notch898a 4y ago
  That correlation turns around at the lowest income levels; you get paid per kid. Yes it's not really enough, generally, but if you feed them nothing but gruel and get public benefits for everything then it's actually more profitable to pop out more, especially if you can get 20% from each father if they're plugged in enough to the system that most of the fathers are paying most of the time.
  - anovikov 4y ago
    It doesn't turn around, it stays the same (except for different reasons on different levels of income ladder). Poor people have the most kids, worker class, fewer, middle class, even fewer, and high middle class, fewer still. It might not be the case for the very rich (top 0.01%), because they literally don't care about expenses, and can afford trophy wives 30 years them younger so fertility isn't an issue either.
    - notch898a 4y ago

notch898a 4y ago

In addition to the other noted reasons, I'd like to point out social security changes the dynamic significantly. In modern day, society says it's selfish and bad to have kids for your own retirement. Your kids are supposed to be the tax-stock for everybody else to use up for their retirement. So you take on the lions shares of the losses to raise the kid and then society sucks up the tax money and distributes it to anyone on social security including those who didn't have kids. This creates a massive "free-rider effect" where the incentive is not to have kids yourself, while enjoying the benefits of their labor and distribution payments in your own retirement. Why have kids when others can do the lions share of the investment and you still get your full share of social security money.

bobthepanda 4y ago
I don’t really think this is true. Both Korea and Japan have poor elder social security (and elder poverty rates to match) yet are some of the lowest fertility countries. China is in a similar position.
- vt85 4y ago
  [dead]
- notch898a 4y ago
  Can you explain how I can tease out this multivariate issue to rule out these economic incentives are at play? I think looking at a two dimension "elder social security" and "fertility rate" you are going to see a correlation, but it is confounded by lots of other things including "cost vs personal benefit of raising child", access to contraceptives, education level, etc. I think it would be absolutely wild if you could just look at the numbers for Korea and Japan and just nope out on this one.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    If you want to do deep data analysis, it helps that the OECD collects a lot of data from Japan, South Korea, the US, and the member countries which are all generally developed. I just don't think, that if it is a factor, that it has much impact, given that the worst countries do not have this factor; the child(ren) is still pretty much the extent of the social safety net. Japan is also notable in that they actually give significantly lower social security payments to women, especially unmarried or divorcees.

throwawaysleep 4y ago

In many of those “worst of situations” children are an asset. Children can be farm labour from a pretty young age.

RandomLensman 4y ago

In some countries there is also a lot of regulation actually not helping, e.g., pregnant women not allowed to work/work in certain ways - and I am not talking about super high risk jobs here.

notch898a 4y ago
And once the kid pops out it's "You better watch them for 10 years straight and if you even lose concentration for a second you're going to jail." You almost need your own house and yard because children caught in public nowadays results in criminal charges and CPS visits, and it's entirely impractical to have supervision on children at all times for a decade straight.
- piva00 4y ago
  > You almost need your own house and yard because children caught in public nowadays results in criminal charges and CPS visits, and it's entirely impractical to have supervision on children at all times for a decade straight. That's not a general thing, it's very specific to the US (and I'd guess even not generalised in the US as a whole). Here in Sweden kids are free to roam, go meet their friends, take the public transit, etc. without parents having to be anxious and scared. The paranoia in the USA is extremely exhausting though, I really feel for all of you.

dagorenouf 4y ago

Speaking for myself: ever-rising cost of living in western countries makes it scary to have kids. I’m only starting to contemplate becoming a home owner at 34, and it will take 2-3 more years until my wife and I can confidently go for it. By the time we have a solid ground under our feet, it will likely be too late (my wife is older).

hunglee2 4y ago
I think this is very common analysis, and yet, there is likely never a point where having a kid becomes a financially sensible decision, hence we keep putting them off. The ground is never solid, my recommendation is go ahead and reproduce!
- rich_sasha 4y ago
  True, but many people conclude, and I totally understand them, that it's not a question of time but rather not for them.
  - hunglee2 4y ago
    yes, indeed that is a different matter, however the poster I was responding to made the point of financial stability / security being the deciding factor so I was addressing that point
idontwantthis 4y ago
If I bought you a house in a nice neighborhood, would you honestly start trying to have kids tomorrow?

est 4y ago

> Is there any reason people would start choosing to have more kids once they have the option not to? Easy. In the past, kids are basically free labor for the family business, e.g. you own a farm, more kids == more productivity. Today, most kids from inherits nearly nothing from parent's job. They have their own life and objectives, but to get good jobs, kids need good education, and good education costs money. So kids == burden.

Gatsky 4y ago

It’s mainly driven by gender equality I would have thought. The more educated and autonomous women are, the less they tend to have kids. The most fertile years are spent (quite rightly) enjoying life, getting an education and engaging in productive economic activity. It is the clash of culture with biological reality.

panny 4y ago
>The most fertile years are spent (quite rightly) enjoying life You don't think you could enjoy raising offspring of your own?
- Gatsky 4y ago
  I do enjoy it, but you can see how it compares poorly to other alternatives for the very youthful. Particularly for women. But this is not the point - it isn't even a conscious decision for the most part to have kids late. Modern life is just set up that way. None of my peers were having their first kid at 20. None of my peers were even in a serious relationship at 20. Most weren't in any sort of relationship.
  - panny 4y ago
    >I do enjoy it, but Grass is always greener on the other side I guess.