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Purely economically, only a total moron would have a child. Child labor has been outlawed and society says the (grown) child is their cash cow not yours, so th
by notch898a 4y ago
Purely economically, only a total moron would have a child. Child labor has been outlawed and society says the (grown) child is their cash cow not yours, so the retirement from taxing the kid is spread across everyone else. Meanwhile you're asked to pay the lions share of the investment for everybody else to cash out on. So the name of the game is to let everybody else have the kids and free-ride the fuck out of that by paying some token contribution like the property tax for their grade school or whatever and then taking advantage of their tax dollars when you get older.
This is a huge departure from almost all of human history except the last 100 years in the developed world, where the family formerly was the safety net so these kind of investments and arrangements stayed in the family leaving a much stronger economic incentive for children.
- tnel77 4y agoAs a parent, you are 100% correct. I love my kids and I’m saving like mad for them, but the future is, frankly, bleak for young people.
- fxtentacle 4y agoThere's also the aspect that old people will feel bothered by your kids and complain if they have to endure hearing happy kids after 6PM. Even though they were the ones who bought the house next to the playground...
- gruez 4y ago>This is a huge departure from almost all of human history except the last 100 years in the developed world, where the family formerly was the safety net so these kind of investments and arrangements stayed in the family leaving a much stronger economic incentive for children. except the evidence seems to point towards kids being a net drain, even in preindustrial societies. https://www.econlib.org/archives/2009/10/was_having_kids.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2009/10/was_having_kids.htm...
- jjoonathan 4y agoWhen options are thin, hope commands a premium. See: lottery tickets. Would you give up planning for retirement just because all of the options were unreliable? I wouldn't, I'd pick the least bad and try anyway.
- emodendroket 4y agoI think it is at least worth considering that there may have been reasons other than economic reasoning that people chose to have children.
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoAnd apparently that results in people having 1.8 children instead of 5.6.
- emodendroket 4y agoI’m not sure what you’re saying. There are other factors that have changed between now and then, such as the general acceptability of being unmarried, family planning tools, reduced religiosity, and woolier stuff like people’s idea of what a good life is.
- gruez 4y agoExcept the linked article argues that in hunter gatherer societies, kids were a net drain even when their parents were approaching retirement, and in agricultural societies there were "retirement" options in the form of land ownership and financial instruments.
- jjoonathan 4y agoSo if you were living in an agricultural society, you would trust their financial instruments and institutions governing land ownership more than you would trust your own family? Really?
- notch898a 4y ago
- magicalhippo 4y agoFeels a bit like saying the compressor is a net drain on a jet engine. Sure, if you disconnected the compressor while running, the engine would make a lot of power for a very brief moment. But the compressor is needed to keep the engine running.
- emodendroket 4y ago> Purely economically, only a total moron would have a child. OK but nobody is making that decision "purely economically." Returning to a world of filial piety laws and no real social safety net sounds nightmarish.
- andrepd 4y agoThankfully, people do things (especially having children) for reasons other than financial.