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Jobs getting harder or bot paying well is a odd explanation of low birth rates. After all, quality of life is way better than 100 years ago, and 100 years ago

Jobs getting harder or bot paying well is a odd explanation of low birth rates. After all, quality of life is way better than 100 years ago, and 100 years ago people would have 8 children at like 25.

bediger4000 4y ago
Those folks in the past had children because the children paid for themselves beginning about age 7 or 8, and were an ongoing source of labor, quality of life or not.
- mr_00ff00 4y ago
  This is a fair point except it would imply only the poor had more kids. The rich (who didn’t use them as a source of labor) also had much higher birth rates.
comte7092 4y ago
How is it an odd explanation? the opportunity cost of having children has risen dramatically, that tracks with improved quality of life.
- mr_00ff00 4y ago
  So the opportunity cost in your example is the quality of life that you end up losing by having a child? The missing time that (with our higher quality of life) is way better? I don’t have any studies to disprove that, so I can’t argue against it. But then wouldn’t making jobs higher paying and life better make the issue worse? Now kids mean you give up an even better life.
  - comte7092 4y ago
    >But then wouldn’t making jobs higher paying and life better make the issue worse? Yes, which is what we see in the data. People with higher incomes have fewer children than those with lower incomes. https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...
    - mr_00ff00 4y ago
      Okay that would make sense, but that does support my original comment, which was: “Jobs getting harder or bot paying well is a odd explanation of low birth rates.”
      - comte7092 4y ago
        Jobs getting harder and paying well means that if you are going to invest time in having and raising a child, you are going to have to make a significant career sacrifice in order to do so. Harder/more demanding job => can’t dedicate proper time to job and child at the same time. Better paying job => giving up job means giving up significantly more wealth. It still tracks.
        mr_00ff00 4y ago
        Again, going back to what I said, worst paying job == less kids Does not track. People had tons of kids 100 years ago when quality of life is worse. If you are saying that’s because life has gotten better and so we have less kids then fine, but then you need to acknowledge that the difference is because of better quality of life, so less would not have a negative effect on birth rates.

Jobs getting harder or bot paying well is a odd explanation of low birth rates. After all, quality of life is way better than 100 years ago, and 100 years ago people would have 8 children at like 25.

bediger4000 4y ago

Those folks in the past had children because the children paid for themselves beginning about age 7 or 8, and were an ongoing source of labor, quality of life or not.

mr_00ff00 4y ago
This is a fair point except it would imply only the poor had more kids. The rich (who didn’t use them as a source of labor) also had much higher birth rates.

comte7092 4y ago

How is it an odd explanation? the opportunity cost of having children has risen dramatically, that tracks with improved quality of life.

mr_00ff00 4y ago
So the opportunity cost in your example is the quality of life that you end up losing by having a child? The missing time that (with our higher quality of life) is way better? I don’t have any studies to disprove that, so I can’t argue against it. But then wouldn’t making jobs higher paying and life better make the issue worse? Now kids mean you give up an even better life.
- comte7092 4y ago
  >But then wouldn’t making jobs higher paying and life better make the issue worse? Yes, which is what we see in the data. People with higher incomes have fewer children than those with lower incomes. https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...
  - mr_00ff00 4y ago
    Okay that would make sense, but that does support my original comment, which was: “Jobs getting harder or bot paying well is a odd explanation of low birth rates.”
    - comte7092 4y ago
      Jobs getting harder and paying well means that if you are going to invest time in having and raising a child, you are going to have to make a significant career sacrifice in order to do so. Harder/more demanding job => can’t dedicate proper time to job and child at the same time. Better paying job => giving up job means giving up significantly more wealth. It still tracks.
      - mr_00ff00 4y ago
        Again, going back to what I said, worst paying job == less kids Does not track. People had tons of kids 100 years ago when quality of life is worse. If you are saying that’s because life has gotten better and so we have less kids then fine, but then you need to acknowledge that the difference is because of better quality of life, so less would not have a negative effect on birth rates.