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Problem is, is it something that can be stabilized / reversed? Or will it be somehing that can spiraling into a continuous decline and dangerous? I read somewh

Problem is, is it something that can be stabilized / reversed? Or will it be somehing that can spiraling into a continuous decline and dangerous? I read somewhere that a rather high ratio of fertile-age women there don't want children. Smartphone and abundance of cheap entertainment plus tight schedule and budget of modern world (and more other reasons) makes them prefer childless lifestyle.

pjc50 3y ago
When you can easily get a seat on the rush hour subway people's attitudes may start changing. Really, if _you_ want _other people_ to have children, you have to negotiate with and offer them something. That seems to be missing from so much of this demographic discourse.
- fendy3002 3y ago
  Yes I believe adjustment on population density and benefits will change the birth rate somehow. When babies are starting to be investment than outright expenses will change people's mind. However will it happen when the situation is still good or when it is already in danger. Too many elderly that need to be supported by too few productive population is a dangerous situation.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Is that missing? Lots of countries have all sorts of incentives. And of course it’s strictly not true that direct incentives have been required throughout history, so it’s worth asking why they’d be required now and whether those factors can/should be changed directly.
  - AbrahamParangi 3y ago
    There's an argument that I think is basically correct that governments are largely free-riding on people's inherent desire for children. This is to say that the value to a government of an additional child is substantially above the incentive they offer the parents of that child. And I think this is because we sort of have this assumption that society having more kids is a thing we don't have to incentivize, and so we haven't really thought about what is the actual cost/value of that incentivization.
    - ethbr0 3y ago
      I'd point to the biggest change being the destruction of extended family living in developed countries, and consequently shifting child care costs directly onto working age parents. Historically, countries got it both ways: - Working age parents contributed the bulk of their time to the economy (historically: male, more recently: both) - Older family members, especially grandparents, contributed free child care Now, geographic mobility and preference have decreased the rate at which grandparents are co-located and available. And, critically, having children later in life has decreased the number of years grandparents are able to help. If governments provided a net-zero cost, high-quality option for childcare, I feel like it'd substantially change potential family decisions. But that's one of the substantially-more-expensive-than-current-benefits options you're talking about.
      - AbrahamParangi 3y ago
        Yeah. When my son was born I realized the geographic separation of the extended family in space is clearly unnatural. I don’t mean that in a moralizing way, just that it’s like walking on your hands rather than on your feet. Doable! You could get used to it! But it’s a hell of a lot harder than the alternative.
  - em500 3y ago
    Throughout history childless people faced high risk of destitution in old age. That’s no longer true in most developed countries, and I don’t think anybody would want that to be changed.
    - RestlessMind 3y ago
      > and I don’t think anybody would want that to be changed. There are only 4 choices for developed countries: 1. be destitute in the old age - no one likes it 2. have children and prepare the next generation - barely happening 3. mass immigration - that changes culture and your native population may not like it. See: Italy (Meloni), France (Le Pen), UK (Brexit & immigrants), Sweden... 4. count on technology (AI, Robots) to take care of elders - it just seems dystopian if the youngest person in one's town is 17yo. Kind of like "Children of Men".
      - A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
        Mass immigration is becoming a zero-sum game. Japan's immigrants mostly come from China and Vietnam -- both of which countries have sub-replacement fertility themselves. Quite catastrophically so in China's case. Now in mid-2023, the only countries with above replacement fertility are not "modern" societies in any sense of the word. e.g., even Bangladesh is now sub-replacement. Mass immigration from places with still-above-replacement fertility into countries like Japan and the UK is a recipe for disaster. So #2 isn't happening, and #3 should be disfavored on ethical grounds. (Robbing Peter to pay Paul is at best ethically neutral; importing a natural underclass is to everybody's detriment and can only result in upheaval.) #4 is the best option on the table. Of course, there are additional ways by which the decline might be managed. Obviously pension and retirement schemes will need to be recalibrated, and older folks should be encouraged to move from the decaying periphery into large regional hubs where they can take advantage of support and medical services.
  - lp4vn 3y ago
    Historically, for most of the population in the majority of situations, children were an inexpensive asset, but things have changed. Raising children nowadays is outrageously expensive, and even owning a house that's an item of basic financial security for a family is already out of reach for a lot of people. So the direct incentives that you claim that have never existed were there all the time, having a family with kids were the natural and expected thing to do. It used to go good and easy, but now all the economic incetives go against it. I don't like to keep bringing back the old and tired trope of how the boomer discourse and worldview are completely out of touch with the reality, but when it comes to the debate about demographics it's completely impossible not to.
    - A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
      I am quite certain that there's no easy way for governments to raise TFR. Hungary and S.Korea have tried, with relatively generous grants and incentives for parents, but the results are at best equivocal in Hungary's case and null in S.Korea's. What they're doing clearly isn't working. So there are two options left on the table, which are bad but not utterly unreasonable: 1. Huge cash payouts for parents of children coupled with extremely generous incentives, both far beyond anything offered today. e.g., a $100k to $200k grant per child upon birth, with all hospital fees associated with childbirth covered by the state, free access to government childcare, and extremely generous tax credits for parents. This might result in the wrong "sort of people" giving birth to many children... but at this point it's the one thing that hasn't been tried, it would resolve the concerns you mention in your post in a totally general sense, and it could also be a way to raise underclasses from poverty. 2. Manage the decline by investing in industries that can support an aging population, in programs that aim to pull people from decaying small towns into regional hubs, and by renormalizing retirement and pension schemes. If there's a third way that isn't crazy -- which is to say bad _and_ unreasonable -- I'd like to hear it. (Examples of crazy ideas might include buying newborns from parents and raising them in government institutions, breeding children in artificial wombs, totally unfettered mass-immigration schemes, etc.)
      - analognoise 3y ago
        3. Get rid of the aspects of capitalism which make it too difficult to have kids. It isn't crazy. The system we have now is crazy. The fact that we're mentioning artificial wombs instead of destroying capitalism is worrying.
  - pjc50 3y ago
    > And of course it’s strictly not true that direct incentives have been required throughout history Have people forgotten that effective contraception is basically (with a few exceptions) a 20th century thing? I don't think HN really understands the sexual revolution at all.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      The relevance of this claim being that people primarily had children as a byproduct of wanting to have sex, versus a desire to procreate? Contraception shouldn’t change the number of people who intend to procreate.
      - pjc50 3y ago
        > people primarily had children as a byproduct of wanting to have sex Yes? Again, this is so obvious I'm surprised to write it out. > Contraception shouldn’t change the number of people who intend to procreate. And yet it clearly did, largely by giving people the option to not procreate without having to remain forever unmarried and a low-status part of their father's household. It's also preconditioned on education for women, both in learning the mechanics and choices involved in procreation and giving them some economic options other than that. None of this is new or surprising; it's been deliberate policy for years! Here's a discussion of the successful reduction in fertility in Bangladesh, for example https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441730.2022.2028253 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441730.2022.2...
nradov 3y ago
A misogynistic culture is probably a bigger issue than smartphones in causing some women to decide against having children.
- lp4vn 3y ago
  You go to the countries with the highest birth rate in the world and they are no feminist paradise. Japan for sure ranks pretty high on women freedom and rights and chances are that the track for these issues has been improving in the country over the years, not declining.
- MandieD 3y ago
  Thank you! “Why on Earth wouldn’t an educated adult want to be pressured out of her interesting job and back into complete dependence as soon as she has a child? Must be the mobile apps, not that taste of freedom they’ve had…” A year of (mostly) maternal leave is silver, but a legal framework that normalizes working high-skill jobs part-time for several years is absolute gold to prudent young to middle aged women with aging parents but some desire to still have kids. Aging parents: delighted to have them still with us, but on a practical level, not much lightening the child-rearing load. All the capacity for nurture, none of the capacity of chasing down a three year old who saw a dump truck drive by. My small child’s grandparents and dear great-aunts are mid-70s to mid-80s. Two generations of having kids late will do that. My working part-time and flexibly has enabled us to promote my child’s relationships with them and makes it easier for me to help them, which they need a bit more every year. I didn’t have to make the stark choice I see my friends back in the States making: go back to work before the baby is mobile and full time, or give up any serious job for the next several years and get to start over a decade later.
- RestlessMind 3y ago
  But facts speak otherwise - TFR is very high in traditional conservative societies (see Nigeria).

pjc50 3y ago

When you can easily get a seat on the rush hour subway people's attitudes may start changing. Really, if _you_ want _other people_ to have children, you have to negotiate with and offer them something. That seems to be missing from so much of this demographic discourse.

fendy3002 3y ago
Yes I believe adjustment on population density and benefits will change the birth rate somehow. When babies are starting to be investment than outright expenses will change people's mind. However will it happen when the situation is still good or when it is already in danger. Too many elderly that need to be supported by too few productive population is a dangerous situation.
ethanbond 3y ago
Is that missing? Lots of countries have all sorts of incentives. And of course it’s strictly not true that direct incentives have been required throughout history, so it’s worth asking why they’d be required now and whether those factors can/should be changed directly.
- AbrahamParangi 3y ago
  There's an argument that I think is basically correct that governments are largely free-riding on people's inherent desire for children. This is to say that the value to a government of an additional child is substantially above the incentive they offer the parents of that child. And I think this is because we sort of have this assumption that society having more kids is a thing we don't have to incentivize, and so we haven't really thought about what is the actual cost/value of that incentivization.
  - ethbr0 3y ago
    I'd point to the biggest change being the destruction of extended family living in developed countries, and consequently shifting child care costs directly onto working age parents. Historically, countries got it both ways: - Working age parents contributed the bulk of their time to the economy (historically: male, more recently: both) - Older family members, especially grandparents, contributed free child care Now, geographic mobility and preference have decreased the rate at which grandparents are co-located and available. And, critically, having children later in life has decreased the number of years grandparents are able to help. If governments provided a net-zero cost, high-quality option for childcare, I feel like it'd substantially change potential family decisions. But that's one of the substantially-more-expensive-than-current-benefits options you're talking about.
    - AbrahamParangi 3y ago
      Yeah. When my son was born I realized the geographic separation of the extended family in space is clearly unnatural. I don’t mean that in a moralizing way, just that it’s like walking on your hands rather than on your feet. Doable! You could get used to it! But it’s a hell of a lot harder than the alternative.
- em500 3y ago
  Throughout history childless people faced high risk of destitution in old age. That’s no longer true in most developed countries, and I don’t think anybody would want that to be changed.
  - RestlessMind 3y ago
    > and I don’t think anybody would want that to be changed. There are only 4 choices for developed countries: 1. be destitute in the old age - no one likes it 2. have children and prepare the next generation - barely happening 3. mass immigration - that changes culture and your native population may not like it. See: Italy (Meloni), France (Le Pen), UK (Brexit & immigrants), Sweden... 4. count on technology (AI, Robots) to take care of elders - it just seems dystopian if the youngest person in one's town is 17yo. Kind of like "Children of Men".
    - A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
      Mass immigration is becoming a zero-sum game. Japan's immigrants mostly come from China and Vietnam -- both of which countries have sub-replacement fertility themselves. Quite catastrophically so in China's case. Now in mid-2023, the only countries with above replacement fertility are not "modern" societies in any sense of the word. e.g., even Bangladesh is now sub-replacement. Mass immigration from places with still-above-replacement fertility into countries like Japan and the UK is a recipe for disaster. So #2 isn't happening, and #3 should be disfavored on ethical grounds. (Robbing Peter to pay Paul is at best ethically neutral; importing a natural underclass is to everybody's detriment and can only result in upheaval.) #4 is the best option on the table. Of course, there are additional ways by which the decline might be managed. Obviously pension and retirement schemes will need to be recalibrated, and older folks should be encouraged to move from the decaying periphery into large regional hubs where they can take advantage of support and medical services.
- lp4vn 3y ago
  Historically, for most of the population in the majority of situations, children were an inexpensive asset, but things have changed. Raising children nowadays is outrageously expensive, and even owning a house that's an item of basic financial security for a family is already out of reach for a lot of people. So the direct incentives that you claim that have never existed were there all the time, having a family with kids were the natural and expected thing to do. It used to go good and easy, but now all the economic incetives go against it. I don't like to keep bringing back the old and tired trope of how the boomer discourse and worldview are completely out of touch with the reality, but when it comes to the debate about demographics it's completely impossible not to.
  - A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
    I am quite certain that there's no easy way for governments to raise TFR. Hungary and S.Korea have tried, with relatively generous grants and incentives for parents, but the results are at best equivocal in Hungary's case and null in S.Korea's. What they're doing clearly isn't working. So there are two options left on the table, which are bad but not utterly unreasonable: 1. Huge cash payouts for parents of children coupled with extremely generous incentives, both far beyond anything offered today. e.g., a $100k to $200k grant per child upon birth, with all hospital fees associated with childbirth covered by the state, free access to government childcare, and extremely generous tax credits for parents. This might result in the wrong "sort of people" giving birth to many children... but at this point it's the one thing that hasn't been tried, it would resolve the concerns you mention in your post in a totally general sense, and it could also be a way to raise underclasses from poverty. 2. Manage the decline by investing in industries that can support an aging population, in programs that aim to pull people from decaying small towns into regional hubs, and by renormalizing retirement and pension schemes. If there's a third way that isn't crazy -- which is to say bad _and_ unreasonable -- I'd like to hear it. (Examples of crazy ideas might include buying newborns from parents and raising them in government institutions, breeding children in artificial wombs, totally unfettered mass-immigration schemes, etc.)
    - analognoise 3y ago
      3. Get rid of the aspects of capitalism which make it too difficult to have kids. It isn't crazy. The system we have now is crazy. The fact that we're mentioning artificial wombs instead of destroying capitalism is worrying.
- pjc50 3y ago
  > And of course it’s strictly not true that direct incentives have been required throughout history Have people forgotten that effective contraception is basically (with a few exceptions) a 20th century thing? I don't think HN really understands the sexual revolution at all.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    The relevance of this claim being that people primarily had children as a byproduct of wanting to have sex, versus a desire to procreate? Contraception shouldn’t change the number of people who intend to procreate.
    - pjc50 3y ago
      > people primarily had children as a byproduct of wanting to have sex Yes? Again, this is so obvious I'm surprised to write it out. > Contraception shouldn’t change the number of people who intend to procreate. And yet it clearly did, largely by giving people the option to not procreate without having to remain forever unmarried and a low-status part of their father's household. It's also preconditioned on education for women, both in learning the mechanics and choices involved in procreation and giving them some economic options other than that. None of this is new or surprising; it's been deliberate policy for years! Here's a discussion of the successful reduction in fertility in Bangladesh, for example https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441730.2022.2028253 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441730.2022.2...

nradov 3y ago

A misogynistic culture is probably a bigger issue than smartphones in causing some women to decide against having children.

lp4vn 3y ago
You go to the countries with the highest birth rate in the world and they are no feminist paradise. Japan for sure ranks pretty high on women freedom and rights and chances are that the track for these issues has been improving in the country over the years, not declining.
MandieD 3y ago
Thank you! “Why on Earth wouldn’t an educated adult want to be pressured out of her interesting job and back into complete dependence as soon as she has a child? Must be the mobile apps, not that taste of freedom they’ve had…” A year of (mostly) maternal leave is silver, but a legal framework that normalizes working high-skill jobs part-time for several years is absolute gold to prudent young to middle aged women with aging parents but some desire to still have kids. Aging parents: delighted to have them still with us, but on a practical level, not much lightening the child-rearing load. All the capacity for nurture, none of the capacity of chasing down a three year old who saw a dump truck drive by. My small child’s grandparents and dear great-aunts are mid-70s to mid-80s. Two generations of having kids late will do that. My working part-time and flexibly has enabled us to promote my child’s relationships with them and makes it easier for me to help them, which they need a bit more every year. I didn’t have to make the stark choice I see my friends back in the States making: go back to work before the baby is mobile and full time, or give up any serious job for the next several years and get to start over a decade later.
RestlessMind 3y ago
But facts speak otherwise - TFR is very high in traditional conservative societies (see Nigeria).