3 ms·

Life may be too good for kids anymore The article has curiously little about what koreans actually want, vs what the author thinks is stopping them (despite th

by seydor 3y ago

Life may be too good for kids anymore The article has curiously little about what koreans actually want, vs what the author thinks is stopping them (despite their burning desire) to have kids. After all, as the article says the birthrate went way down a long time ago thus it's likely that people would know by now what is stopping them from having more kids

thegreenswede 3y ago
No. I want kids but I don't want them until I can afford stable housing. And if that's hard for me as an overpaid tech worker, then I understand why most people are delaying kids or not having them at all. If most young people are still living with parents or roommates well into their 30's, then it's not a mystery why my generation isn't having kids. Nothing to do with 'life is so good kids aren't desirable anymore'.
- munk-a 3y ago
  Yea, pretty much this. I'm half of a two person couple well into the upper middle class - we live in a one bedroom condo that costs more than half a million dollars... kids are not a realistic financial decision.
  - paulcole 3y ago
    You and I are probably in similar situations (I rent a 1-bedroom apartment in an upscale-ish area) and you probably earn more than me but I live very comfortably. I've personally never had any interest in having kids. Whatever it is that makes kids appealing, I've never had it. But I think I agree with you and I don't understand why I think I agree with you. Kids do seem like a crazy financial decision today. But if we wanted to, we could for sure have a kid and get by. Plenty of people have plenty of kids on a lot less money. Is it that we want to maintain our standard of living more than people did in the past? Plenty of poor people have plenty of kids in 1 bedroom apartments. Do we just demand more comfort today? Are we just more picky? Are kids just not worth what they used to be? I don't think any of these answers are bad. I just think it's interesting.
    - aidenn0 3y ago
      Indeed, most of my daughter's friends in early elementary school lived with their parent in a 1BR, studio, or a rented bedroom. One of them had 3 siblings, making 5 people in a 1BR apartment.
      - paulcole 3y ago
        I guess maybe parents had fewer expenses when I was a kid (I was born in 1983)? No cable bill, no cell phones, fewer video games, no streaming services?
        aidenn0 3y ago
        IIRC, housing, child-care (especially if you include after-school activities), and health-care (If you are un- or under-insured with your job) dominate the increased expenses. Housing is a strange one because a lot of parents will try to move to a better school district, so parents may end up paying more for otherwise similar housing than non-parents. FWIW, the things you give as examples are rounding-errors in our budget (though only two of our kids have cell phones so far); we don't have cable, pay $22/mo for streaming services, buy used video games, and pay an average of $60/mo for our phone bill. We spend over $300/mo on groceries for comparison.
    - antisthenes 3y ago
      > Is it that we want to maintain our standard of living more than people did in the past? Plenty of poor people have plenty of kids in 1 bedroom apartments. Do we just demand more comfort today? Are we just more picky? Are kids just not worth what they used to be? I find it interesting that this is almost the only post in the entire thread that arrives at the need to do a little introspection. Apparently, the ability to do that is much rarer these days than I thought.
      - paulcole 3y ago
        It's not ability it's just willingness. Go to the recent Scrum threads or any discussion of remote work. It's all just these incredibly strongly held opinions that people feel the need to share over and over.
- tomtheelder 3y ago
  Then why does the birth rate steadily go down as you move up the income curve? My experience is that my wealthy adult peer group just has almost no interest in having children while my high school friends, many struggling badly financially, all already have families.
  - throwawaysleep 3y ago
    Higher standards. The person you are replying to wants stable housing on some of the most desirable land in the world. The conditions for upper middle class people to have kids are exceedingly high by any standard.
    - angmarsbane 3y ago
      I don't think it is an absurd or even high standard to want reasonably priced (30% of income) shelter (whether owned or rented) within a reasonable commuting distance (30 mins one-way) of a job. Am I truly out in left field on this?
      - speakfreely 3y ago
        You're solving for this with the constraint being your job. If you tried to solve this problem with family being the constraint and the job and financial situation being more variable, all of a sudden your options open up. Your constraints show your priorities.
      - throwawaysleep 3y ago
        You don't want just a job. You probably want an elite and interesting job, which for a dev to be paying out a large percentage of their salary is probably in San Francisco or Seattle or New York. You could take a boring remote job with more average pay out in Kansas if family were a priority and pay off a house in a year or two.
  - BeFlatXIII 3y ago
    If you're poor, children make you more poor. If you're tenuously upwardly-mobile, children can derail you into being poor.
- seydor 3y ago
  Are you korean?
  - thegreenswede 3y ago
    No but I replied to your comment before it was updated I think. It only said 'life is maybe too good for kids anymore' when I saw it but now I see more text.
    - seydor 3y ago
      sorry about that
- throwaway6734 3y ago
  >And if that's hard for me as an overpaid tech worker, What's your salary compared to the median household income in your area? How do other people make it work?
speakfreely 3y ago
As you can see clearly from the sibling comments to mine, the problem is not that people don't have the means to have and support children. The problem is that they have a very specific vision for what it's supposed to look like, and that specific vision is extremely unaffordable right now. Various demographic, technological, and financial phenomenon have forced us to a point where the big suburban house, yard, fence, dog, etc. is simply not financially feasible for the bottom 80% of the population. Instead of realizing you can do more with less, many of these people are delaying or rejecting the family phase of life. There's a certain echo chamber that makes this seem like an inevitable outcome in the developed world, which is of course clearly proven wrong by the fact that people in third world countries are having families and prospering on fractions of the income that these "first world victims" are struggling with. It's more of an "expectations problem" than any hard and fast financial barrier. People in developed countries simply can't afford to have the life they were expecting to have. Meanwhile, the other half of the world continues putting one foot in front of the other because they never expected it any other way.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  In countries without proper health care, the lives of everyone lower than upper-middle class are unbelievably precarious. In the US at least, although there was a lot less healthcare 100 years ago, there were no procedures that cost you 10 years salary. Just giving birth in the US costs about $20K. It takes a day, and can be done at home by professionals that don't even need to be trained as nurses at 99% of the safety level. It can be done by a woman alone, with no help, at 80% of the safety level. If you can wring $20K out of something that generally happens by itself without a hitch, your system is fucked up. Life is precarious here, although often luxurious. Exchange that luxury for security, and you'll see a lot more people confident enough in the future to have a baby responsibly. It's not a question of having a suburban yard, it's a question of having something that won't be pulled out from under you quickly. The suburban yard is just a buffer, just like close family that live nearby is. But capitalism atomizes the family, and encourages them to move to find work on a dime. Capitalism is a direct competitor to the family: family is where capitalism isn't. The larger families are, the less capitalism exists. SK is a US vassal state, so I can't imagine that their health care system is much more humane.

by seydor 3y ago

thegreenswede 3y ago

No. I want kids but I don't want them until I can afford stable housing. And if that's hard for me as an overpaid tech worker, then I understand why most people are delaying kids or not having them at all. If most young people are still living with parents or roommates well into their 30's, then it's not a mystery why my generation isn't having kids. Nothing to do with 'life is so good kids aren't desirable anymore'.

munk-a 3y ago
Yea, pretty much this. I'm half of a two person couple well into the upper middle class - we live in a one bedroom condo that costs more than half a million dollars... kids are not a realistic financial decision.
- paulcole 3y ago
  You and I are probably in similar situations (I rent a 1-bedroom apartment in an upscale-ish area) and you probably earn more than me but I live very comfortably. I've personally never had any interest in having kids. Whatever it is that makes kids appealing, I've never had it. But I think I agree with you and I don't understand why I think I agree with you. Kids do seem like a crazy financial decision today. But if we wanted to, we could for sure have a kid and get by. Plenty of people have plenty of kids on a lot less money. Is it that we want to maintain our standard of living more than people did in the past? Plenty of poor people have plenty of kids in 1 bedroom apartments. Do we just demand more comfort today? Are we just more picky? Are kids just not worth what they used to be? I don't think any of these answers are bad. I just think it's interesting.
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    Indeed, most of my daughter's friends in early elementary school lived with their parent in a 1BR, studio, or a rented bedroom. One of them had 3 siblings, making 5 people in a 1BR apartment.
    - paulcole 3y ago
      I guess maybe parents had fewer expenses when I was a kid (I was born in 1983)? No cable bill, no cell phones, fewer video games, no streaming services?
      - aidenn0 3y ago
        IIRC, housing, child-care (especially if you include after-school activities), and health-care (If you are un- or under-insured with your job) dominate the increased expenses. Housing is a strange one because a lot of parents will try to move to a better school district, so parents may end up paying more for otherwise similar housing than non-parents. FWIW, the things you give as examples are rounding-errors in our budget (though only two of our kids have cell phones so far); we don't have cable, pay $22/mo for streaming services, buy used video games, and pay an average of $60/mo for our phone bill. We spend over $300/mo on groceries for comparison.
  - antisthenes 3y ago
    > Is it that we want to maintain our standard of living more than people did in the past? Plenty of poor people have plenty of kids in 1 bedroom apartments. Do we just demand more comfort today? Are we just more picky? Are kids just not worth what they used to be? I find it interesting that this is almost the only post in the entire thread that arrives at the need to do a little introspection. Apparently, the ability to do that is much rarer these days than I thought.
    - paulcole 3y ago
      It's not ability it's just willingness. Go to the recent Scrum threads or any discussion of remote work. It's all just these incredibly strongly held opinions that people feel the need to share over and over.
tomtheelder 3y ago
Then why does the birth rate steadily go down as you move up the income curve? My experience is that my wealthy adult peer group just has almost no interest in having children while my high school friends, many struggling badly financially, all already have families.
- throwawaysleep 3y ago
  Higher standards. The person you are replying to wants stable housing on some of the most desirable land in the world. The conditions for upper middle class people to have kids are exceedingly high by any standard.
  - angmarsbane 3y ago
    I don't think it is an absurd or even high standard to want reasonably priced (30% of income) shelter (whether owned or rented) within a reasonable commuting distance (30 mins one-way) of a job. Am I truly out in left field on this?
    - speakfreely 3y ago
      You're solving for this with the constraint being your job. If you tried to solve this problem with family being the constraint and the job and financial situation being more variable, all of a sudden your options open up. Your constraints show your priorities.
    - throwawaysleep 3y ago
      You don't want just a job. You probably want an elite and interesting job, which for a dev to be paying out a large percentage of their salary is probably in San Francisco or Seattle or New York. You could take a boring remote job with more average pay out in Kansas if family were a priority and pay off a house in a year or two.
- BeFlatXIII 3y ago
  If you're poor, children make you more poor. If you're tenuously upwardly-mobile, children can derail you into being poor.
seydor 3y ago
Are you korean?
- thegreenswede 3y ago
  No but I replied to your comment before it was updated I think. It only said 'life is maybe too good for kids anymore' when I saw it but now I see more text.
  - seydor 3y ago
    sorry about that
throwaway6734 3y ago
>And if that's hard for me as an overpaid tech worker, What's your salary compared to the median household income in your area? How do other people make it work?

speakfreely 3y ago

As you can see clearly from the sibling comments to mine, the problem is not that people don't have the means to have and support children. The problem is that they have a very specific vision for what it's supposed to look like, and that specific vision is extremely unaffordable right now. Various demographic, technological, and financial phenomenon have forced us to a point where the big suburban house, yard, fence, dog, etc. is simply not financially feasible for the bottom 80% of the population. Instead of realizing you can do more with less, many of these people are delaying or rejecting the family phase of life. There's a certain echo chamber that makes this seem like an inevitable outcome in the developed world, which is of course clearly proven wrong by the fact that people in third world countries are having families and prospering on fractions of the income that these "first world victims" are struggling with. It's more of an "expectations problem" than any hard and fast financial barrier. People in developed countries simply can't afford to have the life they were expecting to have. Meanwhile, the other half of the world continues putting one foot in front of the other because they never expected it any other way.

pessimizer 3y ago
In countries without proper health care, the lives of everyone lower than upper-middle class are unbelievably precarious. In the US at least, although there was a lot less healthcare 100 years ago, there were no procedures that cost you 10 years salary. Just giving birth in the US costs about $20K. It takes a day, and can be done at home by professionals that don't even need to be trained as nurses at 99% of the safety level. It can be done by a woman alone, with no help, at 80% of the safety level. If you can wring $20K out of something that generally happens by itself without a hitch, your system is fucked up. Life is precarious here, although often luxurious. Exchange that luxury for security, and you'll see a lot more people confident enough in the future to have a baby responsibly. It's not a question of having a suburban yard, it's a question of having something that won't be pulled out from under you quickly. The suburban yard is just a buffer, just like close family that live nearby is. But capitalism atomizes the family, and encourages them to move to find work on a dime. Capitalism is a direct competitor to the family: family is where capitalism isn't. The larger families are, the less capitalism exists. SK is a US vassal state, so I can't imagine that their health care system is much more humane.