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Would be curious to hear theories on what succeeds in motivating people to produce more (kids). If our lifestyle has changed in a way that people do not want to

Would be curious to hear theories on what succeeds in motivating people to produce more (kids). If our lifestyle has changed in a way that people do not want to produce, and I see it linked with wealth, it would be pretty hard to ask people to reverse it, no? I am not saying we need to constantly increase our populations, just wonder if it has been studied and do those studies prescribe a template for short term adjustments / inducements.

solarmist 3y ago
I don’t think anyone has any clue what works yet. But they keep trying things.
jwells89 3y ago
What's caused these numbers to trend low, in my uninformed opinion, is that society's idea for what constitutes adequate child care has escalated dramatically increasing the cost of having kids while working wages have bought less and less, which has made the risk being taken on by having even one kid increase beyond what most people are comfortable with. An increasing number of people only achieve a level of reasonable financial security by the time they're in their 30s. When getting to that point takes that much time and effort, it's not something one wants to gamble on unless they absolutely have to, and in this circumstance having kids is in effect gambling. The other thing is that also due to depressed wages, a couple becoming parents means that between working their jobs and taking care of their kids, their life as it previously was basically ceases entirely, which is also a hard pill to swallow. Ideally people would have time to both raise their kid and continue being who they used to be without trying to squeeze time out of the margins by e.g. giving up sleep. There’s also other aspects of work-dominated culture like difficulty of meeting people outside of the workplace which also factor in.
- neaden 3y ago
  I would say it's what consitutes adequate childcare combined with over reliance on parents as caregivers. So emphasis on nuclear family means you don't have grandparents, aunts, and uncles around so much. Paying for childcare is increasingly expensive as well. Even older children tend to be busier now with school and such which means that in a big family the older siblings aren't available to help out with the younger in the way that for instance my mother did as the third oldest of nine when she was a teen.
  - jwells89 3y ago
    To add to that, people having kids later and having to move where career prospects are best means that fewer relatives are around to rely on, either because they’re too distant or have passed from old age.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      My partner and I have three parents between us, and none are interested in helping with childcare as grandparents. My partner said that if she had known ahead of time we'd be entirely on our own, we wouldn't have had the two kids we did. We get by with paid childcare instead, because we're here now and there is only one path forward.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  In addition I think the massively expanded amount of entertainment makes people less likely to have kids. Huge number of people used to have kids just because they were bored. There are almost too many reasons technology has lead to less kids to count.
  - jwells89 3y ago
    I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, though. It’s better if couples have kids because they want to instead of doing it because it’s a matter of course by way of boredom or social pressures. There’s probably enough people who do want them to keep up replacement rate if the factors I mentioned were addressed, since not only would it open some couples up to having kids, it would also make it more likely for those who’d otherwise only had one to have multiple.
    - HDThoreaun 3y ago
      Absolute agree that kids who are consciously planned and wanted are much better for society, but demographic collapse is a serious concern. Especially for these east asian countries there are so many factors pushing birth rate down that I think it's going to take a colossal public effort to right the ship so to say. Imo the only long term solution is societal acceptance of parenthood as a job instead of something that is done for free. That would be a huge cultural shift for every society, but from what I understand it will be an even harder pill to swallow in eastern asian cultures. The insane work culture has been the backbone of the growth in these economies so I think it might be hard for them to accept that it isn't sustainable.
hotpotamus 3y ago
I'm under the impression that religion is highly correlated with having children. As a non-religious person, I haven't come up with any good reason to have them.
Tiktaalik 3y ago
Right now the costs to have children remain incredibly high. Canada is just beginning to roll out $10/day daycare, which should reign in a lot of these costs and make it more affordable to have a family. It'll be interesting to see where Canada's growth rate is at 10, 20 years from now once that is common. Of course other costs elsewhere (ie. housing!) have spiked so much that will further discourage household growth, so more work needs to be done.
- potmat 3y ago
  Canadian here. Housing costs have increased so dramatically this would still put you back to only maybe five years ago in terms of disposable income. This is just a wild guesstimate, but you get the idea. Anecdotally I've heard that other countries, particularly in Europe, have tried subsidized or even free daycare and that it failed to have any effect on birthrate.
- spigottoday 3y ago
  If there are less people shouldnt there be more empty and available housing? If the cost of housing is high because investment companies have purchased all of the vacant housing and jacked the price put a hefty (monthly ?) tax on vacant housing that is not sold or rented in 3 months. Somewhat more affordable housing becomes available to people that requier a house to raise a family in. Lower the price to something people can afford or pay the empty housing tax. Could work for commercial properties as well.
  - Tiktaalik 3y ago
    There's already layers upon layers of empty home taxes in BC and vacancy remains near 0%. There's really no remarkable amount of empty homes anywhere. Every time someone has tried to search for it they've came up with very little. The simple dull reality is that there's a huge shortage of homes because homes were under built for decades and decades due to 1) exclusionary zoning and 2) governments stopping funding any and all below market housing in the 1990s. The shortage of suitable homes of course hurts families very badly. Many large homes suitable for families are occupied by retirees that don't want to move and don't have anywhere good to move (because again, we've built little). Zoning prohibits subdivision and redevelopment of the vast majority of the surface areas of cities so creating more housing is difficult. Families need 1300sqft+. We badly need to rezone the entirety of our cities broadly to allow massive sfh lots to be redeveloped to create multiple 1300sqft+ spaces suitable for families. Rowhouses, Townhouses, and Apartments.
Detrytus 3y ago
Having kids is a burden - financially, but also physically and emotionally. In the past people were "motivated" to have many kids, because sex is a great pleasure, and children are a side effect. Now that modern medicine remedied unwanted "side effects" there's no way in Hell to trick people to have more than one, maybe two kids.
- harryquach 3y ago
  In pre-industrial societies children were/are used as labor therefore it was advantageous to have many children.
mensetmanusman 3y ago
Only religious belief correlates likely due to higher levels of in grained hope.

solarmist 3y ago

I don’t think anyone has any clue what works yet. But they keep trying things.

jwells89 3y ago

What's caused these numbers to trend low, in my uninformed opinion, is that society's idea for what constitutes adequate child care has escalated dramatically increasing the cost of having kids while working wages have bought less and less, which has made the risk being taken on by having even one kid increase beyond what most people are comfortable with. An increasing number of people only achieve a level of reasonable financial security by the time they're in their 30s. When getting to that point takes that much time and effort, it's not something one wants to gamble on unless they absolutely have to, and in this circumstance having kids is in effect gambling. The other thing is that also due to depressed wages, a couple becoming parents means that between working their jobs and taking care of their kids, their life as it previously was basically ceases entirely, which is also a hard pill to swallow. Ideally people would have time to both raise their kid and continue being who they used to be without trying to squeeze time out of the margins by e.g. giving up sleep. There’s also other aspects of work-dominated culture like difficulty of meeting people outside of the workplace which also factor in.

neaden 3y ago
I would say it's what consitutes adequate childcare combined with over reliance on parents as caregivers. So emphasis on nuclear family means you don't have grandparents, aunts, and uncles around so much. Paying for childcare is increasingly expensive as well. Even older children tend to be busier now with school and such which means that in a big family the older siblings aren't available to help out with the younger in the way that for instance my mother did as the third oldest of nine when she was a teen.
- jwells89 3y ago
  To add to that, people having kids later and having to move where career prospects are best means that fewer relatives are around to rely on, either because they’re too distant or have passed from old age.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    My partner and I have three parents between us, and none are interested in helping with childcare as grandparents. My partner said that if she had known ahead of time we'd be entirely on our own, we wouldn't have had the two kids we did. We get by with paid childcare instead, because we're here now and there is only one path forward.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
In addition I think the massively expanded amount of entertainment makes people less likely to have kids. Huge number of people used to have kids just because they were bored. There are almost too many reasons technology has lead to less kids to count.
- jwells89 3y ago
  I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, though. It’s better if couples have kids because they want to instead of doing it because it’s a matter of course by way of boredom or social pressures. There’s probably enough people who do want them to keep up replacement rate if the factors I mentioned were addressed, since not only would it open some couples up to having kids, it would also make it more likely for those who’d otherwise only had one to have multiple.
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    Absolute agree that kids who are consciously planned and wanted are much better for society, but demographic collapse is a serious concern. Especially for these east asian countries there are so many factors pushing birth rate down that I think it's going to take a colossal public effort to right the ship so to say. Imo the only long term solution is societal acceptance of parenthood as a job instead of something that is done for free. That would be a huge cultural shift for every society, but from what I understand it will be an even harder pill to swallow in eastern asian cultures. The insane work culture has been the backbone of the growth in these economies so I think it might be hard for them to accept that it isn't sustainable.

hotpotamus 3y ago

I'm under the impression that religion is highly correlated with having children. As a non-religious person, I haven't come up with any good reason to have them.

Tiktaalik 3y ago

Right now the costs to have children remain incredibly high. Canada is just beginning to roll out $10/day daycare, which should reign in a lot of these costs and make it more affordable to have a family. It'll be interesting to see where Canada's growth rate is at 10, 20 years from now once that is common. Of course other costs elsewhere (ie. housing!) have spiked so much that will further discourage household growth, so more work needs to be done.

potmat 3y ago
Canadian here. Housing costs have increased so dramatically this would still put you back to only maybe five years ago in terms of disposable income. This is just a wild guesstimate, but you get the idea. Anecdotally I've heard that other countries, particularly in Europe, have tried subsidized or even free daycare and that it failed to have any effect on birthrate.
spigottoday 3y ago
If there are less people shouldnt there be more empty and available housing? If the cost of housing is high because investment companies have purchased all of the vacant housing and jacked the price put a hefty (monthly ?) tax on vacant housing that is not sold or rented in 3 months. Somewhat more affordable housing becomes available to people that requier a house to raise a family in. Lower the price to something people can afford or pay the empty housing tax. Could work for commercial properties as well.
- Tiktaalik 3y ago
  There's already layers upon layers of empty home taxes in BC and vacancy remains near 0%. There's really no remarkable amount of empty homes anywhere. Every time someone has tried to search for it they've came up with very little. The simple dull reality is that there's a huge shortage of homes because homes were under built for decades and decades due to 1) exclusionary zoning and 2) governments stopping funding any and all below market housing in the 1990s. The shortage of suitable homes of course hurts families very badly. Many large homes suitable for families are occupied by retirees that don't want to move and don't have anywhere good to move (because again, we've built little). Zoning prohibits subdivision and redevelopment of the vast majority of the surface areas of cities so creating more housing is difficult. Families need 1300sqft+. We badly need to rezone the entirety of our cities broadly to allow massive sfh lots to be redeveloped to create multiple 1300sqft+ spaces suitable for families. Rowhouses, Townhouses, and Apartments.

Detrytus 3y ago

Having kids is a burden - financially, but also physically and emotionally. In the past people were "motivated" to have many kids, because sex is a great pleasure, and children are a side effect. Now that modern medicine remedied unwanted "side effects" there's no way in Hell to trick people to have more than one, maybe two kids.

harryquach 3y ago
In pre-industrial societies children were/are used as labor therefore it was advantageous to have many children.

mensetmanusman 3y ago

Only religious belief correlates likely due to higher levels of in grained hope.