4 ms·

It's very surprising how little we know as to why people don't get kids, since almost every single common idea is wrong to some degree. * We don't get a baby b

by 0dayz 3y ago

It's very surprising how little we know as to why people don't get kids, since almost every single common idea is wrong to some degree. * We don't get a baby boom after a war (any country whove been to war) * not from good housing (japan and Singapore have really good housing) * not from conservative traditionalist religious society (most of eastern Europe and Russia). The exception is extreme impoverishment and religious society, both if which are not sustainable. It's why the baby boom of the 1940s should be studied like no tomorrow, since it's the exception to the rule in almost every country. For instance in Sweden the biggest reason to not get kids is that people don't feel ready or haven't experienced the world enough. At this point I just don't know what can be done beyond growing babies in labs and pay huge sums to incentive people to donate sperm/eggs.

hotpotamus 3y ago
Look at it the other way, do we know why people do want kids? When I ask people here (and I think I'm considered rude for doing so), I get many different answers, none of which really satisfy me. It seems to be like religion; something I'm not capable of believing in. My grandmothers both participated in the baby boom, yet one said she never really wanted children, it was just something that everyone did back then. The other grandmother never said much at all but always seemed very unhappy until she died a fairly early death from cancer that she opted not to fight. Actually I do remember her saying that she should have stopped after one child (my aunts and uncles had very problematic lives; a trait I seem to share). It's a weird thing being descended from people who seemed indifferent at best to the whole concept of reproduction.
- 0dayz 3y ago
  That's indirectly what I think too we ought to look for, personally I believe forming a family is and always will be a form of investment, maybe not an investment of wealth in this day and age, but a investment of a social group. In some sense I think we've lost a lot of that interest and instead tried a more individual approach to rationalizing forming a family. And also the old family structure we used to have, has not been able to adapt to the standard that the modern world and challenges demand of us.
logicchains 3y ago
I read something recently that found the majority of the reduction in people having kids is due to getting married later. I.e. if we assume married couples have a fixed probability per year to have children, and unmarried people rarely have kids, then increasing the average age of marriage from 30 to 35 approximately halves the birthrate (because after 40 women generally cannot have children).
- 0dayz 3y ago
  It wouldn't surprise me, at the same time your 20-30s is the "age of discovery" it's really as you say in your 40s you tend to want to maybe settle down or cool down a bit. Similar to how we see record many women freezing down their eggs.

by 0dayz 3y ago

hotpotamus 3y ago

Look at it the other way, do we know why people do want kids? When I ask people here (and I think I'm considered rude for doing so), I get many different answers, none of which really satisfy me. It seems to be like religion; something I'm not capable of believing in. My grandmothers both participated in the baby boom, yet one said she never really wanted children, it was just something that everyone did back then. The other grandmother never said much at all but always seemed very unhappy until she died a fairly early death from cancer that she opted not to fight. Actually I do remember her saying that she should have stopped after one child (my aunts and uncles had very problematic lives; a trait I seem to share). It's a weird thing being descended from people who seemed indifferent at best to the whole concept of reproduction.

0dayz 3y ago
That's indirectly what I think too we ought to look for, personally I believe forming a family is and always will be a form of investment, maybe not an investment of wealth in this day and age, but a investment of a social group. In some sense I think we've lost a lot of that interest and instead tried a more individual approach to rationalizing forming a family. And also the old family structure we used to have, has not been able to adapt to the standard that the modern world and challenges demand of us.

logicchains 3y ago

I read something recently that found the majority of the reduction in people having kids is due to getting married later. I.e. if we assume married couples have a fixed probability per year to have children, and unmarried people rarely have kids, then increasing the average age of marriage from 30 to 35 approximately halves the birthrate (because after 40 women generally cannot have children).

0dayz 3y ago
It wouldn't surprise me, at the same time your 20-30s is the "age of discovery" it's really as you say in your 40s you tend to want to maybe settle down or cool down a bit. Similar to how we see record many women freezing down their eggs.