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> Maybe one of the reasons people are not having kids is that it has gotten too difficult and expensive to raise them. An interesting theory, but it is an indi

> Maybe one of the reasons people are not having kids is that it has gotten too difficult and expensive to raise them. An interesting theory, but it is an indisputable fact that somewhere else, someone's raising not just one child, but many, on income you'd call pocket change. Countries that attempt to provide financial incentives quickly discover that these incentives don't seem to cause fertility rates to budge. While even I freely admit that there must be some number at which you could convince the childless to have a baby and raise it, that number's large enough that no government could hope to afford incentivizing children. > There was a time when a single income could support a middle class family. Sure. But when you look at the square footage for those homes... many of them are still standing, after all, pick any year you like back in the 1950s or whatever, you see they're all crackerboxes. 1100sqft. That's what the family of four lived in. Depending on the era, their big electronics purchase was the 13" black and white tv. How many nights a month do you eat out, really? How many days do you end up eating out, twice, lunch and dinner? Did those people back in the 1950s eat out once a month, and it was a big deal for them? I don't think you'd like their "single income could support a middle class family" lifestyle. I don't think anyone here would be comfortable with that.

candiodari 3y ago
> I don't think you'd like their "single income could support a middle class family" lifestyle. I don't think anyone here would be comfortable with that. If only there had been 50 years of progress since then ...
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  There has. Have you checked how many extra people there are though? It's a little paradoxical, I know, but you never buy things. You only get to bid on them at auction, an auction invisible to most people. And there are twice as many bidders as before. But this isn't some contradiction of the topic's premise. Many, many of those people weren't born here. Your government sent all those industries overseas, then brought into people from those same places to underbid you on all the crappy service jobs that remained. Told you that you were bigoted and hateful if you objected. Everyone got the progress they voted for, I guess.
- strangattractor 3y ago
  I am not advocating for a lifestyle. The fact a single income is insufficient regardless of lifestyle is my point. There can be stay at home dads or 2 income families that can afford child care for example. The pay for 2 young people during their prime is not enough to get it done in urban areas. It is more doable in rural areas with less people. The wealth has shifted to older people that do not reproduce.
jayski 3y ago
> but it is an indisputable fact that somewhere else, someone's raising not just one child, but many, on income you'd call pocket change. This is true, but there's also been 50 years of not progress, but a concentrated effort to turn us all into hyper-consumerists. Media, government, corporations, have prioritized growth for decades. Predictably we now have a population that cares more about buying disposable trinkets than having a family. Ironically, declining population is now hurting economic growth.
strangattractor 3y ago
Few facts concerning people are indisputable. I don't think you can convince people to have children. They either want to or they do not want to. The people that are inclined to want children have a decision to make before they do. This is a long term project and involves the well being of others - not yourself. Most people take that seriously. They want a situation where they can be successful for 18 yrs or more. 18 years of steady income and medical care. 18 years of a place to live and 18 years of help from another individual that you depend on. If you do not have a large enough income failure of any one or more of those things is much more likely and hard to recover from. I am not advocating a return to the 50s. Nor am advocating any lifestyle solution. It is my OPINION the article is in some ways wrong or incorrect about what the problem is.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  > t is my OPINION the article is in some ways wrong or incorrect about what the problem is. Ok. What's wrong about it? That fertility rate is below replacement, or that this means population must eventually drop (already happening for Japan, for South Korea)? > I don't think you can convince people to have children. They either want to or they do not want to. That's silly. People's wants are not summoned from some ethereal void. Circumstances cause those desires, and the circumstances changes... so their wants did too. A curious thing happened when I was raising my own children. They never heard me say anything that sounded like I didn't like being a father. None of the stupid sitcom jokes. Never a "I wish I didn't have kids" muttered under the breath. And now, they genuinely talk as if they want kids. To make someone not want kids, you have to brainwash them through their early developmental years, making it seem like the worst fate possible. That's the only way to override the biological imperative, and even then they end up getting drunk and not using condoms someday only to go abort it.
  - strangattractor 3y ago
    "And yet, there are good reasons for thinking that precisely the opposite is true: the more people there are, the more solutions to problems will be found." After that quote he then proceeds to show how people that pointed to graphs with ever increasing populations were wrong. He then follows up by pointing at a graph that shows ever decreasing crop land use per capita making the same extrapolation error that the population explosion people made. He then ignores the elephant in the room. This is not just a question of can we sustain population at X but also can we sustain a quality of life that is desirable at X. One of the reasons fertility drops (IMO) is that we currently cannot. It is not clear to me nuclear power etc is going to change that. Regardless he offers no proof that it would other than simple optimism. I agree it would help us to sustain a larger population but is it desirable? Now that you have mentioned Japan and Korea I suggest you might consider what your thinking might be about kids if the only option you could afford was this - (not knocking Japan or Korean - at least it keeps their homelessness in check): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4oQDnHlrR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4oQDnHlrR0 I can appreciate your process for deciding to and raising kids (whatever works is good). Mine was totally different and resulted in having him late in life (which has its own pluses and minuses). I have actually done something similar. I tell my son raising him is the most important thing I ever did. That is because it actually is/was the best part of my life and I have been fortunate enough to do many other exciting things that still do not compete. I would like his future to have the same opportunities.

candiodari 3y ago

> I don't think you'd like their "single income could support a middle class family" lifestyle. I don't think anyone here would be comfortable with that. If only there had been 50 years of progress since then ...

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
There has. Have you checked how many extra people there are though? It's a little paradoxical, I know, but you never buy things. You only get to bid on them at auction, an auction invisible to most people. And there are twice as many bidders as before. But this isn't some contradiction of the topic's premise. Many, many of those people weren't born here. Your government sent all those industries overseas, then brought into people from those same places to underbid you on all the crappy service jobs that remained. Told you that you were bigoted and hateful if you objected. Everyone got the progress they voted for, I guess.
strangattractor 3y ago
I am not advocating for a lifestyle. The fact a single income is insufficient regardless of lifestyle is my point. There can be stay at home dads or 2 income families that can afford child care for example. The pay for 2 young people during their prime is not enough to get it done in urban areas. It is more doable in rural areas with less people. The wealth has shifted to older people that do not reproduce.

jayski 3y ago

> but it is an indisputable fact that somewhere else, someone's raising not just one child, but many, on income you'd call pocket change. This is true, but there's also been 50 years of not progress, but a concentrated effort to turn us all into hyper-consumerists. Media, government, corporations, have prioritized growth for decades. Predictably we now have a population that cares more about buying disposable trinkets than having a family. Ironically, declining population is now hurting economic growth.

strangattractor 3y ago

Few facts concerning people are indisputable. I don't think you can convince people to have children. They either want to or they do not want to. The people that are inclined to want children have a decision to make before they do. This is a long term project and involves the well being of others - not yourself. Most people take that seriously. They want a situation where they can be successful for 18 yrs or more. 18 years of steady income and medical care. 18 years of a place to live and 18 years of help from another individual that you depend on. If you do not have a large enough income failure of any one or more of those things is much more likely and hard to recover from. I am not advocating a return to the 50s. Nor am advocating any lifestyle solution. It is my OPINION the article is in some ways wrong or incorrect about what the problem is.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
> t is my OPINION the article is in some ways wrong or incorrect about what the problem is. Ok. What's wrong about it? That fertility rate is below replacement, or that this means population must eventually drop (already happening for Japan, for South Korea)? > I don't think you can convince people to have children. They either want to or they do not want to. That's silly. People's wants are not summoned from some ethereal void. Circumstances cause those desires, and the circumstances changes... so their wants did too. A curious thing happened when I was raising my own children. They never heard me say anything that sounded like I didn't like being a father. None of the stupid sitcom jokes. Never a "I wish I didn't have kids" muttered under the breath. And now, they genuinely talk as if they want kids. To make someone not want kids, you have to brainwash them through their early developmental years, making it seem like the worst fate possible. That's the only way to override the biological imperative, and even then they end up getting drunk and not using condoms someday only to go abort it.
- strangattractor 3y ago
  "And yet, there are good reasons for thinking that precisely the opposite is true: the more people there are, the more solutions to problems will be found." After that quote he then proceeds to show how people that pointed to graphs with ever increasing populations were wrong. He then follows up by pointing at a graph that shows ever decreasing crop land use per capita making the same extrapolation error that the population explosion people made. He then ignores the elephant in the room. This is not just a question of can we sustain population at X but also can we sustain a quality of life that is desirable at X. One of the reasons fertility drops (IMO) is that we currently cannot. It is not clear to me nuclear power etc is going to change that. Regardless he offers no proof that it would other than simple optimism. I agree it would help us to sustain a larger population but is it desirable? Now that you have mentioned Japan and Korea I suggest you might consider what your thinking might be about kids if the only option you could afford was this - (not knocking Japan or Korean - at least it keeps their homelessness in check): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4oQDnHlrR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4oQDnHlrR0 I can appreciate your process for deciding to and raising kids (whatever works is good). Mine was totally different and resulted in having him late in life (which has its own pluses and minuses). I have actually done something similar. I tell my son raising him is the most important thing I ever did. That is because it actually is/was the best part of my life and I have been fortunate enough to do many other exciting things that still do not compete. I would like his future to have the same opportunities.