6 ms·

Is daycare "consumerism"? Other factors include stagnant wages, collage debts, amd even high medical costs - a vaginal birth with no pain medications and no com

Is daycare "consumerism"? Other factors include stagnant wages, collage debts, amd even high medical costs - a vaginal birth with no pain medications and no complications can cost 5-figures (and may include a line-item for a parent holding the baby!). Inflation has made baby products really expensive (did I mention stagnant wages?), and this is before daycare, which can be cost as much as rent in some locales, unless you're willing to subject your child to informal daycares. None of that is consumerism. No one should be surprised that a country with a threadbare social safety-net and inflation outpacing childcare costs experiences a fall in birthrate - this can be explained in market-dymamics terms

keiferski 3y ago
Plenty of countries with good social nets have worse birth rates. Plenty of other countries with no social nets have high birth rates. I don’t think it’s particularly related, and as I said, I think it’s more of a cultural problem related to values and expectations.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  I wish I hadn't included my last paragraph - all the replies are focusing on just that and not everything else I wrote! I didn't argue a stronger social safety net would fix everything, just that having a weak one exacerbates the financial concerns, and is the major factor that would tip-over those who are not having children for mostly economic-reasons.
  - caturopath 3y ago
    I know that feeling and I'm sorry to hear about your frustration. That being said, I think the critique you're getting may be more fair to your post than you think. You bring up things like college debt and high medical costs, which are not US-like in most of the places with the lowest birth rate, and the day care situation, which often isn't either, in previous paragraphs. I do think that even if we don't note that the post was likely US-centric, we'd struggle with the fact that it's the poorer people in the US are having more babies than the richer ones when trying to apply your explanation.
graemep 3y ago
The same thing is happening in all western countries, and some other developed countries too.. Even those with free university level education, free health services, etc. Here in the UK we have the free healthcare (and maternity provision is still good), we do have university fees in most the UK, but the costs are far lower than in the US (fees are an order of magnitude lower than at some US universities, and there are cheap loans to cover fees and living costs). We have government subsidies for childcare. We still have falling birth rates. I actually think daycare is part of the problem - what is the point of having kids if you do not spend lots of time with them? The biggest advance would be more family friendly working hours. i have earned a lot less to spend time with my kids, and i am so happy I did. The best thing that happened to me was to lose my job the day my oldest was born. Otherwise I would have been very well paid (I worked for an investment bank) but have hardly known my kids.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  Any time I see "parents" require daycare for "their" children, I always think (or in particular cases say): Don't have children if you can't raise them yourself. I write this with the utmost sincerity: You as the would be father/mother brought your child into this world, the absolute least you could do is be the dad/mom they need in their life. Don't come at me with how you must sacrifice your career and future for your kids: Of fucking course you have to! The moment you decide to have kids and bring them forth, "your" life is completely at the behest of your kids. That is what having kids means. If you do not want or cannot handle the duty of sacrificing your life for your kids, do not have kids. There is no existence more tragic than a child born to parents who can not or will not spend their childhood with them.
  - graemep 3y ago
    I got downvoted for a far milder version of what you said. Going to watch this with interest. I do not think parents can be entirely blamed. We have made having children too difficult for multiple reasons. Yes, you are primarily responsible, but good communities, family friendly work, access to extended family and other things all help.
  - 3y ago
darepublic 3y ago
Fwiw my parents grew up poorer than me and had a lot of siblings. Listening to one of them, they had to refrain from flushing the toilet to save on water, shared beds, dropped out of high school to get a job etc. It was a totally different world but rightly or wrongly lots of child bearing. Among the older gen siblings (6) about half had kids.. no more than two each. In the subsequent generation again some had kids but only one or two. I have kids, wanted more but wife didn't. In this pace of things the birthrate clearly is going down. If two people have at most two kids then population is going to decline.
hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
>country with a threadbare social safety-net Sub-replacement fertility is still very much a thing even up here in Northern Europe, though, with our famously generous safety nets. Here in Finland, however, there's one group of note reproducing well above replacement: The Laestadian fundamentalists up north.

keiferski 3y ago

Plenty of countries with good social nets have worse birth rates. Plenty of other countries with no social nets have high birth rates. I don’t think it’s particularly related, and as I said, I think it’s more of a cultural problem related to values and expectations.

sangnoir 3y ago
I wish I hadn't included my last paragraph - all the replies are focusing on just that and not everything else I wrote! I didn't argue a stronger social safety net would fix everything, just that having a weak one exacerbates the financial concerns, and is the major factor that would tip-over those who are not having children for mostly economic-reasons.
- caturopath 3y ago
  I know that feeling and I'm sorry to hear about your frustration. That being said, I think the critique you're getting may be more fair to your post than you think. You bring up things like college debt and high medical costs, which are not US-like in most of the places with the lowest birth rate, and the day care situation, which often isn't either, in previous paragraphs. I do think that even if we don't note that the post was likely US-centric, we'd struggle with the fact that it's the poorer people in the US are having more babies than the richer ones when trying to apply your explanation.

graemep 3y ago

The same thing is happening in all western countries, and some other developed countries too.. Even those with free university level education, free health services, etc. Here in the UK we have the free healthcare (and maternity provision is still good), we do have university fees in most the UK, but the costs are far lower than in the US (fees are an order of magnitude lower than at some US universities, and there are cheap loans to cover fees and living costs). We have government subsidies for childcare. We still have falling birth rates. I actually think daycare is part of the problem - what is the point of having kids if you do not spend lots of time with them? The biggest advance would be more family friendly working hours. i have earned a lot less to spend time with my kids, and i am so happy I did. The best thing that happened to me was to lose my job the day my oldest was born. Otherwise I would have been very well paid (I worked for an investment bank) but have hardly known my kids.

Dalewyn 3y ago
Any time I see "parents" require daycare for "their" children, I always think (or in particular cases say): Don't have children if you can't raise them yourself. I write this with the utmost sincerity: You as the would be father/mother brought your child into this world, the absolute least you could do is be the dad/mom they need in their life. Don't come at me with how you must sacrifice your career and future for your kids: Of fucking course you have to! The moment you decide to have kids and bring them forth, "your" life is completely at the behest of your kids. That is what having kids means. If you do not want or cannot handle the duty of sacrificing your life for your kids, do not have kids. There is no existence more tragic than a child born to parents who can not or will not spend their childhood with them.
- graemep 3y ago
  I got downvoted for a far milder version of what you said. Going to watch this with interest. I do not think parents can be entirely blamed. We have made having children too difficult for multiple reasons. Yes, you are primarily responsible, but good communities, family friendly work, access to extended family and other things all help.
- 3y ago

darepublic 3y ago

Fwiw my parents grew up poorer than me and had a lot of siblings. Listening to one of them, they had to refrain from flushing the toilet to save on water, shared beds, dropped out of high school to get a job etc. It was a totally different world but rightly or wrongly lots of child bearing. Among the older gen siblings (6) about half had kids.. no more than two each. In the subsequent generation again some had kids but only one or two. I have kids, wanted more but wife didn't. In this pace of things the birthrate clearly is going down. If two people have at most two kids then population is going to decline.

hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago

>country with a threadbare social safety-net Sub-replacement fertility is still very much a thing even up here in Northern Europe, though, with our famously generous safety nets. Here in Finland, however, there's one group of note reproducing well above replacement: The Laestadian fundamentalists up north.