5 ms·

The article cites the cost of living first and foremost, with the second item being that women disproportionately bear the cost of child-rearing. I wonder how m

The article cites the cost of living first and foremost, with the second item being that women disproportionately bear the cost of child-rearing. I wonder how many countries these would also be the two primary drivers. Or, to phrase the question more in line with what I suspect is the case, I wonder how many countries those two aren't the primary drivers in? I suspect not many. I wonder how much longer those in power are going to stare this type of data in the face before realizing we need to make some fundamental systemic changes or this whole party is gonna come to a really nasty end. The first thing that goes in an animal population experiencing stress at scale is reproduction.

fxtentacle 2y ago
If you look at China, it appears that young men there need to make exceptionally large and expensive sacrifices, like borrowing money and buying an expensive apartment, just to be allowed into the dating pool. Does that equalise the total investment into conceiving a baby? Is China better off with birth rates as the result? "women disproportionately bear the cost of child-rearing" is very difficult to measure objectively.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- tivert 2y ago
  > "women disproportionately bear the cost of child-rearing" is very difficult to measure objectively. Not really, they've got the equipment for it (e.g. uteri and mammary glands). I think it would be impossible to "equalize" the cost without doing some extreme and bizarre things (e.g. have some kind of arbitrary Weregild-type thing to "equalize" the cost). A significant part of the problem seems to be one of ideology colliding with reality.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    Both of these comments are only reacting to the financial and physical costs of child rearing. Obviously humans with penises cannot bear children and it's unreasonable to suggest they should be made to. Similarly, the fact that those men in China are expected to attain so much debt simply to enter the dating pool is also a legitimate problem that needs addressing. However neither of those things reflect the costs of motherhood, which are a lot more expansive: * Mothers are still by and large the "default" entity for all child care, with it being notable for men to take on that role. Men are regularly praised for "babysitting the kids for mom" even though if you think about that for like, 30 seconds, you realize how insane it is. Of course dad watches the kids too, in any kind of equitable household, that would be expected. * Mothers are also by default responsible for almost all child-adjacent logistics. School, activities, medical appointments, friend visits, school trips, sports, immunization scheduling.... Like, think about all the annoying logistical bullshit in life that you have to get done just for you, and then imagine that you have to do it all twice, for yourself, and for a secondary third party who oftentimes doesn't appreciate it either.
    - tivert 2y ago
      >> A significant part of the problem seems to be one of ideology colliding with reality. I think you should read that a little more expansively that the things I explicitly commented on. Some examples of ideology: "children should be parented with high intensity", "men and women should be doing the exact same things in a family in exactly equal proportions with no specialization", "a family should consist of two capitalism-participting income-earners," etc. I suspect fixing the issues you outlined with the fixes you're implying wouldn't actually do anything to increase birthrates.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    I think they were making a more general point that the article may be taking a overly simplistic view of the "costs of child-rearing". If a mother feeds and cares for children, that can be viewed as a cost of children to her. If a man works to feed and house those same children, surely that is a cost of children to me. I suspect part of the problem is a generation of people raised with just enough economics knowledge to be dangerous, with life viewed through lenses of cost, profit and risk instead of joy, experience, and sentimentalism.
    - tivert 2y ago
      > I suspect part of the problem is a generation of people raised with just enough economics knowledge to be dangerous, with life viewed through lenses of cost, profit and risk instead of joy, experience, and sentimentalism. IMHO, I think that's part of the problem, but I feel that it's more than "just enough economics knowledge to be dangerous." That knowledge definitely interferes with the ability to analyze the problem, but I don't think it's the main or only thing going on. You could probably add something like "individualism" to the left hand side and something like "duty" to the right to get closer.
pocketarc 2y ago
Something that might be worth pondering is: When was that ever not the case? Are we seriously saying that in the 1800s those poor desperate people who had 12 kids and put most of them (the ones that even survived!) to work in mines and farms, were in a better situation? The discussion around cost is a red herring. If it really was about cost, we'd be seeing the upper middle class having children by the ton. Most of us here on HN would have 10 children each, because cost definitely isn't an issue for any well-paid software engineer or startup founder. I definitely think that you are right - this is definitely going to be a major crisis in the next few decades, and there needs to be a serious course correction, and -major- incentives for having kids. But I don't think it comes down to cost, for the most part. I think there are a number of other factors, but cost just ends up being a nice easy scapegoat because it sounds completely reasonable. Nobody can argue with it, not even oneself.
- pjc50 2y ago
  > Are we seriously saying that in the 1800s those poor desperate people who had 12 kids and put most of them (the ones that even survived!) This is the origin story of the contraceptive movement: either your population growth rate is contraception-limited, or it's death-limited. The latter is pretty horrific. > If it really was about cost, we'd be seeing the upper middle class having children by the ton The cost issue is even worse for everyone who isn't a rentier, because children need time, and the opportunity cost of that is higher the more you could be earning otherwise. (hmm: "7 points by pjc50 18 minutes ago [flagged]" I see it's going to be one of those days)
- wongarsu 2y ago
  In unindustrialized agriculture having a lot of children is a sound strategy. The first couple years they cost you food and time, but after that they are cheaper than employing workers, and they will even take care of you when you are too old to work the fields. And without modern healthcare a lot of them will die. If you want to make sure one of them inherits the farm (and provides for you if you manage to become old) you need to have enough children to achieve this at an acceptable level of risk.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
guardianbob 2y ago
I mean the biggest target thing for Singapore to target would be housing costs “No Flat, No Child” is becoming more and more common as even public flat prices skyrocket https://www.population.fyi/p/singapore-no-flat-no-child https://www.population.fyi/p/singapore-no-flat-no-child
- fxtentacle 2y ago
  Housing in Singapore is surprisingly cheap when you compare it to European or US megacities.
wongarsu 2y ago
Germany might be a counter-example. Cost of living has steadily risen 2008-2021 (and dropped a bit since then), but Germany's birth rate has increased over that period, while birth rates in France and the US have fallen. Germany's birth rate is generally slowly rising ever since a low in 1995. If you zoom out a bit more Germany's birth rate cratered in the 1960s/70s, generally attributed to the wider availability of oral contraceptives. Similarly in its peers. Though that's only the enabling technology, the lower desire for babies is almost certainly driven by other factors (urbanization, better health care, etc)
- tivert 2y ago
  > Though that's only the enabling technology, the lower desire for babies is almost certainly driven by other factors (urbanization, better health care, etc) I'm not so sure about that. There's no law that says desire has to be aligned with needed action. For instance: up to the availability of oral contraceptives, it was very hard to avoid having kids even if you didn't want them. Kids would happen automatically if you desired a different thing: sex. It's sort of like exercise: it used to not matter if someone desired to "exercise" or not, because they were forced to do lots of physical activity if they wanted to live (e.g. physical work on a farm, walk to the market, etc.). Now technology has enabled a previously impossible level of sedentary life for the common person, moving exercise from a necessity to a desire, we have huge and increasing levels of health problems in society because the desire for the needed thing itself isn't there. I predict, after some period of time, "childfree" psychology will breed itself out of society, and the people who are left will have a lot more explicit desire for children.
- hobotime 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - nebula8804 2y ago
    They aren't making a dent. The country is on track for population collapse. Although the last person left that will turn off the lights might not be the typical German that you think of. [1]:https://www.populationpyramid.net/germany/2023/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/germany/2023/ What you describe is true in the US though. They have been able to 'cheat' by getting the cream of the crop via immigration to bolster their numbers(although its now fraying post Trump). Without that immigration, they would probably be mirroring German numbers. [2]:https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2023/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2...
s1artibartfast 2y ago
Isnt women's share of child rearing at an all-time low in most of the western world? I cant help but wonder if the causality runs the other direction. That is to say, as motherhood becomes less central to the concept of womanhood, fewer women build self models that include it. That said, I think a more influential cause than either factor is the increasing risk aversion and increasing expectations across the board, and especially when it comes to partnering, life choices, and having kids. Simply put, people arent taking as many risks, and marriage and children are increasingly viewed as risks.
- jauntywundrkind 2y ago
  Women's share of child rearing might be at an all time low, but homemaking used to be many women's only job. Maybe men are helping more now, but women are also keeping full time careers going and juggling child rearing at the same time. That it's somewhat less child rearing isn't exactly a big comfort in these new circumstances. This is absolutely a story about risk, you're right on that. But I truly feel like you'd have to be willfully blinding yourself to not recognize that the risks are way worse than ever. The full grind of capitalism in a global economy has chewed up humanity & left us deeply powerless & exploited. The demands for housing health care, and help have shot to exceptional unaffordability. I don't think risk aversion has necessarily changed: it's just a fact that trying to raise a family is far riskier & much harder than it has been. Those willing to have a family have had to go against ever more abysmal ods.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    >That it's somewhat less child rearing isn't exactly a big comfort in these new circumstances. Absolutely agree. My my main goal was to highlight the proportion of rearing duties may not be causal, or at least a root cause. Im not sure that equal division of labor would even help with two working parents. >The full grind of capitalism in a global economy has chewed up humanity & left us deeply powerless & exploited. Im not sure that I lay this all on capitalism, but think that at a minimum, the two are tied. Parallel desires for risk mitigation and consumption feed directly into trained helplessness. Housing and healthcare are prime examples of this. I dont think that raising a family is intrinsically any riskier or harder, it is just harder to do in parallel with fulfilling other desires. People want family + X, and the expectations and cost for X grow ever higher. It is obviously easier to have a family with a 500sqft trailer in the country than a 2000sqft house in the city.
mc32 2y ago
In countries with the fastest growth rates women have an even greater child-rearing burden so that's not it. That said, it's a tiny island, do they really need more people as a society? Or is this mainly looking at is a country wanting continuous neverending economic growth?
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  > Or is this mainly looking at is a country wanting continuous neverending economic growth? I mean, yes almost assuredly. But that doesn't mean shrinking populations are without their own issues, outside economic ones, elder care being the most obvious. And, shrinking populations can quite easily contribute to large-scale cultural demise, which is always something worth considering. That said, fewer humans overall is undeniably better for our environmental outlook.
  - mc32 2y ago
    I guess the implication I'm making is can we at some point say, we've achieved a pretty good standard of living, let's enjoy our national patrimony and not perpetuate the rat race?
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      I mean if you're asking me? I'd say we're already there. If you're asking the MBA-brain-worms-having grindset number-go-up crazy people who run our society? Never.
- datavirtue 2y ago
  It's nature. If you aren't growing, you are dying. At work, if you aren't moving up you are on the way out.
  - luqtas 2y ago
    like trees that reach maturity in 25-40 years then live up to 300-600 basically with the same mature form?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

fxtentacle 2y ago

If you look at China, it appears that young men there need to make exceptionally large and expensive sacrifices, like borrowing money and buying an expensive apartment, just to be allowed into the dating pool. Does that equalise the total investment into conceiving a baby? Is China better off with birth rates as the result? "women disproportionately bear the cost of child-rearing" is very difficult to measure objectively.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
tivert 2y ago
> "women disproportionately bear the cost of child-rearing" is very difficult to measure objectively. Not really, they've got the equipment for it (e.g. uteri and mammary glands). I think it would be impossible to "equalize" the cost without doing some extreme and bizarre things (e.g. have some kind of arbitrary Weregild-type thing to "equalize" the cost). A significant part of the problem seems to be one of ideology colliding with reality.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  Both of these comments are only reacting to the financial and physical costs of child rearing. Obviously humans with penises cannot bear children and it's unreasonable to suggest they should be made to. Similarly, the fact that those men in China are expected to attain so much debt simply to enter the dating pool is also a legitimate problem that needs addressing. However neither of those things reflect the costs of motherhood, which are a lot more expansive: * Mothers are still by and large the "default" entity for all child care, with it being notable for men to take on that role. Men are regularly praised for "babysitting the kids for mom" even though if you think about that for like, 30 seconds, you realize how insane it is. Of course dad watches the kids too, in any kind of equitable household, that would be expected. * Mothers are also by default responsible for almost all child-adjacent logistics. School, activities, medical appointments, friend visits, school trips, sports, immunization scheduling.... Like, think about all the annoying logistical bullshit in life that you have to get done just for you, and then imagine that you have to do it all twice, for yourself, and for a secondary third party who oftentimes doesn't appreciate it either.
  - tivert 2y ago
    >> A significant part of the problem seems to be one of ideology colliding with reality. I think you should read that a little more expansively that the things I explicitly commented on. Some examples of ideology: "children should be parented with high intensity", "men and women should be doing the exact same things in a family in exactly equal proportions with no specialization", "a family should consist of two capitalism-participting income-earners," etc. I suspect fixing the issues you outlined with the fixes you're implying wouldn't actually do anything to increase birthrates.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  I think they were making a more general point that the article may be taking a overly simplistic view of the "costs of child-rearing". If a mother feeds and cares for children, that can be viewed as a cost of children to her. If a man works to feed and house those same children, surely that is a cost of children to me. I suspect part of the problem is a generation of people raised with just enough economics knowledge to be dangerous, with life viewed through lenses of cost, profit and risk instead of joy, experience, and sentimentalism.
  - tivert 2y ago
    > I suspect part of the problem is a generation of people raised with just enough economics knowledge to be dangerous, with life viewed through lenses of cost, profit and risk instead of joy, experience, and sentimentalism. IMHO, I think that's part of the problem, but I feel that it's more than "just enough economics knowledge to be dangerous." That knowledge definitely interferes with the ability to analyze the problem, but I don't think it's the main or only thing going on. You could probably add something like "individualism" to the left hand side and something like "duty" to the right to get closer.

pocketarc 2y ago

Something that might be worth pondering is: When was that ever not the case? Are we seriously saying that in the 1800s those poor desperate people who had 12 kids and put most of them (the ones that even survived!) to work in mines and farms, were in a better situation? The discussion around cost is a red herring. If it really was about cost, we'd be seeing the upper middle class having children by the ton. Most of us here on HN would have 10 children each, because cost definitely isn't an issue for any well-paid software engineer or startup founder. I definitely think that you are right - this is definitely going to be a major crisis in the next few decades, and there needs to be a serious course correction, and -major- incentives for having kids. But I don't think it comes down to cost, for the most part. I think there are a number of other factors, but cost just ends up being a nice easy scapegoat because it sounds completely reasonable. Nobody can argue with it, not even oneself.

pjc50 2y ago
> Are we seriously saying that in the 1800s those poor desperate people who had 12 kids and put most of them (the ones that even survived!) This is the origin story of the contraceptive movement: either your population growth rate is contraception-limited, or it's death-limited. The latter is pretty horrific. > If it really was about cost, we'd be seeing the upper middle class having children by the ton The cost issue is even worse for everyone who isn't a rentier, because children need time, and the opportunity cost of that is higher the more you could be earning otherwise. (hmm: "7 points by pjc50 18 minutes ago [flagged]" I see it's going to be one of those days)
wongarsu 2y ago
In unindustrialized agriculture having a lot of children is a sound strategy. The first couple years they cost you food and time, but after that they are cheaper than employing workers, and they will even take care of you when you are too old to work the fields. And without modern healthcare a lot of them will die. If you want to make sure one of them inherits the farm (and provides for you if you manage to become old) you need to have enough children to achieve this at an acceptable level of risk.
ToucanLoucan 2y ago

guardianbob 2y ago

I mean the biggest target thing for Singapore to target would be housing costs “No Flat, No Child” is becoming more and more common as even public flat prices skyrocket https://www.population.fyi/p/singapore-no-flat-no-child https://www.population.fyi/p/singapore-no-flat-no-child

fxtentacle 2y ago
Housing in Singapore is surprisingly cheap when you compare it to European or US megacities.

wongarsu 2y ago

Germany might be a counter-example. Cost of living has steadily risen 2008-2021 (and dropped a bit since then), but Germany's birth rate has increased over that period, while birth rates in France and the US have fallen. Germany's birth rate is generally slowly rising ever since a low in 1995. If you zoom out a bit more Germany's birth rate cratered in the 1960s/70s, generally attributed to the wider availability of oral contraceptives. Similarly in its peers. Though that's only the enabling technology, the lower desire for babies is almost certainly driven by other factors (urbanization, better health care, etc)

tivert 2y ago
> Though that's only the enabling technology, the lower desire for babies is almost certainly driven by other factors (urbanization, better health care, etc) I'm not so sure about that. There's no law that says desire has to be aligned with needed action. For instance: up to the availability of oral contraceptives, it was very hard to avoid having kids even if you didn't want them. Kids would happen automatically if you desired a different thing: sex. It's sort of like exercise: it used to not matter if someone desired to "exercise" or not, because they were forced to do lots of physical activity if they wanted to live (e.g. physical work on a farm, walk to the market, etc.). Now technology has enabled a previously impossible level of sedentary life for the common person, moving exercise from a necessity to a desire, we have huge and increasing levels of health problems in society because the desire for the needed thing itself isn't there. I predict, after some period of time, "childfree" psychology will breed itself out of society, and the people who are left will have a lot more explicit desire for children.
hobotime 2y ago
[flagged]
- nebula8804 2y ago
  They aren't making a dent. The country is on track for population collapse. Although the last person left that will turn off the lights might not be the typical German that you think of. [1]:https://www.populationpyramid.net/germany/2023/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/germany/2023/ What you describe is true in the US though. They have been able to 'cheat' by getting the cream of the crop via immigration to bolster their numbers(although its now fraying post Trump). Without that immigration, they would probably be mirroring German numbers. [2]:https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2023/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2...

s1artibartfast 2y ago

Isnt women's share of child rearing at an all-time low in most of the western world? I cant help but wonder if the causality runs the other direction. That is to say, as motherhood becomes less central to the concept of womanhood, fewer women build self models that include it. That said, I think a more influential cause than either factor is the increasing risk aversion and increasing expectations across the board, and especially when it comes to partnering, life choices, and having kids. Simply put, people arent taking as many risks, and marriage and children are increasingly viewed as risks.

jauntywundrkind 2y ago
Women's share of child rearing might be at an all time low, but homemaking used to be many women's only job. Maybe men are helping more now, but women are also keeping full time careers going and juggling child rearing at the same time. That it's somewhat less child rearing isn't exactly a big comfort in these new circumstances. This is absolutely a story about risk, you're right on that. But I truly feel like you'd have to be willfully blinding yourself to not recognize that the risks are way worse than ever. The full grind of capitalism in a global economy has chewed up humanity & left us deeply powerless & exploited. The demands for housing health care, and help have shot to exceptional unaffordability. I don't think risk aversion has necessarily changed: it's just a fact that trying to raise a family is far riskier & much harder than it has been. Those willing to have a family have had to go against ever more abysmal ods.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  >That it's somewhat less child rearing isn't exactly a big comfort in these new circumstances. Absolutely agree. My my main goal was to highlight the proportion of rearing duties may not be causal, or at least a root cause. Im not sure that equal division of labor would even help with two working parents. >The full grind of capitalism in a global economy has chewed up humanity & left us deeply powerless & exploited. Im not sure that I lay this all on capitalism, but think that at a minimum, the two are tied. Parallel desires for risk mitigation and consumption feed directly into trained helplessness. Housing and healthcare are prime examples of this. I dont think that raising a family is intrinsically any riskier or harder, it is just harder to do in parallel with fulfilling other desires. People want family + X, and the expectations and cost for X grow ever higher. It is obviously easier to have a family with a 500sqft trailer in the country than a 2000sqft house in the city.

mc32 2y ago

In countries with the fastest growth rates women have an even greater child-rearing burden so that's not it. That said, it's a tiny island, do they really need more people as a society? Or is this mainly looking at is a country wanting continuous neverending economic growth?

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
> Or is this mainly looking at is a country wanting continuous neverending economic growth? I mean, yes almost assuredly. But that doesn't mean shrinking populations are without their own issues, outside economic ones, elder care being the most obvious. And, shrinking populations can quite easily contribute to large-scale cultural demise, which is always something worth considering. That said, fewer humans overall is undeniably better for our environmental outlook.
- mc32 2y ago
  I guess the implication I'm making is can we at some point say, we've achieved a pretty good standard of living, let's enjoy our national patrimony and not perpetuate the rat race?
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    I mean if you're asking me? I'd say we're already there. If you're asking the MBA-brain-worms-having grindset number-go-up crazy people who run our society? Never.
datavirtue 2y ago
It's nature. If you aren't growing, you are dying. At work, if you aren't moving up you are on the way out.
- luqtas 2y ago
  like trees that reach maturity in 25-40 years then live up to 300-600 basically with the same mature form?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]