4 ms·

This is a self-correcting problem. There are several subgroups in the United states with significantly above replacement rate. The basic statistics of stochasti

This is a self-correcting problem. There are several subgroups in the United states with significantly above replacement rate. The basic statistics of stochastic processes and heritability of cultural practices regarding fertility and such dictate that those who have been able to resist the memetic pressure to have fewer children, will simply dominate. From an economic perspective, it doesn't really matter... A taxpayer is a taxpayer. From a political perspective, my guess is many people here won't like the simple results of natural selection.

rconti 2y ago
> memetic pressure to have fewer children What does this mean?
- kiba 2y ago
  People still want to have children, above replacement rate even. Problem is that we gate children behind careers and getting married which is atrocious because you will run out of years to start families if you wait too long. Until the cavalry for extending lifespan and fertility arrive, we need to fix our economic and cultural system right now.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    https://www.axios.com/2024/07/25/adults-no-children-why-pew-data https://www.axios.com/2024/07/25/adults-no-children-why-pew-... > Stunning stat: 64% of young women say they just don't want children, compared to 50% of men.
    - anon291 2y ago
      It's simple memetic pressure. We've made out getting pregnant to be a bad thing. My wife and I married somewhat young, but hardly extraordinarily young -- age 22. When we conceived the first time, I remember going to the drug store with her to buy a pregnancy test and feeling ashamed at 23 to buy a pregnancy test -- ashamed that I got my wife pregnant! But it's simply due to the social conditioning that we're subjected to as teenagers. There's a weird American puritanism about sex, and it doesn't come solely from the religious right.
      - Coffeewine 2y ago
        This 'it's only a meme' bit ignores the part where being pregnant has the potential to breathtakingly suck. It doesn't seem so strange that people would want to avoid that if given the option.
        anon291 2y ago
        Pregnancy isn't the reason why people are not having kids. It's the eighteen years after, IMO. That is what is memetically discouraged. Although, I won't pretend to know what the messaging is towards young girls
- alwayslikethis 2y ago
  I assume GP is implying some type of cultural messaging around kids being undesirable. I don't think this is true, and even if it is, the primary reason is the decline in living conditions (inflation-adjusted wages) for the average person in western countries for the past 50 years. Especially housing. Without stable and cheap housing it is hard to raise kids well.
  - ineedaj0b 2y ago
    no. it's memetic, child having is low status in developed countries and countries closer to poverty have more children.
  - jdietrich 2y ago
    Your hypothesis is completely unmoored from reality. The only durable correlation between birth rates and living standards is negative - wealthier people consistently have fewer kids. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate
  - anon291 2y ago
    I gave my anecdote elsewhere, but I will recount it again. I felt embarrassed at age 23 to purchase a pregnancy test with my wife. This is simply due to cultural messaging saying babies are bad. Despite having been married for a year, making well above median wage and having enough for a down payment, etc, I was worried what others would think of me! And I come from a family that is very pro-child and pro-natalist for lack of better word. I can only imagine what my peers would have been feeling. I think in many people, it takes into their 30s for this feeling to go away, but if they wait that long to have children, they're having 1 or 2 max on average. EDIT: I think many on here don't believe that there's anti-child cultural messaging, because they're in their 30s-40s where this pressure starts to go the other way. But if you start having kids at that age, on average, you will never have enough to hit replacement. To hit replacement TFR, the pro-child messaging must start at 18 or younger.
    - rconti 2y ago
      Yeah, I _do_ think I would have been embarrassed to be buying a pregnancy test a year out of college, because statistically speaking that would be an unexpected pregnancy. I'd say by 26-28 it would be more likely to be a socially acceptable post-college, in wedlock marriage. I don't see that being anti-child though.
- anon291 2y ago
  memetic pressure = desire to be like everyone else. Having lots of kids is counter-cultural. I have three children, which is not that much. However, being in a well-off neighborhood full of cultural 'elite's in Portland, OR means that I am a pariah. I am especially a pariah because I enthusiastically say we want more. THis means we don't do what the other people are doing. Hence, we're resisting the memetic pressure. Another way of saying this, on an economic front, would be 'keeping up with the Joneses'. If you ever read the millionaire next door stuff, you'll notice the main thing these people have is the ability to resist the pressure to spend. That, in addition to the magic of compound interest, which also applies to fertility rates, means that they end up with disproportionately more capital.
  - yongjik 2y ago
    I know people with three or four kids in the middle of Silicon Valley and I've never seen anyone talking ill of them because of that. Call me crazy, but I have a feeling that if you're a social pariah in Portland, OR then it's not because you have three kids.
    - anon291 2y ago
      I never said I'm spoken ill of, just that the cultural pressure to not have more kids is omnipresent. I'd label it a 'microagression' of sorts. For example, after my third, I've been asked multiple times if I'm getting a vasectomy. No one speaks ill of it, but I'm definitely one of the only ones with this many kids in the area. I can count on my hand the number of 3+ kid families in the neighborhood. Whereas for my parents generation... 3 is a typical family. As for the pariah bit... having kids means that we're probably not going to be doing a bunch of the adult-only activities that people invite us to. With a baby always at home, it's unlikely we would do that kind of thing until our kids are grown and my wife well past menopause. Parents today expect to not only have children but also to have an adult social life of a sort that my parents and grandparents never expected. Rather, adults socialized with their families mostly. That was considered typical.
    - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
      When I lived in the Bay Area I was told multiple times I'm racist for having children. Can't help you with the logic because I didn't engage with them and avoided them going forward, but it happens.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
_zagj 2y ago
Are you talking about groups like the Amish and Orthodox Jews?
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  Yes and probably Latinos too.
- anon291 2y ago
  No not really. While they have high fertility, they also have cultural practices that limit the spread of their viewpoints (requirements to live in particular geographies, etc). I would more be talking about groups like traditional Catholics which have no such prohibitions, and frequently find themselves in very high-ranking fields. For example, I'd point to many Supreme Court Justices, several entrepreneurs, several media figures, etc. It's not just traditional Catholics [1], there are many groups with persistently high fertility rates. It's not just Catholics. Conservative protestants also have much higher fertility. In particular, red states have higher fertility than blue states, and if you drill down deeper, it's simply due to these states having more of these groups than blue states, not any particular policy. The data are pretty unequivocal that government policy has basically no influence on people's decisions to have children. Anyway, the higher fertility combined with the ability of full civic / economic participation means these groups will eventually come to dominate. There is simply no other way. We can talk about immigration until the cows come home, but overall, the global birth rate is sub replacement, so while any one country can migrate more people to solve its problem, this just punts the political football to another country which will invariably become more conservative. To conclude, I can name several examples of 'conservative' groups with significantly higher birth rates, but I can't name a single liberal one. This is simply a cultural thing, but it doesn't matter for the economy. Regardless of who has kids, the kids pay the taxes necessary to sustain the welfare state. However, as I pointed out, it'll likely lead to political differences that many here won't like. As an example, I'd point to everyone's surprise that Gen Z is more conservative. I've been saying this for years now, because I first noticed the differential in fertility rates as a child in the 90s. People thought I was a chicken little, but we're seeing the results. [1] Note, I'm calling out traditional Catholics here. The overall fertility rate for Catholics is on par with an average American. However, simply by breeding, there's already a huge faction within the Catholic church writ large. The progressives, with fewer kids, are dying out to be replaced by younger, more zealous figures. I think this will probably be the next step for the country as a whole as well [2] EDIT: someone mentioned mormons... that's another good point. A small group of a few dozens of families moving west and now dominate one state and are important minorities in several others.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
This ignores the reality of systems. Certainly, some folks may have more kids than above replacement rate. But the number of childfree people is soaring (per Pew Research), and as there are less need for maternity services, daycares, and schools, the volume needed to keep these open is above the actual need. See Japan and China how schools and daycares are closing (or converting to retirement homes) due to their structural demographics. You're not going to "outbreed" the childless unless perhaps you're extremely wealthy, and those folks are going to be exceptions, not a material movement of the demographic needle. Fertility intent forward looking: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/07/25/the-experiences-of-u-s-adults-who-dont-have-children/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/07/25/the-exp... https://www.axios.com/2024/07/25/adults-no-children-why-pew-data https://www.axios.com/2024/07/25/adults-no-children-why-pew-... Rural hospitals at risk: https://ruralhospitals.chqpr.org/downloads/Rural_Hospitals_at_Risk_of_Closing.pdf https://ruralhospitals.chqpr.org/downloads/Rural_Hospitals_a... https://ruralhospitals.chqpr.org/downloads/Rural_Maternity_Care_Crisis.pdf https://ruralhospitals.chqpr.org/downloads/Rural_Maternity_C... Rural childcare: https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/rural-child-care-shortage-cost-funding-cliff/ https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/rural-child-care-shor... Childcare funding: https://www.axios.com/2023/09/20/child-care-cliff https://www.axios.com/2023/09/20/child-care-cliff School closures due to demographic pyramid: https://www.edweek.org/leadership/rural-schools-are-fighting-for-their-existence-what-the-future-could-look-like/2024/07 https://www.edweek.org/leadership/rural-schools-are-fighting... (Urban folks have less kids than rural folks; as rural systems parents rely on inch closer to collapse, it is a forcing function on fertility)
- anon291 2y ago
  I'm not sure how many children you have. While certainly true that having healthcare is life-saving, it's not a requirement to have children. Pregnancy is not a disease, and results in a natural birth the vast majority of the time. Left on its own, this will naturally happen enough to replace the population. By all means, I am absolutely pro-hospitals and healthcare funding, but it's not an important consideration when considering the overall birthrate. Childcare is similarly not an issue. The sorts of people having a lot of kids are just not going to be using childcare a whole lot. One spouse will stay home. As for the wealthy comments. I go to a fairly traditional parish in a HCOL West Coast city, and I don't think family income has a very large impact on # of children. We have families making anywhere from $60k to $200k+ and if anything, more money results in less children. At the end of the day America is very rich and well-off. You don't actually need a whole lot of money to raise a child as long as you can resist the memetic pressure to be like everyone else. I mean, from what I've seen, income dictates whether or not a family decides to have seven kids versus six kids, but not 2-3. That's just a given.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

rconti 2y ago

> memetic pressure to have fewer children What does this mean?

kiba 2y ago
People still want to have children, above replacement rate even. Problem is that we gate children behind careers and getting married which is atrocious because you will run out of years to start families if you wait too long. Until the cavalry for extending lifespan and fertility arrive, we need to fix our economic and cultural system right now.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  https://www.axios.com/2024/07/25/adults-no-children-why-pew-data https://www.axios.com/2024/07/25/adults-no-children-why-pew-... > Stunning stat: 64% of young women say they just don't want children, compared to 50% of men.
  - anon291 2y ago
    It's simple memetic pressure. We've made out getting pregnant to be a bad thing. My wife and I married somewhat young, but hardly extraordinarily young -- age 22. When we conceived the first time, I remember going to the drug store with her to buy a pregnancy test and feeling ashamed at 23 to buy a pregnancy test -- ashamed that I got my wife pregnant! But it's simply due to the social conditioning that we're subjected to as teenagers. There's a weird American puritanism about sex, and it doesn't come solely from the religious right.
    - Coffeewine 2y ago
      This 'it's only a meme' bit ignores the part where being pregnant has the potential to breathtakingly suck. It doesn't seem so strange that people would want to avoid that if given the option.
      - anon291 2y ago
        Pregnancy isn't the reason why people are not having kids. It's the eighteen years after, IMO. That is what is memetically discouraged. Although, I won't pretend to know what the messaging is towards young girls
alwayslikethis 2y ago
I assume GP is implying some type of cultural messaging around kids being undesirable. I don't think this is true, and even if it is, the primary reason is the decline in living conditions (inflation-adjusted wages) for the average person in western countries for the past 50 years. Especially housing. Without stable and cheap housing it is hard to raise kids well.
- ineedaj0b 2y ago
  no. it's memetic, child having is low status in developed countries and countries closer to poverty have more children.
- jdietrich 2y ago
  Your hypothesis is completely unmoored from reality. The only durable correlation between birth rates and living standards is negative - wealthier people consistently have fewer kids. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate
- anon291 2y ago
  I gave my anecdote elsewhere, but I will recount it again. I felt embarrassed at age 23 to purchase a pregnancy test with my wife. This is simply due to cultural messaging saying babies are bad. Despite having been married for a year, making well above median wage and having enough for a down payment, etc, I was worried what others would think of me! And I come from a family that is very pro-child and pro-natalist for lack of better word. I can only imagine what my peers would have been feeling. I think in many people, it takes into their 30s for this feeling to go away, but if they wait that long to have children, they're having 1 or 2 max on average. EDIT: I think many on here don't believe that there's anti-child cultural messaging, because they're in their 30s-40s where this pressure starts to go the other way. But if you start having kids at that age, on average, you will never have enough to hit replacement. To hit replacement TFR, the pro-child messaging must start at 18 or younger.
  - rconti 2y ago
    Yeah, I _do_ think I would have been embarrassed to be buying a pregnancy test a year out of college, because statistically speaking that would be an unexpected pregnancy. I'd say by 26-28 it would be more likely to be a socially acceptable post-college, in wedlock marriage. I don't see that being anti-child though.
anon291 2y ago
memetic pressure = desire to be like everyone else. Having lots of kids is counter-cultural. I have three children, which is not that much. However, being in a well-off neighborhood full of cultural 'elite's in Portland, OR means that I am a pariah. I am especially a pariah because I enthusiastically say we want more. THis means we don't do what the other people are doing. Hence, we're resisting the memetic pressure. Another way of saying this, on an economic front, would be 'keeping up with the Joneses'. If you ever read the millionaire next door stuff, you'll notice the main thing these people have is the ability to resist the pressure to spend. That, in addition to the magic of compound interest, which also applies to fertility rates, means that they end up with disproportionately more capital.
- yongjik 2y ago
  I know people with three or four kids in the middle of Silicon Valley and I've never seen anyone talking ill of them because of that. Call me crazy, but I have a feeling that if you're a social pariah in Portland, OR then it's not because you have three kids.
  - anon291 2y ago
    I never said I'm spoken ill of, just that the cultural pressure to not have more kids is omnipresent. I'd label it a 'microagression' of sorts. For example, after my third, I've been asked multiple times if I'm getting a vasectomy. No one speaks ill of it, but I'm definitely one of the only ones with this many kids in the area. I can count on my hand the number of 3+ kid families in the neighborhood. Whereas for my parents generation... 3 is a typical family. As for the pariah bit... having kids means that we're probably not going to be doing a bunch of the adult-only activities that people invite us to. With a baby always at home, it's unlikely we would do that kind of thing until our kids are grown and my wife well past menopause. Parents today expect to not only have children but also to have an adult social life of a sort that my parents and grandparents never expected. Rather, adults socialized with their families mostly. That was considered typical.
  - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    When I lived in the Bay Area I was told multiple times I'm racist for having children. Can't help you with the logic because I didn't engage with them and avoided them going forward, but it happens.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

_zagj 2y ago

Are you talking about groups like the Amish and Orthodox Jews?

dyauspitr 2y ago
Yes and probably Latinos too.
anon291 2y ago
No not really. While they have high fertility, they also have cultural practices that limit the spread of their viewpoints (requirements to live in particular geographies, etc). I would more be talking about groups like traditional Catholics which have no such prohibitions, and frequently find themselves in very high-ranking fields. For example, I'd point to many Supreme Court Justices, several entrepreneurs, several media figures, etc. It's not just traditional Catholics [1], there are many groups with persistently high fertility rates. It's not just Catholics. Conservative protestants also have much higher fertility. In particular, red states have higher fertility than blue states, and if you drill down deeper, it's simply due to these states having more of these groups than blue states, not any particular policy. The data are pretty unequivocal that government policy has basically no influence on people's decisions to have children. Anyway, the higher fertility combined with the ability of full civic / economic participation means these groups will eventually come to dominate. There is simply no other way. We can talk about immigration until the cows come home, but overall, the global birth rate is sub replacement, so while any one country can migrate more people to solve its problem, this just punts the political football to another country which will invariably become more conservative. To conclude, I can name several examples of 'conservative' groups with significantly higher birth rates, but I can't name a single liberal one. This is simply a cultural thing, but it doesn't matter for the economy. Regardless of who has kids, the kids pay the taxes necessary to sustain the welfare state. However, as I pointed out, it'll likely lead to political differences that many here won't like. As an example, I'd point to everyone's surprise that Gen Z is more conservative. I've been saying this for years now, because I first noticed the differential in fertility rates as a child in the 90s. People thought I was a chicken little, but we're seeing the results. [1] Note, I'm calling out traditional Catholics here. The overall fertility rate for Catholics is on par with an average American. However, simply by breeding, there's already a huge faction within the Catholic church writ large. The progressives, with fewer kids, are dying out to be replaced by younger, more zealous figures. I think this will probably be the next step for the country as a whole as well [2] EDIT: someone mentioned mormons... that's another good point. A small group of a few dozens of families moving west and now dominate one state and are important minorities in several others.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

This ignores the reality of systems. Certainly, some folks may have more kids than above replacement rate. But the number of childfree people is soaring (per Pew Research), and as there are less need for maternity services, daycares, and schools, the volume needed to keep these open is above the actual need. See Japan and China how schools and daycares are closing (or converting to retirement homes) due to their structural demographics. You're not going to "outbreed" the childless unless perhaps you're extremely wealthy, and those folks are going to be exceptions, not a material movement of the demographic needle. Fertility intent forward looking: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/07/25/the-experiences-of-u-s-adults-who-dont-have-children/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/07/25/the-exp... https://www.axios.com/2024/07/25/adults-no-children-why-pew-data https://www.axios.com/2024/07/25/adults-no-children-why-pew-... Rural hospitals at risk: https://ruralhospitals.chqpr.org/downloads/Rural_Hospitals_at_Risk_of_Closing.pdf https://ruralhospitals.chqpr.org/downloads/Rural_Hospitals_a... https://ruralhospitals.chqpr.org/downloads/Rural_Maternity_Care_Crisis.pdf https://ruralhospitals.chqpr.org/downloads/Rural_Maternity_C... Rural childcare: https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/rural-child-care-shortage-cost-funding-cliff/ https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/rural-child-care-shor... Childcare funding: https://www.axios.com/2023/09/20/child-care-cliff https://www.axios.com/2023/09/20/child-care-cliff School closures due to demographic pyramid: https://www.edweek.org/leadership/rural-schools-are-fighting-for-their-existence-what-the-future-could-look-like/2024/07 https://www.edweek.org/leadership/rural-schools-are-fighting... (Urban folks have less kids than rural folks; as rural systems parents rely on inch closer to collapse, it is a forcing function on fertility)

anon291 2y ago
I'm not sure how many children you have. While certainly true that having healthcare is life-saving, it's not a requirement to have children. Pregnancy is not a disease, and results in a natural birth the vast majority of the time. Left on its own, this will naturally happen enough to replace the population. By all means, I am absolutely pro-hospitals and healthcare funding, but it's not an important consideration when considering the overall birthrate. Childcare is similarly not an issue. The sorts of people having a lot of kids are just not going to be using childcare a whole lot. One spouse will stay home. As for the wealthy comments. I go to a fairly traditional parish in a HCOL West Coast city, and I don't think family income has a very large impact on # of children. We have families making anywhere from $60k to $200k+ and if anything, more money results in less children. At the end of the day America is very rich and well-off. You don't actually need a whole lot of money to raise a child as long as you can resist the memetic pressure to be like everyone else. I mean, from what I've seen, income dictates whether or not a family decides to have seven kids versus six kids, but not 2-3. That's just a given.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]