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IMO a major deficiency in this calculation is children. Raising children costs money, and families without enough income may not feel that they can afford to ra
by amluto 2y ago
IMO a major deficiency in this calculation is children. Raising children costs money, and families without enough income may not feel that they can afford to raise children, and they may therefore not have children. This means that their income looks better than it really ought to, and it also reduces the birth rate. And, while the US’s birth rate is not catastrophically low, it is below replacement. This may have some negative long-term consequences for the economy.
- bobthepanda 2y agothe thing is, this is happening across any remotely wealthy or developed country, and in that sense the US is actually the ninth highest birthrate in the OECD and well above the average. The only OECD country with fertility rates above 2 is Israel, and that's mostly because the ultra-Orthodox have really high birth rates.
- kortilla 2y agoBut the birth rate is on par with the rivals it’s being compared to in this article/thread.
- jerojero 2y agoOne interesting thing about birthrates that I think most people haven't really looked at is the data segregated by age groups. In most countries with falling birthrates (save some exceptions like Japan) a huge part of this decrease is in the 15-25 age group. There is usually also a decline in the 25-29 but there's an increase or the same rates as we've had historically on the 30+ range. What this mean is basically that we've eradicated teen pregnancy, and that's definitely something desirable in a developed society.
- Vanclief 2y agoI am all for preventing teen pregnancy, but the data sounds more like young people can't afford having children so they are waiting longer.
- jerojero 2y agoIt's not just that young people can't afford to have babies is that women in the 20-29 range are either studying or entering the work force. These are extremely important years for career building. It's more about the fact that young women are choose to build their education and career (like men do) rather than have children.
- Neeek 2y agoThey couldn't "back then" either, I would argue.
- vanviegen 2y ago"back then" a family could live on a single income.
- StackRanker3000 2y agoSome people could. There was also a lot more abject poverty.
- gonzo 2y agoThey had to. Outside a few vocations, women weren’t allowed to work.
- account42 2y agoAnd now they have to work because a single income is no longer enough. Yay for progress.
- xvector 2y agoCommon misconception. Poverty levels were far higher. In 1950 half the global population lived in abject poverty. Today, it's less than 10%. https://ourworldindata.org/poverty https://ourworldindata.org/poverty
- camgunz 2y agoThis was largely for relatively privileged people. Most families the mother worked as a teacher, nurse, domestic, secretary, nanny, etc.
- liontwist 2y agoMost children were born from parents in their 20s though… I don’t know you spin this when one age group stays the same and all others drop.
- aprilthird2021 2y agoNo, if there is also a decline between the ages of 20-29 then the implication is not that we've eradicated teen pregnancy. It's that people are not having as many kids. When you have kids in your 20s you can have more than if you start in your 30s
- ANewFormation 2y agoA sustainable population - not increasing just staying the same - requires each and every single female have more than 2 children on average. Starting in your 30s, especially later 30s makes this extremely difficult. It takes months of perfectly hitting ovulation windows to get pregnant, and then you generally want at least ~9 months between children, so you're looking at ~2 years per child, all while fertility starts to rapidly decline as you head into your 40s. The long and short is that a sustainable population is going to require the majority to start having children in their 20s. That figure going down has nothing to do with teen pregnancy.
- gonzo 2y ago> It takes months of perfectly hitting ovulation windows to get pregnant 30% of couples who don’t use birth control and who have regular sex get pregnant within one month. 60% get pregnant within three months. 80% get pregnant within six months.
- labaron 2y agoWhat is the age of those couples?
- dgfitz 2y ago~33% of pregnancies result in miscarriage. Most women who have tried to have kids have had one, sometimes even more.
- ANewFormation 2y agoAs a peer alluded to, that's going to be for some ideal demographic in their twenties (probably early), hitting ovulation perfectly. Age changes things dramatically: "Women younger than 30 have about a 20 percent chance of getting pregnant naturally each month. By age 40, the chance of pregnancy is about five percent each month." [1] Things like IVF do not dramatically change the odds either. They're better of course, but it's far from guaranteed - it's still just a rather expensive roll of the dice. Then on top of all of this, having children later greatly increases the chances of miscarriage, developmental issues (like Down syndrome) and so on. Life's brutal here - you're in a race against time, yet the later you start the longer it takes, and the harder it becomes. [1] - https://www.yourfertility.org.au/everyone/age https://www.yourfertility.org.au/everyone/age
- whiddershins 2y agoChildren just aren’t that expensive. Most of the significant expenses people describe are optional. It is more rational to match your spending to what you can afford with howevermany kids than it is to match the number of kids you have to an arbitrary lifestyle.
- ANewFormation 2y agoThey aren't in 'traditional' households where at least one parent stays at home. Without that daycare/nanny and other costs can become very significant. It's also not just daytime stuff. Babies need to feed every 2-3 hours, including at night, and each feeding session can be quite lengthy. That doesn't synergize so well with getting a full night's rest to go join the rat race the next day.
- shigawire 2y ago>That doesn't synergize so well with getting a full night's rest to go join the rat race the next day. I feel this in my bones as I read this while rocking my infant who won't sleep for the last 2 hours.
- brendamn 2y agoI think this varies wildly depending on where you live. Where I live (Melbourne), just the cost of suitable housing (a/ near a school, b/ close to most jobs, and c/ with space for 1+ children) is so high that it makes it difficult for a lot of couples to even consider children. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-04/why-australians-arent-having-children/103930594 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-04/why-australians-arent...
- deepsun 2y agoBut it wasn't cheap "back then" either. I've spent 1 hour one way riding 2 buses to school (same as my parents to work). We had 62 m^2 (670 sq. ft.) of house for 2 parents + 3 children. It's just now we suddenly consider that too bad. Back then it was normal, just like everyone else.
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoAmericans are largely solving this problem by not having children, or only trying to have children when it’s financially easy but medically difficult. Automation may actually be the answer to a declining birth rate, and we might stabilize at a much lower world wide population as a result (say 4 rather than 8 billion). People will complain less about Waymo stealing jobs when there are no uber drivers left, but we really aren’t there yet, we still have a surplus of labor.
- ayewo 2y agoYour opening sentence was well articulated. But I’m not so sure about your second sentence. How does a situation where world wide population drops to 4 billion come about? Even if US birth rates are declining, birth rates are climbing elsewhere so I’m struggling to see how in aggregate, the world population declines to half of what it is today.
- unmole 2y ago> birth rates are climbing elsewhere Where are birth rates climbing? Narnia?