5 ms·

In canada, aged 20-29, 46% were still living with their parents. If you live in a big city like toronto, the number is way higher. Kids living at home aren't s

In canada, aged 20-29, 46% were still living with their parents. If you live in a big city like toronto, the number is way higher. Kids living at home aren't saying "I still live in my parent's basement" "oh, lets have a baby!" this really is the depth of the issue. Confidence isn't going to have you change this answer.

markus_zhang 1y ago
Not surprised. Housing went up a lot in recent years and it is not affordable for most young people. And if you have to rent, why not rent your parent's?
- formerly_proven 1y ago
  Housing in the West was basically turned into another pillar of retiree funding. Old people extract tremendous financial gains from younger generations by either a) selling them decrepit real estate at extremely high prices or b) collecting very high rents on buildings that are even older than themselves (even in the US, which is the king of corporate landlording, they are a small minority; most landlords are natural persons, mostly retirees or near-retirees). It turns out if you do that the living space required to raise the next generation simply becomes inaccessible. (Another way to look at it - people on new leases will often spend around 30-40% of net income on rent. In most instances this is a direct transfer to a retiree/near-retiree. Taxes, a lot of which also goes towards transfer payments, and other transfer payments to old people, are 40-50% in many countries. Taken together, younger, working people are effectively transferring 2/3rds or more of their gross income to retirees before spending the first cent on themselves. Why would anyone be surprised people are checking out of that system en-masse?)
  - jplrssn 1y ago
    Young people may be checking out of that system but BlackRock and others are doing the opposite. Why wouldn’t they, when government policy has made it an asset class that can never fall in value?
  - rightbyte 1y ago
    No matter the system you'd end up with the working age population tending for the children and elderly. I don't think that in it self is a problem. You could argue around implementation details though ...
    - formerly_proven 1y ago
      (Near-)retirees are typically the largest voting bloc and usually the only one experiencing any growth in most of the West. It is unsurprising that they get to set policies that solely benefit them at the expense of everyone else, including those that are yet to be born and those who will never be born because of those policies. And why would they care about the future? Retirees, by revealed preference, don't, and why would they? It's not their future they're destroying. Indeed, they're making quite a nice (short) future for themselves by bleeding societies dry.
      - rightbyte 1y ago
        My experience joining a political party as 3X yo is that the (near)retirees are eager to throw mandates at you because you are young. The early 20s and 5X+ are the ones that have more time for politics. I would not read some inter-generational class warfare into that. I wouldn't broadly blame generations for things. It is like that silly Karen meme service workers have. We are part of the problem too.
brokegrammer 1y ago
Children in overpopulated countries like India have been living with their parents for generations. Now that children are leaving the house in those countries, the growth rate is decreasing. I doubt living with parents is affecting reproduction. People don't want kids for mysterious reasons that we have yet to discover.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  >Children in overpopulated countries like India have been living with their parents for generations. That's comparing apples to oranges. People living in rich first world countries with stagnating economies like Canada expect a better future and standard of living for their kids than those from impoverished third world countries who rose to be developing countries, no? Then there's also completely different cultural norms and expectations between India and western nations and how multi generational families interact. I had a similar discussion with someone form Africa who was shocked to hear that in some rich European countries you could have a full time job and still be homeless due to scarce housing and crazy rents. And then he replied "what's the point of a country being rich if the people are poor?". Good question mate. It's because the point of rich countries is to be tax havens and economic zones where worldwide money is funneled to the top 1% and the workers who enable that have to fight for the scraps while those who can't, get left behind for the welfare state to pick up or fall through the holes in the safety net and end up on the street. >People don't want kids for mysterious reasons that we have yet to discover. The reasons have been written in this thread. If you don't like them or don't resonate with you, doesn't mean they're mysterious and undiscovered. Just go on the street and ask 100 random people, they'll tell you the same.
  - brokegrammer 1y ago
    > People living in rich first world countries with stagnating economies like Canada expect a better future and standard of living for their kids than those from impoverished third world countries Most parents want their children to live a good life, whether they're from poor country or not. Besides, people used to have more sex in the past when life seemed much more hopeless than it is now. Granted, condoms didn't exist but these days, people aren't even dating anyway. > The reasons have been written in this thread It's all speculation at this point. If we knew the reasons, we'd solve the problem. Like the meaning of life, there are some things we can't know.

markus_zhang 1y ago

Not surprised. Housing went up a lot in recent years and it is not affordable for most young people. And if you have to rent, why not rent your parent's?

formerly_proven 1y ago
Housing in the West was basically turned into another pillar of retiree funding. Old people extract tremendous financial gains from younger generations by either a) selling them decrepit real estate at extremely high prices or b) collecting very high rents on buildings that are even older than themselves (even in the US, which is the king of corporate landlording, they are a small minority; most landlords are natural persons, mostly retirees or near-retirees). It turns out if you do that the living space required to raise the next generation simply becomes inaccessible. (Another way to look at it - people on new leases will often spend around 30-40% of net income on rent. In most instances this is a direct transfer to a retiree/near-retiree. Taxes, a lot of which also goes towards transfer payments, and other transfer payments to old people, are 40-50% in many countries. Taken together, younger, working people are effectively transferring 2/3rds or more of their gross income to retirees before spending the first cent on themselves. Why would anyone be surprised people are checking out of that system en-masse?)
- jplrssn 1y ago
  Young people may be checking out of that system but BlackRock and others are doing the opposite. Why wouldn’t they, when government policy has made it an asset class that can never fall in value?
- rightbyte 1y ago
  No matter the system you'd end up with the working age population tending for the children and elderly. I don't think that in it self is a problem. You could argue around implementation details though ...
  - formerly_proven 1y ago
    (Near-)retirees are typically the largest voting bloc and usually the only one experiencing any growth in most of the West. It is unsurprising that they get to set policies that solely benefit them at the expense of everyone else, including those that are yet to be born and those who will never be born because of those policies. And why would they care about the future? Retirees, by revealed preference, don't, and why would they? It's not their future they're destroying. Indeed, they're making quite a nice (short) future for themselves by bleeding societies dry.
    - rightbyte 1y ago
      My experience joining a political party as 3X yo is that the (near)retirees are eager to throw mandates at you because you are young. The early 20s and 5X+ are the ones that have more time for politics. I would not read some inter-generational class warfare into that. I wouldn't broadly blame generations for things. It is like that silly Karen meme service workers have. We are part of the problem too.

brokegrammer 1y ago

Children in overpopulated countries like India have been living with their parents for generations. Now that children are leaving the house in those countries, the growth rate is decreasing. I doubt living with parents is affecting reproduction. People don't want kids for mysterious reasons that we have yet to discover.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
>Children in overpopulated countries like India have been living with their parents for generations. That's comparing apples to oranges. People living in rich first world countries with stagnating economies like Canada expect a better future and standard of living for their kids than those from impoverished third world countries who rose to be developing countries, no? Then there's also completely different cultural norms and expectations between India and western nations and how multi generational families interact. I had a similar discussion with someone form Africa who was shocked to hear that in some rich European countries you could have a full time job and still be homeless due to scarce housing and crazy rents. And then he replied "what's the point of a country being rich if the people are poor?". Good question mate. It's because the point of rich countries is to be tax havens and economic zones where worldwide money is funneled to the top 1% and the workers who enable that have to fight for the scraps while those who can't, get left behind for the welfare state to pick up or fall through the holes in the safety net and end up on the street. >People don't want kids for mysterious reasons that we have yet to discover. The reasons have been written in this thread. If you don't like them or don't resonate with you, doesn't mean they're mysterious and undiscovered. Just go on the street and ask 100 random people, they'll tell you the same.
- brokegrammer 1y ago
  > People living in rich first world countries with stagnating economies like Canada expect a better future and standard of living for their kids than those from impoverished third world countries Most parents want their children to live a good life, whether they're from poor country or not. Besides, people used to have more sex in the past when life seemed much more hopeless than it is now. Granted, condoms didn't exist but these days, people aren't even dating anyway. > The reasons have been written in this thread It's all speculation at this point. If we knew the reasons, we'd solve the problem. Like the meaning of life, there are some things we can't know.