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Older Adults Outnumber Children in 11 States
- thijson 1y agoA lot of country's population pyramid doesn't look like a pyramid. It's more like a rhombus. https://www.populationpyramid.net/world/2024/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/world/2024/ I noticed some middle eastern countries have a very skewed male female ratio among people born roughly 30 years ago.
- bentcorner 1y agoInterestingly enough if you change the filter to "US" and rewind the data to 1950 (it looks like that's how far this graph goes), if you advance up by 5 years you can see the "bulge" of baby boomers age up into retirement where they are right now.
- zeroonetwothree 1y agoVery nice. There’s also a second bulge starting around 1990.
- Izkata 1y agoCould be the children of baby boomers, except it seems like it's about a decade late?
- whatsupdog 1y agoThe ME countries you are talking about are UAE, Qatar etc. where a lot of labourers are brought in from South Asian countries for construction etc. That's why you see so many 20-40 males.
- BenFranklin100 1y agoHigh housing costs is a key factor. https://www.npr.org/2025/10/31/nx-s1-5551108/housing-costs-birth-rate https://www.npr.org/2025/10/31/nx-s1-5551108/housing-costs-b... The Boomer generation has perpetuated and intensified restrictive zoning. The lack of new homes where well-payong jobs are located has caused housing prices to soar. The Boomer generation has also led the de-growth movement. I guess they are going to get their way by making it too expensive for their grandkids to have children and cause the population to plummet.
- jgalt212 1y agoThe greatest generation may have been good at ridding the world of fascism, but not so good at raising responsible and civic-minded adults.
- derektank 1y agoI don't understand why the Baby Boomers are the ones that get blamed for restrictive zoning. The oldest were in their early 30s and the youngest couldn't even vote during the peak of single family zoning activity in the 1970s
- SoftTalker 1y agoThey voted to perpetuate it since then in the face of many proposals for more relaxed rules.
- CSSer 1y agoBeing responsible for the peak of something and having the power to undo it but choosing to do nothing produce the same result.
- derektank 1y agoBy this logic, you'd also have to blame Gen X and Millenials, as they've all been voting for at least a decade (and together have outnumbered baby boomers for several) but single family zoning continues to persist
- CSSer 1y agoI, a Millenial with a very active voter record, increasingly do. What seems to be the problem? Perhaps I should point out that representatives still must bring issues to bear, and the age of the average representatives has only very recently dipped into even high Gen X territory. Regardless, if your goal is to spread a little bit of the recent blame around, by all means, don't let me stop you. We should do something about it.
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- jmclnx 1y ago> Delaware, Hawaii, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Maine, Vermont, and Florida West Virginia is a surprise to me, I can only guess that is because of young people moving out. Same could probably be said for Rhode Island, Maine and Vermont.
- Spooky23 1y agoThis isn’t a surprise — it’s been projected since the 80s at least. K-12 is in a trough for the next decade.
- ocschwar 1y agoYoung people moving out, and those who stay are not inclined to bear children.
- hrimfaxi 1y agoNever in my life have I ever seen more notices warning about the dangers of fetal alcohol syndrome than during my brief stay in West Virginia.
- sigwinch 1y agoIn particular, West Virginia was a high fertility rate state during the baby boom, among those. Maybe Vermont, too.
- more_corn 1y agoBringing a child into this world would be utter madness.
- derektank 1y agoMore crazy than the Cold War? The World Wars? The great flu pandemic? The Chinese Civil Wars? The European Wars of Religion? The Black Death? The Mongol Invasions? I can't think of a single year in human history when the world wasn't crazy (maybe with the exception of a couple years in the late 1990s)
- sQL_inject 1y agoTo not be would be utter madness. For those who can and opt not to, they are perpetuating the tragedy of the commons. We face the largest demographic crisis ever and we're passing the problem onto the young while draining them via taxation, whislt demanding ever increasing benefits in an all out land grab. In 1950 the ratio of those paying into the system versus withdrawing was 15:1, were now at 2:1.
- lazyasciiart 1y agoThe demographic crisis of refusing to allow young people and families into the country? You want people to have kids so that we can keep America white?
- whatsupdog 1y ago90% of those crossing the border illegally are men. Watch any video on YouTube documenting illegal crossings and you'll see
- lazyasciiart 1y agoDoes that have something to do with what I said?
- 1y ago
- bayarearefugee 1y agoNobody can afford anything. It makes no sense to have kids when you can't afford your own existence. Tax the fucking rich.
- SailingCactus33 1y ago[flagged]
- magicstefanos 1y agoDo people really talk like this?
- SlightlyLeftPad 1y agoOnline, yes. Anywhere else, I doubt it.
- raspasov 1y ago“Talk”, no, but a scary number very much think like this. It’s an easy pseudo-intellectual high ground to take.
- SailingCactus33 1y agoIt's a biological and societal reality. While we may end up solving the immediate demographic crisis through technology (e.g. Optimus for the elderly), the future of humanity depends on raising children. Not taxing the rich, personal convenience, or trivializing my stated position as one that is "easy" to have.
- txrx0000 1y agoOf all the public online communities, you'd think HN would be capable of calling it the way it is. But I'm afraid it's been overrun by brainwashed ideologues as I've seen many times the truth being downvoted into oblivion during my short time here. Maybe we should do an experiment and make an account that only posts Paul Graham's positions and see how often it gets downvoted. I suspect the culture has shifted quite a lot since HN's founding and a decent chunk on the margin no longer cares about what's true over what's acceptable.
- elzbardico 1y agoThings are far worse in China. That's the only reason I am bullish in the US as world's top dog for the foreseable future.
- SlightlyLeftPad 1y agoI wouldn’t believe any estimates you see from China first of all. China also has a unique history and the ability to turn things around very quickly. That said, what’s the point of comparing other than to confirm your own belief that this is the single most important aspect of a thriving country?
- elzbardico 1y agoYeah, but the US have this perennial luck too. I am generation X, I was raised first with the idea that japan would overcome the US, then it was the EU. and yet, the US always reinvented itself/got lucky/played dirty. Empires are fucking resilient creations. The news of US hegemony demise are vastly exagerated.
- illiac786 1y agoWho and when believed the EU would take over the US? Japan, I remember, but the EU?
- theturtle 1y ago[dead]
- nsoonhui 1y agoI feel that demographic collapse is the single biggest crisis facing the developed world now. In this regard US is actually doing better than East Asia countries and Europe, but still, the trend is unmistakable -- modern, affluent states are commiting voluntarily suicide because their citizens are not too willing in giving birth. All the climate change problems, wars, pandemics and natural disasters won't devastate human simply because we been through all those and we recovered. But demographic collapse because of high living standard? It's uncharted territory here and I am really, really worry.
- Arainach 1y ago> modern, affluent states are commiting voluntarily suicide because their citizens are not too willing in giving birth Phrase things with the blame assigned accordingly. Your phrasing blames people for not becoming parents. A more accurate phrasing is '....because their wealthy elites are so greedy they make having children unaffordable' "Demographic collapse" is because people can't afford rent, can't afford food, can't afford healthcare - childbirth is ABSURDLY expensive in the US, can't afford childcare, and so many other things. Why is that? Because of greed. More and more of everything is swallowed up by private equity and corporate management who have no empathy, no flexibility, only a demand for eternal growth. The human piece is irrelevant and actively undesirable. Far simpler to just pay for some GPUs and write articles blaming ordinary people for having no more options.
- agsqwe 1y agoThen countries with even more greedy elites would have even lower rates, which is not the case. A few examples of fertility rates (higher is better, 2023 data): Sweden: 1.45 US: 1.62 Kenya: 3.21
- aaomidi 1y agoYou’re not making the point you think you’re making
- zeroonetwothree 1y ago
- piperswe 1y agoNot super surprising given the baby boom that many of those older adults were born during - it was an anomalous spike in birth rates after all.
- thefz 1y agoThere's going to be an inflection point with more elderly than young population, then all the old folks are going to die, so what? All the fear mongering about societal collapse and the inevitable doom are just populist arguments because the underlying fear is to be replaced by young immigrants from poor countries.
- illiac786 1y agono, if people have 1 kid per woman for generations, then the ratio between young and old will remain the same, we will just get less and less people overall. Seeing that actually the number of kid per woman is not stable but actually dropping worldwide, the ratio between old and young will get even worse than it is today.
- tsoukase 1y agoDemographic is an unsolvable problem. Since the last 30 years every effort of countries has failed. From Denmark's sexy ads to the "Flirting" Ministry of Singapore, only superficial results in the correct direction. It seems that behind every social factor, a depressed basic animal reproductive instinct is the common mechanism.
- txrx0000 1y agoThis isn't true. The current birth rate crisis is artificially induced by the widespread production and use of birth control pills.[0] If you look at the fertility rate graph, it fell off a cliff from 1960-1975 when the pill was introduced and has remained relatively stable ever since.[1] America's fertility rate would be well above replacement if we never invented the pill. Popular socioeconomic explanations for why people are having fewer children aren't wrong, but those aren't the biggest factors. They likely explain the drop from 2008-present, but this recent drop is nothing compared to the 1960-1975 pill cliff. If you claim the socioeconomic problems are unsolvable (which I don't think is true either), there is still the option of regulating the pill as a controlled substance. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_oral_contraceptive_pill#Society_and_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_oral_contraceptive_pi... [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/united-states/fertility-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni...
- amriksohata 1y agoI never got the argument that its too expensive so we can't have kids. Look at the most impoverished countries - they have much less money but have more kids and often strong senses of purpose and community. All of it is societys perception, how we are being bought up as men and women, our actual purpose, and greed that has killed the desire for children.
- sigwinch 1y agoOn the other end, the wealthiest have high fertility as well. What have the middle classes concluded about their prospects with and without children?
- carabiner 1y agoYes it is affordable if one raises their kids in an environment without running water or reliable electricity or healthcare. Those places have the highest infant mortality rates in the world and you can't compare their viability of child rearing to that of a first world.
- anal_reactor 1y agoTo me, it all seems very simple, and I don't understand if my opinion is profoundly stupid or everyone else is blind. 1. For the first time in human history, it's a viable thing to live alone. Not only that, but actually living alone is easier than living with a spouse. If you want to be married you have to put a lot of effort into dealing with the other person. If you're single, nothing stops you from just eating frozen pizza and playing video games all you want. 100 years ago most people were farmers, and good luck trying to farm land alone, especially as a woman. Once the economic survival necessity to marry disappeared, the naked truth was exposed - people just don't like each other. We'd rather sit alone. 2. When people were finally taught "if you put penis into vagina without latex, a child will pop out, and you will need to keep feeding it for next twenty years", the reaction was "fuck that" because honestly, parenthood is just a bad deal. Nature got around this problem by equipping us with sex drive and for most animals that works because most animals don't make the mental connection between sex and pregnancy, but modern people do make the connection, which breaks the system. 3. Demographic collapse is actually not a problem. Humanity will not die out. It's just a giant evolutionary bottleneck, like many in history. Will the society collapse? Maybe. Not the first and not the last time. 4. Even if the society collapses, a better one will emerge. Black Death killed half of Europe's population, and some historians say that this contributed to Renaissanace, which was a major postive turning point. Labor shortages led to much better position of common workers, and the last time I checked, common workers bitched about being exploited.
- Balgair 1y ago> 4. Even if the society collapses, a better one will emerge. Black Death killed half of Europe's population, and some historians say that this contributed to Renaissanace, which was a major postive turning point. Labor shortages led to much better position of common workers, and the last time I checked, common workers bitched about being exploited. Nit-Pick: The Renaissance is more of the exception that proves the rule than anything. If you look at other plagues history they typically don't result in any large scale changes in society, just misery usually. Unfortunately (?) the data is a bit sparse here, as large scale deaths like this are a bit rare in history, so there really aren't that many plagues to study. But, I think my point still stands, the Renaissance was an outlier, not an expected result. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics_and_pandemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics_and_pandemic...
- Balgair 1y agoOne of the 'fun' areas on the net to hang out on is the 'baby-o-sphere' here where everyone is fretting about these demographic collapses. 'Fun' in the way the old net was, as everyone in this area would never talk with each other otherwise. You get hardcore communists, evangelical christians, muslim scholars, boring census interpreters, etc. It's a whole lot of people out on the fringes of some bell curve that are all worried about this one little thing. I imagine climate change people were like this in the early days. It's a bit heartening as people who normally are enemies ideologically will share tips and news of studies. A little preview of a better future. And so a nicer place to hang out than the regular doomer internet. Thing is with the 'baby-o-sphere', it's a lot like the plot of TNG's The Chase ( https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Chase_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Chase_(episode)), in that, you know once the little key or recipe that is discovered that will reliably change birthrates, then everyone is going to scatter and start hating each other again. C'est la vie.
- lucyjojo 1y agoraising multiple kids when both parents work, you have no community to help, and you can't afford child care, is very, very, hard. plus, parents care more what happen to their kids these days, which turns even more time consuming