6 ms·

Maybe if young folks could afford housing they'd have kids...there's a thought.

jleyank 8mo ago
More that young(er) folks could afford to live on a single income for the pre-school years. Or, I guess, that there's extensive parental leave and support for the parent doing primary caregiver.
- bombcar 8mo ago
  There are many solutions to different aspects of the problem - if we define the problem something like "people get together older, and have kids older, and have fewer." But even if everything was "easy and perfect" (arguably some other countries have this) - you still have something that is generally discouraging people from having kids. The median Amish family income is about $65,000 and typically has six to eight children.
  - jleyank 8mo ago
    The Amish aren't on the consumer treadmill. They have amazing social support from their community. They tend to be "traditional families" so there's no question re: child rearing. So I guess that satisfies both of the original conditions... But I figure people would prefer a more commercial lifestyle. Particularly on places like HN.
    - amanaplanacanal 8mo ago
      The Amish aren't becoming scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. As a society I don't think the Amish lifestyle is something we would embrace.
      - jpadkins 8mo ago
        I disagree. I think there is a lot we can learn from Amish society. Main of the 'ills' of modern society don't exist in their community. I believe that we can learn and apply aspects of what they do well without losing our ability to support entrepreneurs and engineers.
    - watwut 8mo ago
      By all estimates, they have also fairly high rates of domestic violence and abuse rates. Which to be fair, traditional families also frequently featured.
  - assaddayinh 8mo ago
    You need a positive life affirming story in your life to set up kids and the current core does not have that. "You will be either a concentration camp guard or a prisoner, in a apocalyptic war" is not a life narrative, its a contraceptive.
- cvoss 8mo ago
  Mixed in with all this, and possibly preceeding all this, is declining marriage rates. It's significantly riskier, financially and relationally, to have kids without getting married.
myrmidon 8mo ago
I think the "cost of living" explanation for low birthrates is just wrong, and not even plausible (anecdote: my grandmother had 17 siblings, and they could not even afford proper sunday shoes for all of them, much less current living standards). I think the biggest impact is from kids being obsolete/net negative as both workforce (when young) and retirement scheme (when the parents are old). But there is no reverting that development. Easy access to contraceptives probably makes a significant difference too, though.
- actionfromafar 8mo ago
  Contraceptives will be harder to get. Project 2025 is also about stopping the "senseless use of birth control pills".
  - dh2022 8mo ago
    Well, they can do whatever they want in their red-states. Blue states are already moving healthcare away from federal non-sense standards [0] and [1] [0] https://governor.wa.gov/news/2025/washington-california-and-oregon-launch-new-west-coast-health-alliance-uphold-scientific-integrity https://governor.wa.gov/news/2025/washington-california-and-... [1]https://www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/inside-mdhhs/newsroom/2026/01/06/vaccines-state https://www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/inside-mdhhs/newsroom/2026/01...
    - actionfromafar 8mo ago
      That's what nationalizing elections is for, make blue states turn red.
- llm_nerd 8mo ago
  >I think the "cost of living" explanation for low birthrates is just wrong If you're demanding it be all-or-nothing, then sure it is "wrong". It obviously isn't the only reason. As countries get richer, people have fewer kids. Is it a factor? Of course it is. Children are incredibly expensive if you subscribe to modern norms and expectations. There are many, many, many people who want kids but can't afford it, and if they do have a kid it's prohibitive having more than 1. Two is basically financial suicide for many. And to be clear, I have four children which is a luxury of being in a financially rewarding career at the right time, but even still it was unbelievably tough making it happen. "anecdote: my grandmother had 17 siblings" Standards change. You understand that, right? If you're middle class in 2026, the expectations around having and raising a child are very, very different from someone sixty years ago. People generally aren't keen on having six kids sharing a room these days. Even bunkbeds are considered poor by many. Now since both parents will have to work, account for childcare, massive vehicles, education savings, and so on.
indecisive_user 8mo ago
If that were true then we would expect to see a positive correlation between income and family size, but households making 500k are basically the same size as households making 50k.
- jeffbee 8mo ago
  Your specific claim may indeed be true, but it's misleading. The relationship between income and children is U-shaped. From middle incomes to higher incomes, fertility rises. It is also important to point out that income is tied to other factors in America. You're going to disproportionately find your $500k earners in a handful of superstar coastal cities. Those things need to be controlled for if you want to isolate the effect of income on family size.
whynotminot 8mo ago
This is often a commonly blamed reason, but I think the data at this point pretty strongly suggests that the more affluent a country is the less kids they have. You look at some of the most third world places in the world without strong economic security, yet somehow they manage to have babies at a higher rate than Western countries do.
- stackskipton 8mo ago
  Seems like when you give women the choice, many elect to have fewer kids than replacement level. Hell, in many countries in Europe, they basically throw money at anyone having kids and their birthrate has plummeted which would indicate that economics is not only reason.
  - dbspin 8mo ago
    I don't think there's a country in Europe that funds childcare remotely to the level of cost. The most generous I'm aware of is certain states / cities in Germany that provide free 'Kita', essentially Kindergarten. In addition to maternity leave, national insurance etc. But this certainly doesn't cover the numerous costs (including time off work etc) associated with having kids. Would be an interesting experiment to actually pay people to have kids - i.e.: financially reward them in accordance with the costs involved. I suspect, as with an actual liveable UBI, the results would differ radically.
    - bombcar 8mo ago
      We do pay people to have kids in the USA - once you're on welfare. Your WIC and EBT allowances go up per kid. And even if you're not that poor, you get subsidized kids through things like the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. It's annoying that while some of those support 3+ kids, many "top out" at three and stop increasing. I've often thought of searching for "sponsorships" for additional children (though we'd probably have them anyway) - not sure I want my son to be named Facebook X AI though ;)
      - 8mo ago
sinnsro 8mo ago
God forbid paying the masses a living wage or allowing them access to things their forebears had. They will own nothing and they will be thankful for it. [/s just in case it goes over someone's head]
2OEH8eoCRo0 8mo ago
Is housing really that expensive? When you price out a loan on a starter house it really ain't that bad. I'm a recent first time homebuyer and I don't understand why people think they aren't affordable. There were plenty of cheaper homes that I looked at and even with rates at their highest would be cheaper than my rent. Do people expect a palace? Are there more unmarried people today who can't afford it alone?
- bnjms 8mo ago
  How much cost do you consider a first time home as costing?
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
- neogodless 8mo ago
  Based on your lower comment, Rhode Island. Median family income $87k Cost-of-living ~$36k excluding housing With your example of a $350K home, someone making the median (presumably not 20-30 year olds but more like 40-45 year olds...) they could save up the $70k down payment in under 2 years. P & I payment of ~$2k / month. Maybe $1k more for escrow of taxes and insurance. So $72k total cost of living on $87k, assuming you've made it to median income. Of course, if you're making less than $72k, buying a $350k house would simply be... untenable. Also, based on rough guideline of "30% of income on housing", you'd definitely want to keep your mortgage under $2200 / month. Census link indicates median home values are closer to $404K though, too. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/RI/LFE046224 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/RI/LFE046224 https://livingcost.org/cost/united-states/ri https://livingcost.org/cost/united-states/ri
  - nickjj 8mo ago
    > Cost-of-living ~$36k excluding housing When you say housing, are you excluding utilities or just not direct rent / mortgage / property taxes? Either way, that's a good example of how different things are without kids and maybe why folks are choosing not to have them. As someone without kids who lives in NY (not NYC), I couldn't even imagine spending 36k / year (minus rent). Even if I took a 3 week international vacation every quarter I wouldn't come close to that amount after factoring in my normal costs.
Buttons840 8mo ago
Lots of people are doing the math and explaining why what the people who aren't having kids are saying is wrong. They have their math and the people still don't have kids.
wcoenen 8mo ago
This comes up in every discussion about demographics. But counterintuitively, there are no examples of financial incentives actually fixing this problem. For example, in 2022 Hungary was spending 6.2% of GDP on such incentives[1], but this only managed to bring total fertility rate up to about 1.6 [2]. It is the same everywhere else. The real reason fertility has declined since the sixties is because people have access to effective birth control. Nobody wants to be a baby factory. [1] https://abouthungary.hu/news-in-brief/hungary-to-spend-6-2-of-gdp-on-family-support-measures-in-2022 https://abouthungary.hu/news-in-brief/hungary-to-spend-6-2-o... [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/hun/hungary/fertility-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/hun/hun...
- pjc50 8mo ago
  Back of an envelope suggests that to really make this work you'd need most women in the 20-40 range to have the job title of "parent" and a lower middle class or more salary paid by the state, so .. 10-20% of GDP? Nobody wants to contemplate just how expensive this is going to be, including the fact that now you have a short-term labour shortage (because they're out of the regular workforce as well!)

More that young(er) folks could afford to live on a single income for the pre-school years. Or, I guess, that there's extensive parental leave and support for the parent doing primary caregiver.

bombcar 8mo ago
There are many solutions to different aspects of the problem - if we define the problem something like "people get together older, and have kids older, and have fewer." But even if everything was "easy and perfect" (arguably some other countries have this) - you still have something that is generally discouraging people from having kids. The median Amish family income is about $65,000 and typically has six to eight children.
- jleyank 8mo ago
  The Amish aren't on the consumer treadmill. They have amazing social support from their community. They tend to be "traditional families" so there's no question re: child rearing. So I guess that satisfies both of the original conditions... But I figure people would prefer a more commercial lifestyle. Particularly on places like HN.
  - amanaplanacanal 8mo ago
    The Amish aren't becoming scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. As a society I don't think the Amish lifestyle is something we would embrace.
    - jpadkins 8mo ago
      I disagree. I think there is a lot we can learn from Amish society. Main of the 'ills' of modern society don't exist in their community. I believe that we can learn and apply aspects of what they do well without losing our ability to support entrepreneurs and engineers.
  - watwut 8mo ago
    By all estimates, they have also fairly high rates of domestic violence and abuse rates. Which to be fair, traditional families also frequently featured.
- assaddayinh 8mo ago
  You need a positive life affirming story in your life to set up kids and the current core does not have that. "You will be either a concentration camp guard or a prisoner, in a apocalyptic war" is not a life narrative, its a contraceptive.
cvoss 8mo ago
Mixed in with all this, and possibly preceeding all this, is declining marriage rates. It's significantly riskier, financially and relationally, to have kids without getting married.

myrmidon 8mo ago

I think the "cost of living" explanation for low birthrates is just wrong, and not even plausible (anecdote: my grandmother had 17 siblings, and they could not even afford proper sunday shoes for all of them, much less current living standards). I think the biggest impact is from kids being obsolete/net negative as both workforce (when young) and retirement scheme (when the parents are old). But there is no reverting that development. Easy access to contraceptives probably makes a significant difference too, though.

actionfromafar 8mo ago
Contraceptives will be harder to get. Project 2025 is also about stopping the "senseless use of birth control pills".
- dh2022 8mo ago
  Well, they can do whatever they want in their red-states. Blue states are already moving healthcare away from federal non-sense standards [0] and [1] [0] https://governor.wa.gov/news/2025/washington-california-and-oregon-launch-new-west-coast-health-alliance-uphold-scientific-integrity https://governor.wa.gov/news/2025/washington-california-and-... [1]https://www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/inside-mdhhs/newsroom/2026/01/06/vaccines-state https://www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/inside-mdhhs/newsroom/2026/01...
  - actionfromafar 8mo ago
    That's what nationalizing elections is for, make blue states turn red.
llm_nerd 8mo ago
>I think the "cost of living" explanation for low birthrates is just wrong If you're demanding it be all-or-nothing, then sure it is "wrong". It obviously isn't the only reason. As countries get richer, people have fewer kids. Is it a factor? Of course it is. Children are incredibly expensive if you subscribe to modern norms and expectations. There are many, many, many people who want kids but can't afford it, and if they do have a kid it's prohibitive having more than 1. Two is basically financial suicide for many. And to be clear, I have four children which is a luxury of being in a financially rewarding career at the right time, but even still it was unbelievably tough making it happen. "anecdote: my grandmother had 17 siblings" Standards change. You understand that, right? If you're middle class in 2026, the expectations around having and raising a child are very, very different from someone sixty years ago. People generally aren't keen on having six kids sharing a room these days. Even bunkbeds are considered poor by many. Now since both parents will have to work, account for childcare, massive vehicles, education savings, and so on.

indecisive_user 8mo ago

If that were true then we would expect to see a positive correlation between income and family size, but households making 500k are basically the same size as households making 50k.

jeffbee 8mo ago
Your specific claim may indeed be true, but it's misleading. The relationship between income and children is U-shaped. From middle incomes to higher incomes, fertility rises. It is also important to point out that income is tied to other factors in America. You're going to disproportionately find your $500k earners in a handful of superstar coastal cities. Those things need to be controlled for if you want to isolate the effect of income on family size.

whynotminot 8mo ago

This is often a commonly blamed reason, but I think the data at this point pretty strongly suggests that the more affluent a country is the less kids they have. You look at some of the most third world places in the world without strong economic security, yet somehow they manage to have babies at a higher rate than Western countries do.

stackskipton 8mo ago
Seems like when you give women the choice, many elect to have fewer kids than replacement level. Hell, in many countries in Europe, they basically throw money at anyone having kids and their birthrate has plummeted which would indicate that economics is not only reason.
- dbspin 8mo ago
  I don't think there's a country in Europe that funds childcare remotely to the level of cost. The most generous I'm aware of is certain states / cities in Germany that provide free 'Kita', essentially Kindergarten. In addition to maternity leave, national insurance etc. But this certainly doesn't cover the numerous costs (including time off work etc) associated with having kids. Would be an interesting experiment to actually pay people to have kids - i.e.: financially reward them in accordance with the costs involved. I suspect, as with an actual liveable UBI, the results would differ radically.
  - bombcar 8mo ago
    We do pay people to have kids in the USA - once you're on welfare. Your WIC and EBT allowances go up per kid. And even if you're not that poor, you get subsidized kids through things like the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. It's annoying that while some of those support 3+ kids, many "top out" at three and stop increasing. I've often thought of searching for "sponsorships" for additional children (though we'd probably have them anyway) - not sure I want my son to be named Facebook X AI though ;)
    - 8mo ago

sinnsro 8mo ago

God forbid paying the masses a living wage or allowing them access to things their forebears had. They will own nothing and they will be thankful for it. [/s just in case it goes over someone's head]

2OEH8eoCRo0 8mo ago

Is housing really that expensive? When you price out a loan on a starter house it really ain't that bad. I'm a recent first time homebuyer and I don't understand why people think they aren't affordable. There were plenty of cheaper homes that I looked at and even with rates at their highest would be cheaper than my rent. Do people expect a palace? Are there more unmarried people today who can't afford it alone?

bnjms 8mo ago
How much cost do you consider a first time home as costing?
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
neogodless 8mo ago
Based on your lower comment, Rhode Island. Median family income $87k Cost-of-living ~$36k excluding housing With your example of a $350K home, someone making the median (presumably not 20-30 year olds but more like 40-45 year olds...) they could save up the $70k down payment in under 2 years. P & I payment of ~$2k / month. Maybe $1k more for escrow of taxes and insurance. So $72k total cost of living on $87k, assuming you've made it to median income. Of course, if you're making less than $72k, buying a $350k house would simply be... untenable. Also, based on rough guideline of "30% of income on housing", you'd definitely want to keep your mortgage under $2200 / month. Census link indicates median home values are closer to $404K though, too. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/RI/LFE046224 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/RI/LFE046224 https://livingcost.org/cost/united-states/ri https://livingcost.org/cost/united-states/ri
- nickjj 8mo ago
  > Cost-of-living ~$36k excluding housing When you say housing, are you excluding utilities or just not direct rent / mortgage / property taxes? Either way, that's a good example of how different things are without kids and maybe why folks are choosing not to have them. As someone without kids who lives in NY (not NYC), I couldn't even imagine spending 36k / year (minus rent). Even if I took a 3 week international vacation every quarter I wouldn't come close to that amount after factoring in my normal costs.

Buttons840 8mo ago

Lots of people are doing the math and explaining why what the people who aren't having kids are saying is wrong. They have their math and the people still don't have kids.

wcoenen 8mo ago

This comes up in every discussion about demographics. But counterintuitively, there are no examples of financial incentives actually fixing this problem. For example, in 2022 Hungary was spending 6.2% of GDP on such incentives[1], but this only managed to bring total fertility rate up to about 1.6 [2]. It is the same everywhere else. The real reason fertility has declined since the sixties is because people have access to effective birth control. Nobody wants to be a baby factory. [1] https://abouthungary.hu/news-in-brief/hungary-to-spend-6-2-of-gdp-on-family-support-measures-in-2022 https://abouthungary.hu/news-in-brief/hungary-to-spend-6-2-o... [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/hun/hungary/fertility-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/hun/hun...

pjc50 8mo ago
Back of an envelope suggests that to really make this work you'd need most women in the 20-40 range to have the job title of "parent" and a lower middle class or more salary paid by the state, so .. 10-20% of GDP? Nobody wants to contemplate just how expensive this is going to be, including the fact that now you have a short-term labour shortage (because they're out of the regular workforce as well!)