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> We show that laws mandating use of child car safety seats significantly reduce birth rates, as many cars cannot fit three child seats in the back seat. Would

> We show that laws mandating use of child car safety seats significantly reduce birth rates, as many cars cannot fit three child seats in the back seat. Wouldn't the real cause of the depressed birthrates be the requirement to own a car in order to have children? If you aren't a slave to your vehicle there's no problem with the available space for car seats.

Aurornis 7mo ago
The research is about the falloff in family size from 2 children to 3 children. > If you aren't a slave to your vehicle there's no problem with the available space for car seats. The abstract says the effect is limited to households with a car.
- cucumber3732842 7mo ago
  I think the car is a proxy/correlation for a level of wealth. If you make little enough the marginal cost of the next kid "seems" cheap because you basically make it back in state benefits in a lot of cases.
throwway120385 7mo ago
If you aren't a slave to your car, you likely live in a walkable area where the cost of a 4-bedroom apartment or house is going to be pretty high. I'm not saying you can't raise kids in a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment, and when I lived in apartments many families had kids in a 1-bedroom apartment, but it's very tight and many people would consider it a significant hardship for both the kids and the parents. I would also add as a car slave that the kinds of cars large enough to fit the kinds of car seats marketed in the US are tens of thousands more than a compact or mid-size sedan, and that in a mid-size sedan having a car seat in the rear-facing configuration significantly constrains how far back you can put the passenger or driver seat. This is true even for the narrower seats that are designed for three-across seating. And worse, you might not have the latch system or an appropriate kind of seat belt on that third seat.
- mothballed 7mo ago
  Or you are poor enough you get paid to pop out more kids and it's cheaper to uber twice a month to the grocery store because you have no job for which you'd need a car nor the cash to buy it.
- mullingitover 7mo ago
  > If you aren't a slave to your car, you likely live in a walkable area where the cost of a 4-bedroom apartment or house is going to be pretty high. Or you're one of the millions of people who live in developing countries which have low cost of living and low housing costs. Coincidentally this group has very high birth rates.
  - Earw0rm 7mo ago
    Also, socially conservative, multi-generational households (sharing labour and childcare between women relatives), less expectation for mothers of young kids to be away from the home, and a much lower expectation of what "housing" means in terms of both building quality and the amount of living space per person.
    - orthoxerox 7mo ago
      Who expects mothers of young kids in the US to be away from the home?
      - nehal3m 7mo ago
        The economy
      - Earw0rm 7mo ago
        Work and wider social participation, and a sprawling suburban geography that has people living far from friends and family. The alternative - small, crowded population centres where everyone knows everyone and three, even four generations live in the same household can of course be limiting, even suffocating. But there's a reason why, for all that the 1950s autonomous nuclear family is held up as some kind of ideal by tradwife fetishists, it's also the milieu in which Valium and sleeping pills became popularised.
Earw0rm 7mo ago
Double-buggies on public transport and more than two kids on a typical cargo cycle aren't fun either. Granted the age-span that's necessary is a little shorter than car seats. That said, have 3 kids aged within 5 years of one another and we never had to get a double buggy. The older ones would be OK to walk (3 year olds will walk a pretty long way if you're patient) by the time the youngest got too big to be sling-carried. It comes down to, dealing with three under-5's single-handed while out and about is pretty hectic full stop. Most places with high birth rates "solve" this by not allowing mums the expectation to be away from the house much, and/or they're multigenerational households where grandma or an aunt can be home with some of the kids. So to your point, I think it's less the requirement to own a car, more the expectation of a kind of lifestyle which often, though not always, in turn requires one. Childcare for 2 year olds here is often upwards of $2500/month, now that's a contraceptive.
fxtentacle 7mo ago
"Wouldn't the real cause of the depressed birthrates be the requirement to own a car in order to have children?" Yes. The one-time setup costs for "properly" raising kids are probably around $30k. All the kids stuff is extra expensive (in the west) and for the kids seats you need a large car (in the west) and there's social stigma against kids sharing a room (in the west), so you also need a larger apartment.
- justonceokay 7mo ago
  Kid stuff is free if your time is worth nothing. There’s always another child outgrowing their car seats and toys and clothes and cribs and games.
  - genthree 7mo ago
    Can confirm, the "stuff" costs basically nothing in the scheme of things and nearly all of it can be had used. A bunch of it's also not really all that necessary. Clothes and toys can all be had for very little, without even that much time investment, folks are drowning in this stuff and lots of it just gets thrown away. The real money goes to: 1) Healthcare (in the US). 2) Childcare or foregone wages. 3) School/housing location (same thing; either tuition, or spending 20+% more for the same amount & quality of house in a nicer school district [and the ongoing cost of servicing the extra mortgage on that]; you can skip this, but if you can at all afford it, you'll not feel like it's optional) 4) Space. Larger housing and larger cars. You can skip this kind of (larger car is less-optional if you have more than three kids) but at significant cost to QOL.
delfinom 7mo ago
Have you ever tried taking kids on public transit? God forbid you try to take 3 with you.
frollogaston 7mo ago
People in dense urban areas have way fewer kids for various reasons, one of which is it's much harder to deal with them on public transport.
- bombcar 7mo ago
  Anyone without multiple kids hasn’t experienced how nice it is to have a car as a “destination” - once a kid is strapped into the car they’re safe and controlled and you can focus on the next one. Wrangling 3 or more toddler and up kids in public can be hectic.

Aurornis 7mo ago

The research is about the falloff in family size from 2 children to 3 children. > If you aren't a slave to your vehicle there's no problem with the available space for car seats. The abstract says the effect is limited to households with a car.

cucumber3732842 7mo ago
I think the car is a proxy/correlation for a level of wealth. If you make little enough the marginal cost of the next kid "seems" cheap because you basically make it back in state benefits in a lot of cases.

throwway120385 7mo ago

If you aren't a slave to your car, you likely live in a walkable area where the cost of a 4-bedroom apartment or house is going to be pretty high. I'm not saying you can't raise kids in a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment, and when I lived in apartments many families had kids in a 1-bedroom apartment, but it's very tight and many people would consider it a significant hardship for both the kids and the parents. I would also add as a car slave that the kinds of cars large enough to fit the kinds of car seats marketed in the US are tens of thousands more than a compact or mid-size sedan, and that in a mid-size sedan having a car seat in the rear-facing configuration significantly constrains how far back you can put the passenger or driver seat. This is true even for the narrower seats that are designed for three-across seating. And worse, you might not have the latch system or an appropriate kind of seat belt on that third seat.

mothballed 7mo ago
Or you are poor enough you get paid to pop out more kids and it's cheaper to uber twice a month to the grocery store because you have no job for which you'd need a car nor the cash to buy it.
mullingitover 7mo ago
> If you aren't a slave to your car, you likely live in a walkable area where the cost of a 4-bedroom apartment or house is going to be pretty high. Or you're one of the millions of people who live in developing countries which have low cost of living and low housing costs. Coincidentally this group has very high birth rates.
- Earw0rm 7mo ago
  Also, socially conservative, multi-generational households (sharing labour and childcare between women relatives), less expectation for mothers of young kids to be away from the home, and a much lower expectation of what "housing" means in terms of both building quality and the amount of living space per person.
  - orthoxerox 7mo ago
    Who expects mothers of young kids in the US to be away from the home?
    - nehal3m 7mo ago
      The economy
    - Earw0rm 7mo ago
      Work and wider social participation, and a sprawling suburban geography that has people living far from friends and family. The alternative - small, crowded population centres where everyone knows everyone and three, even four generations live in the same household can of course be limiting, even suffocating. But there's a reason why, for all that the 1950s autonomous nuclear family is held up as some kind of ideal by tradwife fetishists, it's also the milieu in which Valium and sleeping pills became popularised.

Earw0rm 7mo ago

Double-buggies on public transport and more than two kids on a typical cargo cycle aren't fun either. Granted the age-span that's necessary is a little shorter than car seats. That said, have 3 kids aged within 5 years of one another and we never had to get a double buggy. The older ones would be OK to walk (3 year olds will walk a pretty long way if you're patient) by the time the youngest got too big to be sling-carried. It comes down to, dealing with three under-5's single-handed while out and about is pretty hectic full stop. Most places with high birth rates "solve" this by not allowing mums the expectation to be away from the house much, and/or they're multigenerational households where grandma or an aunt can be home with some of the kids. So to your point, I think it's less the requirement to own a car, more the expectation of a kind of lifestyle which often, though not always, in turn requires one. Childcare for 2 year olds here is often upwards of $2500/month, now that's a contraceptive.

fxtentacle 7mo ago

"Wouldn't the real cause of the depressed birthrates be the requirement to own a car in order to have children?" Yes. The one-time setup costs for "properly" raising kids are probably around $30k. All the kids stuff is extra expensive (in the west) and for the kids seats you need a large car (in the west) and there's social stigma against kids sharing a room (in the west), so you also need a larger apartment.

justonceokay 7mo ago
Kid stuff is free if your time is worth nothing. There’s always another child outgrowing their car seats and toys and clothes and cribs and games.
- genthree 7mo ago
  Can confirm, the "stuff" costs basically nothing in the scheme of things and nearly all of it can be had used. A bunch of it's also not really all that necessary. Clothes and toys can all be had for very little, without even that much time investment, folks are drowning in this stuff and lots of it just gets thrown away. The real money goes to: 1) Healthcare (in the US). 2) Childcare or foregone wages. 3) School/housing location (same thing; either tuition, or spending 20+% more for the same amount & quality of house in a nicer school district [and the ongoing cost of servicing the extra mortgage on that]; you can skip this, but if you can at all afford it, you'll not feel like it's optional) 4) Space. Larger housing and larger cars. You can skip this kind of (larger car is less-optional if you have more than three kids) but at significant cost to QOL.

delfinom 7mo ago

Have you ever tried taking kids on public transit? God forbid you try to take 3 with you.

frollogaston 7mo ago

People in dense urban areas have way fewer kids for various reasons, one of which is it's much harder to deal with them on public transport.

bombcar 7mo ago
Anyone without multiple kids hasn’t experienced how nice it is to have a car as a “destination” - once a kid is strapped into the car they’re safe and controlled and you can focus on the next one. Wrangling 3 or more toddler and up kids in public can be hectic.