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I have considered raising my children in the US - I had the chance to do so, and I was comparing it with Europe and Asia. Settled on Asia because not only are t

by nikster 14y ago

I have considered raising my children in the US - I had the chance to do so, and I was comparing it with Europe and Asia. Settled on Asia because not only are there no incentives to raise Children in the USA, there are actually huge disincentives. - highest education costs - lowest quality public education - highest college costs, compare this to the EU and England where high quality colleges like Cambridge and Oxford are free. In the US, having 2 kids pretty much determines where ALL the money of a typical middle class family will go for the next 20 years. - Few facilities in cities, eg parks and so on, vs EU - High cost of hired labor vs Asia, nanny and so on - Dont expect the state, or anyone, to help you. - Society as a whole hostile to children vs Asia where children are loved by everyone. Given the circumstances, I am surprised the birth rate is as high as it is; I guess a lot of it is down to immigrants... Its very hard to raise children in the US. As long as that remains so the birth rate will remain low.

waps 14y ago
And yet Europe near-universally has lower fertility than the US. Whilst I have the same experience, not just with America but with English countries in general, something does not add up. Even though childcare is free or very cheap in most of western Europe, fertility is 1.23 in some locations, now. That means only 1 in 5 couples have children at all on average. Replacement fertility levers are nowhere to be seen, inside or outside of the EU, and even amongst fresh immigrants fertility is very low. And when I am there, I have to say, I miss my country when it had lots of children, and I was one of them. There was much more activity everywhere. There were much better playgrounds and more of them. There was constant presence of children in every village, and as an American you probably can't imagine just how many villages there are everywhere in Europe. You could get into pretty much any house for dinner, and yes, it did mean that you had to go to church on sunday (that was actually possible, nobody, and I mean nobody, ever worked on sunday), and afterwards the adults would dine in groups with the children playing in the gardens, or going out into the village or to the YMCA. Sport events would mostly be between neighbouring villages, and they were as much about getting together for a beer and a show as about sport, and pretty much everyone participated at some point. Now many villages look deserted, but they aren't, not yet. There's old people locking themselves into their houses watching TV. The central cities are expanding, and the bigger they get, the more hostile they are. Realistically, it won't be long before we're artificially breeding humans. Japan has researched this option, generally called "ectogenesis" and they have controversially produced a 14 days old feutus before stopping the program (getting it to survive after 7 days is apparently difficult because it requires blood flow to the feutus to start). We could present this option as "we allow gay couples to have real children of their own" "treatment". The numbers seem to dictate that unless some massive change in fertility occurs, mass-production of humans should start in about 8 years to keep population numbers from declining rapidly. That's an outcome nobody wants, but the question is if people are sufficiently convinced that they really, really don't want this to start programs like this. Also it won't be like children with real parents at all. Still, it probably beats the crap out of no children at all. I shudder to think what effect government policies will have on people who have no parents to defend them though.
- dennisgorelik 14y ago
  World population doubled in last 50 years and most likely will double again in the next 50 years: https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=world%20population https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&... Evolution and natural selection takes care of problem with declining fertility rate: if people or cultures or countries have high fertility rate - they survive and reproduce.
  - waps 14y ago
    That's assuming you don't mind subgroups of society to disappear and fringe groups to achieve dominance (at least when it comes to population numbers and democracy). The way it's looking, it means that Christianity will once again control the US at some point in the not-so-distant future. And of course there's the "if someone else does it first we may be screwed" factor.
rmk2 14y ago
> highest college costs, compare this to the EU and England where high quality colleges like Cambridge and Oxford are free. British universities are anything but free, unless you manage to get scholarships (which don't exist for undergrads, as far as i know) for everything. However, in that case, the same would apply for the US... edit: For an overview over the undergrad fees (p.a., for home students) as of last year, have a look at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12880840 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12880840
- SimonInman 14y ago
  This is not really correct. Although the government has recently raised the maximum tuition fees that Universities may charge (from around £3000 to around £9000 per year), this has not affected the financial provisions available to first-degree (i.e. undergrad) home students. The government supplies student loans for both tuition fees and maintenance (i.e. living) costs, which (supposedly) only garner interest at the rate of inflation. In addition, there is extensive means-tested financial support available from both the government and from Universities. I went to Oxford a few years ago and received full financial support. My income (in addition to the ~£3K tuition fee loan the government paid the university directly) from loans/grants was in the region of £9000, with about £5k of that being non-repayable. Although this was the maximum possible, it was hardly uncommon for people to get it, or to get some proportion of it. There are also numerous smaller grants handed out by both the university and its constituent colleges on the basis of financial need and otherwise. (In response to the increase in tuition fees, Michael Moritz (Sequoia Capital chairman) donated £75m to Oxford, with the express goal of keeping tuition fees low for disadvantaged students: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18785041 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18785041)
  - rmk2 14y ago
    The original claim was that UK universities are free, which they are not. Just because you don't pay for it immediately does not make something free. And even if you end up not paying back the full amount, you still end up paying something back. Additionally, relying on loan reduction schemes or scholarships does not mean education is free. The Scandinavian countries would have been a better example, because education is truly and actually free there, i.e. you do not pay anything (and as a citizen, you will probably get money -- which is not a loan and does not have to be paid back -- from the government as financial aid, further enabling students). On top of that scholarships for Masters degrees (depending on subject) are exceedingly rare (and not means-tested), with few loan options available (none of them government-funded, if I remember correctly).
a-priori 14y ago
Might I suggest looking at Canada?
rtpg 14y ago
At least in "developed" Asian countries (China, Korea, Japan), everyone I've talked to seems to describe their school experience as miserable. The universities aren't known to be that amazing either. There are also pretty good public school systems in the US (Texas' is in particular quite good at being well funded and offering all available classes). Like with many things in the US, there is a large gap between worst and best.
rdouble 14y ago
Where in Asia?

by nikster 14y ago

waps 14y ago

And yet Europe near-universally has lower fertility than the US. Whilst I have the same experience, not just with America but with English countries in general, something does not add up. Even though childcare is free or very cheap in most of western Europe, fertility is 1.23 in some locations, now. That means only 1 in 5 couples have children at all on average. Replacement fertility levers are nowhere to be seen, inside or outside of the EU, and even amongst fresh immigrants fertility is very low. And when I am there, I have to say, I miss my country when it had lots of children, and I was one of them. There was much more activity everywhere. There were much better playgrounds and more of them. There was constant presence of children in every village, and as an American you probably can't imagine just how many villages there are everywhere in Europe. You could get into pretty much any house for dinner, and yes, it did mean that you had to go to church on sunday (that was actually possible, nobody, and I mean nobody, ever worked on sunday), and afterwards the adults would dine in groups with the children playing in the gardens, or going out into the village or to the YMCA. Sport events would mostly be between neighbouring villages, and they were as much about getting together for a beer and a show as about sport, and pretty much everyone participated at some point. Now many villages look deserted, but they aren't, not yet. There's old people locking themselves into their houses watching TV. The central cities are expanding, and the bigger they get, the more hostile they are. Realistically, it won't be long before we're artificially breeding humans. Japan has researched this option, generally called "ectogenesis" and they have controversially produced a 14 days old feutus before stopping the program (getting it to survive after 7 days is apparently difficult because it requires blood flow to the feutus to start). We could present this option as "we allow gay couples to have real children of their own" "treatment". The numbers seem to dictate that unless some massive change in fertility occurs, mass-production of humans should start in about 8 years to keep population numbers from declining rapidly. That's an outcome nobody wants, but the question is if people are sufficiently convinced that they really, really don't want this to start programs like this. Also it won't be like children with real parents at all. Still, it probably beats the crap out of no children at all. I shudder to think what effect government policies will have on people who have no parents to defend them though.

dennisgorelik 14y ago
World population doubled in last 50 years and most likely will double again in the next 50 years: https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=world%20population https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&... Evolution and natural selection takes care of problem with declining fertility rate: if people or cultures or countries have high fertility rate - they survive and reproduce.
- waps 14y ago
  That's assuming you don't mind subgroups of society to disappear and fringe groups to achieve dominance (at least when it comes to population numbers and democracy). The way it's looking, it means that Christianity will once again control the US at some point in the not-so-distant future. And of course there's the "if someone else does it first we may be screwed" factor.

rmk2 14y ago

> highest college costs, compare this to the EU and England where high quality colleges like Cambridge and Oxford are free. British universities are anything but free, unless you manage to get scholarships (which don't exist for undergrads, as far as i know) for everything. However, in that case, the same would apply for the US... edit: For an overview over the undergrad fees (p.a., for home students) as of last year, have a look at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12880840 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12880840

SimonInman 14y ago
This is not really correct. Although the government has recently raised the maximum tuition fees that Universities may charge (from around £3000 to around £9000 per year), this has not affected the financial provisions available to first-degree (i.e. undergrad) home students. The government supplies student loans for both tuition fees and maintenance (i.e. living) costs, which (supposedly) only garner interest at the rate of inflation. In addition, there is extensive means-tested financial support available from both the government and from Universities. I went to Oxford a few years ago and received full financial support. My income (in addition to the ~£3K tuition fee loan the government paid the university directly) from loans/grants was in the region of £9000, with about £5k of that being non-repayable. Although this was the maximum possible, it was hardly uncommon for people to get it, or to get some proportion of it. There are also numerous smaller grants handed out by both the university and its constituent colleges on the basis of financial need and otherwise. (In response to the increase in tuition fees, Michael Moritz (Sequoia Capital chairman) donated £75m to Oxford, with the express goal of keeping tuition fees low for disadvantaged students: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18785041 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18785041)
- rmk2 14y ago
  The original claim was that UK universities are free, which they are not. Just because you don't pay for it immediately does not make something free. And even if you end up not paying back the full amount, you still end up paying something back. Additionally, relying on loan reduction schemes or scholarships does not mean education is free. The Scandinavian countries would have been a better example, because education is truly and actually free there, i.e. you do not pay anything (and as a citizen, you will probably get money -- which is not a loan and does not have to be paid back -- from the government as financial aid, further enabling students). On top of that scholarships for Masters degrees (depending on subject) are exceedingly rare (and not means-tested), with few loan options available (none of them government-funded, if I remember correctly).

a-priori 14y ago

Might I suggest looking at Canada?

rtpg 14y ago

At least in "developed" Asian countries (China, Korea, Japan), everyone I've talked to seems to describe their school experience as miserable. The universities aren't known to be that amazing either. There are also pretty good public school systems in the US (Texas' is in particular quite good at being well funded and offering all available classes). Like with many things in the US, there is a large gap between worst and best.

rdouble 14y ago

Where in Asia?