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>Do the other comparisons and you'll find that you are off base -- people today do make enormous sacrifices to start families at a young age, and people in the

by tsotha 11y ago

>Do the other comparisons and you'll find that you are off base -- people today do make enormous sacrifices to start families at a young age, and people in the 50s to 80s who were single with no children did live lavish lifestyles. ... which was my point. People in their 20s today have it no harder than their parents and grandparents. They're simply choosing not to have families in larger numbers.

nmrm2 11y ago
The quoted comment does not contain the concession you seem to think it does. On the contrary, the quoted section of my previous comment simply states that people in their 20s today have it at least as hard as their parents and grandparents. I'm silent (here) on the question of whether it's harder today. > They're simply choosing not to have families in larger numbers. This is only meaningfully entailed by the data if you believe that, historically, everyone who had kids "chose" to do so. I don't think that's accurate, especially if we go back past 1970-1980 or so. Remember that birth control has only been universally legal in the US for barely a half century. And normalized for a far shorter period of time. In fact, I'd argue that in a huge portion of the country, it's still something of a dirty secret in that you wouldn't necessarily want your employer or extended family to know about it (and we've recently had a supreme court case about this...)
- tsotha 11y ago
  Birth control was readily available by 1970. Presumably you've heard about "free love" and all that?
  - nmrm2 11y ago
    > Birth control was readily available by 1970. 1. Singling out access to birth control is a red herring. Mainstream gender norms and mainstream social pressure to have a family have changed a lot since the 1970s. Especially in more conservative parts of the country. 2. Birth control was fully legalized in the US in 1964 by Supreme Court mandate; 2015 - 1964 = 51 years (barely a half century, exactly as I stated above...). 3. There's a difference between legal and available. 4. There's a difference between available and socially acceptable. Although things have gotten significantly better over time, stigma and conservative views on sex outside of marriage continues to prevent contraceptive use among significant populations (most significantly anyone under 18 with conservative parents, but IME even married people into their 20s who had a conservative upbringing). In many ways, we are STILL fighting the battle against stigma associated with use of contraceptives. See the debate surrounding contraceptives and the ACA, or sex education in public schools. Or ask a Catholic priest. Again, things have improved significantly and continue to improve. But assuming that 1964 or the wave in the 1970s were watershed events across the country is a bit niave. 5. Again, singling out birth control is a red herring. It is no doubt an important contributing factor in both the time to first child and the size of families. But the social norms surrounding women -- especially in conservative parts of the country -- have changed significantly since the 1970s, and that's also an important contributing factor. Concretely, I'm not sure that "subjected to coercive social pressure and not provided with a college education because they're already married and that's the point" exactly counts as "choice". That might not have been common in the Chicago suburbs in the 1970s, but it definitely was in rural Georgia...

by tsotha 11y ago

nmrm2 11y ago

The quoted comment does not contain the concession you seem to think it does. On the contrary, the quoted section of my previous comment simply states that people in their 20s today have it at least as hard as their parents and grandparents. I'm silent (here) on the question of whether it's harder today. > They're simply choosing not to have families in larger numbers. This is only meaningfully entailed by the data if you believe that, historically, everyone who had kids "chose" to do so. I don't think that's accurate, especially if we go back past 1970-1980 or so. Remember that birth control has only been universally legal in the US for barely a half century. And normalized for a far shorter period of time. In fact, I'd argue that in a huge portion of the country, it's still something of a dirty secret in that you wouldn't necessarily want your employer or extended family to know about it (and we've recently had a supreme court case about this...)

tsotha 11y ago
Birth control was readily available by 1970. Presumably you've heard about "free love" and all that?
- nmrm2 11y ago
  > Birth control was readily available by 1970. 1. Singling out access to birth control is a red herring. Mainstream gender norms and mainstream social pressure to have a family have changed a lot since the 1970s. Especially in more conservative parts of the country. 2. Birth control was fully legalized in the US in 1964 by Supreme Court mandate; 2015 - 1964 = 51 years (barely a half century, exactly as I stated above...). 3. There's a difference between legal and available. 4. There's a difference between available and socially acceptable. Although things have gotten significantly better over time, stigma and conservative views on sex outside of marriage continues to prevent contraceptive use among significant populations (most significantly anyone under 18 with conservative parents, but IME even married people into their 20s who had a conservative upbringing). In many ways, we are STILL fighting the battle against stigma associated with use of contraceptives. See the debate surrounding contraceptives and the ACA, or sex education in public schools. Or ask a Catholic priest. Again, things have improved significantly and continue to improve. But assuming that 1964 or the wave in the 1970s were watershed events across the country is a bit niave. 5. Again, singling out birth control is a red herring. It is no doubt an important contributing factor in both the time to first child and the size of families. But the social norms surrounding women -- especially in conservative parts of the country -- have changed significantly since the 1970s, and that's also an important contributing factor. Concretely, I'm not sure that "subjected to coercive social pressure and not provided with a college education because they're already married and that's the point" exactly counts as "choice". That might not have been common in the Chicago suburbs in the 1970s, but it definitely was in rural Georgia...