[HN Gopher] Far more adults don't want children than previously ...
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Far more adults don't want children than previously thought
Author : akvadrako
Score : 22 points
Date : 2021-07-09 17:58 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theconversation.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theconversation.com)
| guilhas wrote:
| Or maybe they cannot Afford to even think in wanting. Sometimes
| when you can't even conceive it as a possibility, you'll say you
| don't want it
|
| Also after thousands of years, the society could be way more
| supportive and helpful to parents. Parents are so unprepared for
| pregnancy and to take care of the baby. Me and my girlfriend
| spent hundreds of hours googling every fart. It is literary
| another life of things to worry about
|
| Not easy but totally worth it
| mullingitover wrote:
| Seems like a pretty rational decision.
|
| - Dual income with no kids is no longer a luxury where you get a
| free extra income stream, it's pretty much a requirement for
| middle class lifestyle. All that extra money is hoovered up by...
|
| - High childcare costs. You're both working, now you have to put
| a dollar value on the child care that was handled by one member
| of the household, and we're discovering that it's very expensive
| work
|
| - Then you get to the extremely costly housing, and between the
| housing and the childcare that extra income stream for dual
| incomes is pretty much gone
|
| - Finally you get to all the other costs of living that have
| vastly outpaced inflation: health care, education.
|
| So we've made having children, which is already rough (most
| people report a steep decline in quality of life and huge
| increase in stress levels after having children), an outright
| horrible financial decision. No wonder people are reacting
| rationally.
|
| We're probably headed for a Japan situation where population
| growth flattens, the voting public is outright hostile to
| immigration, and we end up in decades of economic stagnation. We
| had a good run.
| rayiner wrote:
| That explanation doesn't make sense because people with limited
| economic circumstances, such as Latino immigrants, have the
| most children. There's been a major cultural shift among a
| particular group of American and that explains the disparity.
|
| I don't think we end up in a Japan situation. The immigration
| boat as already sailed, and will dilute the cultural changes
| that are limiting birth rates.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > That explanation doesn't make sense because people with
| limited economic circumstances, such as Latino immigrants,
| have the most children.
|
| This actually makes perfect sense - in American culture
| there's not a huge expectation for children to care for you
| in your old age. It's expected that you'll have saved for
| retirement, your children are a 100% drain on your finances.
| In a lot of other cultures, your children _are_ your
| retirement plan, and the more of them you have, the better
| your retirement will be.
|
| > The immigration boat as already sailed, and will dilute the
| cultural changes that are limiting birth rates.
|
| Immigration rates seem to have peaked, and they haven't made
| any significant changes to our slowing population growth. The
| general political climate is definitely not amenable to
| increasing immigration any further.
| joe_91 wrote:
| It's going to get really interesting when the world has 1-2
| working aged person for 2-3 retirees...
|
| Not sure the old people will be able to riot on the streets or
| anything but it will be an interesting problem for humanity to
| solve!
|
| Maybe the world will end up with all the Mormons doing everything
| until they eventually take over since they have such large
| families.
| telesilla wrote:
| Wealthy countries will allow for increased immigration to
| continue access to a working class. We'll be able to pass the
| problem for a few generations yet.
| mrkramer wrote:
| For example Ancient Rome thrived when they accepted
| immigrants and started to weaken whey they refused them.[0]
|
| [0] https://time.com/5850622/rome-immigrants/
| mrkramer wrote:
| Children are cute and once they grew up they can help you with
| stuff in life. Once you get old they can take care of you. And
| why the hell I would be working non stop if I have no one to pass
| on wealth that I acquired throughout my life.
|
| But some people choose comfort and good life over having kids I'm
| fine with that but at the times you will feel very lonely.
| sillywalk wrote:
| Even the best case scenarios for the future are looking
| increasingly grim. Some people might not want to bring a child
| into a dystopian nightmare.
| ianai wrote:
| This seems closer to reality for me. If society wants kids it
| needs to step up and feel more like a culture people want to
| contribute into the future. Instead, having a kid sounds like
| spinning a life off into a lot of harsh circumstances. That
| kids going to need to sustain itself someday and society's
| clearly trying to automate humans out of any and every
| productive work.
| bszupnick wrote:
| As someone who just had a kid, I can definitely say the
| healthcare system and daycare are HUGE expenses that would make
| it financially tough to have another one.
|
| We've paid ~$10k in medical expenses up until now, and daycare is
| ~$2k a month (context; Long Island, NY).
|
| The medical expenses PILE UP. Obviously the birth they filled up
| my wife's deductible, but then (and I should have predicted this)
| they started filling up our newborn's!
|
| Our 3 month old then had a cold so we took him to the doctor who
| checked for RSV and covid with one swab. We got a bill for $1600.
|
| And daycare? You need a VERY flexible job to handle a kid in
| daycare. LO gets his normal vaccines and springs a fever? He
| needs to stay home for 2 days. Daycare also took a long memorial
| day weekend AND the last day of June was off too for "between
| semesters".
|
| Having a kid in daycare is a part-time job with unexpected hours
| that you pay a ton to have.
|
| Thank God I work at a wonderful company that is SUPER
| understanding because I don't know what we'd do if it didn't.
| salawat wrote:
| >(and I should have predicted this) they started filling up our
| newborn
|
| Look up embedded vs. unembedded deductible/plans.
|
| Also, I may be considered an extreme example, because I'm
| morally opposed to reven trying to rear a child until I can
| satisfy myself I can maintain stability of a household. Looking
| after other folks kid@s is fine, but I won't actively attempt
| procreation til I have the process basics mostly down.
|
| Yes, everyone says you'll never pull it off. No, I'm sticking
| to my guns anyway, because I have a rather large list of things
| people tell me will never happen, and it gets larger by the
| day.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| My folks lives about 5m away from us so they could deal with
| picking them up from school in the midday , doctor visits or
| the unexpected illness.
|
| Without that I don't know how we would have managed.
| fatnoah wrote:
| It's telling that my first reaction to "~2k a month" in daycare
| expenses was that it seemed like a pretty good deal. My son's
| daycare 13 years ago was $2400/month.
|
| It's even more telling that there's such a disparity in
| insurance. I think the entirety of pre and post natal care for
| my son cost us < $500 out of pocket.
|
| I agree that money is a big factor. I graduated college in 1997
| with a "large" amount of debt for the time, which was $35k. I
| was able to pay it off in about 7 years, while still living in
| a (very, very small apartment) in a city. My wife and I had a
| fun 4-5 years of living debt-free and enjoying life experiences
| before settling down and having a kid.
|
| Between massive loans and skyrocketing housing costs, it's much
| harder for the younger generation to do those things as young
| as I was able to. I think people now are also more OK with
| prioritizing other life experiences and feeling less pressure
| to have kids.
|
| The "time" part is very tough. We were incredibly fortunate to
| find a day care that was literally across the street from my
| wife's office. It didn't reduce days off or need for random
| pickups, but it did make things a little easier. I'd say that
| roughly 50% of PTO I've taken was for childcare related things.
| aynsof wrote:
| Why aren't Americans rioting in the streets?
|
| I had a kid recently and the entire process of labour was free.
| We even stayed an extra couple of nights. We had a midwife with
| us the whole way through the pregnancy, and we still didn't pay
| a cent.
|
| As for leave, I got six weeks at full pay; my partner gets a
| year (approx 60% at full time pay, 30% at minimum wage, 10%
| unpaid - that's how she organised it).
| j7ake wrote:
| When one factors in children (one or more), the calculus of
| which country to work/live in quickly favours European
| countries over North American ones. At one child it's
| probably comparable, but with multiple children it clearly
| favours european countries.
| scarby2 wrote:
| Because they're used to it? There's also a huge disparity in
| costs of medical/neo-natal care.
|
| The poor pay nothing, the lower middle tend to get stuck with
| a bill that they can end up affording, and the upper middle
| and above often have insurance plans that give them great
| care for an out of pocket that they don't really notice (this
| is a huge generalization and actually varies )
|
| As for leave many Americans take pride in not taking time
| off. One lady i met was saying that a recent round of
| maternal leave increases were unnecessary as she was able to
| go back to work the week after...
| confuseddesi wrote:
| This seems almost akin to the tragedy of the commons. Society
| needs for various reasons (e.g., to maintain and promulgate
| culture, to power welfare and labor needs, to generally exist in
| the next century) for people to have children at least at some
| level above replacement rates. However, each individual couple
| has a lot of disincentive to have children. I am not convinced
| this disincentive is due to a lack of benefits from the state - I
| don't see benefit-rich Western Europe doing much better than the
| austere United States. I think we as a society and as individuals
| simply don't value creating and raising children as one of the
| most rewarding and important activities to be performed enough to
| outweigh the financial, social, and personal implications.
| mrkramer wrote:
| Yea it is tragedy of the commons; even people in Medieval
| Europe understood they need to have a lot of children because
| agricultural workforce, craftsmen workforce, army size,
| priesthood size, taxpayers size and like you said in general to
| exist and inhabit some land. Because land without people was
| and is attractive prey in the eyes of invaders and conquerors.
| Camillo wrote:
| Or just "than previously"?
| [deleted]
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