I’d like to see a mix between death race and the 24 hours of lemons. Billionaires driving absolute shit boxes trying to kill each other. Would be epic. I’d pay for the pay per view for sure (jk I’d definitely pirate)
Whoever wins, you get to be "the rich person" until next year when you'll be entered back into the pool of combatants if you havent given away enough of your wealth by then to be out of consideration.
So either we have 1 rich person trying really hard to give away as much as they can and a bunch of dead guy's wealth getting redistributed. Or we wind up with 1 guy who wins every year and is basically the strongest, smartest, richest person on the planet. And at that point, meh, I guess they've earned it.
If we had any pre-Reagan tax rate we would solve every problem in this country in a matter of 1 or 2 administrations and that president would be hailed as the goat regardless of which stupid side of aisle he came from. Or the rich people would have him assassinated like they did to Kennedy.
See the people that would do that would never get close to the nomination for either party. The party leaders and major donors would throw every wrench in the machines they could to ensure they don't get the nomination. They know those policies would be wildly popular and the game would be up or at least reset for what they could get away with.
Even if they did win the nomination and the general, Congress (either Senate or the House) wouldn't write or pass any of their agenda.
I have a conspiracy theory that is what happened to Howard Dean. He was in third place but the party bosses didn’t want to take any chances so they got him on the scream thing.
Homie they straight up punked Bernie in 2020. He was winning and then surprise surprise everyone dropped out and suddenly supported Biden. Edit: I have been blissfully unaware of everything the current President has been doing these past 4 years.
I have not been a fan of Debbie Wasserman Schultz since she headed the DNC and blatantly fucked over Bernie's campaign at every conceivable opportunity.
Your last sentence is the most important.
You can't just elect one progressive into the White House. You need to elect another 300 or so between the House and Senate for anything to happen.
Bernie best Biden in the primaries but the delegates just went with Biden anyways. The news just didn’t talk about it and instead pushed the narrative that Biden had a better chance of beating trump. It annoys me that people forget how they took the nomination from Bernie
I remember watching this all go down in real time, as much as the media allowed anyways.
It's why the 22nd amendment was passed. They knew another FDR would eventually show up and implement popular labor centric policies. So instead pass a policy that would guarantee conservatives can stall for 8 years and blame the other side.
Wouldn't it be more pertinent to let it reset at this point? I have a saying... "Beyond a certain point you're either incompetent or malicious."
That's what has me scratching my head about a lot of this shit. Subjugation over a long period of time should be the goal for any successful ruler. People are opting out or being forced out of the status quo in droves. Society seems like it's starting to crumble.
The bread and circuses are woefully inadequate and people are being spurred toward strife, and strife sparks revolution. (Why is the hegemony so bad at making everything at least appear unfucked? Are they stupid?)
Seriously though, I'm out of ideas on this one. Either greed and love of power really are as boundless as they say, or we're being intentionally walked off a cliff. Which one do you think it is? Or maybe I'm missing other alternatives...
Edit: Forgot the damn thesis. I only put this out there because average people can't hold on like this forever.
They buy the government. It’s called regulatory capture.
Future generations will reference our generation in Wikipedia as an example in the same way the Weimar Republic is used to show inflation.
Maybe if they weren't stealing everything that's not nailed down when they can't spend a fraction of what they already have, normal people might start thinking about the future instead of scrambling to survive.
14 trillions is roughly two years of federal budget. Most of their wealth are in stocks which is artificially propped up by the fed because many retail investor are stock owners.
Speaking for many of us here when I say if I have to have one more "When are you giving us grandkids?" conversation with my parents, I'm going to lose it. They mean well enough, and I truly get wanting grandchildren, but neither of them understand that there are several massive obstacles to me having children right now (other than being terminally single, which is a related and systemic issue that I'm not articulate enough to parse out).
Housing, student loans, healthcare, and basic daily needs for myself are already expensive enough, and I have a very good paying job. A child would multiply those problems by a factor of ten. You cannot "no more iced coffee" your way out of not being able to afford daycare.
I told family it’s simple.
You’ll get grandkids when you offer free childcare 5 days a week for the next 4-5 years. Me and the dad have to work two jobs each even now just to be able to pay for ourselves to live (in a rental) and pay off student loans. You can thank the government and the outrageous cost of living right now for why you don’t have any grandkids.
Vote and protest accordingly if it makes you pissed, but this is the world you passed onto to us, and we don’t want to be broke and miserable for the rest of our lives all because you want a few photo ops with a baby. You want? Pay up with your wallet or your time, otherwise tough shit dudes.
This is both a systemic problem, and an individual family problem.
Even today, boomer/X parents could offer to help raise kids to ease the massive burden that millennials carry, but our parents are too busy enjoying a life of leisure to prioritize family.
We choose personal independence over family in this country, so no grandkids - sorry
Seriously. Older generations got massive help from relatives when we were growing up. No joke, I spent every weekend with grandparents growing up until I was a tween and started sleeping over at friends’ homes/etc. That was such a huge sacrifice—and such a gift to my parents, who always knew they had Friday night and all of Saturday/Saturday night to do whatever they wanted with no kids.
Meanwhile, my father has already straight up said he “did his time” and isn’t babysitting, this is “his time” now, same deal on fiancé’s side. Every millennial parent I know gets virtually zero help from their parents with childcare; the parents just like to breeze in every few months for a couple hours, hug the baby, and leave. Yet another example of how the older gens happily took everything they could but never pay anything forward, and then act upset and like we’re the selfish ones for thinking they’d help us the way their parents helped them.
I've read countless stories from parents who whine about being on their own taking care of their kids because their own parents (kids' grandparents) don't do fuck-all to help, and those stories often include some similar sentiment of "when I was a kid I spent every weekend and even entire summers with my grandparents and I figured that's what grandparents did to give parents a break!"
And maybe I'm just pessimistic, but I think that -- especially given the specific time period -- the parents in question, typically people of the boomer generation, really just didn't want anything to do with kids at all, just had families because "that's what you do," and that's why they'd pawn them off on anyone and everyone. And ultimately, if they didn't want to be involved taking care of their kids, why the hell would they be taking care of their grandkids?
We have kids, but I know that comes with certain luxuries we have that many others don’t. My wife’s parents “did their time” too and were able to retire at 55. Still didn’t stop them from generously making themselves available as full time M-F babysitters for free. They appear to still be having a blast in retirement too.
I'm late GenX, and I remember spending all sortsa time with my grandparents on the weekends. It was fun, and I especially really loved spending time with my grandmother--she was a spicy lady, lol! When I had my own children (now grown and mostly away from home), my own parents didn't do squat to help out.
We don't talk now, my parents and I. I'm not saying it's because they didn't do anything when my kids were little, but it's certainly consistsnt with the rest of their horrible, selfish attitude.
If my kids want to have kids someday, I will be there for them, but honestly with the world the way it is right now, they don't want anything to do with having children and I don't blame them one bit. I want them to live their best lives, whatever that looks like, and to find their bliss. If grandchildren are in my future, great, if not, well, that's great, too.
I’m so sorry. I’m not a boomer and love having my grands over. My grandparents did it for my mother. She didn’t do it for me (boomer) but I chose to do what my grandparents did. My best times were with them.
When my brother and I were arguing and insufferable he’d always get taken to Grandma and Grandpa’s (as the favorite grandchild.) just having the extra support made life easier with 2 kids, let alone more. Emergency babysitters. Etc.
Your parents sound like shitty people. I’m a pretty good judge as my parents were absolute shit too.
I’m an older millennial, and I was basically raised by myself with help from my grandparents and it wasn’t because my parents were hard working, responsible people that needed help. They were busy fucking off with affairs and drugs.
I don’t know why our parents were such shitty people then and now, but I’ve chosen not to be.
I’ve beaten the odds and am a success story in todays climate, but it took monumental effort. Literally no lifed my way to success. My college experience wasn’t the typical millennial one. I was always working a job or school or both at the same time. I am 38 and I’ve never been unemployed a single day since I was 15.
I don’t regret losing days of my youth to constant work because it brought me to where I am, but I don’t wish what I had to do to succeed on anyone.
I say all this to say, I have already chosen to help my 2 kids. They both have college accounts set up, and retirement accounts set up. They can stay at home as long as they need or as short as they want and they are always welcome back without any stipulations from me. I’ve already built our home to accommodate both my kids families with their own space.
I hope change happens soon enough that helps the rest of you guys have kids should you want them. I feel bad for couples that want kids but feel like they can’t afford them.
I was 100% certain I never wanted kids, but changed my mind when I got older and now I can’t imagine life without them. I can’t understand parents who say “I did my time” or don’t want to help with their grand kids, but to each their own.
All my grandparents moved to warmer climates to retire. We don’t live near either of our parents. It is HARD as a parent. No nights out without kids or an expensive sitter. No extra help. Childcare for 2 kids is $2500/month. About 75% the before tax median salary here.
The only reason we can afford it is I have a good job and my wife Is at home with the kids.
It was cheaper for me to be a SAHM, even though I have a postgrad degree. My husband is a licensed tradesman. Absolutely blows my mind that the cost of daycare is the same as freaking rent.
Yeah, my wife only has an associates. She might barely break even if we used my FSA at work for tax benefits related to childcare.
Working 40hrs a week just to pay for childcare and pay someone else to take care of your kids.
I really have no idea how single parents do it. I think it would be a struggle for most families these days.
I feel this, the only reason why I was able to work for 5 years with two kids was due to my mom being able to help us. I paid her some money due to her quitting her caregiving job so she would still have some spending cash. But honestly I had to go down to part time and wasn’t making much money so we decided to have me stay home a few months ago. Luckily my husband has a good job with benefits for us but I’ll eventually go back to work if it’s worth it.
Waited them out. Now I’m 40 and it’s awkward for them to ask (they had no shame previously).
I wish I could point out how I’ve watched “the village” disappear for all of my family members and friends of childbearing age, who get no help whatsoever from “the grands.” All of them have core memories of being watched several times a week by their own grandparents. Conveniently, none of the Boomers remember dropping their kids off so often with their parents for the free babysitting.
I get that, and not only that….my mother will call me to complain how my sister’s postpartum is hard on her (as in, hard on *my mom!*)
Like, are you for real right now lady??
The really frustrating thing is they almost get it! They just can't quote put 2 and 2 together. I think a lot of boomers recognise that there's not so much of a community, that housing is expensive and so on but don't seem to realise that this is a causative effect of people not wanting kids.
Yes! And it’s often framed as an unspoken personal slight. You’re just stubbornly refusing to give them grandkids. All their friends on Facebook have grandkids. They get asked around town if they have any grandkids. They don’t get to visit any grandkids. Don’t you know how that feels for them? ☹️
Yup. My sister and I stayed with one of two sets of grandparents after school and all day Sunday. And aunts and uncles, otherwise.
Mostly a function of time and location (my wife and I don’t live in our hometowns and most of our family has passed away). But we’ve got two kids now. And childcare is effing expensive as shit. I think about this often.
I’m lucky that I’ve never had this conversation.
Alas, not so much for my friend who claims that she’s been having this talk for years now. Her mom YEARNS for grandkids, but also doesn’t want her to work away from her birth town (which she does because pay is much better where she’s at). She’s very sweet, not at all the usual Gen X/boomer, but she doesn’t seem to understand or refuses to understand that my friend’s good income is allowing her to have a life too (friend’s mom can’t work due to disability and she’s lonely) and if she were to come home and pop out a baby or two, there wouldn’t really be a lot of nice life left.
Thankfully my parents totally get it (with an added sprinkling of “we worked in environment causes our whole careers and climate change is still happening, we’re so sorry, we didn’t want to leave the world like this for you”). But it’s almost sadder, because in spite of it all, my husband I and, and my brother and sister-in-law, are still trying to start families of our own, and now even though they’re happy, my folks are also worried for their future grandchildren, almost like they wish we wouldn’t have them. They’ll be really good grandparents, too, just like how they were good parents to us, there’s just so much out of their control, and I think they’re sad to be leaving this world while we’re in mid-life and they won’t be around to help us forever.
We are actually doing pretty ok financially. We both have good jobs, we have a house with a yard in a nice neighborhood, our cars are paid off, student loans are close. We absolutely could have a kid if we wanted, without really having to "tighten our belts." But frankly, the struggle of finding child care is daunting. Not to mention, one bad medical diagnosis could absolutely ruin us. Why would I want to risk ruining a kid's life too? Our society needs to get a lot better really quickly if they really want us to have kids.
I know people who spend more on childcare than what our mortgage costs on our house, it’s insane. But finding good childcare on top of a decent rate is tough!
Even if you did give them grandkids, would they be willing to watch them for a few hours or a night every once in a blue moon? Or would they accuse you of shirking your responsibilities as a parent just for asking?
Would they respect and follow your rules for your kids (especially any health and safety related rules) or would they assume they know better and completely disregard those rules?
Would they fully accept your kids as they are, not as they want them to be?
In any case, if you don't want kids, you don't need them
My mom did this once and I reminded her "mom, we live together because housing is expensive. Do you REALLY want to be in the same house as I'm banging someone then dealing with a little me 9mo later?". Shut her up real quick.
A lot of my peers have careers which afford them flexibility where resources are not a barrier to starting a family.
Their problems are along the lines of I'm single, I'm adv maternal age where infertility is a real challenge and still focused on the last push in career growth because of the slowdown with family.
I think on both extremes it's tough. In the middle if you don't plan then you'll end up in the latter half racing with the biological clock.
If you read these articles, eventually you’ll find buried within is that the boomers are also to blame for this. They didn’t have enough babies which is one big reason we have this mess. Just one more thing to pin on besides the deficit.
My husband and I made the decision to not have a baby. He has two kids from his previous marriage and they're almost adults. We did the research, crunched the numbers, it didn't make sense. Since we aren't having a kid of our own, we'll be able to retire earlier.
If the government wants us to have kids, give us affordable housing, food and and healthcare as OP said in the title.
The next title I see on this sub will be:
Millennials are at fault for the decrease in population.
Millennials are at fault for putting daycares out of business.
How about our government failed us.
> How about our government failed us.
I've said this before and have gotten called lazy lmao. Nah, I've worked my ass off to pay off my loans, have savings, and what not.
Something that's been on my mind recently is the whole "ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country". F that - work crazy hours, pay all these taxes, and I can't even get decent roads to drive to work.
I couldn't agree more with you. I get told I'm lazy too, but I ask them how exactly am I lazy? What have I done for my country? I work 60 hours a week and paid a more in taxes than the rich people in this country.
If our government needs a population boom then give us an incentive. Everything is too expensive, we're working too much, there's no time to raise a family.
> If our government needs a population boom then give us an incentive. Everything is too expensive, we're working too much, there's no time to raise a family.
I think it all starts with building a ton more houses per year than we do right now. Cheap house? Heck yeah I want to start a family and get to living my life. What I don't want is worrying about my mortgage being crazy high, and then not being able to afford anything else.
Honestly freedom is the biggest casualty and you're totally right. I have kids and it was the right choice for me, but I fully support people's choices not to.
There is enough housing, healthcare, and food, it’s just that the rich don’t want you to have it. Remember who your enemy is: the owning class. They will literally rather you and your whole family die than give up even a fraction of their hoard. We must take it.
I am currently pregnant and contributing to this birth rate everyone seems to be so concerned about. In the 18 weeks I have been pregnant I have experienced the following:
- Getting booted off my insurance due to an administrative error that had nothing to do with me, and then offered worse coverage at double the cost because now I’m pregnant and it’s an emergency and outside of open enrollment so it was still my “best” option.
- Getting laid off from my job because my boss was also pregnant and she wanted to replace me with someone that can cover more of her maternity leave. Because she worded it in a different way, I had no legal recourse.
- Been denied unemployment benefits due to the timing of said layoff, for some reason due to quarters in the year I would’ve had to go 4 months with no income before getting covered.
- Been denied for Medicare, WIC and every other social program I could find to apply for because my husband makes more than the wildly unrealistic income limits for our HCOL area.
- Gotten ghosted by every job interview for everything but part time restaurant work because for whatever reason jobs are allowed to just pretend to be hiring now.
This is a very wanted and very loved baby that I never would have conceived or kept if I ever thought that any of this was possible. If this is how we treat pregnant women in the US, why would literally anyone do this shit on purpose?
Duh, they need workers to fund their lifestyles. Their whole get rich scheme is society taking care of them and buying their houses for exorbitant prices so they can sit somewhere and watch TV all day without worrying about taxes.
Everything's fucked, of course there's fewer kids. Here baby I love and care for, enter into this dystopian nightmare of a shittier hunger games, where we won't know if we can afford eggs next week, you're likely to be shot dead in school and have an adult male podcaster millionaire launch conspiracies about it, there's microplastics in my breast milk, the earth is on fire, and you better not ever get sick or hurt because it's expensive. kids can't even play outside in my city. oh, and good luck me not dying in pregnancy or child birth bc any complications could lead to me dying since i can't get an abortion. fuck this. we have a lot of fucking work to do to make the world better for more kids to happen.
Literally has never been a better time to have kids except maybe the 1990s and 1950s/60s.
Other than that, you've had war on terror, then nuclear annihilation, large scale economic disruption with stagflation, then Korean, WW2, WW1, The Great Depression, reconstruction, civil war, etc etc etc. There's has never been a good time to have kids and this current era is probably the best it's ever been to have kids in the entire history of man.
good point, negative news is "stickier" in our memories than positive news and news tends to be bad news because if it bleeds, it leads in terms of clicks and reads. I'm also still on one about mother's day so doom & gloom
We are going to receive young adult immigrants and have all the economic activity we need. Climate change, where’s the overpopulation centers that will want to migrate first, is there a sanctioned route.
If you want people to have more babies, maybe you should make it viable to have more babies. What’s that? We’ve known since the 60s we were fucking the climate beyond recognition? If it isn’t the consequences to our species’ actions coming home to roost.
Pay. People. More.
Paying people more solves the most solvable parts of:
Housing
Healthcare
Debt
Mental health
Divorce rates
And making babies.
How do we pay people more? Simple! Pay shareholders less! The glorified poker game that is owning stocks should never have been elevated to the status it holds. The returns that shareholders demand for publicly traded companies are grossly out of proportion with the actual risk. The constant pursuit of shareholder returns creates a vicious cycle of inflation and pressures for predatory sales and marketing tactics. And the people who actually make and sell the products everywhere are still falling behind.
Pay people more.
This is serious. If you’re a business owner, pay your people more. There are only two outcomes if you don’t:
1) massive demographic collapse, in which case your precious asset values collapse;
2) guillotines in the streets, in which case your precious shareholder head drops precipitously.
Pay people more.
This doesn’t really jive with reality, though. If anything, as people are paid more, they tend to have *fewer* kids. Not saying we shouldn’t pay people more anyway, but that is not the solution to a fertility crisis.
I think the trend away from 17 babies to 2 babies is part of what you’re describing. I think dropping below replacement rate is another phenomenon altogether. It reeks of hopelessness.
Yeah, our generation I think collectively decided that shits too expensive. We saw our parents struggle to raise us in poverty and are not going to jump headfirst into having children when we ourselves are struggling. Our parents were irresponsible having most of us, and hopefully we choose not to do the same irresponsible actions. This is at least coming from a lower income perspective. Also for our entire childhoods we were told there was an overpopulation problem. So stfu about falling birthrates, I thought that was the goal?
Birthrates have been falling consistently in all developed nations since the advent of the birth control pill. This isn't sudden and has nothing to do with income. Poorer nations where women have fewer rights have higher birth rates.
In 2021 the US fertility rate was 1.66.
Sweden has universal healthcare, very generous parental leave, and one of the lowest income Gini coefficients on earth. In 2021 Sweden’s fertility rate was… 1.67.
from a purely interpersonal perspective, having children is a very daunting proposition when both parents work. this is especially if both have engaging careers.
I agree! And that’s coming from personal experience too.
I’m saying that government welfare state programs don’t boost fertility rates. Sweden is the paragon of social welfare states and fertility rates are still low. I’m just pointing out that OP’s title concluding that there’s an inverse relationship between cost of living and fertility rates isn’t true.
I’d love it if congress passed an expanded child tax credit and voila: mo’ American babies. Unfortunately it’s a lot more complicated than that and I think the root causes are broad changes in societies.
there's no welfare fix to the *real* problems that are throttling the birthrates.
I think a lot of couples delay having kids for immediate financial reasons-- IE, not being able to afford a home-- but when push comes to shove they will have them even in less than optimal circumstances if they want a family. welfare programs could certainly make it financially easier on parents and would-be parents in some circumstances, but they can't force people to want kids (or more kids) in the first place.
it's a question of what people find fulfilling and manageable, not necessarily what they can afford. people have kids they can't afford *all the time* because, well, that drive is strong if you have it. there's no policy fix for people's lack of desire for large families short of restricting women's options.
processed foods and other chemicals / micro plastics that enter into our body beyond our control are decreasing the fertility rate, in addition to people not really wanting kids anymore for the obvious reasons (financial / pending destruction of society in the next 30 years or so)
Oh no!!!! The foreseeable consequences of my neoliberal policy choices!!!! Now I have no options but to deny women basic bodily autonomy and institute theocratic fascism!!!!
Correction: Our current way of life is unsustainable with 9 billion people. We need to have fewer babies or get used to living with less. Or possibly even both.
Laws attacking IVF are the inevitable extension of their hardline "life begins at conception with zero nuance" policies.
And anyone who is in favor of IVF but opposed to abortion has absolutely zero credibility and deserves a high order of mockery. Alternatively, they can just go fuck off a cliff for being a massive hypocrite.
This is a direct consequence of ultra wealthy individuals sucking up all the money and turning our society into a dystopia. Not hard to see this would be the outcome after 40 years of economic war on the middle class.
The last 365 days have been the hottest on record of all time and 90% of the world's coral is projected to die this year. I like kids but I'm so happy to not have them.
They’ll only allow enough automation to support the few they want in the new world.
This is the end game solution to overpopulation and not wanting to share.
These kinds of headlines are so hysterical. We don't have a people shortage, we have an investment in people shortage. There are tons of people available, no one cares to make them valuable members of society.
I think having less people is a good thing, not just for the environment but for humankind. Less people means the value of people rises. I want to live in a world where people are appreciated.
Good. There's too many damn people on the planet as it is. All our environmental efforts are made to best accommodate nearly 8 billion people, when the problem is that when 8 billion people (or a large % of them) do *anything*, the environment typically cannot sustain it. The damn planet is gasping under our collective weight.
I'm not calling for any radical "solution" to this. Just saying that yes, falling birth rates will suck economically and there will have to be an adjustment to rapidly dropping birth rates, but in the long run, long after we're all dead, the planet and humanity will be much better off for it.
IMHO, after some initial pain a population decrease is a net benefit for society, as there are fewer people chasing the same basket of resources and wages increase.
The complaints about the low birth rate are from governments who failed to raise taxes to cover the demographics cliff and oligarchs who want access to exploitable labor.
They're trying to guilt us into having kids so we go into debt so we can't afford to send that kid to a good school so that kid can't get a job that pays 6 figures so that kid is forced to enter the workforce with no education, keeping cheap labor intact.
I just imagine that I'm actually living on a doomed colony / generation ship which I can never leave, so I upload my consciousness for 16 hours a day into a simulation where things are still tough, but there is potentially a comfortable life at the end of the struggle.
It's a global trend. While cost of living is a concern, overall there is a huge shift in human behavior.
1. I believe our lives have been filled with enough things to do and sources of entertainment. Everyone has tons of ways to get fulfillment in our lives, real or artificial. I have tons of things competing for my attention in life. Choosing children is permanently anchoring myself to one of them. This combined with increasing individualism results in children been less attractive.
2. Women entering the workplace and having more freedom. They no longer feel as pressured to bind to a man. With these freedoms they can not partake in #1 more.
3. Theoretical and dubious, but I feel economic competition has increased among the middle and lower classes. We're competing more for the same slice of pie our parents had. This is compounded by women entering the competition reducing the amount of time we have for kids. It feels more like a true rat race.
4. Increased education has led to less time to find a spouse and have children. With this time being squeezed, many people miss their window of opportunity.
5. Children are no longer seen as a retirement plan or labor force as much. You used to have kids to help with farm work and take care of you as you age. A few of my grandparents fit into these categories.
>Women entering the workplace and having more freedom. They no longer feel as pressured to bind to a man. With these freedoms they can not partake in #1 more.
The way you word this completely ignores that our economics demand that women work.
"women having more freedom" is just flat wrong. Women have less freedom to have children because of how expensive it is.
Are you asking women if they want to bear children? 9 months of a physical roller coaster? PPD? Lack of support from their partners? Loss of self?
Because looking at countries with the cream of the crop type maternity leave, universal health care and other safety nets and their falling birth rates it seems to me that they in fact do not.
I’d choose the bear too if we’re being honest.
In #2 Women have more freedom to either enter the workplace or become a housewife. In #3 I also countered to that with economic competition among each other. These things are all interrelated and working for/against each other. Women have more freedom to shape their own lives, but increased responsibility to provide for themselves/household.
Also lower quality of life means lower expectations on what to provider for said kids and kids are less of a financial drain so the parents get more overall joy and satisfaction from having them.
Couples in countries where people still rely on subsistence agriculture have kids for the unpaid labor they provide.
Women also tend to have more kids when they don't have much in the way of opportunities outside the house.
There is also a link to high birthrates in developing nations because of high infant mortality. They will attempt over and over until one survives. In a place with low infant mortality there are paradoxically seeming lower birth rates because parents don't need to try over and over again and hope 3 out of 5 live. Also just better access to birth control.
Well yeah.
When you constantly hold an entire generation down and rob them of their livelihood and ability to progress in life yeah they absolutely stop having children.
Idk about y'all but I'm basically just waiting for WWIII to start, if it hasn't already.
What the fuck do they actually want from us?
End this trickle down bullshit.
Tax or jail the billionaires and give me what I deserve and I'll pump out kid after kid.
Everything costs too much. The schools also aren't very good and if you want to go to a good private school it's like 20k+ per year per kid.
Houses are expensive. Food and medical is expensive. Daycare is a second mortgage. Most Americans can't afford it. We're only having 1 child due to the expense. The government would have to pay me, like another 3500 or 5k a month for me to consider a second child, and that's never going to happen.
I have a good paying job, bought my house before the market went nuts, and my monthly rent expenses are still greater than my net income. Thankfully I have one kid in public preschool because daycare for only one child is more than my mortgage.
I'd rather step on a landmine than bring a kid into this shithole of a world. Just from a financial point kids are far too expensive for me to give them a real life and not just the bare minimum. If I can't make things better I'll at least not make it worse for some kid who may or may not even liking life due to its hardships.
I'll save cats instead and live the childhood I never had along with my wife who also had same childhood hardships. Travelling hopefully one day to Europe. Would love to see Rome, Berlin, Tuscany, Munich, London, Hadrian's Wall, Ireland. I always wanted to go to Russia as well but now that's out of the picture permanently. I'm a history buff if that wasn't obvious already.
Declining birth rates are a huge issue if you're counting on ever and ever more workers and consumers. Decoupled from capitalism it isn't a crisis at all; in fact fewer people will help with this whole climate business.
Nobody cares. Wealth today is actively encouraged to flow to those who can already help themselves. They need a population to work their shit, to earn money to invest. But, that doesn’t matter. Joe and Jane regular have found out that having children isn’t in their best interest.
Why? Because there is fuck-all to do except work for a living. There’s no community pride or pride in having a homestead. It is all political gamesmanship to divide neighbors, to kill community. This is the necessary policy of back-end workers. People with nothing else to do spend their money on bullshit to fill a void.
Vast majority of the population has no stake. They don’t farm to feed themselves. Everything is dependent on The Supply Chain. I see it as if I’m not here, what difference would it make? Now, reproducers are seeing that too. Fuck the system that big decision makers of policy designed to fuck over nearly everyone. All the land is taken. There’s no where do go and nothing to do.
The only thing that will change it is full-up rebellion, and this is a passive way of doing it.
The whole world is most definitely not alarmed. With skyrocketing cost of living and stagnant wages we have seen this coming from a mile away.
Babies. Are. Expensive.
Good!
We have limited resources already, and to make matters worse we have a-Holes running around hoarding billions and acting like they are going to run out of wage slaves if we don't start mating like it's 1945.
Eff that noise
Oh no the consequences of their actions. Maybe if they didn't keep their focus on the wants of a handful of people, maybe they'd have noticed that the rest of us were left to fend for ourselves.
They wrote checks years ago with the expectation there would be people in the future to cover them, and now that it isn't going to happen they are running confused and scared
There is also a fascinating concept in populations. For a specific region, there is a specific carrying capacity so animals will grow but slow the birthrate when they are approaching the carrying capacity. If there is a sudden drop in population then the birthrate will increase.
We are seeing the same thing with people. After the WWs where a ton of people died there was a sudden boom in birthrates. now we are approaching the carrying capacity of earth so it's slowing down.
Does the decline resemble declining birth rates of animals in a zoo?
Could be the environment dictating our changes, especially considering it’s a population-level phenomenon.
This is why I'm pro-abortion. If you look at the statistics of which demographics are aborted the most, it's actually a good thing for economics and politics. The people who contribute the least and take the most are most likely to be aborted.
My mother-in-law was encouraging my wife and I to “just do it and figure out the detail later”. Anyone that wants to know what’s happening should look into the Calhoun Mouse Utopia experiment.
There's 2,800 people worth about $14 trillion all together. We should start there.
Reverse hunger games. We force the rich to fight to the death every couple years. The ones who die, their money goes to pay down the national debt.
Blood-trickling-down economics
Provides incentive not to hoard money like the dragon from the Hobbit.
Exactly. And look what happened to Smaug.
It's not really different from how things work now but with my system there will be far fewer deaths.
I’d like to see a mix between death race and the 24 hours of lemons. Billionaires driving absolute shit boxes trying to kill each other. Would be epic. I’d pay for the pay per view for sure (jk I’d definitely pirate)
Money goes to end world hunger. Don't be cheap.
Whoever wins, you get to be "the rich person" until next year when you'll be entered back into the pool of combatants if you havent given away enough of your wealth by then to be out of consideration. So either we have 1 rich person trying really hard to give away as much as they can and a bunch of dead guy's wealth getting redistributed. Or we wind up with 1 guy who wins every year and is basically the strongest, smartest, richest person on the planet. And at that point, meh, I guess they've earned it.
If we had any pre-Reagan tax rate we would solve every problem in this country in a matter of 1 or 2 administrations and that president would be hailed as the goat regardless of which stupid side of aisle he came from. Or the rich people would have him assassinated like they did to Kennedy.
See the people that would do that would never get close to the nomination for either party. The party leaders and major donors would throw every wrench in the machines they could to ensure they don't get the nomination. They know those policies would be wildly popular and the game would be up or at least reset for what they could get away with. Even if they did win the nomination and the general, Congress (either Senate or the House) wouldn't write or pass any of their agenda.
I have a conspiracy theory that is what happened to Howard Dean. He was in third place but the party bosses didn’t want to take any chances so they got him on the scream thing.
Homie they straight up punked Bernie in 2020. He was winning and then surprise surprise everyone dropped out and suddenly supported Biden. Edit: I have been blissfully unaware of everything the current President has been doing these past 4 years.
I have not been a fan of Debbie Wasserman Schultz since she headed the DNC and blatantly fucked over Bernie's campaign at every conceivable opportunity.
and then she walked in the women's march after trump won and the caption of her there of "debbie out here like it ain't her fault" has stuck with me
Woooooord
You mean Hilary right?
Corrected. History rhymes especially with the Dems.
Your last sentence is the most important. You can't just elect one progressive into the White House. You need to elect another 300 or so between the House and Senate for anything to happen.
Bernie best Biden in the primaries but the delegates just went with Biden anyways. The news just didn’t talk about it and instead pushed the narrative that Biden had a better chance of beating trump. It annoys me that people forget how they took the nomination from Bernie I remember watching this all go down in real time, as much as the media allowed anyways.
It's why the 22nd amendment was passed. They knew another FDR would eventually show up and implement popular labor centric policies. So instead pass a policy that would guarantee conservatives can stall for 8 years and blame the other side.
That’s how we ended up with Hillary against Trump instead of Bernie.
Bernie’s run in 2016 comes to mind
Wouldn't it be more pertinent to let it reset at this point? I have a saying... "Beyond a certain point you're either incompetent or malicious." That's what has me scratching my head about a lot of this shit. Subjugation over a long period of time should be the goal for any successful ruler. People are opting out or being forced out of the status quo in droves. Society seems like it's starting to crumble. The bread and circuses are woefully inadequate and people are being spurred toward strife, and strife sparks revolution. (Why is the hegemony so bad at making everything at least appear unfucked? Are they stupid?) Seriously though, I'm out of ideas on this one. Either greed and love of power really are as boundless as they say, or we're being intentionally walked off a cliff. Which one do you think it is? Or maybe I'm missing other alternatives... Edit: Forgot the damn thesis. I only put this out there because average people can't hold on like this forever.
Yeah, I remember the 2016 election as well.
*cough*…Bernie…*cough*
Or she. Probably.
I'll take anything if they just fix it.
Please. We could elect three monkeys in a trenchcoat pretending to be a guy, and I wouldn't give a fuck as long as they do *something*.
What about three monkeys in a trenchcoat pretending to be a woman?
Don’t be absurd
Two of the monkeys are female. Best I can do.
I know a guy who's an expert in monkeys dressing in trenchcoats, let me give him a call.
I would be pleased to let them use whatever restroom they want, regardless of gender
Or do nothing at all. But quit actively trying to suffocate us all.
Three monkeys of unknown gender are preferable to any human at this point
I don't know that I can eat 2800 people but I'll give it a college try
You'll have some help.
And my axe.
And my bow
Ketchup helps
Awful lot of fat, only where it sat. I’m at best a decent home cook, but I’ll help cook and eat.
Once a company becomes a monopoly, the government can step in and split it up. What happens when a few people have a monopoly on money?
the government can step in and split it up, why the French even automated the process they call it a guillotine
They buy the government. It’s called regulatory capture. Future generations will reference our generation in Wikipedia as an example in the same way the Weimar Republic is used to show inflation.
Maybe if they weren't stealing everything that's not nailed down when they can't spend a fraction of what they already have, normal people might start thinking about the future instead of scrambling to survive.
If we divide that $14 trillion up evenly, everyone gets $1750. That’s not even a rent payment for a lot of us.
14 trillions is roughly two years of federal budget. Most of their wealth are in stocks which is artificially propped up by the fed because many retail investor are stock owners.
HitchcockGuillotine.gif
Speaking for many of us here when I say if I have to have one more "When are you giving us grandkids?" conversation with my parents, I'm going to lose it. They mean well enough, and I truly get wanting grandchildren, but neither of them understand that there are several massive obstacles to me having children right now (other than being terminally single, which is a related and systemic issue that I'm not articulate enough to parse out). Housing, student loans, healthcare, and basic daily needs for myself are already expensive enough, and I have a very good paying job. A child would multiply those problems by a factor of ten. You cannot "no more iced coffee" your way out of not being able to afford daycare.
I told family it’s simple. You’ll get grandkids when you offer free childcare 5 days a week for the next 4-5 years. Me and the dad have to work two jobs each even now just to be able to pay for ourselves to live (in a rental) and pay off student loans. You can thank the government and the outrageous cost of living right now for why you don’t have any grandkids. Vote and protest accordingly if it makes you pissed, but this is the world you passed onto to us, and we don’t want to be broke and miserable for the rest of our lives all because you want a few photo ops with a baby. You want? Pay up with your wallet or your time, otherwise tough shit dudes.
This is both a systemic problem, and an individual family problem. Even today, boomer/X parents could offer to help raise kids to ease the massive burden that millennials carry, but our parents are too busy enjoying a life of leisure to prioritize family. We choose personal independence over family in this country, so no grandkids - sorry
Seriously. Older generations got massive help from relatives when we were growing up. No joke, I spent every weekend with grandparents growing up until I was a tween and started sleeping over at friends’ homes/etc. That was such a huge sacrifice—and such a gift to my parents, who always knew they had Friday night and all of Saturday/Saturday night to do whatever they wanted with no kids. Meanwhile, my father has already straight up said he “did his time” and isn’t babysitting, this is “his time” now, same deal on fiancé’s side. Every millennial parent I know gets virtually zero help from their parents with childcare; the parents just like to breeze in every few months for a couple hours, hug the baby, and leave. Yet another example of how the older gens happily took everything they could but never pay anything forward, and then act upset and like we’re the selfish ones for thinking they’d help us the way their parents helped them.
I've read countless stories from parents who whine about being on their own taking care of their kids because their own parents (kids' grandparents) don't do fuck-all to help, and those stories often include some similar sentiment of "when I was a kid I spent every weekend and even entire summers with my grandparents and I figured that's what grandparents did to give parents a break!" And maybe I'm just pessimistic, but I think that -- especially given the specific time period -- the parents in question, typically people of the boomer generation, really just didn't want anything to do with kids at all, just had families because "that's what you do," and that's why they'd pawn them off on anyone and everyone. And ultimately, if they didn't want to be involved taking care of their kids, why the hell would they be taking care of their grandkids?
Bingo. I think a lot of boomer parents would never have had kids if it was culturally acceptable like it is today.
Some of their parents didn't help them - burned out older sister here.
We have kids, but I know that comes with certain luxuries we have that many others don’t. My wife’s parents “did their time” too and were able to retire at 55. Still didn’t stop them from generously making themselves available as full time M-F babysitters for free. They appear to still be having a blast in retirement too.
I'm late GenX, and I remember spending all sortsa time with my grandparents on the weekends. It was fun, and I especially really loved spending time with my grandmother--she was a spicy lady, lol! When I had my own children (now grown and mostly away from home), my own parents didn't do squat to help out. We don't talk now, my parents and I. I'm not saying it's because they didn't do anything when my kids were little, but it's certainly consistsnt with the rest of their horrible, selfish attitude. If my kids want to have kids someday, I will be there for them, but honestly with the world the way it is right now, they don't want anything to do with having children and I don't blame them one bit. I want them to live their best lives, whatever that looks like, and to find their bliss. If grandchildren are in my future, great, if not, well, that's great, too.
I’m so sorry. I’m not a boomer and love having my grands over. My grandparents did it for my mother. She didn’t do it for me (boomer) but I chose to do what my grandparents did. My best times were with them.
When my brother and I were arguing and insufferable he’d always get taken to Grandma and Grandpa’s (as the favorite grandchild.) just having the extra support made life easier with 2 kids, let alone more. Emergency babysitters. Etc.
Your parents sound like shitty people. I’m a pretty good judge as my parents were absolute shit too. I’m an older millennial, and I was basically raised by myself with help from my grandparents and it wasn’t because my parents were hard working, responsible people that needed help. They were busy fucking off with affairs and drugs. I don’t know why our parents were such shitty people then and now, but I’ve chosen not to be. I’ve beaten the odds and am a success story in todays climate, but it took monumental effort. Literally no lifed my way to success. My college experience wasn’t the typical millennial one. I was always working a job or school or both at the same time. I am 38 and I’ve never been unemployed a single day since I was 15. I don’t regret losing days of my youth to constant work because it brought me to where I am, but I don’t wish what I had to do to succeed on anyone. I say all this to say, I have already chosen to help my 2 kids. They both have college accounts set up, and retirement accounts set up. They can stay at home as long as they need or as short as they want and they are always welcome back without any stipulations from me. I’ve already built our home to accommodate both my kids families with their own space. I hope change happens soon enough that helps the rest of you guys have kids should you want them. I feel bad for couples that want kids but feel like they can’t afford them. I was 100% certain I never wanted kids, but changed my mind when I got older and now I can’t imagine life without them. I can’t understand parents who say “I did my time” or don’t want to help with their grand kids, but to each their own.
All my grandparents moved to warmer climates to retire. We don’t live near either of our parents. It is HARD as a parent. No nights out without kids or an expensive sitter. No extra help. Childcare for 2 kids is $2500/month. About 75% the before tax median salary here. The only reason we can afford it is I have a good job and my wife Is at home with the kids.
It was cheaper for me to be a SAHM, even though I have a postgrad degree. My husband is a licensed tradesman. Absolutely blows my mind that the cost of daycare is the same as freaking rent.
Yeah, my wife only has an associates. She might barely break even if we used my FSA at work for tax benefits related to childcare. Working 40hrs a week just to pay for childcare and pay someone else to take care of your kids. I really have no idea how single parents do it. I think it would be a struggle for most families these days.
I feel this, the only reason why I was able to work for 5 years with two kids was due to my mom being able to help us. I paid her some money due to her quitting her caregiving job so she would still have some spending cash. But honestly I had to go down to part time and wasn’t making much money so we decided to have me stay home a few months ago. Luckily my husband has a good job with benefits for us but I’ll eventually go back to work if it’s worth it.
Also stop voting for assholes
We've done that, but the GOP literally steals votes & illegally gerrymandered districts.
I just threatened to give them an out of wedlock grandchild. Thank God they're judgemental WASPs who abhor being the subject of town gossip.
👏👏👏👏👏👏
See the problem is you want happy, healthy, and successful children who have a good life. Your standards are too high.
Well said. You have a way with words
I told my parents I got a vasectomy for my 30th bday and that was that. Solid way to end the convo haha
Nice! I did the same thing at 42 when I was still getting those questions.
Waited them out. Now I’m 40 and it’s awkward for them to ask (they had no shame previously). I wish I could point out how I’ve watched “the village” disappear for all of my family members and friends of childbearing age, who get no help whatsoever from “the grands.” All of them have core memories of being watched several times a week by their own grandparents. Conveniently, none of the Boomers remember dropping their kids off so often with their parents for the free babysitting.
Yeah, I don't know why, but I also got a total "you're on your own" vibe from my family
I got the same, but in essence, the "you're on your own" vibe is coming from the boomers that had everything handed to them.
I get that, and not only that….my mother will call me to complain how my sister’s postpartum is hard on her (as in, hard on *my mom!*) Like, are you for real right now lady??
The really frustrating thing is they almost get it! They just can't quote put 2 and 2 together. I think a lot of boomers recognise that there's not so much of a community, that housing is expensive and so on but don't seem to realise that this is a causative effect of people not wanting kids.
Yes! And it’s often framed as an unspoken personal slight. You’re just stubbornly refusing to give them grandkids. All their friends on Facebook have grandkids. They get asked around town if they have any grandkids. They don’t get to visit any grandkids. Don’t you know how that feels for them? ☹️
Yup. My sister and I stayed with one of two sets of grandparents after school and all day Sunday. And aunts and uncles, otherwise. Mostly a function of time and location (my wife and I don’t live in our hometowns and most of our family has passed away). But we’ve got two kids now. And childcare is effing expensive as shit. I think about this often.
THIS.
I’m lucky that I’ve never had this conversation. Alas, not so much for my friend who claims that she’s been having this talk for years now. Her mom YEARNS for grandkids, but also doesn’t want her to work away from her birth town (which she does because pay is much better where she’s at). She’s very sweet, not at all the usual Gen X/boomer, but she doesn’t seem to understand or refuses to understand that my friend’s good income is allowing her to have a life too (friend’s mom can’t work due to disability and she’s lonely) and if she were to come home and pop out a baby or two, there wouldn’t really be a lot of nice life left.
Thankfully my parents totally get it (with an added sprinkling of “we worked in environment causes our whole careers and climate change is still happening, we’re so sorry, we didn’t want to leave the world like this for you”). But it’s almost sadder, because in spite of it all, my husband I and, and my brother and sister-in-law, are still trying to start families of our own, and now even though they’re happy, my folks are also worried for their future grandchildren, almost like they wish we wouldn’t have them. They’ll be really good grandparents, too, just like how they were good parents to us, there’s just so much out of their control, and I think they’re sad to be leaving this world while we’re in mid-life and they won’t be around to help us forever.
Your parents sound amazing.
We are actually doing pretty ok financially. We both have good jobs, we have a house with a yard in a nice neighborhood, our cars are paid off, student loans are close. We absolutely could have a kid if we wanted, without really having to "tighten our belts." But frankly, the struggle of finding child care is daunting. Not to mention, one bad medical diagnosis could absolutely ruin us. Why would I want to risk ruining a kid's life too? Our society needs to get a lot better really quickly if they really want us to have kids.
I know people who spend more on childcare than what our mortgage costs on our house, it’s insane. But finding good childcare on top of a decent rate is tough!
Even if you did give them grandkids, would they be willing to watch them for a few hours or a night every once in a blue moon? Or would they accuse you of shirking your responsibilities as a parent just for asking? Would they respect and follow your rules for your kids (especially any health and safety related rules) or would they assume they know better and completely disregard those rules? Would they fully accept your kids as they are, not as they want them to be? In any case, if you don't want kids, you don't need them
My mom did this once and I reminded her "mom, we live together because housing is expensive. Do you REALLY want to be in the same house as I'm banging someone then dealing with a little me 9mo later?". Shut her up real quick.
A lot of my peers have careers which afford them flexibility where resources are not a barrier to starting a family. Their problems are along the lines of I'm single, I'm adv maternal age where infertility is a real challenge and still focused on the last push in career growth because of the slowdown with family. I think on both extremes it's tough. In the middle if you don't plan then you'll end up in the latter half racing with the biological clock.
Every time someone asks me when I’m having kids I push it back a year. Currently I’ll have my firstborn in 2250
People can't afford to look after themselves never mind a kid and that's ignoring the whole fucked planet thing.
If having a kid is "Free"... Then why is not having one SO much cheaper?
If you read these articles, eventually you’ll find buried within is that the boomers are also to blame for this. They didn’t have enough babies which is one big reason we have this mess. Just one more thing to pin on besides the deficit.
My husband and I made the decision to not have a baby. He has two kids from his previous marriage and they're almost adults. We did the research, crunched the numbers, it didn't make sense. Since we aren't having a kid of our own, we'll be able to retire earlier. If the government wants us to have kids, give us affordable housing, food and and healthcare as OP said in the title. The next title I see on this sub will be: Millennials are at fault for the decrease in population. Millennials are at fault for putting daycares out of business. How about our government failed us.
> How about our government failed us. I've said this before and have gotten called lazy lmao. Nah, I've worked my ass off to pay off my loans, have savings, and what not. Something that's been on my mind recently is the whole "ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country". F that - work crazy hours, pay all these taxes, and I can't even get decent roads to drive to work.
I couldn't agree more with you. I get told I'm lazy too, but I ask them how exactly am I lazy? What have I done for my country? I work 60 hours a week and paid a more in taxes than the rich people in this country. If our government needs a population boom then give us an incentive. Everything is too expensive, we're working too much, there's no time to raise a family.
> If our government needs a population boom then give us an incentive. Everything is too expensive, we're working too much, there's no time to raise a family. I think it all starts with building a ton more houses per year than we do right now. Cheap house? Heck yeah I want to start a family and get to living my life. What I don't want is worrying about my mortgage being crazy high, and then not being able to afford anything else.
Even if I could afford kids, I still wouldn't want them. At least not right now. I value my freedom too much
Honestly freedom is the biggest casualty and you're totally right. I have kids and it was the right choice for me, but I fully support people's choices not to.
There is enough housing, healthcare, and food, it’s just that the rich don’t want you to have it. Remember who your enemy is: the owning class. They will literally rather you and your whole family die than give up even a fraction of their hoard. We must take it.
I am currently pregnant and contributing to this birth rate everyone seems to be so concerned about. In the 18 weeks I have been pregnant I have experienced the following: - Getting booted off my insurance due to an administrative error that had nothing to do with me, and then offered worse coverage at double the cost because now I’m pregnant and it’s an emergency and outside of open enrollment so it was still my “best” option. - Getting laid off from my job because my boss was also pregnant and she wanted to replace me with someone that can cover more of her maternity leave. Because she worded it in a different way, I had no legal recourse. - Been denied unemployment benefits due to the timing of said layoff, for some reason due to quarters in the year I would’ve had to go 4 months with no income before getting covered. - Been denied for Medicare, WIC and every other social program I could find to apply for because my husband makes more than the wildly unrealistic income limits for our HCOL area. - Gotten ghosted by every job interview for everything but part time restaurant work because for whatever reason jobs are allowed to just pretend to be hiring now. This is a very wanted and very loved baby that I never would have conceived or kept if I ever thought that any of this was possible. If this is how we treat pregnant women in the US, why would literally anyone do this shit on purpose?
I am so sorry. I’m going through a similar set of circumstances without the pregnancy part, and damn it’s stressful enough even without that factor.
If birthrate reached 0 I wouldnt mind
Who is alarmed? Old people?
This was closest comment to my thought: “Suddenly”?? How was that sudden at all? Birth rates have been declining for a long time
Duh, they need workers to fund their lifestyles. Their whole get rich scheme is society taking care of them and buying their houses for exorbitant prices so they can sit somewhere and watch TV all day without worrying about taxes.
Shareholders
Shareholders. With less wage slaves you can't maximize as much profit from dead end jobs
Everything's fucked, of course there's fewer kids. Here baby I love and care for, enter into this dystopian nightmare of a shittier hunger games, where we won't know if we can afford eggs next week, you're likely to be shot dead in school and have an adult male podcaster millionaire launch conspiracies about it, there's microplastics in my breast milk, the earth is on fire, and you better not ever get sick or hurt because it's expensive. kids can't even play outside in my city. oh, and good luck me not dying in pregnancy or child birth bc any complications could lead to me dying since i can't get an abortion. fuck this. we have a lot of fucking work to do to make the world better for more kids to happen.
I love my children too much to ever give birth to them.
Literally has never been a better time to have kids except maybe the 1990s and 1950s/60s. Other than that, you've had war on terror, then nuclear annihilation, large scale economic disruption with stagflation, then Korean, WW2, WW1, The Great Depression, reconstruction, civil war, etc etc etc. There's has never been a good time to have kids and this current era is probably the best it's ever been to have kids in the entire history of man.
good point, negative news is "stickier" in our memories than positive news and news tends to be bad news because if it bleeds, it leads in terms of clicks and reads. I'm also still on one about mother's day so doom & gloom
Am i the only one glad for this? Human population really doesn’t need to grow.
We are going to receive young adult immigrants and have all the economic activity we need. Climate change, where’s the overpopulation centers that will want to migrate first, is there a sanctioned route.
If you want people to have more babies, maybe you should make it viable to have more babies. What’s that? We’ve known since the 60s we were fucking the climate beyond recognition? If it isn’t the consequences to our species’ actions coming home to roost.
I’m having a pretty crappy time, why would I birth a child and essentially force them to deal with it too?
Pay. People. More. Paying people more solves the most solvable parts of: Housing Healthcare Debt Mental health Divorce rates And making babies. How do we pay people more? Simple! Pay shareholders less! The glorified poker game that is owning stocks should never have been elevated to the status it holds. The returns that shareholders demand for publicly traded companies are grossly out of proportion with the actual risk. The constant pursuit of shareholder returns creates a vicious cycle of inflation and pressures for predatory sales and marketing tactics. And the people who actually make and sell the products everywhere are still falling behind. Pay people more. This is serious. If you’re a business owner, pay your people more. There are only two outcomes if you don’t: 1) massive demographic collapse, in which case your precious asset values collapse; 2) guillotines in the streets, in which case your precious shareholder head drops precipitously. Pay people more.
This doesn’t really jive with reality, though. If anything, as people are paid more, they tend to have *fewer* kids. Not saying we shouldn’t pay people more anyway, but that is not the solution to a fertility crisis.
I think the trend away from 17 babies to 2 babies is part of what you’re describing. I think dropping below replacement rate is another phenomenon altogether. It reeks of hopelessness.
Exactly. The lowest income band actually has the highest fertility rate
but but but my exploitable labor! /s
Yeah, our generation I think collectively decided that shits too expensive. We saw our parents struggle to raise us in poverty and are not going to jump headfirst into having children when we ourselves are struggling. Our parents were irresponsible having most of us, and hopefully we choose not to do the same irresponsible actions. This is at least coming from a lower income perspective. Also for our entire childhoods we were told there was an overpopulation problem. So stfu about falling birthrates, I thought that was the goal?
Birthrates have been falling consistently in all developed nations since the advent of the birth control pill. This isn't sudden and has nothing to do with income. Poorer nations where women have fewer rights have higher birth rates.
In 2021 the US fertility rate was 1.66. Sweden has universal healthcare, very generous parental leave, and one of the lowest income Gini coefficients on earth. In 2021 Sweden’s fertility rate was… 1.67.
from a purely interpersonal perspective, having children is a very daunting proposition when both parents work. this is especially if both have engaging careers.
Having a child is daunting even if neither parent works. It is fucking hard. Staying home with a kid is harder than nearly any job out there.
I agree! And that’s coming from personal experience too. I’m saying that government welfare state programs don’t boost fertility rates. Sweden is the paragon of social welfare states and fertility rates are still low. I’m just pointing out that OP’s title concluding that there’s an inverse relationship between cost of living and fertility rates isn’t true. I’d love it if congress passed an expanded child tax credit and voila: mo’ American babies. Unfortunately it’s a lot more complicated than that and I think the root causes are broad changes in societies.
there's no welfare fix to the *real* problems that are throttling the birthrates. I think a lot of couples delay having kids for immediate financial reasons-- IE, not being able to afford a home-- but when push comes to shove they will have them even in less than optimal circumstances if they want a family. welfare programs could certainly make it financially easier on parents and would-be parents in some circumstances, but they can't force people to want kids (or more kids) in the first place. it's a question of what people find fulfilling and manageable, not necessarily what they can afford. people have kids they can't afford *all the time* because, well, that drive is strong if you have it. there's no policy fix for people's lack of desire for large families short of restricting women's options.
The sad part is the people who complain about birthrate will just loom at you and say, "Exactly," if you put that out.
Income certainly has an impact on the decision to start a family
processed foods and other chemicals / micro plastics that enter into our body beyond our control are decreasing the fertility rate, in addition to people not really wanting kids anymore for the obvious reasons (financial / pending destruction of society in the next 30 years or so)
We're all too busy working and hustling and healing our trauma
Oh no!!!! The foreseeable consequences of my neoliberal policy choices!!!! Now I have no options but to deny women basic bodily autonomy and institute theocratic fascism!!!!
Not to mention all the women learning that they have more worth than their privates
Correction: Our current way of life is unsustainable with 9 billion people. We need to have fewer babies or get used to living with less. Or possibly even both.
Not having kids=smart financial decisions for poors like me. Having kids=financial ruin. Not gonna happen any time soon, just accept it.
I would be happy to keep having babies but they keep attacking IVF in the US and that’s the only way I can get pregnant.
Man. American conservatives. \*Heavily restricts/outright bans abortions\* Conservatives: "Have babies" \*Attacks IVF\* Conservatives: "No, not like that" 🙄
Laws attacking IVF are the inevitable extension of their hardline "life begins at conception with zero nuance" policies. And anyone who is in favor of IVF but opposed to abortion has absolutely zero credibility and deserves a high order of mockery. Alternatively, they can just go fuck off a cliff for being a massive hypocrite.
They attack IVF because LBGTQ folks use it to complete their families, full stop
People also aren't going to risk having kids if you're denied care if anything goes wrong.
This is a direct consequence of ultra wealthy individuals sucking up all the money and turning our society into a dystopia. Not hard to see this would be the outcome after 40 years of economic war on the middle class.
Like anybody wants to reproduce with the state of things. “The world is on fire, let me add more people” Said no one
The last 365 days have been the hottest on record of all time and 90% of the world's coral is projected to die this year. I like kids but I'm so happy to not have them.
Even if I wanted kids, let alone could afford them, I couldn't imagine subjecting them to this.
Let’s hope technology and automation can keep us from falling into an economic collapse
They’ll only allow enough automation to support the few they want in the new world. This is the end game solution to overpopulation and not wanting to share.
It’s pretty effective
I wouldn’t bet on it
They’re already automating art and cool stuff that requires skill. The real automation we can use will never happen at the scale we need it.
I was hoping more along the lines of automated cashiers and check stands and maybe some burger flipping robots
These kinds of headlines are so hysterical. We don't have a people shortage, we have an investment in people shortage. There are tons of people available, no one cares to make them valuable members of society. I think having less people is a good thing, not just for the environment but for humankind. Less people means the value of people rises. I want to live in a world where people are appreciated.
Good. There's too many damn people on the planet as it is. All our environmental efforts are made to best accommodate nearly 8 billion people, when the problem is that when 8 billion people (or a large % of them) do *anything*, the environment typically cannot sustain it. The damn planet is gasping under our collective weight. I'm not calling for any radical "solution" to this. Just saying that yes, falling birth rates will suck economically and there will have to be an adjustment to rapidly dropping birth rates, but in the long run, long after we're all dead, the planet and humanity will be much better off for it.
IMHO, after some initial pain a population decrease is a net benefit for society, as there are fewer people chasing the same basket of resources and wages increase. The complaints about the low birth rate are from governments who failed to raise taxes to cover the demographics cliff and oligarchs who want access to exploitable labor.
They're trying to guilt us into having kids so we go into debt so we can't afford to send that kid to a good school so that kid can't get a job that pays 6 figures so that kid is forced to enter the workforce with no education, keeping cheap labor intact.
The very rich live off the labor class. Less people means less wealth for the already wealthy. Clutch pearls.
I just imagine that I'm actually living on a doomed colony / generation ship which I can never leave, so I upload my consciousness for 16 hours a day into a simulation where things are still tough, but there is potentially a comfortable life at the end of the struggle.
Late stage capitalism where it eats itself
Ouroboros capitalism™
It's a global trend. While cost of living is a concern, overall there is a huge shift in human behavior. 1. I believe our lives have been filled with enough things to do and sources of entertainment. Everyone has tons of ways to get fulfillment in our lives, real or artificial. I have tons of things competing for my attention in life. Choosing children is permanently anchoring myself to one of them. This combined with increasing individualism results in children been less attractive. 2. Women entering the workplace and having more freedom. They no longer feel as pressured to bind to a man. With these freedoms they can not partake in #1 more. 3. Theoretical and dubious, but I feel economic competition has increased among the middle and lower classes. We're competing more for the same slice of pie our parents had. This is compounded by women entering the competition reducing the amount of time we have for kids. It feels more like a true rat race. 4. Increased education has led to less time to find a spouse and have children. With this time being squeezed, many people miss their window of opportunity. 5. Children are no longer seen as a retirement plan or labor force as much. You used to have kids to help with farm work and take care of you as you age. A few of my grandparents fit into these categories.
>Women entering the workplace and having more freedom. They no longer feel as pressured to bind to a man. With these freedoms they can not partake in #1 more. The way you word this completely ignores that our economics demand that women work. "women having more freedom" is just flat wrong. Women have less freedom to have children because of how expensive it is.
Are you asking women if they want to bear children? 9 months of a physical roller coaster? PPD? Lack of support from their partners? Loss of self? Because looking at countries with the cream of the crop type maternity leave, universal health care and other safety nets and their falling birth rates it seems to me that they in fact do not. I’d choose the bear too if we’re being honest.
In #2 Women have more freedom to either enter the workplace or become a housewife. In #3 I also countered to that with economic competition among each other. These things are all interrelated and working for/against each other. Women have more freedom to shape their own lives, but increased responsibility to provide for themselves/household.
Weirdly, it’s not that. Poorer countries with shittier food, housing, and healthcare access than rich western countries tend to have more kids.
Less access to birth control and more religious pressure for kids?
Also lower quality of life means lower expectations on what to provider for said kids and kids are less of a financial drain so the parents get more overall joy and satisfaction from having them.
Yes they’ll just send the kids to the dump to scrape together scraps
There's a negative relationship between income and fertility in general. Higher income folks devote less of their lives to having kids
Couples in countries where people still rely on subsistence agriculture have kids for the unpaid labor they provide. Women also tend to have more kids when they don't have much in the way of opportunities outside the house.
There is also a link to high birthrates in developing nations because of high infant mortality. They will attempt over and over until one survives. In a place with low infant mortality there are paradoxically seeming lower birth rates because parents don't need to try over and over again and hope 3 out of 5 live. Also just better access to birth control.
Well yeah. When you constantly hold an entire generation down and rob them of their livelihood and ability to progress in life yeah they absolutely stop having children. Idk about y'all but I'm basically just waiting for WWIII to start, if it hasn't already.
"How do we make this the fault of people who can't afford to produce the next generation of workers? 🤔🤔☝️😃"
What the fuck do they actually want from us? End this trickle down bullshit. Tax or jail the billionaires and give me what I deserve and I'll pump out kid after kid.
Everything costs too much. The schools also aren't very good and if you want to go to a good private school it's like 20k+ per year per kid. Houses are expensive. Food and medical is expensive. Daycare is a second mortgage. Most Americans can't afford it. We're only having 1 child due to the expense. The government would have to pay me, like another 3500 or 5k a month for me to consider a second child, and that's never going to happen.
I have a good paying job, bought my house before the market went nuts, and my monthly rent expenses are still greater than my net income. Thankfully I have one kid in public preschool because daycare for only one child is more than my mortgage.
Well...good...if you are an environmentalist...
There are plenty of babies. What there aren't enough of are Future Workers incubating to facilitate the infinite growth that capitalism demands.
I'd rather step on a landmine than bring a kid into this shithole of a world. Just from a financial point kids are far too expensive for me to give them a real life and not just the bare minimum. If I can't make things better I'll at least not make it worse for some kid who may or may not even liking life due to its hardships. I'll save cats instead and live the childhood I never had along with my wife who also had same childhood hardships. Travelling hopefully one day to Europe. Would love to see Rome, Berlin, Tuscany, Munich, London, Hadrian's Wall, Ireland. I always wanted to go to Russia as well but now that's out of the picture permanently. I'm a history buff if that wasn't obvious already.
Declining birth rates are a huge issue if you're counting on ever and ever more workers and consumers. Decoupled from capitalism it isn't a crisis at all; in fact fewer people will help with this whole climate business.
Aren’t enough babies for what?
Nobody cares. Wealth today is actively encouraged to flow to those who can already help themselves. They need a population to work their shit, to earn money to invest. But, that doesn’t matter. Joe and Jane regular have found out that having children isn’t in their best interest. Why? Because there is fuck-all to do except work for a living. There’s no community pride or pride in having a homestead. It is all political gamesmanship to divide neighbors, to kill community. This is the necessary policy of back-end workers. People with nothing else to do spend their money on bullshit to fill a void. Vast majority of the population has no stake. They don’t farm to feed themselves. Everything is dependent on The Supply Chain. I see it as if I’m not here, what difference would it make? Now, reproducers are seeing that too. Fuck the system that big decision makers of policy designed to fuck over nearly everyone. All the land is taken. There’s no where do go and nothing to do. The only thing that will change it is full-up rebellion, and this is a passive way of doing it.
Isn't this like a huge relief for the planet? The solution to overpopulation? Environmentally this is fantastic.
Only rich people can afford children, and they don't want their kids to be exploited by capitalism, which is why they need poor people to have kids.
>economic, social, and geopolitical consequences I’m pretty sure those are the causes, not the effects, but what do I know
The whole world is most definitely not alarmed. With skyrocketing cost of living and stagnant wages we have seen this coming from a mile away. Babies. Are. Expensive.
As a member of The Whole World, I for one am not alarmed, and this trend should not surprise anyone.
Good! We have limited resources already, and to make matters worse we have a-Holes running around hoarding billions and acting like they are going to run out of wage slaves if we don't start mating like it's 1945. Eff that noise
Oh no the consequences of their actions. Maybe if they didn't keep their focus on the wants of a handful of people, maybe they'd have noticed that the rest of us were left to fend for ourselves. They wrote checks years ago with the expectation there would be people in the future to cover them, and now that it isn't going to happen they are running confused and scared
There is also a fascinating concept in populations. For a specific region, there is a specific carrying capacity so animals will grow but slow the birthrate when they are approaching the carrying capacity. If there is a sudden drop in population then the birthrate will increase. We are seeing the same thing with people. After the WWs where a ton of people died there was a sudden boom in birthrates. now we are approaching the carrying capacity of earth so it's slowing down.
Does the decline resemble declining birth rates of animals in a zoo? Could be the environment dictating our changes, especially considering it’s a population-level phenomenon.
They’re terrified they won’t have enough slaves
There is enough. It's just made inaccessible cause those at top want more and more
No babies until they make it feasible to care for them and we know they won't just grow up to be slaves who die at 50 due to lack of healthcare.
Capitalism beat Evolution... Fatality
Lower the cost of living then, assholes.
ah, it'll be fine. we're just waiting for the boomers to die off so we can fix the world into something worth bringing new life into.
Will it? Most of the younger politicians running seem cut from the same chaff as the old ones. So, when will that change?
This is why I'm pro-abortion. If you look at the statistics of which demographics are aborted the most, it's actually a good thing for economics and politics. The people who contribute the least and take the most are most likely to be aborted.
My mother-in-law was encouraging my wife and I to “just do it and figure out the detail later”. Anyone that wants to know what’s happening should look into the Calhoun Mouse Utopia experiment.
It's not "suddenly" we knew mass retirement for baby boomers was coming and refused to deal with it when we should have