Tim Carney: Why Aren't People Having More Kids?

Tim Carney discusses America's "baby bust" on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions.

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Tim Carney: Why Aren't People Having More Kids?

"To be a sane and happy parent, you need to be counter-cultural in our family-unfriendly culture," writes Tim Carney in his forthcoming book Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be.

Carney, senior columnist at the Washington Examiner, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the father of six children, talked with Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe about declining fertility in America and worldwide and why he thinks it's time for "governments, employers, and other institutions" to "abandon the idea of neutrality and instead take a side: the pro-family side." They also discussed how governments make it harder to afford large families by implementing counterproductive housing and labor regulations. The conversation delved into the role that technology might play in increasing fertility in the future, the enduring cultural relevance of Mike Judge's 2006 movie Idiocracy, and their reactions to clips about DINK couples ("double-income, no kids"). 

Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or on the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher.

Sources referenced in this conversation:

Americans' ideal family size is smaller than it used to be | Pew Research Center

Childstats.gov - America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2023 - Demographic Background

Building the New America: Urban Reform Institute, September 2023

World Fertility Rate 1950-2024 | MacroTrends

World Population Prospects - Population Division - United Nations

Comments

[Chumby]

Women trying to be like men, men trying to be like women, and both sexes doubling down on the standard American diet. Few people want to fuck a fatty.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

That's very pithy, Chum.

[Chumby]

Check out when my post was made versus when the article dropped. ♦️

[GaylaCarlisle]

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[Don't look at me!]

More cushion for the pushin’.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Find a fold and fuck it.

[Zeb]

I'm not convinced the fatness a particularly large part of it. Most people seem happy enough to fuck a fatty when it's the only available option. The first two are probably significant. I think people waiting too long or expecting too much is a big part of it too.

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

I'd more figure it's because they can't fucking afford to have kids.

[MrMxyzptlk]

What if the guy is building a shed over his prized possession instead of a 200 push-ups a day stud muffin? I mean, we pear shaped guys need love too and trying to land anything over a 6 is pushing one's luck.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Didn't a Reason-featured chronicler-of-millennials say that attractiveness was out?

Because when I look around that the younger generation, I fucking concur.

[Zeb]

Aren't millennials like 30-40 now? I see plenty of attractive people in that range. For whatever the next generation is, wearing proper clothes in public at least seems to be out.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Very thick with insight. But my answer to the question:

Why Aren't People Having More Kids?

Is:

""What? And leave them all this???"

[InsaneTrollLogic]

This might be a place to start: https://www.youtube.com/@birthgap

Essentially, those women who have kids tend to have more than one; however, there is a massive cohort that delayed having kids due to other reasons until it was too late.

[mad.casual]

The "USA" in @1:38 of the preview is the *exact* prompt of my post below.

My Brother-In-Law and his husband "announced" a few years ago that they were looking to adopt. Everyone, and I mean everyone except *maybe* the 9 yr. old and Grandma, recognized or at least sensed the whole Solzhenitsyn-esque, "I know you're lying, I know you know you're lying, I know that you know that I know..." gestalt for what it was, but nobody could/did say anything.

I can't say I'm entirely saddened or forlorn at the prospect of "the birth gap".

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

In the long run, Mr. mad.casual, we'll all be dead.

[Edmund Burke's Hastings spy]

Diane, that shows the religious hole in your morality. You don't have kids because you believe in God and justice and eternal life. But it hurts if you don't. You say "why bring kids into this world, we're all going to die" Yeah, well , you didn't discover that. ...Kids are the greatest part of life. It is difficult but you come out on the other side with satisfaction usually. To just avoid trouble until Death says 'come with me!!" is what that GREAT BOOK was about

The Denial of Death is a 1973 book by American cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker which discusses the psychological and philosophical implications of how people and cultures have reacted to the concept of death.[1] The author argues most human action is taken to ignore or avoid the inevitability of death

I knew 2 people who read that and it affected them the rest of heir life, but because they never found God it was a horror to them.

"“It begins to look as though modern man cannot find his heroism in everyday life any more, as men did in traditional societies just by doing their daily duty of raising children, working, and worshiping. He needs revolutions and wars and "continuing" revolutions to last when the revolutions and wars end. That is the price modern man pays for the eclipse of the sacred dimension. When he dethroned the ideas of soul and God he was thrown back hopelessly on his own resources, on himself and those few around him. Even lovers and families trap and disillusion us because they are not substitutes for absolute transcendence. We might say that they are poor illusions in the sense that we have been discussing.”
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

and Becker's death was a revelation even to him , at 49
https://oxfordexperience2017.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/keen-becker-interview.pdf

"
I would want to insist that my awakening to the divine had to do with the loss of character armor. For the child, the process of growing up involves a masking over of fears and anxieties by the creation of character armor. Since the child feels powerless and very vulnerable, he has to reinforce his power by plugging into another source of power. I look at it in electrical-circuit terms. Father, mother, or the cultural ideology becomes his unconscious power source. We all live by delegated powers. We are utterly dependent on other people. In personality breakdown, what is revealed to the person is that he is not his own person."

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Ah, you did in two sentences what I needed 700 words for.,

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Duh. Pregnancy is the ultimate patriarchal colonization. Any birthing person who actually gives birth is a trait to the cause.

Plus pregnancy and parenthood get seriously in the way of nomadic van life internet influencer careers.

[Don't look at me!]

Plus, it’s difficult to have kids when you keep getting abortions.

[MrMxyzptlk]

True. But those are the leftists who we don't want to reproduce for the most part.

Not all of course. My Catholic father in law pressured his youngest daughter to get an abortion when she still lived at home. But he was a Democrat voting catholic so it's hard to make a call on that one.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

But he was a Democrat voting catholic

So... a catholic.

[mad.casual]

Yeah, a Catholic Democrat that didn’t respect women or Christianity? I’d say wait for me to put on my shocked face before you tell me he voted for Kennedy but let’s just save everybody some time and wasted breath and just nod at each other knowingly.

LOL: Press 'F' to nod in agreement. 🙂

[mad.casual]

HOLY FUCKING SHIT THE EDIT BUTTON WORKED!

[Chumby]

They fixed it a few days ago. Perhaps the webathon funded the repair.

[Edmund Burke's Hastings spy]

hard for you but you project yourself on him.
He was not Catholic, he was using God

Augustine — 'If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.'

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Reason 1: They cost like hell. Depending upon the source, the cost averages from $237K to $332K over 18 years. That seems outrageous until you look at the average yearly and monthly; 16,000 yr / 1,300 a month is not unrealistic.

Reason 2: I am glad I raised my daughters during the late 20th/ early 21st century; if I were doing it over the next 18 years I would be fighting an aggressive effort to tell me my children are not what they were born to be; I would likely be harassed for letting walk down my quiet residential street to play at a playground; and their gifted programs would be sacrificed in the name of equity.

[Zeb]

Shit, I don't spend that much on myself per month. I suspect a lot of people are spending a lot more than necessary on their kids.
But having kids used to be an economic benefit. Now that it is almost entirely a burden from an economic point of view, it's not surprising that people have fewer kids. There is certainly some good from kids having more childhood with less work and more education. But I think things have swung too far in the opposite direction since the days of exploitative child labor.

[n00bdragon]

Some billionaire is throwing off the average by sending his kid to space for Spring Break.

There is no fucking way in hell that any normal person is spending $1300 a month on their child. Exhibit A: Poor people have children, usually several of them. You're telling me that Manuel who mops floors at the 7-11 and has seven kids is spending $1300 a month on each of them when he doesn't even make that much in a month? Poor people have poor children. My family wasn't wealthy, but it wasn't rich. My younger sibling wore my hand-me-down clothes. Eating out was a birthday treat. The poor kids who were my friends growing up didn't replace their shoes until the soles came off and their "new" ones came from goodwill and I knew a guy in college who lived in his car and worked in the cafeteria because there was no other way he was going to be there. You do what you gotta do with what you have. This idea that children "cost" a certain amount is beyond ridiculous. They require food. Everything else comes down to how much you are able to provide them.

[Zeb]

Yeah, I wonder if that average is a mean or a median. Of course you don't have to spend a lot. But I doubt $1300/month is terribly unusual for middle class parents, especially when both work. Childcare is a lot.

[MrMxyzptlk]

That number is what we call an average. I suspect it also includes parents saving for their child's college education. As for poor people, they don't spend money, they get federal and state subsidies that I've no doubt add up to 1300 a month. Medicaid alone is worth a sizeable sum of money. It covers dental and glasses as well as vaccinations and health care. Buying a policy that covers all that is damn near a grand a month alone.

[n00bdragon]

That's a fair assessment, but it also means that the number is beyond meaningless because once you start counting healthchare funny money for anything, numbers lose all value. If a kid needs glasses and Medicaid says the glasses are worth $1000 no one is actually forking over a grand for those glasses, not the beneficiary or Uncle Sam. It's complete baloney. Of course, there is value being gained there, for "free", but it's nothing like the sticker price. It distorts the discussion and makes it a very hard subject to talk about rationally.

[MrMxyzptlk]

There are a lot of factors going in to raising a kid. You need a larger home, you'd like a back yard for them to play in. You need a bigger car. You buy more food, not as much at first but teenagers eat like angry rabid wolves tearing into an elk. It averages out. Suddenly Christmass is no longer a net profit and becomes a expense.

I can go on with the differences between single people or DINKs and couples with children. All of it adds up.

If you don't want to accommodate for those things your numbers are even more useless.

[Edmund Burke's Hastings spy]

ISn't that the root problem ? Do you talk 'rationally' about the person you marry ??? That is the death of life. The guy that waits and waits for the perfect girl finds at 35-40 not only is there no perfect girl but if there were she would see he isn't a perfect guy! How? He's not looking for a person to love,he's looking for a mirror.

[Zeb]

Sure, they are largely subsidized (though a few people still have some pride and decline as much as they can). But it's not really clear if they are talking about total cost of raising a child, or what a parent pays out of pocket.

[Ersatz]

not Spring Break.... Space Camp

[Spiritus Mundi]

The government, i.e. you and me, are paying for Manuel's kids food, clothes, shelter, education, and healthcare. Probably about $1300/month/child.

[mtrueman]

"Everything else comes down to how much you are able to provide them."

I agree with much of what you write. However typical parents cannot provide medical care or education for their children. They have to go elsewhere for that, and costs have increased dramatically.

[Longtobefree]

Oh, I don't know; maybe because asking a woman out is now rape?

[MrMxyzptlk]

Ding Ding Ding! Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

My son goes to an engineering college and their joke about STEM women is they are like parking spaces on campus. Taken, Handicapped or WAY out there.

His entire generation is terrified of 20 years later being charged with rape. The charges are a lot harder to fake when everyone knows they aren't participating in the rapist roulette game.

[LIBertrans]

Good job. Here's hoping he aces diff. eqs.

[MrMxyzptlk]

I know he talks about that class... however I don't speak the big math so I don't understand where he is on the math track. He can get a math minor because his primary degree Metalurgical Enginering is so math heavy.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Oh, I don’t know; maybe because asking a woman out is now rape?

To be fair, that tracks with unplanned childlessness.

[mad.casual]

"To be a sane and happy parent person, you need to be counter-cultural contrarian in our family-unfriendly, culture-unfriendly culture social order,"

Corrected for dimensionality and accuracy.

[n00bdragon]

Our culture tells incessantly tells young men and women that the most horrible thing that happen to them is someone getting pregnant. What do you expect? When I was growing up I was told over and over over that kids are something you should save until you've "made it". First get your life and career in order, get married, get the house, then have kids. Now I'm 35 and I'm the only person I know who is even married, let alone (trying) to have kids. Am I lucky/smart/diligent for following the "plan"?

Is teenagers dropping out of highschool because they are pregnant with a second child the only alternative to women freezing their eggs to work on their career? I can't say that having children before you hammer out all the "essentials" of adulthood is without negatives. Certainly, it would be ideal if everyone who had kids had a stable job, a spouse, and a single family home in the suburbs before they did so, but life so rarely happens in the ideal. I think some people feel like if they can't live the ideal, if they can't be perfect, if they can't go big, they might as well go home, and that's a real shame. It's okay not to be ideal. It's more important to be.

[Zeb]

I think this is a big factor. I look at my friends now who had kids in their early 20s and think that they did it right. Now they are in their mid 40s and the kids are grown up and they have plenty of life yet to live. Who wants to have kids in school until you are 60? Now I'm childless at 45 and kind of wish someone had told me this when I was younger.

[Longtobefree]

It's kind of a difficult choice; have kids early when your body can keep up, or have them late when your wallet can keep up.

Either way, you cannot know how it will turn out, and you can never try both.

[MrMxyzptlk]

It takes a while for them to get to the point where the real spending kicks in. The first 10 years the kid isn't really independent and doesn't eat much. If you marry after graduating college with a real degree and you have your kids with a year or so between them by the time you're slowing down in your late 30s to early 40s they no longer want to spend time with you because you're old and gross. They prefer to hang out with friends. That's when they start costing money. They eat everything in sight, want to hang out with friends, ask for money, phones, cars, etc and you start worrying about college. But by then you're reaching peak earnings and your energy levels are peaking as well. Optimal earnings if you've planned well. Then when you're reaching your 50s they are heading to college and you start to feel like an empty nester.

[markm23]

"you can never try both"

My grandfather did. Grandma had 4 kids spread over 12 years. When the last one left the house for college, she left too. At 60-something, Grandpa got his secretary pregnant. So he raised his second family, and I have an aunt that is younger than my first kid.

Even women can sometimes do this. My oldest aunt had 3 kids - and then a 4th when the last one went to college. At least, it left her with one kid home on the Christmas when her first three were literally scattered around the world - Chris in Australia visiting his in-laws, Terry in Austria with her husband, and I forget where the other one was.

[mad.casual]

When I was growing up I was told over and over over that kids are something you should save until you’ve “made it”. First get your life and career in order, get married, get the house, then have kids.

Yeah, where I grew up and kids drove their parents' tractor straight out of the field and into the HS parking lot, there was more of juxtaposition of the two ideals, or a "This is what shooting for the stars looks like, whereas this is what catastrophic, crash-and-burn failure looks like." compare-and-contrast and the only people positing hard and fast plans one way or the other were the ideological zealots.

[LIBertrans]

Before the 1972 Libertarian campaign anyone holding a grocery bag of hemp, refusing to kill women in Vietnam or declining to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term went straight to jail. That was Nixon, Agnew, Billy Graham and George Wallace's Great Amerikkka--the one MAGAts miss so sobbingly.

[MrMxyzptlk]

So instead of Trump we should re elect Joe Biden?

[Rev Arthur L kuckland]

Constant media bombardment of me first nhialism combined with full on the world is ending propaganda?

[Spiritus Mundi]

Because I am selfish and want to spend my time and money on things I enjoy, not changing diapers or going little league games where everybody is a winner.

[MrMxyzptlk]

I'm selfish, and an asshole. But my wife and I raised an extremely selfish asshole and turned him loose on the world. The 6th richest man in South Dakota, the head honcho of his college, knows his name and hates him. That's pretty good for a 22 year old.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

I salute you.

[MrMxyzptlk]

My son joined Young Americans for Liberty his freshman year. They decided that campus carry was ground worth dying on. They paid for a bill board right across the street from the administration parking that demanded the head honcho (can't remember his title) get out of the way of their 2nd Amendment rights. He was club president when they marched to his office with a petition with a lot of stuuent signatures demanding their rights. He is an asshole and he doesn't edit his speech very well. Apple falls not far from this tree. Now the guy has it out for my son.

It's good to have enemies, it means you've done something worthwhile.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

I respect that.

[MrMxyzptlk]

I really hate to say this but the only media sources showing the reality of the professional ladder climbing women are Lifetime and Halmark.

Woman in fancy high pressure job has some kind of problem that strands her in small town. Woman meets an amazing guy who hits every button for her. Woman fights against her feminine nature with her feminist bullshit. Finally Woman realizes that the man and a simpler life fullfil what she has been missing without knowing it. They kiss, movie ends.

My wife watches a lot of those movies and to show affection I suffer through them with her. She starts the Christmass movies from those networks before Halloween. I'm pretty much done with Christmass by Thanksgiving.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

So... your wife isn't watching the WNBA?

[MrMxyzptlk]

Is anyone watching the WNBA?

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Maybe it’ll get better when trans-women start playing.

[MrMxyzptlk]

Didn't Daily Wire make a movie about that?

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Was it terrible?

[MrMxyzptlk]

No idea. Saw a preview. I think Critical Drinker reviewed it.

[LIBertrans]

Note to foreign readers: According to DC Comics, the correct pronunciation in American phonetics is Mix-yez-pitel-ick.

[MrMxyzptlk]

Mix Yes Spit Lick

[mtrueman]

I've found the most persuasive argument for declining rates not to be found in misogynistic moralizing or anti government finger wagging. It's simply population density, as the number of people in a given area increases, birthrates decrease. Check out the countries with the highest population densities and the lowest birthrates. You'll find South Korea and Taiwan at or near the top of both lists. Density/fertility works not just with humans but all life, plants and animals alike. Once density reaches a certain point, fertility declines. Those who study the matter attribute this to competition for scarce resources, stress, and similar factors.

In addition to density, I suspect the massively increased presence of microplastics and phthalates in our environment. These have long been identified as playing havoc with both male and female reproductive systems, starting as early as exposure while we're still in our mother's wombs. Scientists have been measuring what they call the anogenital distance (AGD) the distance between the anus and the genitals, and have found that the greater the distance the higher the sperm count, fertility and other things conducive to healthy sexuality. Shorter distance means feminization in men, miscarriages in women, etc. Babies with high total exposure to phthalates were ninety times more likely to have a short AGD.

[I, Woodchipper]

misogynistic moralizing

explain

[mtrueman]

The link between density and fertility is studied by population biologists. The effects of phthalates on sexual development are studied by endocrinologists. These specialists can explain better than I can. I've just tried to provide a brief summary of the physical, well understood possible causes for fertility having been observed to be decreasing.

Misogynism is contempt for women, and moralizing is the attempt to attribute physically observed effects (lower fertility) to some airy fairy failings on the part of women, in this case. It's what we in the Internet commenting business call a 'just so story,' an untestable narrative explanation for a cultural practice, a biological trait, or behavior. See the comments on this page for examples.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

You decry misogyny yet you want to import the third world. I call bullshit.

[mtrueman]

I call yawn.

[LIBertrans]

See Teedy Roosevelt's "race suicide" letters urging the jailing of unenslavable females.

[Bill Godshall]

The world's population has skyrocketed during the past 100 years (from 2 to 9 Billion), along with carbon dioxide emissions
(from 4 to 37 Billion metric tons).

We need fewer people on earth, not more.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden and other "Sanctuary City/State" Democrats have invited all of the world's poorest and least educated humans to illegally cross into the US (by promising them free food, housing, education, healthcare, etc.).

[mtrueman]

"Democrats have invited all of the world’s poorest and least educated humans to illegally cross into the US"

I wouldn't worry too much about that. It should peter out once the US and the other nations are at the same level.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Won’t it be great when we’re on the same level as Pakistan?

[mtrueman]

Won't it be greater when Pakistan is on the same level as us?

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Not likely with their retarded culture.

[mtrueman]

A country that puts up the likes of Biden and Trump to compete for highest office once, let alone twice, is in no position etc etc

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Yes, a Muslim theocracy is sooo much better.

[mtrueman]

Better than retardation, yes I agree. Retardation is stupid. Muslim theocracy is merely evil.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Would want live there? Eh, maybe you would, boy rape is encouraged there.

[mtrueman]

You've never been to Gilgit, I assume. It's as close to paradise on Earth as you can imagine. I advise to refrain from raping boys or anyone else. Your retardation won't be much protection when you are caught abusing the locals.

[NOYB2]

We need fewer people on earth, not more.

Actually, we need more people on earth.

Unfortunately, we have already reached "peak baby". Any remaining population growth right now is due to people living longer.

[rbike]

My biggest regret is stopping at two. Five would have been better. I do like my two very much but they don't seem to be reproducing well. Gonna offer a bounty next year.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Well, if we, as you say, need more people, you first. Be the first Gay man on your block at Stepford to have a Gayby. The test tubes and Petri Dishes are waiting.
🙂
😉
What the world needs more than anything are free people.

When individuals are politically, socially, and economically free, at least they have the room to solve their problems no matter whether they choose to have children and the individual's choice is the individual's responsibility.

[mad.casual]

We need fewer people on earth, not more.

Why don't you start by choking to death on a bag of dicks?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Um, no, the global population is starting its predicted collapse, and immigration won't fix it, because those countries aren't having children either. So too bad population and climate alarmists, and too bad immigration-will-solve-our-problems libertarians.

[I, Woodchipper]

We need fewer people on earth, not more.

This is a naked assertion with nothing to back it up. Good job.

[mad.casual]

Slight disagreement. The top-level assertion is naked, the underlying assertion about himself as an infinitesimally fractional (lack of) value of humanity as a whole is self-fulfilling.

[LIBertrans]

We need fewer force-initiating mystical bigots on Earth, not more.
Better, no?

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

We need fewer people on earth, not more.

Lead the way.

[NOYB2]

Why Aren't People Having More Kids?

"People" aren't having babies, women do. And women decide whether to have babies or not, and they are deciding they don't want to. They much rather want sleep around with the top 5% of men, and then have men's careers and men's power, because that's what their culture tells them they ought to want. Men in their 20s who want to settle down and have kids usually don't even get a chance.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

I'll give them a pass on this one, but a pass with a judgmental look.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Why Aren't People Having More Kids?

Wow, wasn't this the thing that we *checks previous accusations* Trump cultist kulturwarr hurr durr commenters were making noise about?

[mad.casual]

I'm sure there's a Ron Bailey article or two (and IIRC one or two from ENB) telling us we shouldn't worry about it between polemics on mandatory vaccinations (pre-COVID) and how more testing is how we beat COVID.

[mad.casual]

Sorry, Ron "I need to check with my wife if it's OK for me to reproduce asexually first." Bailey.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

This is THE best documentary currently running that discusses this global problem.

Oh and:

why he thinks it's time for "governments, employers, and other institutions" to "abandon the idea of neutrality and instead take a side: the pro-family side." They also discussed how governments make it harder to afford large families by implementing counterproductive housing and labor regulations.

While this may warm the hearts of our more *clears throat* socially conservative contingent, it's not likely to work. As the documentary above details, many countries have tried many different so-called "pro family" policies and none have really made any difference.

I'm not really sure what the answer is, and the documentary doesn't even try to answer it because the researcher flat out admits that there ARE no easy answers, but he does pinpoint the problem-- which few have accurately done:

Unplanned childlessness.

There's a myth that people are choosing to have less children, and according to his research, that's not the case. The lion share of the people he researched all planned to have children, but hit the snooze button on the uterus too many times and then suddenly found themselves unable to have children. He also debunks another myth: people are having fewer children... meaning people that DO have children aren't having as many. What he found is most people who DO have children, still have as many children as they would have had (to be fair I'm not sure how far back his research goes) for previous generations. Where the gap is showing up is in people who wanted to have A child or children, had NONE.

Also, there's interesting stuff in there about the mathematics of declining childbirth-- that it becomes a kind of downward spiral. The fewer children there are, the fewer children there are to have children etc., and it becomes an accelerating decline.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Link to doc:

[mad.casual]

Overall I agree the documentary is excellent, but there are some minor disagreements I have with his assessments, the representations of his assessments, or the contextual implications.

Essentially, the assertion that people who do have kids are having all the kids they want is speculative in a couple of dimensions and this is wrapped up in the spiraling mathematics (but still consistent with the issue of top-down mandates). Principally to his assertions, IIRC, his dataset is between curated, contemporary, and tidy. He essentially says something to the effect of <1% of households have always had more than 4 kids and they can't account for the loss. Which isn't exactly wrong in-and-of itself but does, as indicated, have implications to his larger narrative.

I'm pretty sure with more income and more leisure time, Mrs. Casual and I would've wound up with more kids. We've got all the kids we want (so far) but revealed preferences is a thing and the term 'unplanned' were invoked. To wit, I don't think you could throw any amount of money or top-down social engineering at the unplanned childless demographic to meaningfully reverse the process. I *do* think you could (not should or, at least, certainly not by law) convince people with 3 kids to have a 4th and children who grew up with house full of brothers and sisters that they should have more kids to far greater effect... even if only that the next DINK couple down the street sees more families of six or four or three kids and thinks they should try for one.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

I don't think you could throw any amount of money or top-down social engineering at the unplanned childless demographic to meaningfully reverse the process. I *do* think you could (not should or, at least, certainly not by law) convince people with 3 kids to have a 4th

I'm not sure. For instance, let's say his dataset is wrong in how he calculates people of previous generations that DO have children are having the same amount of children that contemporary couples who DO have children are having. It seems reasonable that if you find that, no, his dataset is off balance and people are having fewer children (people who had 4 are having 3, people who had 3 are having 2 etc) then it seems reasonable that people who are having zero because *cue idiocracy opener* they're not having children right now, not with the market the way it is... then the same policy that could get people with 3 kids to have the 4th might get people having zero kids to have the 1st.

Just passing thoughts.

[mad.casual]

then the same policy that could get people with 3 kids to have the 4th might get people having zero kids to have the 1st.

I think you're thinking about this like someone that knows what a woman is rather than thinking about it like someone who hasn't realized that we "stopped COVID" but we couldn't stop monkeypox.

In the ascension of unplanned childlessness, there are multiple cultures and social orders that value not just not having kids, not *even* the virtue signalling of not their own kids, but even the virtue of sterilizing their own children.

I think, per the Solzhenitsyn-esque comment above, you know or at least can understand that a good portion of these people, even if you project from the data that they're responding to the market, even if they say they're responding to the market... don't give a shit about the market.

What I and I think the documentary points to, if not a Wicked Problem, is an emergent phenomenon. Which don't have magic-bullet resolutions (assuming they need resolved) but require, as indicated, a systematic, cultural, or grassroots leaning into (dis)favorable conditions to counteract or push back.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

I'm pretty sure with more income and more leisure time, Mrs. Casual and I would've wound up with more kids.

*leans in, lowers voice so rest of commenters can't hear* Did you and Mrs. Casual agree to disagree on the more children proposition?

[mad.casual]

you and Mrs. Casual agree to disagree

Did you know that, unless you are named after one of your parents, your first name is probably a safe word. [sips coffee]

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

I think that if people could still support a family on a single income from a high school education, we'd see more people with children.

[InsaneTrollLogic]

It's quite an interesting documentary (thanks for the link - I found it in one of your posts back in June or July & it stuck with me). The thing to remember, and that seems to be forgotten, is that women are born with all the eggs they will ever have, and if they don't use them, by an average age of 51 in the US, they lose them forever. Men, on the other hand, can wait much longer to have kids as they produce sperm throughout their lives. Granted, the quality of the sperm can degrade at older ages, but nevertheless, they are produced.

Historically, we used to have men wait to get married (late 20s/30s) while the women would be married off earlier (early 20s). This actually played toward basic human biology as some men don't fully physically mature until their mid-20s, but women seem to fully physically mature earlier. It also let the men get somewhat ahead prior to starting a family, establishing themselves in some business or another. Women saw this, and (perhaps rightly) wanted it for themselves. Unfortunately, in their quest to become more like men, they forgot about biology and how it will catch up to them over time. That is not to say that women shouldn't go for college and a career, but that they need to keep in mind that due to biological reality, they cannot delay if they want to have children.

Perhaps there are ways of handling this to create a better balance. Some propose better maternity leave, but there are European countries doing this right now with minimal results. Work from home might help, along with career choices that allow for more working from home and a better balance to raise the kids. Men, on the other hand, while getting a job and career, never really were afforded the luxury of simply staying home. When most were farmers, this was not the case, and both could be "home" most of the day. Honestly, there are no real solutions here, only trade-offs (thanks, Thomas Sowell). Hopefully, we can find a better balance, and the sooner, the better.

[mtrueman]

" Honestly, there are no real solutions here, only trade-offs (thanks, Thomas Sowell). Hopefully, we can find a better balance, and the sooner, the better."

I don't see a problem that needs a solution. If people don't find the conditions suitable for raising children, it's probably best that they don't bring children into the world. You have to trust people's judgements and their views of their abilities and circumstances. It's far more reliable, I think, than following vote grubbing politicians and economists enthralled to the imperatives of finance and an ever expanding economy.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

I don’t see a problem that needs a solution. If people don’t find the conditions suitable for raising children, it’s probably best that they don’t bring children into the world.

If you're a techno-optimist and believe that ChatGPT is what's going to take care of you in the nursing home, then you're probably right.

You have to trust people’s judgements and their views of their abilities and circumstances.

The documentary and researcher is extremely skeptical of any government policies which 'push' people into having children, as am I. But to pretend a world with an inverted pyramid of social wealth transfer payments with a shrinking productive class is going to just run fine in perpetuity is to be naïve in the extreme.

[mtrueman]

Humans have thrived before nursing homes existed and will continue to do so after they're no longer viable. I don't think there's much to be gained by underestimating our adaptability and resilience.

"The documentary and researcher is extremely skeptical of any government policies which ‘push’ people into having children, as am I. "

I agree. Moral scolds are even less effective. Communities of religious fanatics may be able to buck the trend, as the Israeli god bothering community has shown.

"But to pretend a world with an inverted pyramid "

The world is not any kind of pyramid. Basing future plans on assumptions of unlimited growth are also bound to come a cropper.

[InsaneTrollLogic]

OK, Misconstrueman, you seem to have a lack of understanding of familial structures in the pre-industrial world. Commonly, one of a few different things might happen.

1. The elderly would enter religious life and be taken care of there till death.

2. The elderly would have enough kids to one or more would take care of them as they were slowing down and retiring.

There were no nursing or assisted living homes as we know them were the elderly are warehoused until they pass on.

This works well as long as there are enough children born and make it to adulthood to maintain the structure. It even works with things like Social Security, being as it is a Ponzi-type scheme where more new payer need to pay in to it so the payees have enough to live on. When the growth pyramid becomes inverted, there are fewer young people paying into the existing systems that are built for growth mode only. This causes systems to break down as they cannot cope with nor are equipped to handle a falling population, much less a simple steady-state population. Now, perhaps we should have set up our systems to be more robust in the face of falling population, but that is not the current case, and society cannot simply turn on a dime to fix itself. That requires time, and time seems to be running out, especially in places like Japan, China, much of Europe. In fact, one of the reasons for Japan's current stagnant growth is the shrinking population.

[mtrueman]

"you seem to have a lack of understanding "

There are many things I don't understand. I hope I never claim to understand the things I don't. I urge my readers to try to independently verify any claims I make.

"That requires time, and time seems to be running out,"

I remember when time ran out for the system of the Soviet Union, when it was replaced by the system in place today, in the early 90s. The birth rate fell precipitously, and the death rate, mostly because of suicide and alcohol abuse among older men, rose dramatically. 7 million premature deaths, according to studies. There was economic catastrophe and political and national upheaval, rise in crime, and many many fled. And I'm not even including Russia's loss of Estonia and Kyrgystan, home to USSR's most beautiful women, west and east, respectively. But the chaos didn't last. Within a decade, people started to adapt and turn things around, even though most today look on the dissolution as doing more harm than good.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Humans have thrived before nursing homes existed and will continue to do so after they’re no longer viable.

You're kidding me with this response, right?

Are you kidding me? (eyebrows raised)
Are you kidding me? (frowning, scrunching up nose)

I'll let you decide how I'm saying that.

[mtrueman]

Years ago older people were not send to old age homes to die alone of COVID. They died at home of other things surrounded by family members. Perhaps rather than warehousing the old in nursing homes, life with the family will extend productivity and contribution to family life and society.

Anyhow, I think I see the problem.

"after they’re no longer viable."

The 'they're' here refers to the homes becoming no longer profitable, not to the old folks becoming unviable.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

They died at home of other things surrounded by family members

What family members?

Oh, that's right, the family members that had younger offspring.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Girl boss: Why should I have children? I mean, I'm living my best life!

*imitates Jordan Peterson voice* Well, I dunno, life gets pretty lonely when you're older and retired...

Girl boss: The robots will take care of me!

*doubles down on Jordan Peterson voice* Who's building the robots?

Girl boss: *thinks* AI!

[mtrueman]

"What family members? "

Maybe extended family members. If you think humanity is facing extinction on the other hand, the profitability of nursing homes is the least of our concerns. I don't think it will go that far. Eventually people will find having children to be advantageous and the population will rise.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Maybe extended family members. If you think humanity is facing extinction on the other hand, the profitability of nursing homes is the least of our concerns.

What extended family members?

And jesus h christ:

. If you think humanity is facing extinction on the other hand, the profitability of nursing homes

That's what you took from my comment? THAT'S what you took from my comment? That I'm worried about the profitability of nursing homes in the absence of human beings to run them? Seriously?

Are you kidding me? *frowning, face scrunched in disgust*

[mtrueman]

"What extended family members? "

This is all hypothetical. These elderly don't exist. And their family members, extended or not, don't exist either. There's no answer to your question.

Populations of living things on the planet rise and fall all the time. The idea that human population has to be exempt from this and rise all the time forever is mathematically naive and anthropocentric to say the least.
In a future with oldsters outnumbering youngsters, there are going to be challenges, but people adapt, and with the passage of time the problem could correct itself without our doing anything. Not all populations are stagnating or declining. Africa is set to increase, and immigration could solve problems of labor shortages. Europe's already got a head start on us. Readers can take comfort in the projections that tell us Mexico's population will be seeing the same declines as we are.

[mad.casual]

If you’re a techno-optimist and believe that ChatGPT is what’s going to take care of you in the nursing home, then you’re probably right.

You can practically hear a 23-yr.-old MAID employee saying, "We wouldn't be euthanizing them, we would program ChatGPT to take care of them based on an age-and-wellness biased, I mean based, algorithm." in whatever Canada's version of Silicon Valley is (It's Silicon Valley isn't it?) as we speak.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

It’s quite an interesting documentary (thanks for the link – I found it in one of your posts back in June or July & it stuck with me).

Huh, appreciated. I admit I'm always a bit shocked when I discover people read my comments beyond the occasional reply.

[InsaneTrollLogic]

Heh. I feel the same way too. I look at and follow links to see if there's something interesting there. Maybe I just might learn something. I've actually modified my viewpoints after following good links that are backed up with evidence.

[CLM1227]

One thing that I think may be the culprit for unplanned childlessness is the hormonal therapy that is used by younger women to continually put kids on snooze and might be inducing infertility.

It isn’t that I think a good policy should be to ban HBC, but I do think we need to be educated on the detrimental effects of decades of hormonal sterilization on the female reproductive system. People should be fully informed when making decisions.

Another thing that COULD be done is allowing for multi-family, low density housing especially in rural areas. I’m not very libertarian on zoning, though I think it stupid that it was so hard to get business/residential zones and that you can’t build more than one house on a piece of property in a single family zone. Allowing for the ABILITY to have generational homes on one piece of property would go a decent way to lessen the implosion as generational families could more easily forgo the status quo nursing home. I think allowing for generational housing could also potentially lead to an increase in birth rate, as raising children separated from family is relatively novel and very expensive (I know western expansion was raising families separate from family, but that was self selected and not a permanent trend) and could account for some of the decrease.

Also, segregating people by age (the school system) has made it far more difficult for financially stable men to meet and marry young women. We are segregated heavily by age under 20 and then segregated by education after.

The rest can only be done culturally. The cost of living is sky high because we have grown to two-income households and so it would require a number of people sacrificing to live a lower standard life to push it in the other direction. I think COVID helped in the escalation of at-home learning and working in the culture. There’s also growing rejection of college education due to that work culture which will also decrease cost of raising kids. Removing that awful policy against employer- administered qualification tests would make that even less of a problem.

There exist trends that point to improvement for the future, but there’s a long way to go.

[Chumby]

Word of the day: hypergamy

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Hey, I'm happy to do my part. I offered the millennial women my services if their 84yr old-testosterone-having partners weren't up to the task...

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Prediction: 2024 article in Reason on how we can fix the Birth Gap by repealing the Jones Act.

[I, Woodchipper]

Viktor Orban is universally vilified by every journalist on the planet for being pro family.

[LIBertrans]

So was Anthony Comstock with his at-gunpoint Final Solution.

[Longtobefree]

"governments, employers, and other institutions" to "abandon the idea of neutrality and instead take a side: the pro-family side."

Like what?
Huge tax deductions for kids?
Subsidized childcare? (because who want to have a kid AND raise it themselves?)
Child storage areas paid for with taxes to hold kids during the day and pretend they are getting educated?
Huge college "loans" that never get paid back?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Vats to grow them in for the people who *looks upthread* decided to not have any children because we don't need retirement homes and historicity shows that old people were taken care of by children they *looks upthread* decided not to have.

mathematical equation for this theory:

2 - 0 ≡ 2 ^ 10

[LIBertrans]

Enfranchised women aren't producing brainwashable cannon fodder in Republican Comstockist quantities for the same reason male African Americans cut back on cotton-picking after THEY got the vote. Maybe Lizard can convince Reason to advocate for restoring the lash and abolishing the 13th, 15th and 19th Amendments. Making a Christian National Socialist Chancellor of the antichoice Reich would then be a lead-pipe cinch. Lookit the success of the Von Mises Caucasian Anschluss.

[Balloon maker]

Ummm…. Money?

[Nobody Important]

This isn't difficult to see why there's fewer kids and marriages. The family courts badly--BADLY--need reformed.

For those that extol the virtue of marriage...make the case for marriage to a guy given the state of divorce law in this country. Your marriage has a 50% chance of failing. If it involves kids, there's >80% chance the mother gets custody and you get socked with a child support order. Custody decisions by the court won't factor in infidelity, so if you did nothing wrong you can still get raked over the coals in court. Your wife can cheat on you and run off with some other guy and take the kids with her.

Want 50/50? You might get lucky there, and there are some states (MO,FL,AR,WV and KY) where it's at least a rebuttable presumption absent things like abuse.

Most states, though, have every-other-weekend as the fallback plan for the parent with less time. So if one parent is convinced they'll win custody, they've got no incentive to settle for 50/50, no matter how fit both parents are.

So if you're a perfectly fit dad, you still have to fight to have the same equal access to your kids you had during the marriage in most jurisdictions, often racking up ruinous legal bills in the process. COINCIDENTALLY the most prominent opponents to presumptive 50/50 bills in state legislatures are state bar associations.

A lot of guys have either been through this or know someone who did. So they figure, "why bother? What's the point of having kids if the gov't leaves laws in place that allow them to be taken away from you?"

Fact of the matter is, a father's dime is valued higher by the gov't than a father's time.

Fix that. Now.

[Edmund Burke's Hastings spy]

For all my life Math has been my passion.
One answer that should satisfy everyone is that the Math shows beyond doubt (unless we start killing seniors) that very soon the Welfare pyramid will have barely any base and it will all collapse.
We might have 5 years max to mitigate this but even then things will be horrible, The family quesiton is secondary to the societal question for the welfare state must collapse if things stay as they are.

And as a necessary aside,raising the retirement age is a fool's answer to the problem. Thanks to the Worst President in US history we now have over 7 million who have dropped out of the workforce. Show them an even gloomier prospect and you will start a stampede

"Political economist Nicholas Eberstadt shows that while "unemployment" has gone down, America's work rate is also lower today than a generation ago - and that the work rate for US men has been spiraling downward for half a century. Astonishingly, the work rate for American males aged 25-54 - or "men of prime working age" - was actually slightly lower in 2015 than it had been in 1940, before the war and at the tail end of the Great Depression.

Today, nearly one in six prime working-age men has no paid work at all - and nearly one in eight is out of the labor force entirely, neither working nor even looking for work. This new normal of "men without work", argues Eberstadt, is "America's invisible crisis"."
Biden is killing the economy softly
The truth is that fewer prime-age American men are looking for readily available work than at any previous juncture in our history. And others may be catching the “Men Without Work” virus too.

[I woke up when Hillary talked about Reconstruction]

agreed with every word

[I woke up when Hillary talked about Reconstruction]

IF I go from my work, neighborhood and other associations, it's because of people like Biden and Hillary and Harris...you can't shout 'let's have abortions up to birth' and not give a clear warning to my acquaintances that you would greatly prefer they have one or no kids. I love kids does not go with "let's abort up to birth"

It is the ole protection racket. Hey, da boss wants ya to know dat he would like it if you stopped having,you know, kids