Fertility rates decrease as rents increase

Here on Hacker News there was some discussion of the article from the Economist, six weeks ago, titled "The link between polygamy and war". This was in response to that essay:

"This suggests that political stability depends on young men being able to pursue their romantic dreams. This would apply in any country, not just African countries. In nations in the West, an important limiting factor is the ability to get one’s own apartment. That is, the ratio of average male wage to average rent. In the USA, the happiest year for this ratio was 1958, when people were spending 22% of their income on rent, on average. Not by coincidence, this was the peak year of the Baby Boom. In some sense, it was the best year in history to be a young white male in the USA. It was the year when it was easiest for an 18 year old male to get out of high school, get their own apartment, marry their high school sweetheart, and start a family. And of course, young people did this in huge numbers, which is why 1958 remains the peak year for teenage pregnancy in the USA."

http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/do-men-become-warlike...

> And a team of economists have now crunched the data proving that zoning and restrictive land-use regulations–forces that contribute to making housing so expensive in cities like San Francisco and New York–are actually driving fertility rates downward.

Are they actually preventing couples from having children, or are couples simply moving away from those areas in order to have their children elsewhere?

And on top of that, are the kind of people who move to NYC or SF already the kind of people planning not to have a kid over the next 5-10 years, or ever?

Taking a quick look at the original paper, the authors don't appear to address these potential factors at all.

I think there is more at play here. Some of the highest birth rates are still in the lowest economic groups. While high rents are a problem and a no doubt causing economic hardships preventing young families from having children I think this is an over simplification of a larger problem.

Going rate for a baby delivery in the hospital was around ten thousand dollars last time I checked. I bet medicaid would absorb it but if you fall between dirt poor and middle class it sounds cripling.

I think way too many people rather enjoy the DINK life style rather than have economic issues.

If anything birth rates are higher in the lower end of the socioeconomic scale than in the middle and higher end currently.

I think people aren’t having babies because there’s too much interesting stuff to do, and the world has never been as accessible as it is today. Technology has made nearly every corner of the globe accessible for prices that would seem magical a generation ago. As far as our ancestors are concerned, we may as well have invented teleportation.

Then entertainment, wow, the entertainment that’s available at the push of a button. Every song, every tv show, every movie, right in your own apartment! Massively multiplayer games, message boards, Wikipedia; the sum of human knowledge in your pocket.

And you can create stuff, and share it with millions of people without even leaving your chair. Code, music, art, whatever — make it this morning, 100k views by lunch.

There is SO MUCH to do, to make, to share, to learn — our world has gotten so so big just in the last generation that I think I’d be surprised if the birth rate didnt go down. There are just too many other things vying for our finite attention.

I think computer programmers won't understand this problem since i made enough to raise a middle class family at my first job out of college

I have to call BS on this. even the article itself contain 'While it is impossible to definitively trace a causal link between land use restriction and fertility, the results here suggest that the two are strongly related in the data.'

A correlation is shown, but no causation.

If I needed to speculate, even without resorting to hidden variable impacts, I'd say the market for 'exclusive' housing in less child friendly environments would tend to be dominated by singles and couples with large disposable incomes, potentially resulting from being more career than family focused.

'We can't financially afford having another baby, so we wont' does not seem to hold at all as a rule for primary driver in both present and historic worldwide reproduction data. If anything, it's the reverse.

I think that there's a massive correlation/causation problem here. Yes, it certainly appears that restrictive zoning laws are inversely correlated with fertility — but is it possible that the sorts of people who are likely to have fewer children are drawn towards the sorts of cities which restrict construction?

There are so many factors that come into play when deciding to have a child w cost of living being just one of the many. In areas where people are delaying having a family only after establishing their career, people consider: reduction to one income or cost of daycare; what needs of children will do to career and the hours required for career; commute time if having to move out a bit for more affordable housing; concerns with schools (quality of education and violence in the school systems); higher incidents of disabilities based on the age of mother; and rising costs of everything. Autism is steadily increasing and this shows no signs of changing. Discrimination is rampant against pregnant women or mothers in the workplace, and general societal ills all make people question if they want to have children.

It would be very difficult to pinpoint with any accuracy why people are delaying or forgoing parenthood. Some reasons may be very personal or may be viewed as insensitive and may keep someone from stating the real reason why they choose not to have children. They may also may not be able to have children and give a reason because they do not want to share what they may see as something very private.

Maybe this article would be better titled “Is high rent contributing to the decline ..... in high density areas?”

Skimming over the paper that the article references, it doesn't look like the authors have a real way of disaggregating two possible causal pathways from housing costs to delaying/avoiding children:

1. housing costs --> economizing on housing --> not having room for children

2. housing (and other) costs --> higher earning --> longer working hours for both (prospective) parents --> not having time for children.

It would be interesting to know whether people are not producing kids because they can't afford more space or because they can't afford to sacrifice income for childrearing.

This paper is a vast oversimplification of a confluence of many issues, of which rent is only one - and I’d seriously question the causative effect suggested here as well.

Aside, the US fertility rate has taken a steep dive since the Great Recession - during, and for a while after which, the rents were (at least in absolute terms) quite a bit lower.

I have four kids myself, so I’d like to think I understand at least some of the issues fairly well.

Is there no indignity that the boomers will not inflict on their progeny?

The perspective of losing everything in a divorce when kids are involve would be a factor as well.

People do not like have kids in a high population density environment. Humans have a trigger that suppresses fertility when there are too many people around.