The trends behind the historically low U.S. birth rate | Hacker News Reader

The trends behind the historically low U.S. birth rate

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15 pointsMilnerRoute18 comments

Related commentary about proposals to increase US birth rate at [1].

[1] More babies, but less support for families? How ironic. - https://www.brookings.edu/articles/more-babies-but-less-supp...

These seem to be the two main reasons for the decline in the U.S., according to the article.

- A public policy demographer says despite more women in their late 30s having children, "it's not making up for fertility declines among younger women. What's coming to appear is that a lot of these babies are just going to be forgone entirely. They're not going to be born."

- There's also a decline in teen pregancies, and the article quotes a population center director who attributes that to more effective contraception. "The United States has always had much higher rates of teen and unplanned pregnancies than other countries. This is a success story... that people are able to avoid having births early on, when they themselves would say, 'This is not the right time for me.'"

"People really need to feel confident about the future… having kids is sort of an irreversible decision and it's a long-term one"

Don't discount this reason, it's pretty powerful.

Children are a sign of optimism and hope. Dying societies forgo them.

What are you saying, that the shithole countries which have the highest birth rates have the most optimistic people? Do you not understand the desperate circumstances under which a couple can have 10 kids?

Children are a sign of optimism in a poetic sense only. It doesn't affect how many children are actually born.

It certainly does when people have access to birth control, which they generally don’t in “shithole countries”.

Almost every country in the world is in birth-decline. The US is just along the trajectory a little further. Japan leads the way with catastrophically low rates, well under replacement.

South Korea has the lowest birth rate. Japan has an older population and higher death rate, so a faster shirking population currently.

Literally all they have to do is make sure all women have maternity leave, and paid childcare for the first three years, and set limits on how high prenatal and birth medical bills can be. You’d think a bunch of supposedly “pro” “natalists” who are “pro” “life” in or adjacent to the government would be gagging at the bit to make it as easy as possible to have babies.

Well I imagine the people who call themselves “conservatives” probably want to switch back to the old thing, not try another new thing.

Be explicit about what that “old thing” is.

Women caring for their own children, of course.

This thing where we outsource childcare to poorly paid strangers is a social experiment.

Funding that with public money to increase adoption even further is another social experiment.

These social experiments may turn out to be brilliant successes in the long run, I have no idea and I’m not stating any opinion there.

But, the people who call themselves conservatives, probably want to conserve the old practice, instead of trying out more new practices. That is basically what they do.

Are you thinking of a certain study? Meta analysis is mixed on your proposals. There have been some countries where more leave and financial assistance increases births, but causality is unknown. And those births were in some countries among older parents more financially established, not the young couples who would benefit the most. In other countries there’s been no found correlation. The infamous Spanish study found more paternity leave to decrease fertility. :)

State-provided benefits not driving fertility makes some intuitive sense. The countries with high birth rates are not the wealthy and comfortable ones.

Not so sure that is enough… 5 days of work then 2 days of taking care of kids and cleaning and laundry? It takes months between me and my wife getting a couple of hours for ourselves.

Only thing I think could help is going back to the traditional housewife/houseman with grandparents. Then it would work to get 3+ kids. But right now with increasing cost and rising pension age that seems like a dream.

A productive country will wrangle out the time from its productive members and let the non productive members have kids… which might not be the best approach in the long run.

I live in Czechia where basically everything you demand is law of the land, no one except rare uninsured foreigners faces any medical bills at all, we don't even have tuition etc., but our birth rate still isn't stellar. It moves the needle only by a few tenths of a kid, compared to our European peers, and our absolute birth rate is comparable to the US one.

I don't believe it is about the money anymore. People love sex, but they don't necessarily want to have children, and once efficient contraception and sex education is available to everyone, the subset of "unwanted kids", which might have been more than half of all kids born 100 years ago, mostly disappears. What remains are the "wanted kids", and the harsh truth is that quite a lot of people want 0 or 1 kid at most.

People also aren't even having that much sex lately. The epidemics of loneliness is real. Tell me how you are going to have kids if you never have a BF/GF. That is not something money can cure, this is a deep societal dysfunction mediated by smartphones.

All else being equal, having to grow food for 1 billion people would be a lot easier than for 8 billion.

And apartments would be a lot cheaper, too.

Agreed, but the societal effects of such a dramatic shrinking of the population would be devastating.

Well we’ve historically been a nation of immigrants. Smart, capable people from all over the world come here for education and economic opportunity so we should be fine.

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