These countries tried everything from cash to patriotic calls to duty to reverse drastically declining birth rates. It didn’t work.
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If history is any guide, none of this will work: No matter what governments do to convince them to procreate, people around the world are having fewer and fewer kids.
In the US, the birth rate has been falling since the Great Recession, dropping almost 23 percent between 2007 and 2022. Today, the average American woman has about 1.6 children, down from three in 1950, and significantly below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 children needed to sustain a stable population. In Italy, 12 people now die for every seven babies born. In South Korea, the birth rate is down to 0.81 children per woman. In China, after decades of a strictly enforced one-child policy, the population is shrinking for the first time since the 1960s. In Taiwan, the birth rate stands at 0.87.
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My wife and I are well to do in the US, with a good household income that probably puts us in the top 2% or some shit. And to maintain the sort of life that used to be considered “middle class”, we need all of that income for our family of 4. Which means that we both work. We would have liked more kids. But there is only so much time to go around. Fuck are we supposed to do, have another kid and hire a nanny? Fuck is the point of that, we wouldn’t even be parenting.
You want more kids? Give people more time. Which means LESS WORK and BETTER CHILDCARE OPTIONS.
Not to mention better healthcare! Healthcare costs are the primary reason US citizens go bankrupt. Kids get sick, adults get sick, and if one of the adults in the house gets sick and can’t help bring in money for the kids then the entire household essentially goes from upper/middle to lower or bankrupt. If a kid gets very sick, oftentimes one of the parents has to stop working to argue every single claim that insurance would be paying but doesn’t, and call every department of every doctors office or hospital to get an itemized bill and get it lowered to a reasonable cost rather than them asking for a blank check. I’m afraid of having a sick kid and losing my job to their healthcare organization (note: not their healthcare directly, but calling insurance asking them to pay for life saving care, then calling hospitals asking why a small bandage is $1200), losing my house to bankruptcy after healthcare costs, and losing any semblance of future career due to time off and losing myself.
Word. What we really need is a societal overhaul. Not gonna happen, tho.
Absolutely. Taking healthcare costs off our backs would go a long way. The birth of my first kid absolutely wiped out the savings I had built up since getting out of school, and that was WITH insurance coverage. Six years of careful planning and saving just flushed down the toilet in an instant. There’s just no financially-responsible way to manage the risk of a hospital bill that could range from hundreds to hundreds of thousands depending on what does or doesn’t go according to plan, not to mention the following 18+ years of unknowns. It’s kind of a wonder that people are still having as many kids as they are these days.
Not to mention insurance won’t tell you what they cover until you have someone done. “Do you cover this” could mean they cover 10%, 70%, or 100%, and they don’t even know what their system will approve. This is with good insurance. Unless you are apart of the top 5% then everyone can be wiped from you very quickly without notice. Eat the rich anyone?
Not that we had much choice along the way, but you’re right, we were almost completely in the dark about how much anything was going to cost as it happened. Various groups were mailing us bills for the full amounts even before insurance had settled their portion. Nobody in the entire insurance and billing game is on your side.
It was a shock to my system to hear Americans setting aside 10k+ for delivering a child. What the fuck? For a country that claims it wants kids it sure as hell doesn’t act like it.
Here is the Canadian version: you go to the hospital, you deliver, you get the after care, then you go home. Cost to you: $0 (unless you came in an ambulance, then expect somewhere between $150-400?)
In the US ambulance can cost another $10k. They are local companies that have good connections with the local police stations, and the only way to contact them is through the police, and you can only get whichever has the best relationship with the police. I say police because to get an ambulance is the same emergency number. There is usually no competition and they can charge whatever they feel like and insurance may not cover much if anything. For an ambulance, there is literally no way to know how much you need to pay, because insurance determines if you were really experiencing an emergency or if you could have driven, and being unconscious isn’t enough to determine an emergency in many cases.
So much freedom. Freedom to die from preventable causes. Freedom to experience bankruptcy often. So much freedom.
I am you. I have two kids and fucking hell our expenses are getting out of control. Fortunately we spaced them out enough that only one is in day/preschool. But it’s still basically impossible to justify my wife being employed with only our youngest kid’s expenses. Looking at $2.5k per month of childcare expenses for one kid makes me want to give up.
My state, Oregon, passed a leave law that is currently saving our lives. Extra 4 weeks of leave that can be taken intermittently. We are financially fucked the moment we are out of our state leave. For reference I have an MS in ME and work in manufacturing. And my wife is one of the highest paid dental assistants I’m aware of.
Space between your kids and wait until they are ready to care for the other kids?
I hope you don’t have children that you’re forcing to be babysitters. I know people who did that growing up, their relationship with their parents is… not good.
What are you talking about?
I’m 6 years older than my sister and when we were younger, I have babysitted her every day after school until my parents came home a few hours later. That’s just not a traumatic thing at all.My parents had nine kids. The eldest still doesn’t talk to them, ten years after he left. Our two experiences must mean that the average reality is somewhere in between. Resentment sounds about right. /s
Isn’t it neat how we can have different experiences? Just because you are happy with your specific situation does not mean that certain actions won’t tend to cause resentment in the average home.
I think you’d agree that there is a stark difference between “babysitting your one sister” and “babysitting 8(!!) Children”. Yet, the comment I replied to just said broadly “letting one sibling babysit will traumatize that child and they will hate their parents” which I refuted as not being the universal truth the comment made it out to be. “Don’t cover your toddler’s nose” or “don’t let a toddler’s head fall back or forwards” are such truths. “Babysitting leads to resentment of parents” isn’t.
Also, babysitting and “caring for” are different things. While I absolutely agree that you should not be in a parenting role as sibling and being responsible for the upbringing of your younger siblings, babysitting usually means “watch for a few hours and keep the status quo so the child doesn’t starve or kill itself while the parents are away”, nothing more.
Besides, you closed your reply implying that I’m the outlier here because my experiences aren’t doing what would happen in “an average home”. Now don’t get.me wrong here but isn’t my home a little more average than your’s? Like… Going by the numbers in the very post above.
the comment I replied to just said broadly “letting one sibling babysit will traumatize that child and they will hate their parents”
It’s funny, i thought the exact opposite; your comment was saying that kids babysitting kids will never cause resentment, and the comment you replied to was obviously saying that kids baysitting kids is a bad habit to get into, but not terrible in moderation.
I am well aware that my family situation is an outlier, i just understood your comment to mean that kids babysitting kids will never cause resentment, so one counter example was enough to make my point, which was that you need to be careful about choosing to have enough kids so they can ‘parent themselves’.
Yeah, my last sentence sounds wrong in hindsight. Should have said “That is just not a traumatic thing to me at all” or "That was not a traumatic thing at all.
I absolutely agree that a line should be drawn where you expect children to prematurely… well… mature and be parents/adults.
In my case, I was 12 or so and my sister was 6, so we both came home from school and were alone until our parents got home from work. They never expected me to make her do things or something. When we hadn’t done our homework when they got home, the consequence was that the homework needed to be done still and we couldn’t go out and play. That’s it. My job was to make sure my sister got a warm meal (reheated; pre-cooked by my parents) and basically didn’T die. They asked us to do certain things while they were away (vacuum the living room or something) but they never really made a fuss when we failed to do it. They just made us do it later then.
The problem is that a child is the responsibility of the parents, and the parents alone. Could you have said no if you wanted to? You should have been able to, every time.
I personally take offense in strangers who tell me how my family life which I’m rather fond of “should have” been. You have no right to stamp your ideas of family onto me and my relatives. Period.
That isn’t happening. Stop trying to play the victim.
Oh? So uranibaba did not postulate their opinion on how responsibilities in a family “should be” and formulated them as absolute rights or wrongs? Did we read the same comment?
My oldest daughter is a bit over 6 years older than our baby. I might ask her to do something similar to what you are describing. Most people on here seem to think helping the family out equals trauma because birthing someone automatically means you retain full responsibility for them existing. It’s more complicated than that and I think the thing people are mad about is choosing to have kids in a way that you expect them to take care of each other.
For me, this always went under “caring for each other” which is something children should learn and practice. Besides, we always had a grand old time. They always made absolutely sure there was food to be warmed up, so that was.taken care of. After that, I’d play computer games upstairs, she’d watch cartoons downstairs and then shout for me when she heard someone coming. Then we’d tell our parents how we practiced piano or some shit and they knew what was up, yet let us go on.
People don’t want to bring children into this capitalistic hellscape. Color me surprised.
And even if they want to, they can’t afford to
But they’re being paid!!!
Except that is the whole point of the article, money isn’t why.
8 months pay isn’t going to pay for 18 years
From the article (that you didn’t read):
“In a 2018 US poll, about a quarter of respondents said they had or were planning to have fewer kids than they would ideally like to have. Of those, 64 percent cited the cost of child care as a reason. Ballooning costs — of child care, housing, college, and more — are an issue around the world”
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Less billionaires would be better than less humans in general.
Exactly, Elon Musk has 11 kids and they’l contribute more to climate change than 1000 kids in China.
When it takes two people’s income to live in the middle class, there is no time for children until much later. The trend is to have children at 30, when you are starting to make a decent income.
It is more about too much centralization of power than any one economic system as this issue is a near global issue.
The cost of raising a child has gone up thousands. No government has come close to subsidizing the increase.
That’s my experience too. I read the whole article to find out what countries have actually tried helping with the expenses of raising a child. The most financial help mentioned was a 30,000 LOAN that would be given to newly weds and only forgiven if they had 3 kids… 30k isn’t enough for one kid…
The only other financial help I saw was $7000 per kid in Russia.
And money is only one part of the problem. It takes time to raise kids. If both parents have to work full time there isn’t any time left to raise your kids even if you’re rich while working.
20th cenrury’s policies put a lot of effort into distancing us from our means and our families. Paying peanuts for a newborn wouldn’t help poor who are most likely to want it, only to dig themselves deeper. It’s, true, a systemic problem that can’t be solved with a mere donation.
Russia was already building their army back then hehe
Yeah, how much cash are they offering? If it’s a one time payment of like $1000, that won’t even cover the cost of nappies in the first year.
That won’t even cover the epidural for the delivery in the US
Even if you choose not to have kids, the sad thing is that you’ll spend the same money taking care of your parents when we stop taking care of our elderly in 20 years so the rich can have more tax breaks. The really sad part is you’ll spend all your money on both if you do have kids anyways
Have they tried raising the salaries so that one parent can stay at home and actually take care of the children, instead of sending them to way too expensive daycares. Having children is a “luxury” nowadays.
Just limit work to 35 hours (10-10-10-5) and have parents alternate schedules
Fuck that, have you worked 10 hour shifts? Pretty sure studies have shown you max out productivity at 6. I say 24 hour work week, 6 hours 4 days a week.
Yes, it is so much better
This is beyond out of touch with reality lol, you’ve been in your internet bubble for far too long
If you’re going to boil it down to bare economics, daycare should come out ahead. 2 people can take care of 9 babies versus a stay at home parent taking care of 1 or 2. And realistically today, advocating for a stay at home parent is telling women to go back to the kitchen. It’s regressive, unnecessary, and not actionable advice.
I would instead argue that modern life is not supportive of real-life, tight communities and lasting relationships. Online social lives are a starkly inferior substitute for real life but they’re easier to access and give the equivalent dopamine hit.
And realistically today, advocating for a stay at home parent is telling women to go back to the kitchen. It’s regressive, unnecessary, and not actionable advice.
No, what YOU said is regressive. The commenter never mentioned women; men can just as easily be house spouses, and that’s also without mentioning non-binary partners. You just assumed they meant women and ran with it
Edit: grammar
Are you seriously claiming that we’re done with equality in the workplace (positions, salary, respect)? No? Then stop misrepresenting what I said as some neanderthal spiel. We need daycare to give people options. Kids need to be able to see both parents represented and succeeding in the workplace.
Kids need to be able to see both parents represented and succeeding in the workplace.
Disagree with you there. Kids need to see their parents in person, and exploring humanities instead of prioritizing work over family and personal close relationships. Work isn’t the most important thing. I don’t care of it’s a gay couple, bi-couple, or a transgender couple with an adopted child. I think intrinsic to the support of LGBTQ communities should be every right afforded straight people, and I think income inequalities between genders needs to go away. At the same time, the value of the worker is what truly needs to change to help bolster all of the above. When we can get back to a much more regulated system (bringing back the regulations that make stock buybacks illegal), reducing the work week to just 32 hours but requiring that no TC concessions happen as a result, and forcing a more equitable share of prosperity from the corporate world to the workers, THAT will do more to help with many of the social issues we face.
Not to mention, the de-gentrification of communities, more rights for workers, affordable housing, and the tremendous benefits that would lead to in reducing our climate change risks, it’s asinine to split hairs over red herrings that distract us from who our true adversaries are: the rich. If you want to counter populism and win over Trump voters, you focus on the areas we have common ground with real life issues we’re facing.
Are you seriously claiming that we’re done with equality in the workplace
Can you make a point without a straw man? I said nothing of the sort.
And I don’t disagree with your point about daycare; I think people need options, but I disagree with your point about online relationships being dopamine-equivalent to “real” relationships, personally. I’d LOVE to have a family but I have neither the space nor the money to have kids.
Personally I think communal child raising should be more normalized; I think children experiencing many different and at times contradictory viewpoints is good for their development of critical thinking. But I don’t presume to fully know the solution to lose birth rates. I DO however claim that whatever financial incentives are being given, they aren’t enough.
You’re correct that my comment was not inclusive. That was not intentional on my part and I’m sorry if I offended anyone. However, this is a distraction from the main point.
It was not a strawman. I was making a statement about how society is right now, not how it should be. “men can be house spouses”, etc is true but until we have better workplace equality and in absence of daycare, the vast majority of prospective families are going to do some very simple budget math to figure out who can afford to be a stay-at-home parent. It is exactly the “kitchen” crap from years gone by but with some populist indirection to avoid calling it that.
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They don’t need a daycare, they need a parent/family
Hmmm I’d like to stay at home and I’m the man. We both earn about the same, she earns more. I don’t trust daycare workers. You optimize for what you value, if you value economics you’re simply not going to optimize for what’s best for the child. Because at all the cross roads where the biological needs or psychological needs conflict the economical value you’ll not be making those choices.
At a coarse level, children from families with more money are better off so I disagree. Daycare is a small part of a child’s life. Really 3-4 years out of 18 and of those, only 9-5 at that. In exchange, you afford a nicer, safer town with better schools. If your family chooses a stay-at-home parent, you won’t afford those places when competing against dual income families.
At a coarse level, children from families with more money are better off so I disagree
And that seems like a correction that needs to happen.
I think of this daycare idea like public school, you ever notice the high income rich areas have a good public school system whereas the low income don’t?
If you’re on the whole okay with a certain percent of kids failing then on the coarse level it does seem like a good idea.
Sure, but people wanting families are facing these decisions right now. They don’t want to wait for society to get its head screwed on straight. The root comment was “stay at home parents! no more daycare!” but sailed right over all the macro and micro consequences of that.
I do believe that nobody “belongs in the kitchen” as far as gender roles go. What we’re up against is the weakness of the family unit in society and the breakdown of lasting friendships contributing to mental health issues. Online social lives are objectively bad for us, and I’d argue that the dopamine hit is just helping burn our dopamine receptors even more.
Regardless this reminds me of the classic argument that was had back in the 80’s about the kitchen itself, that it’s more “efficient” for people not to cook at home but to go to a place that prepares food en masse for a community. This was during the Soviet Communism era and there was a side debate going on. Western culture favored the family unit, while a communist concept favored social efficiency at the cost of liberties.
I don’t think it’s regressive to desire to have more time to be with your kids, whether it’s day care, school, etc. The real issue isn’t economics and progressive concepts, I think we’d all agree that a robust public education system is valuable, and that we should have economics that let us pick our kids up from school rather than send them to a day care. It’s not about sending anyone to the kitchen.
I like our kitchen, I like cooking food for the family, and I even enjoy it as a way to wind down after work. Modern life not supportive of tight knit communities and lasting relationships is complete bullshit. Modern life in that viewpoint is the continuous hustle culture and prioritization of work over a fulfilling life experience, and in my opinion your viewpoint is regressive for that reason alone. Kill hustle culture, eat the rich, and let’s have economics that give us a choice.
The food analogy is great. But I think there’s a quantitative difference in effort and long term commitment between what to have for dinner and how you’ll afford to raise your family.
Here’s a crazy idea, what if we end this second gilded age and return dignity to the working class? Instead of pushing for EV’s, how about we push for sustainable lifestyles and strengthen the family unit by returning much needed time back to workers? Instead of saying women belong in the workforce instead of the kitchen, how about we say nobody “belongs” in either and that we have the choices and freedom to make the decision? What if, thanks to an 8 hour workday four days a week, we drastically reduce the need for day care and allow parents to be more involved directly with their kids instead of setting a soulless worker drone example?
Lastly, how about you take a hint?
Aldous Huxley described your vision of Utopia in brave new world. I think it’s ridiculous, unobtainable, and overall a terrible approach to society. Life is all about lasting and meaningful relationships, so any approach that views these as optional or outdated is broken before it even starts. Your entire premise is flawed from the start.
I think you read my comment backwards. I guess to follow your analogy, social media is “soma” and is a problem today.
Plain raising of salaries would only drive hyperinflation.
Or the could offer free child care, but that’s socialism.
Even rightoid economists like Friedman disagree with this.
I assure you you can. The payment would have to cover all of the child’s needs plus a bit more but you definitely can.
But the cost of that would far exceed anything remotely reasonable. I say fuck it, let the birthrate drop for a few decades. The planet could use the break.
It’s only catastrophically low in traditionally “western” countries. the world’s population is still growing. It appears immigration is now a requirement to grow the economy. How interesting.
Conservatives/fascists are just gonna LOVE these next few decades. Climate change is set to destroy countless homes, displacing millions if not billions of people. If they think the “border crisis” is bad now, they’re gonna lose it then.
That’s why they want to militarize the border and normalize the concept of the ethnostate now, so they can machine gun climate refugees in the near future.
But don’t you dare call them fascists.
I think that’s predicted to level off in 60 years then drop. Though I guess it was level before the industrial revolution, so a lot could still change.
Yes, and the total payment would have to be substantial. The cost of raising a child from infancy to age 18 (not including university, obviously) in Canada is $320,000.
https://www.moneysense.ca/columns/making-it/how-much-does-it-cost-to-raise-a-child-in-canada/
Yep, it sounds weird but some politicians are floating the idea. It will never pass, but it’s the thought that counts(?). Of all people, Trump wanted to give a family 5k per child. So the idea exists in the us with some strong political people. ( because of lemmygrad I am saying this I don’t like Trump I am only using his statement to show how much the belief exists)
$5K one-time payment? No way!
$5K per month? Sign me up.
Florida is giving $8k per year for private school costs, and apparently homeschool can count. As against that idea as I am, I do think that could have a positive impact on population growth.
I could definitely see someone fantasizing having 4-5 kids then “retiring” to homeschool them. For $8k per year each kid.
Indiana gives $6k, but even though my daughter is in online school, she doesn’t get it because it’s a state program (except it’s run by Pearson). If she was in another online program, she’d get the $6k. Granted, we don’t have to pay tuition, so we don’t need the $6k, but it seems unfair to me.
Don’t live in fear of or apologize to the lemmygrad assholes, speak your piece.
Can’t believe the Mentos rap song campaign didn’t work. They’re the Freshmaker!
Most birds don’t lay eggs without a proper nest
Tried everything…except work life balance.
Also didn’t paying a livable wage
Just like the socalled “work shortage”, the problem is they aren’t offering nearly enough. That’s it.
Currently in Taiwan, citizens receive 2500 NT per month (i.e. $80 USD) per birth until the child is five years old. That’s a fucking joke.
Yeah there’s no way these programs are coming anywhere near the cost of having kids. Childcare alone is insanely expensive these days.
snort
I sure as shit would have more kids if I had parental leave and child care options…
And money. And a place to live. And food prices that aren’t massively inflated.
Lot of folks can’t even afford to take care of themselves. Add a kid into that struggle? No thank you.
Look, if you didn’t want to be price gouged, you shouldn’t have paid those high prices! Vote with your wallet!
(For those who think I might be serious, I’m not. Voting with your wallet isn’t democratic, it’s literally plutocratic.)
Kidding aside, there’s a clip of some grocery store chain CEO talking about how they will raise their prices as high as the market will bear - it’s chilling, but, like, in the USA, it’s the law - it would literally be illegal if they didn’t.
Christ, it’s too expensive to be alive right now… fucking suffering.
That hasn’t stopped boomers
Kids are cheap to feed plus you eat their leftovers, so it’s a win win.
Don’t know if you know this, mate, but kids grow.
Not if you eat their food.
I know a fair chunk of my friends who have given up on the dream of kids. When both parents have to work full time at jobs their post secondary education qualified them for and court mental health issues because nothing they do for work feels meaningful just to scrape by with the bare minimum and accrue damn near nothing in savings… They don’t really want to have kids.
A lot of mammals when they don’t feel safe or secure in resources abandon or kill their young. Humans given control over their reproduction just seem to settle on raising dogs because they are cheaper.
It also kind of feels like society hates me for being ADHD and wants me to suffer so why would I want to bring another human into this world that has felt for 30+ years like a door slamming in my face.
I like when I tell boomers I don’t feel like I will be financially able to raise a kid until I am much older than I should be for having a kid and they smile and with a nostalgic look say “Oh, nobody is ever ready! You will figure it out trust me! We did!”. Makes me want to punch them in the face.
I’m with you on this. My family is, let’s just say, prone to melancholy and leave it at that.
My having children means there’s a significant likelihood that I’d be bringing even more misery into the world. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.
nods for me, my depression comes out of having an invisible disability that most people think is a joke excuse that arises out of being on too much tiktok or something. I don’t know if I would be sad if society actually valued me for the unique qualities of my brain…. but it doesn’t and there is no way I would want to give a kid the experience I have had trying to push through that. It has been awful honestly and I don’t understand what possible point there could be to it OTHER than to scream in my ear that I shouldn’t pass my mind on to another human.
Maybe I will get a dream job one day that accommodates me and lets my strengths come out…. but statistically it’s just not that likely. Why would I knowingly set a kid up with such a shitty diceroll?
Woman of childbearing age here. Lots of my friends took another child off the table when Roe fell. Being potentially forced to die and leave your existing children orphaned is a big deterrent, turns out
Plus it just fucking sucks to be a mother these days. Things are a lot more egalitarian than they used to be, but society still expects the uterus-having to take on more of the child caring tasks, and the emotional labor especially tends to still fall disproportionately on women. Our careers suffer, our bodies suffer if we bore (and possibly nursed) the baby/ies, our mental health suffers from the unrelenting societal pressure and neglect, plus all of the other shit that every other parent deals with as well. The women and mothers I know are fed up and so, so tired. (I’m not bitter… not at all… :D)
I love my children to pieces, but if I had seen an older sister go through this I might have opted out of having kids entirely. Two of my sisters have.
Yeah can’t blame the ladies for that one, if I were a woman I’d be mighty tempted to seal up my womb too.
Interestingly this is actually how a lot of men feel about their own procreation. You’re one broken condom away from being beholden to an unwanted child and a selfish mother. It can ruin your life before you’ve even had a chance to start. Hell teenage boys raped by older women have had to pay child support.
I’d love to see this lead into a useful conversation about the rights of both sexes but it has been pretty one-sided so far.
I suspect the rise of the dual-income family (often as a matter of necessity) has had a massive influence on this.
In addition to the absurd increases in cost of living etc.
Also the bleak outlook into the future.
They’ve tried everything… except putting guardrails on these giant corporations and their runaway price-gouging. In the US at least, if the cost of wages kept pace with skyrocketing housing, higher education, and healthcare, I guarantee more people could afford to live and care for themselves and children…
In 1968, when Richard Nixon was first elected, “middle class” was defined as one Union type job paying for a family of four in a private house with a few luxuries. In those days, $1 million was a vast fortune. Nixon ramped up inflation with his Vietnam War buildup, and the Oil Crisis really increased it. Ronald Reagan got elected and by the time Bush Sr. finished the job, “middle class” was two incomes to keep the household going, and $1 million was what a rich guy paid for a party.
Is a declining birth rate a bad thing? 50 million people live in a country (South Korea) the size of Indiana. Maybe, just maybe the economy should just take a hit for a change so there can be fewer people here. I know rich people don’t want that, but I bet the country would be a better place for it.
Korean here. The problem is the steepness of the trend. We are not ready for such dramatic change over short period. Gradual decrease in population will cause economic downfall for sure. But we can deal with that. But in current speed, it’s going to be economic airplane crash. Claiming that it’s only bad for the 1% is just delusional at best. The crash will overwhelm any social/economic structure.
I’ve noticed some people here practically yearn for disasters because it might hurt the rich. The absolutely staggering collateral damage to everyone else is ignored or waved away. It’s very much a desperate “nothing left to lose” philosophy that’s both sad and scary.
Multiple generations have had all the doors slammed in their faces, and all the ladders pulled up before them. Instead of acting like crabs in a bucket, they’ve decided they would rather have nothing so long as the people who trapped them suffer too. It’s pure spite but can you blame them? I’d probably do the same thing.
You are ignoring the fact that there’s going to be several times the loss in human workers added to the workforce by way of virtual laborers within 20 years.
This is just one of the many recent instances of humans being unable to adequately forecast consequences due to anchoring biases. While we typically see it in the other direction (minimizing increasing risks because of lower historical risk) here it’s something that would have been concerning decades ago but won’t be nearly as risky decades from now.
Maybe the chaebols should stop constantly putting up new apartment blocks now.
That’s very far from what’s happening right now. I’m curious where did you get that idea from.
Maybe the evidence is anecdotal, but I’ve lived in Korea for 20 years, and there’s always a huge new, self-contained apartment complex going up nearby. If anything, they’ve ramped up production in that time. While older population centers are left to decline. Maybe not in Seoul which is shoulder-to-shoulder apartment complexes already, but the smaller cities are full of decaying apartment complexes since they put them up, then completely fail to maintain them as they know their market is full of people who will move into the next complex since “gotta have the latest and greatest” is a problem here.
There’s good evidence though. When you drive from Incheon Airport into Seoul, you see a ton of new apartment / condos going up. Every time I visit, I see more and more buildings put up.
I mean, in the short term (50-100 years), yes it is. Unless people start dying at a younger age, there’s going to be a lot of orphaned seniors, which isn’t good. We won’t really see the benefits of a declining birthrate in our lifetimes, but we will see numerous negatives.
In the long term, it’s probably more nessecary then “not bad,” but again, you don’t want to be the one of the people living during the population collapse.
We need ICE cars to remain available so we don’t have as many orphaned seniors
Raising a kid in America starts around $200k, conservatively. A 2-3k incentive or even 6 months of paid leave worth around 25k aren’t gonna make a dent.
Give me 2-3k per month for 18 years plus cost of living increase at 5%+ per year and I’ll consider it.
Otherwise, nah. Im good. I enjoy my free time and all the extra money I have due to no kids.
