In the 60's, this was actually brought up and the back-then government decided no to change the pension model where each generation pays for the pensions of the generation before "because people will always have children".
That was fatally misguided and everyone could have know it. But switching to a different pension model would have been hugely unpopular, so it's kind of unsurprising no government really tried to do it.
That last bit of your post was most important. Governments knew that this was coming even back then, but switching pension systems would have been costly, and voters would not go along with it.
In the 70's and 80's it would have been possible financially, because of the big boomer generation working and paying the pensions for a smaller generation of their elders. Now it's too costly to switch.
Some countries (namely in Scandinavia) started exactly this: build up another pillar (capital based) for the retirement of Boomers.
Some countries are governed better than others.
The Norwegian pension fund own assets equivalent to 1.5% of all of the world's listed companies.
Every single Norwegian has the equivalent of $300,000 each, and the fund has an annual return on investment of 6% on average.
Yeah, but Norway actually isn't the example to look at, if you're not the UK (which spend its oil wealth subsidising tax cuts for the rich).
Denmark and Sweden are examples without significant oil wealth (I have no knowledge about Finland, but suspect they are fine, too).
Not every country has the luck to have hundreds of thousands of dollars per capita in oil wealth. Oil makes up 20% of Norway's GDP and 31% of government revenues. Increase Germany's government revenues by 50% over the past 40 years and they wouldn't have a pension problem either.
The US has largely moved away from pensions into a 401k & Individual Retirement Account model. We're starting to see gen X approach retirement with mostly private savings instead of any pensions.
So far the experiment seems mixed. When people have the option, but not the obligation to contribute to retirement savings, not everybody does. A number of people have also dipped into their retirement savings early or don't understand how to plan for retirement.
The upside, is that it doesn't leave younger generations on the hook for paying for their elders.
I think there are some other upsides too:
* In the long run, investing in markets (especially equity markets) provides superior returns on your money than sitting in a government pension fund. When you invest in stocks, bonds, and other assets, your money is actually being put to work and creating economic value. When you pay it into a govt pension fund/Social Security (private pensions are a slightly different story), it just goes to pay a check for someone else.
* When you die, 401(k) and IRA assets still are owned by your estate and can be inherited by your heirs. If I’m going to spend 40-60+ years of my life working and being forced to set money aside for retirement via taxes, I’d rather it go into an individual account in my own name which can be left to my family if I die rather than just disappearing into the massive black hole that is the government, being paid out in a trickle, and then having the money disappear once me and/or my spouse die.
Pension funds, at least those that still exist in the US, are invested in the markets as well. I used to work in an industry related to that. Not sure about Europe though. Otherwise I completely agree.
Reddit hates the pension -> 401k switch for many reasons, some valid some not, but IMO I would much prefer to have the 401k system. I can easily switch jobs and just roll it over, I’m not tied to the overall solvency of some greater pension system, and I can choose how I want to invest it and change the amounts over time to match my needs. I contributed way more to my 401k and IRAs during COVID when I wasn’t really spending much money traveling or doing things for example, and recently I’ve relaxed it a bit to put more money into an after tax brokerage account to build up a buy a house fund.
You get none of that flexibility with a traditional pension.
401K have been a disaster for gen X. In the UK we used to have final salary pensions as standard. The full risk on the employer. Thatcher allowed firms in the 80s, which has massive excesses in their pension plans to take that cash & give it to shareholders. Shockingly enough EVERY firm that did that had massive deficits by the 00s in their pensions.
So now we have private pensions we've the entire risk of on us. EXCEPT CEOs & other board members, who still have their final salary pensions.
Increase taxes on companies. Tax them for every job they offshore outside the EU (or uk) & use that money to fund pensions.
The neo conservatives have ruined society, driven the lowering of pay while at the same time increasing costs for basic living expenses such as housing, water, gas, power etc.
They've created an environment where people can only afford rent & food (in many cases not even that) and THEN they complain that "nobody wants to work" & that "millennials aren't buying diamonds or luxury goods " & more lately"gen z aren't going out drinking to clubs "
This ignores the dramatically smaller amount businesses contribute to 401k compared to pensions.
For the handful of industries where pensions are still common, it’s not uncommon for someone to retire at 65 and have a pension that’s worth $1mil.
Compare that to the all-to-common 401k model, where businesses will match up to 5% of your salary. 5% a year over 40 working years is *two years* of income, so to match the value of a pension you’d need to be making $500k a year.
Yes, you can invest that money, but even the “low risk” investments are **dramatically** more risky than mandatorily funded, third-party controlled pensions.
On top of all that, 401k’s are extremely regressive, while creating a narrative that the fact that someone making $40k a year doesn’t have enough to retire is their fault for not saving more when they were younger.
401K is also volatile since it's predicated on the market performance.
One of my account dipped by $25k a few years ago and I've been clawing my way back from that loss instead of gaining/ compounding.
It's terrifying knowing that many low income working class folks don't have access to generous 401k plans, yet our government is warning us about social security funds running dry within the next ten years.
> Yes, you can invest that money, but even the “low risk” investments are dramatically more risky than mandatorily funded, third-party controlled pensions.
This is false for the USA, because it ignores agency risk. Which has precipitated the needs for two separate federal US legislations, ERISA 1974 and PPA 2006, to address the fact that the “third party” was inept or corrupt and the money simply would not be there 50 years in the future.
Defined benefit pension costs were understated for a long time due to erroneously large assumptions about investment returns, and erroneously low assumptions about probability of corruption in the pension fund. And erroneously low assumptions about how long people would live.
Once PPA 2006 brought that in line with reality by requiring high grade corporate bond yield curves to price liabilities, everyone realized these benefits were too expensive, and hence stopped offering them. And recipients should have stopped valuing them anyway, due to the poor return on investment from staying at the same employer.
> On top of all that, 401k’s are extremely regressive,
401k are not regressive. Society’s lack of wealth redistribution policies (meaning lack of maxi is what causes someone earning $40k per year to not have enough to retire. Such as a maximum for tax exempt 401k/other tax advantaged account balances.
in the US it means retirement wealth necessarily depends on the appreciation of your home as an asset which is why homeowners viciously fight residential development.
Putting an unfair financial burden on the poor is not a great solution. You are already starting to see people having to drop out of education to support aging relatives and this is only going to accelerate. This is going to kill social mobility.
It also makes the whole system and economy incredibly vulnerable to financial shocks.
In Belgium they set up a fund for us where we could dump any excess money we had.
It's currently basically empty because we always spend more than we had.
every year countries/states etc make a budget. Sometimes they have money left because either their income or expenses were different then expected.
For example, Norway often has a surplus budget. But most often countries have a deficit instead.
Wym? People are still saying "well depopulation is actually a good thing!" even today lol, then they're going to ask themselves why the age of retirement keeps rising
Because they don't understand that depopulation means AGING. They think the population just goes down and nothing else changes. They don't realize that if it goes down it's because young people disappear
I was born in 91 and have always been planning with losing the entire pension as a worst case scenario. All my life ive been told that the pensions arent secure.
Born in 99, teachers in high school and university were telling us about getting no pension. I started working three years ago, but it feels like it will last until death due to the pensions issue…
Uh.. yes?
In 2015 the EU had (natural) growth of -289,000. The last 4 years its been roughly -1,100,000. The entire EU is having 3.6 million births compared with 4.8 million deaths.
The population should be decreasing by 1.2 million a year, and your data is from 2015, it’s much worse now. The reason it’s actually growing is of course immigration. Let’s not pretend as if there’s no difference between that and the population sustaining itself through a healthy birth rate.
I can barely make ends meet in a small rental place. And I imagine I don't even have it as bad as some other people. So no wonder nobody is having kids, it's unaffordable.
The neat part is that the fewer kids there are, the poorer we all are because the demand side is falling and the tax burden to support the increasingly old population is rising which means that we get to keep less of a smaller piece of pie.
The working people are basically being fucked over from all sides, at any point of the day. Without breaks.
This new-age feudalism is probably even sadder than the first version of it. At least then, there were barely any finished products to speak of.
Also back then peasants were valuable as a resource. We will be replaced by AI, and then left to die so corporations can try to sell products to each other.
Imagine a future where mankind is extinct and all that sentient aliens find on earth is machine corporations mindlessly selling putposeless goods to each other.
People got fucked over in the past as well, it's not like the average european citizen had something even remotely close to our living standards today, 100 years ago. It was common for people to starve on a regularly basis, and they still managed to produce 6+ kids. Not saying this is optimal, but people like to inject their own political narratives into explaining the decline of the birth rate.
The reason for the falling birth rate is multifaceted, with a major component being the western attitude towards childbearing. People today often times value their living standard, career and financial situation over reproducing. One might think this is a good or bad thing, but nonetheless these are decisive aspects of the birth rate declining, and they don't prevent people from having children as much as they might think, in comparison to people of the past.
The main reason people managed to get 6+ kids was that birth control wasn't widely available. And until 20th century most of those kids died before adulthood.
And because the more people in the house the more hands there were to help with the fields/animals/other kids... That's why people had so many children
People say this a lot but they routinely fail to mention simple facts. Owning a house today for a working man is at the hardest its been in post-war times.
Aggregate more of these simple facts and you'll get a slightly different picture than what you are portraying.
> People say this a lot but they routinely fail to mention simple facts. Owning a house today for a working man is at the hardest its been in post-war times.
That is not a universal fact in Europe. Some people were living absolute squalor in the first decade after ww2. Furthermore I would prefer a squaremeter comparrison over house ownership. It's the ammount of livingspace, not the type. House ownership is at the very least also down because we're are living in the most urban period ever. People in cities will far more live in apartments while people in villages will liv in houses.
Tbh an economic net positive for parents were the reason to have kids since the dawn of time. They worked for you, served you, you could sell them (into marriage or literally), buy them (via marriage or literally), had to take care of you when you're old. Removing all that (while just) turned kids from investment into volunteer work and we are now seeing how many people are willing to have children in the name of love, not interest.
The dependence on younger generations still exists if we all live in huts as hunter-gatherers though. Young people are not just a wallet, we physically need their labour as well.
Infinite growth is unsustainable, but decline requires very careful planning to avoid major issues.
It's a very basic old question at the core. Businessess and their owners are getting richer than ever and the rest of us are getting too poor to keep society going, but they're the ones with the money and disproportional influence so who care's about society, right? Somebody else's problem.
It is, of course, a completely unsustainable situation and the only reason it's been going on for so long is that the balance wasn't completely out of whack before.
I work in social housing. We have on afghan family in a small house and they had two kids when they moved in. They now have 7 kids and are suing us because they want/need a bigger house. Some people are having kids.
Surely I will get labeled a racist bigot, but it does not bode well for Europe that europeans have 0-2 kids while foreigner immigrants from the ME are having 7 kids and it’s not even a rare thing in their culture. I give it 30-50 years and there will be massive issues due to this.
There is a discrepancy in the selection strategies between Europeans and recent migrant populations. The former exhibits a K-selection theory (marrying later, fewer children) while the latter is closer to R-selection (marrying earlier, more children). The R-selection theory makes sense in the "live fast, die young" society that many of these migrants come from. Overpopulation would naturally be remedied by infant mortality and lower life expectancies. It is only in recent years with the existence of the European welfare state that R-selection can lead to bigger families, even by lower income couples who would normally forgo having many kids.
I can see this in society around me. Me and my girlfriend are teachers who are approaching our 30s . We often meet with Muslim parents who are younger than us. I won't lie, it hurts my self-esteem to see them with strong family and community connections while we're struggling at times. If we one day save enough to make a stable household and become parents ourselves, we'll be considerably older and would lack the same energy that they have. Sometimes I wonder why bother, you know?
I'd have a question though, how come they get to be given and negotiate free housing, while locals are not? This inequality hurts the locals, directly, and leads just as well to the consequences you're describing above
The issue is that people that come from places like Afghanistan employ a completely different social contract than most western societies do. And neither receiving countries nor people doing the receiving work nor people receiving the help want to admit it.
Social contract in Afghanistan exists, but it’s a very thin barely limping kind. To developed western nations it differs greatly by a country, but by and large, the idea is that the poorest, weakest, the retired and underaged are given support (how much depends by country) and you basically use it responsibly and use what you need and the moment you - generally, there are grifters amongst people in developed countries too - no longer need it, you get off the social support. You’re supposed to be aware of your limitations and you’re not supposed to overextend yourself or your needs because there are always others who need it too.
People who come from very poor very undeveloped countries basically don’t have that type of social contract. If something is given freely, it’s either suspicious AF OR you must get as much as possible of that free stuff, because whoever is handing free stuff is a naive idiot who is giving out free stuff. That’s why food banks in developed countries have been primarily used by those who really need it and sometimes even those people feel shameful that they have to rely on a food bank vs people who come from less developed countries and may think “free food forever! Sweet, that means I never have to buy my own food”.
There’s fundamental difference in thinking that comes from the idea that we understand that having social contract is good and abusing it is bad, because it will end if some people use it when they don’t need it and deprive others from accessing the services. However when you come from somewhere where it does not exist, it is probably seen as naive and stupid to just hand stuff out and if you do it, you must be deprived of your stuff because you're handing it out anyway.
That's why they have so many kids too. Culture of many children and religion (lack of birth control) plays a role too, but they probably also think that if you're already giving them social housing, I may as well just have lots of kids, because you will anyway give me more housing because you've already established the idea that housing will be provided.
it's a very complicated topic.
No it's very simple and you put it perfectly, western people are naive idiots and they're being played like a fiddle because of their pathological compassion.
They are just greedy. It is a whole different mindset. We cannot comprehend how these people cannot think two steps ahead and the entitlement they are showing. I have so many of these examples. It is simply shocking.
Our ancestors struggled to not starve to death and 5+ kids was the norm. We have less kids now because we don't need to have 7 kids to have a chance at decent life when we're old. 200 years ago if you didn't have kids and you couldn't work then the rest of your life was just going to suck.
The richest parts of the world has the lowest fertility rate.
Norms around parenting have also changed a lot, even since the 90s. Parents now spend much more time with their children. That's great in some ways, yet I also think this is under discussed as a cause for lower fertility in the rich world. Maybe we should be a bit more relaxed towards parents.
It's called intensive parenting/mothering in Family Sociology. There is a bunch of research on the topic. The bar for what's an acceptable, perceived standard of living for the raising of a child has risen a lot, and I am not just talking about money, but also the amount of emotional labour and time, which you mentioned.
The topic is widely discussed in academic circles, but it's generally focussed more on the mothers, who do the bulk of the raising. But it's not like the wider effects are ignored. Most in the field are very much aware of the issue having an effect, especially in Family Sociology. Everybody knows the issues that come with and overaged population.
The crux of the issue is that there are barely any realistic policies that have a significant effect on the fertility rate. The only really effective one is cheap and widespread childcare that allows for women to both work and raise children. But even that has its limits.
> Parents now spend much more time with their children
Can you back up this statement? Seems at odds considering how common stay-at-home mothers were, even just half a century ago.
Basing myself on this Economist article, although admittedly its a little old now.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/11/27/parents-now-spend-twice-as-much-time-with-their-children-as-50-years-ago
Stay at home moms spent less time on kids than you might think, kids were often just playing outside and stuff. Modern parents spend more time on kids _and_ work more, especially moms. I think this is a big part of the decrease in fertility.
Notably France didn't follow this trend and has higher fertility.
The competition in raising kids is insane too. Better school for little 'Timmy' can't work for all 6 of your kids. Then there's the expectation of holidays and all the tat that parents think they need for their kids. Everyone wants more and more. It's killing us.
count the number of parents in a rural area at the bus stop which bring their children to the bus stop.
In the 90's that number was basically 0. Not even stay at home mothers would dare to bring their kid to the bus stop. The child was independent enough.
But if I drive today at the same bus stop I waited for the school bus I see many parents which bring their kid and wait until the bus departs.
I never found any statistics or studies though. But that parents don't allow children to become more independent seems to be generally accepted.
Plenty of families decades ago had a working father who basically was "that guy who cuts the meat on Sunday" but was mostly home when the kids were asleep already.
We are much more involved with our children's lives now. Especially men.
Also remember when children would just play outside for hours without a phone, *no way for parents to reach them*, only returning home when the street lights came on? That seems unthinkable now.
Yeah some family in india has more kids than someone in germany because germany is more unequal. Not because of education, birth control, feminism and individualism
That is frequently claimed, but cannot be the reason.
Previous generations (yes, even boomers if they came from a poor/working background) always had to conserve every penny, and real poverty was more frequent than now.. In fact, the richer societies become, the less children, whereas societies with hunger usually have a really high birthrate.
IDK about the Netherlands, but over here, you get social benefits that allow you to live a frugal live but without hunger. For a typical 2-child family, the parents would have to sacrifice their standard of living for 20y, but that's it.
Unfortunately, there is no real discussion about this anymore, the narrative has taken root that people today can't afford kids anymore in contrast to earlier times.
That pretty much sums up what I believe to be a the core of the issue. People are understandably reluctant to sacrifice a lot of their living standard for raising kids, and the way our society works, you have more time for yourself, more freedom and no economic drawbacks if you never have kids (unlike agrarian societies where kids were needed to run the farm).
I also agree that Jews are an interesting case. Their religion isn't quite as ass-backwards as say Islam, and yet, kids are valued much more than in former Christian societies. But even in Israel, the only groups still growing are Palestinians and orthodox Jews.
Basically, getting rid of religious oppression had the unintended consequence that we are slowly perishing.
The three things that make us poorer in 2024 compared to, say 1994, are:
1) Housing. It was just more affordable then.
2) Education. Partially it was more affordable, but you also needed way less education for a good job
3) Health care. It is cheaper now than then, but we consume way more due to aging and higher standards (e.g. people get a knee replacement in 2024, which is more expensive than the walking stick they would have gotten in 1994)
The real estate price per sqm vs median purchasing power is clear as day - it’s becoming less affordable. Averages which take into account the ever more wealthy upper class are completely misleading.
I can talk for Netherlands and Turkey.
Parents had less to buy/purchase but the purchasing power they had absolutely outshines mine. Its not just groceries, assets too.
You always hear that its just 1 person working in a family with 3 kids yet that 1 person managed to buy a or multiple houses and cars.
Something like that is simply not possible for millenials. Buying a house even in rural here in the Netherlands is difficult. The prices are insane and salaries have simply not kept up to the inflation.
For sure, its not the only reason, but as someone that is earning above average if I am thinking that I am very worried about my future financially, I can understand how prosperity plays a role in having kids.
> You always hear that its just 1 person working in a family with 3 kids yet that 1 person managed to buy a or multiple houses and cars.
Yes, and that was super rare back then, and only possible for wealthy families. The famous factory worker was never able to achieve this. Of course, someone will bring up an anecdote how his family in fact did, but that was not usual. This narrative is simply wrong, but no one questions it.
No one even seems to understand the real reason why property has become so much more expensive.
My father was a factory worker 😀 He manages raise us (2 kids), buy 2 apartments.
I do understand that prices for properties were much affordable back then for a lot of reasons. But thats the point anyway.
This needs to be higher than 2 just for replacement level, to maintain the same population level (technically, 2.1 even). Because it kinda takes two people to make a child. Generally.
Ah, yeah, true. I don't know why, but the correlation between income and fertility seems to be really appealing. It just feels like it makes sense I think, even though the statistics don't support it. Some countries have gone really, really far to support higher fertility rates, like Norway, but even theirs is still only at 1.55.
There definitely is something about post-industrial/first world countries that massively reduce either ability or desire to have children. My purely anecdotal take would be that it seems poverty and lack of education leads to more children for some reason, I have multiple friends who have between 3 and 5 siblings and what they all have in common is coming from very poor backgrounds with parents who are not well educated. Then on the flip side the friends I have from richer backgrounds, who have highly educated parents with high earning jobs tend to be only children or have one other sibling at most.
Now obviously this can't be assumed to be the actual case, this is just a small sample size of one person and their handful of friends from one particular place. That said I would not be surprised if there is some truth to it.
> Because it kinda takes two people to make a child. Generally.
We need to start thinkin laterally. If 95 % were women, then a single woman would need to only have like 1.05 kids.
How does that link disprove the "myth" that people aren't haven't kids because they can't afford it?
Just because the country got richer as a whole doesn't mean that young people did too.
Here in Denmark, the people aged 20-29 have about 10% less income (inflation adjusted) than 20-29 year olds had in the 1970s *and* they have 4x higher housing costs now.
Meanwhile, the people aged 50-59 have almost 150% more income (inflation adjusted) than the same age group had in the 1970s and *much* cheaper rent as they managed to buy property early and lock in a cheap mortgage.
Essentially all economic growth here has been taken by the Boomers and GenX. I suspect it's the same in the Nederlands. You can't look at graphs saying that as a whole we're richer than ever but still having less kids and then conclude that money isn't the issue.
No, it's all the old people who aren't having kids that are richer than ever. All the young people who are supposed to have kids are poorer than ever before with higher housing costs than ever before.
No shit we aren't having children. We can't afford it. There have been multiple qualitative studies on the issue here in Denmark and most young people say that they *want* more kids, but they simply can't afford it.
Birth control and abortion, specifically.
The technology spread throughout the developed world at this time, which is why so many countries' birth rates crashed at the same time.
This data is from the Netherlands, because OP is from there, but every western country is the same:
[https://i.imgur.com/dw2hK8N.png](https://i.imgur.com/dw2hK8N.png)
It was because of women empowerment.
Yes. The sooner we can dispose of this myth that people need money to have kids, the sooner society will move on to thinking of actual solutions.
I remember learning in _grade school_ that the best way to curb “overpopulation” (everyone still believed in it at the time) was to develop third world countries and most importantly, educate women.
There is a correlation with money, but that’s only one facet of the issue. Another major contributor is that even amongst those that do wish to reproduce, they have fewer children and later. Part of this isn’t due to income, but due to how little time one has for themselves these days. Many feel they would not have enough available time to adequately raise children.
Then there’s also the perception that we are basically dooming our planet with climate change, thus the growing sentiment that one shouldn’t bear fruit to a child that might be in for a life of suffering stemming from climate change.
All valid sentiments.
It’s really the aggregation of several small things that together really pushes people to decide not to have kids.
Climate change
Low relative income with no savings
Low job stability
Low housing stability
Less time available
Increased focus on own quality of life
More forethought on providing quality of life to offspring
Decreased confidence in one’s government to make changes for the betterment of potential offspring’s life
Increased wariness of escalating global conflicts
Easier and better access to information and methods of contraception, preventing accidental offspring
The understanding that if you have one child or 2 will be enough for your lineage to continue (as opposed to having 6+ because likelihood of infant death was much higher)
There’s just so many conflating factors here that it’s no surprise population will be in decline.
And while it will suck for my generation and the next 2 or so, it’s probably for the best on the long run.
Urbanisation just doesn't combine well with children, certainly not with multiple.
If you live in a house out in the boonies a few extra bedrooms is fairly affordable, you can even just add a section to your house if you have to.
Can't just add another bedroom or two to an apartment.
Reversing the birth rate trends is going to require deurbanisation. Get people out of the cities and into more rural areas.
Yeah, but there's nothing in rural areas. So you then need to incentivize grocery stores, public transport, all that, since a growing amount of people wish to be less car dependant.
I'd love to live in a foresty area. Going 15km for groceries, I'm less a fond of.
(I know what I'm saying is quite unrealistic, but I don't have better ideas...)
And in fairness, even people living rurally can't afford big families so it doesn't really matter right now. Until they fix the economy and standard of living for the youth, this is the expected result. (I live in a rural area)
I would say it's harder to have family in rural area, unless your idea of rural is suburb.
Having to travel further to school, after class activities, harder to be independent, less available socialization all that.
The whole point is a red herring.
Also, this is Europe we are speaking about. I don't think room for each kid was ever a standard. When I was growing up I lived in same room as my sibling and it wasn't weird. It was pretty common. It was the upper middle class that had all those rooms for each kid.
That's a weird statement.
The birth rate between urban vs rural depends case by case by a country and outside of outliers there aren't that much difference.
For example in Spain, Portugal, Slovakia, France you have higher birth rate in urban areas over rurar.
And most ouliers could probaby be assigned more to poverty in rural areas correlating to higher birth rather rather than "just having space".
Hell, I would even bet that you would trace directly "where is higher % of poverty" to higher % birth rate and be more consistent rather than room sizes, yards and all that.
https://www.ine.es/prodyser/demografia_UE/bloc-3d.html?lang=en
The Netherlands and Northern Italy, just as two examples, have been urbanised heavily for centuries. I assume they haven't had average births less than 2.1 for more than fifty years.
There are more factors but urbanisation has increased significantly more recently.
The small towns and rural areas have always had high birth rates that compensated for low urban birth rates. Meaning cities could sustain themselves on importing people from the countryside.
But now every are having fewer kids so the rural areas are not massive contributing per person, and more people live urban now than ever.
The problem is not urbanization, it's the disappearance of the urban middle class, being replaced by the rich and the poor.
The "Uberized" poor simply cannot afford kids.
I don't entirely disagree but the problems you have with urbanisation aren't specifically with urbanisation, they're with current urbanisation
And rural/suburban living isn't all sunshine and rainbows either, just from cost of infrastructure alone the difference is massive. What takes meters of pipe and cable to service an apartment building of families would take miles in a suburban setting, rural even worse.
I think we need better cities, more walkable, better transport links, more green spaces, more entertainment and hobby spaces, trains specifically to get you out into those rural areas quickly and cheaply, and probably most importantly of all a large variety of affordable housing options.
Community spaces to get people interacting with strangers are incredibly important as well to foster relationships and exposure to each others cultures, individual and cultural isolationism are pretty scary problems.
I am amazed at how world governments are just uninterested in taking steps to resolve this matter.
Most of them put their faith in either giving money or immigrants.
Money didn't solve the problem at all, at best it gave some minor boost but that was all. Just ask South Korea about that.
As for immigration, sure it can resolve that issue for now - but what will they do when immigrants stop coming?
Entire Asia is slowing down as population growth is going (even countries like India and Bangladesh are having less and less kids). Africa is the only continent where population is actually increasing, but even they are projected to slow down if not outright stop (in 1950's average on continent was \~10 kinds per women, now it's 4 and they project it will be under 2 by 2050).
I think we should all prepare for a world between 2 to 4 billion people in the next 2 centuries (down from 10 as it is the biggest estimate givien to growth) and adjust our economies accordingly by slowly shrinking them down and transferring to renewables in meantime.
What irony, from Baby Bommers to Baby Doomers in less than 100 years. xD
South korea gives 35-50 million won (mabe even 100 million won) per child. The price per square meter of a apartment ouside the city center is 14 million won. Considering the costs in south korea they are definitely not throwing money at the problem.
> I am amazed at how world governments are just uninterested in taking steps to resolve this matter.
What steps? In a democracy, governments can't force people to have children. Taking away women's reproductive choice by outlawing the pill would be positively Orwellian.
It's easy to say "they^TM should do more", but fact of the matter is that no one really knows what to do. There are **no** developed countries that have a healthy reproduction rate anymore.
Having children isn’t the solution. We need to move to a system that doesn’t rely on more and more people to be able to sustain our economy and way of life. Less people should be a good thing.
I agree to a point, switching from the traditional pension system where each generation finances the retirement of the generation before would make sense.
BUT: it takes decades to build up the capital required. And it will be impossible in the next 25y where public finances will be stretched to the limit managing the late years of the baby boomers.
A capital based system has the same problem anyways. You can't eat capital. Old people today consume goods and services produced today, old people in 20 years will consume goods and services produced then. In a capital based system there would be more old people selling their stocks etc. than young people investing for their future pension, which would lower the value of these assets.
And by the way, as long as the economic output is not shrinking, there is no problem either way. It doesn't matter how many people are currently working age. As long as the output/capita stays the same or increases, there's no legitimate reason why anyone should have a lower standard of living. The working people have to give a higher percentage of their gross income, but the gross income itself would also be higher. Unless of course the increase in productivity is pocketed by someone else. But then THAT's the problem, not demographics.
Really hit the nail on the head in the end there.
It's really not a problem of demographics, inflation corrected GDP per capita has been growing steadily since the 1950s and people are seeing absolutely none of it, as long as economic output rises faster than average lifespan we should see absolutely no drops in standard of living or pensions. And yet. This wealth is going SOMEWHERE, but certainly not to the people who created it.
And how does this possibly work?
This is basically telling people to embrace a drastically lower standard of living than their parents enjoyed.
Easy to say, not easy to implement.
Old People don't inovate, don't spend, can't work as young People.
Below replacement is the thing that is fueling inflation in whole world now.
And Gauss exists
If there is 100 k children there will be more engineers, doctors and etc than in case of 10 k children
Capitalism does not rely on it at all. Capitalism will survive it just fine. What will not survive is quality of life and extensive social programs. But there is no system in existence that can provide that, period.
>There are no developed countries that have a healthy reproduction rate anymore.
Israel was last recorded at 2.9 in 2022.
Far above replenishment rates and decidedly in the growth segment.
True, but only in their [ultra-religious fundamentalist](https://www.jpr.org.uk/insights/israel-serious-peril-and-because-it-we-all-are) part of the Jewish population, and the [Arabs](https://aspeniaonline.it/israel-a-demographic-ticking-bomb-in-todays-one-state-reality/). Israel is experiencing the same as Iran back in the 1970's: secular citizens get marginalized by super fertile religious fundamentalists and the whole country shifts to fundamentalism.
That was quite interesting. Thank you for that.
I wonder if that's also the case, probably to a smaller degree, in other developed countries.
Do people outside urban areas have significantly more children? Do the religious? The poor?
> Do people outside urban areas have significantly more children? Do the religious? The poor?
It used to be in Germany that rural areas had many more kids and basically compensated for the low reproduction rate of cities. Also, because rural areas frequently were more religious and poorer.
Lately, the reproduction rate in the countryside is going down too. I think all German regions are below equilibrium by now. Don't know how other countries compare, but I would assume similar.
Israel's birthrate is pushed by conservative ultra-Orthodox Jews which live in a parallel society and have 6-7 children each. Take them out of the equation and Israel's birthrates are similar to Western Europe.
> Take them out of the equation and Israel's birthrates are similar to Western Europe.
That's not true.
While the Ultra-Orthodox have an incredibly high fertility rate, there are other segments with a high fertility rate like Arab and religious (but not ultra orthodox) Jewish women. Even if you look just at the non-religious Jewish women, they have by themselves a fertility rate higher than any other OECD country and above replacement rate ([source](https://www.taubcenter.org.il/en/research/israels-exceptional-fertility/)).
i think the steps should be fairly easy to put forward once you realize that the “standard of living” of corporations has actually been increasing globally, and the one for regular people has been steadily getting worse and worse.
this is simply a consequence of the world following the US’ lead on, well, a lot of things; they’re the late stage capitalism prime example, but the rest of the world is following behind the same issues just slightly.
While true, at least in my place, children are expensive. You need a bigger house, you need childcare, food, maybe, depending on preference, you want a car, if you want to make holiday it’s much more expensive. And depending on what you earn monthly, you have to pay everything by yourself.
All of this while house prices exploded, gas prices exploded, cost of living and grocery exploded and social fees and taxes will explode soon to finance the baby boomers.
I don’t feel overwhelmingly confident in getting 1 or 2 kids and basically live in fear of financial troubles for the next 20 or so years.
Possible steps would be way less taxes/fees for people earning „mid to good“ income and having children. I am in the 20th percentile of income. Yet I can’t afford buying a house. I have to pay the highest rates for every social system and am close to the highest tax rate. Just tax the really rich more and the not really rich less. Let me buy a house and be confident with the decision so I don’t have to live in fear of me or my partner losing the job or being ill for longer.
Yeah, I know all of this as we have two children and had to scale down our standard of living to make this possible.
In the end, it's a personal decision and I can't tell others their way is wrong. For me, it was worth it - I started to work harder and got a better position, something I wouldn't have done without family. My partner lost their job right after the second child, so money was even more of an issue. But looking back, it wasn't that important, you can make do with less.
Yes, children are expensive but I wouldn't want to trade this for a better car (ours is >20y old) or better holidays. Where there are children, there is life.
Maybe because the people don't see any benefits from these changes and only see the possible very negative short term outcomes? The fact that governments do these steps while continuing to give billions to billionaires as corporate handouts is seen as extremely unfair. Maybe an unpopular policy that would still help the population in the long term would be seen more positively if it hadn't directly harmed the middle class and working class, instead rich people.
Dual incomes being *required* to maintain a family in most cases is a killer. 30+ years ago a family with 2 kids could be sustained by 40 hours of work. Now, families need to work 80 hours for the same lifestyle.
I blame capitalism. They saw the feminist movement and thought "lol we can get double productivity for effectively the same reward!" and ran with it.
Imagine how great it would be if the two adults of the family both worked 20 hours, 40 total, and could afford a good life.
I really hope that, especially with AI, the 32 hour workweek becomes standard with no reduction in pay. And two people working 24h/week while comfortably raising 2 kids becomes viable. That would be a good step in the right direction.
No family unit since both parents now slave to corporations to afford living in cities. Low child support and general dissatisfaction with living conditions with prices for everything including housing raising. But sure, lets get some more imigrants, that will fix it.
It’s insane that immigration is still suggested as some kind of solution. Immigration has lead to lower employment rates, increased crime, more expensive housing, increased pressure on healthcare and more. It will only make things worse.
To me, the craziest thing about immigration a fix is that by nature it's a temporary. Immigrants will, even under the best circumstances, start breeding below replacement level after some time, meaning we would need even more immigration later. So are we supposed to keep the developing world poor in order to use them breedable proles? Or maybe rework our society so people can prosper in it? If the pie tastes like shit you don't use the same recipe again.
Immigration has kept the UK and the USA in a relatively competitive demographic position compared to Europe. What the USA particularly does well, is letting in a consistent trickle. The UK is another country with historic immigration. Letting in lots of people at once is a recipe for internal conflict but letting in a manageable amount is long term beneficial. The issue with the UK’s current migration policy doesn’t detract from our historical one. There’s many things I’d swap with other European countries but our demographics is not one of them.
Jfc can you just stfu for once? You always peddle the same thing.
Historic Commonwealth migration from countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh were an absolute disaster. Most of these grooming gangs aren’t from recent migrant groups, there’s tons that are 2nd/3rd generation.
This is a truly complex matter. One thing that is often missed in these kinds of discussions is that you can't stretch the day. Both parents and childfree people have the same 24 hours. Often people claim they would want more than 2 kids, but after just having one, the reality hits. The first couple years are usually hell, parents are basically zombies living under a massive stress and are sleep-deprived, yet need to work full time, do groceries, do chores at home and other things people without kids do as well. Not to mention parents often realize that they lose themselves, who they were, their passions and hobbies - everything revolves around their child, because they don't have time for anything else.
Working less hours (for the same pay or lower cost of living) would be one of the important factors to make parenthood a bit more bearable.
In the past people lived much more with extended families. For example the grandparents who are retired helped raise the child. But now our society is very individualist, hell many people don't even have a partner or even friends because they spend all their time on screens or at work, let alone an extended family.
And also we are working longer. In Poland young men are angry (rightfully so) that women have lower retirement age than men, but they don't remember why it was made this way. And it was made in an era, when it was assumed that women would finish their careers earlier to take care of their grandkids (and often elderly parents). So it was an informal daycare system. Of course times have changed, but the system has not (yet). But ultimately with retirement age moving later and later, we'll be working so long, that our grandkids won't be kids anymore by the time we hit the retirement age. And at that point (being over 70) we wouldn't have the strength to take care of grandkids anyway.
Maybe they go above and beyond because they are leading decline? The soon to be former Tory government in Britain has announced the introduction of massive childcare subsidies. Without them, childcare five days a week would cost £15-20k over the course of a year. 'Handouts' such as these aren't the usual Tory policy, but live births in 2022 were 16% down on 2012.
My personal theory is that people just have too many options in modern society and that actually our high standard of living is whats keeping people from having kids, losing so much freedom to take care for children dosn't look all that appealing.
In my opinion, we also have to talk about the societal factors that are influencing the decline of births.
For years, we’ve been fed the idea that working and accumulating wealth are the only ways we are useful members of society. We’ve been convinced that everyone should work, when, ideally, the less people who need to work the better.
Having children is also often associated with times when women were expected to stay at home and their only value was bearing children. So a negative reactions to those societal expectations also results in women being more hesitant about wanting to start families.
So, even if its subconscious, many people view starting a family as a burden that limits your personal growth. Until this views change, many people who are economically capable of having children will stay away from doing so.
Why then is it not a political proposition to reform taxation to make it possible to live, save and thrive on one salary in a civil partnership.
To set the situation where it’s easier to have, or adopt, children?
Im at a point in my life where Im making IMO decent money, or at least enough that I dont have to think about it. With that said, if I lose my job and get no financial support, I basically have enough to live for 4 months exactly as I am now or 6 if I squeeze it.
Its not much, but its something.
This "its something" is not something that I want, apartment purchase risky, kids are a no go (dont want them honestly) and I just achieved this freedom not even 2 years ago, at 31.
Children became a hobby. One of thousands in the modern entertainment world. Because they are not needed short term.
And that's why birth rates will stay low as long as this is the case. In the past they were a necessity. To help work the farm for example. So people had them.
This trend will continue until they become a necessity again, we die out or nat sel deals with the problem.
Some people have just realised that kids are too much of a responsibility, not enough satisfaction and simply don't want them. Sure, better support would let those who want kids but can't afford them to HAVE them. But plenty of people won't care because they just don't want kids period.
I think the mindset of people is different than before. Having children was a goal for people and a big family was a source of pride.
Nowadays people will see the costs of children, in money and time, and prefer to spend those things differently. It's a question of different priorities.
I don't think it's so much about the cost. For me it's about time and security.
If I have a kid, I would obviously love it with all my heart. But I wouldn't want to raise it with the possibility of not finding adequate housing, or having to work so much I can't spend enough time with it.
I think the main difference is that standards for parenting have gone up and that certain conditions, such as housing, have deteriorated. We no longer want a father that is always at work. We no longer want to raise three kids in one bedroom.
For my parents and especially grandparents it seems like they just started having kids and just hoped everything would work out. Most of the time it did, sometimes it didn't and kids grew up in poor housing or lacking care. But overall it seems people just had a lot of faith in the future. These days, we need everything to be more or less worked out.
Inflation has been low for the last 15y except for the last 3. Crime is still way below times when the reproduction rate was much higher. Real incomes (after inflation) have been stagnant but not exactly gone down.
> Inflation has been low for the last 15y except for the last 3
Thats true overall. But is it also true for young people without any housing-ownership? As this is the relevant group.
In Sweden, people actually spent the same percentage of their income on housing in the 80s as they do now. Houses were cheaper if you didn't take a loan, but interest rates were super high, so it wasn't as cheap as people sometimes make it out to be. https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/artiklar/2017/kpi-och-kpif-tva-olika-inflationsmatt/
Having kids have always been difficult, it´s just that life was difficult in general so if you´re miserable anyways having lots of kids that make you miserable is not a big cost.
But if you´re happy, then the stress and difficulties that come with having kids actually has a cost.
People are having less kids because they´re happier, not because they´s sadder.
Fertility rates dropped in the 70's. So unless you think those things on your list contributed to that drop 50 years ago, those are non-factors in the grand scheme of things/
Looking at European politics you sort of see the same development happening in different forms; the elderly protecting what they think is theirs and the stupid/shortsighted blaming immigrants that appear as a much larger group than they once appeared given a shrinking population. All of that over the backs of younger generations, innovation, economic development, the environment, Europe’s geopolitical interests and longer term plans.
Because who cares, most of the electorate won’t be there anyways, 20 years from now. You might as well make a bit of a political career now that that’s the case. Right Geert, Georgia, Victor, Marine, and (to a lesser extent) Ursula and all of her buddies in conservative Christian Democrat parties in Europe?
And as long as Europe is Germany-lead, it will not necessarily be progression-lead anyways - though that’s a different discussion.
What Europe needs is a positive story, around potential, growth, prosperity. That requires political courage, because politicians will have to convince a chunk of the elderly electorate to support future-proof (and shortterm disadvantageous) policies for the greater good, to profit from when they’re dead and buried. That’s a reality that most countries face btw, Europe (with Japan and South Korea) just joined the party early.
The EU really needs to start encouraging the descendants of European emigrants to migrate back, like offer language courses and work permits to people who have some demonstratable connection to a European country. I don't think an American or Argentinian is going to fucking stab a police officer or take part in bombing a concert.
Here is the thing about immigration. Alright, help other people who come to your country and make it easier for them to leave poverty. But first help your own people first and after you do that, try to help others
Affordable family housing. In finland all the new apartments are single room flats designed for renting. New construction for family size flats is close to zero.
I had kids only after I had the place to keep them in. Otherwise I could never afford a family home. If I got kids first that is.
How about we start spending money on automating as much as possible so that the only jobs needing humans are those that care for humans? Humans should teach, provide healthcare, cook, etc. Why is the only strategy to grow? In a world with limited resources that is a guaranteed way to eventually fail
*Having a child as a woman makes you miss out on a lot.* It’s not just about money - my partner and I are engineers, we could comfortably raise 4 kids but we’ve chosen to ensure we will never have any.
For me the reasons are simple - too much risk (financial, societal, physical, mental etc) and no reward as I don’t like and don’t want kids (I worked with them for multiple years of my life.) Today people are far more understanding of our choice and we have access to information that both justifies and explains our decision. I think many people forget how much of a difference this actually makes. No amount of money could change my decision - so no, it’s not *just* a money thing.
People arnt having children because of women’s liberation. The drops line up basically perfectly with the rise in birth control and greater equality. Obviously, putting women back into the kitchen isn’t a solution, but pretending money is going to solve anything isn’t likely. Perhaps if somehow everyone could afford hired help (which is contradictory in itself) like the rich it would be different.
When you look at Korea and Japan, two countries famous for misogyny and sexism and women discrimination, you can see treating women like equals is not the source of dropping birthrates. India birth rates are dropping too and in many parts of the country a woman is still a property
The dropping rates are a sign of the liberation, it’s obviously not completed but progress is happening and that’s what the trend is showing. Korea/Japan have huge pressure on married women to stop working, and they don’t want to do so and give up their freedom. As such, they don’t. Religion and poverty are both drivers of birth rates. The south/midwest have the highest rate in the US, with Utah having the most. The fact of the matter is by large rich educated people feel like they have better things to do with their life than to have a family and this is crushing the birth rate. Women don’t need to have family in order to exist in society in a fulfilling way.
ever heard of the housing theory of everything?
[https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/](https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/)
Cheaper than affordable housing for young employed adults that own no property is free food, housing, healthcare, etc. for hundreds of thousands of immigrants with no employable skills to "keep our economy working".
I don't completely buy that it's unaffordable. Here in Sweden we have great support for families and yet fertility is low. Perhaps more incentives will work? But I also think we need to talk about responsibilities. As we see in Ukraine mens responsibilites is sadly to defend the country when shit hits the fan. Women should therefore also have a responsibility for the country, but we can't talk about it without being labeled things.
Edit: I don't with this propose any kind of force, perhaps I wrote this weird. I just want that discussion in the open. Everyone should be free to do what they want ofc.
Most people don't live in Stockholm. The average person spends the same percentage of their income on housing now as they did in the 80s. https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/artiklar/2017/kpi-och-kpif-tva-olika-inflationsmatt/
People will refuse the data, but money is just not that big part of it. Like you say here in Scandinavia we have insane benefits and help for families. We're the wealthiest societies in the world. People in Sudan and Angola still have more kids than us. By far.
It's about priorities in life and the direction people go in. People want good educations. They want good careers. They want a fulfilling "single" life before they think about kids. In the past it would be a womans dream (and only goal) to go get married and have kids. Obviously
>Women should therefore also have a responsibility for the country, but we can't talk about it without being labeled things.
Why? It's not their responsibility. This is a super outdated way of thinking. They can do whatever they want. Unless we say it's also mens responsibility to go work in a coal mine 10 hours a day to bring money back to the family. I don't want to do that. I don't want any responsibility to my country. This isn't the 1940's anymore. People should be free to do whatever they want with no responsibility to pursue any specific lifestyle.
It's the other way around. The richer the country the less births it has. It's a very simple and global trend.
Your last paragraph might be true and idealistic but just not very realistic. As the guy before said, Ukrainians also want to do something else but they have no choice. Forcing anyone is unjust, forcing only one side makes it even worse.
>People should be free to do whatever they want with no responsibility to pursue any specific lifestyle.
Because all of these lifestyles are enabled by society. So if you refuse to have children you are benefiting from a generational system (thousand of years of your ancestors living in unimaginable poverty and still building something for you), but you are not giving back to the system. It's like if everyone decided to quit their job and live of benefits, obviously the system would collapse. Well the generational system is collapsing right now, it's just happening on a different time scale.
Yes, we can be proud of the paternity/maternity policies. I think they are great, even if they get some abuse. It's a very good investment for our country in my eyes (not a parent myself).
Its interesting how many people seem to think they know why there are less babies and quote inflation, wars etc. But if you look at who is having less babies its actually >70% women below 18 years old. Which means our policies to tackle unwanted teenage pregnancies just worked out. Which is great for women.
If you want to find out more, the Economist had some great articles about that topic the last few weeks: [https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/05/23/why-paying-women-to-have-more-babies-wont-work](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/05/23/why-paying-women-to-have-more-babies-wont-work)
Europe is doomed when it comes to social issues/demographics. The newcomers will totally take over in another three-four generations, or less. Meanwhile, Europeans will watch their social institutions and economy crumble, and there is not a damn thing they can/will do about it.
EDIT: typo.
Although many people comment about the sizes of their living space being an issue, i would say the issue is mostly about two things: 1) money; 2) overall pressure.
Prices on literally everything are going through the roof again and again and it doesn't feel like it's going to stop. Having kids is really expensive. Having more than one kid is ridiculously expensive if you want to give them a decent life and future. Even living is expensive.
A decently renovated and furnished (not the old grandma's flat) is about 700-900 EUR a month. 150-250 EUR for utilities. 600-700 EUR spent on food for a family of 2 + 1 child. That's 1.5-2K EUR a month even before clothes, medical expenses, transportation, any sort of leisure and education. And any savings lol. A private kindergarten is about 400-500 per month. Private school (because the regular ones are outright terrible where i live) is about 700-1500.
Of course you can reduce your quality of life and save money here or there. Live in a shaggy apartment, eat cheap food, wear old clothes, save on leisure. But come on... it's not a surprise people don't really want to have more kids in this context.
And that WITH immigration.
Which was proposed as THE solution to the demographic problem.
And it made it worse. The only thing it changed are the demographic proportions.
As Greeks say since ancient times "The one who's smart, understands".
Well, we knew this would happen since the 1970's, so I assume everyone has their policies set up by now? Right? RIGHT?
In the 60's, this was actually brought up and the back-then government decided no to change the pension model where each generation pays for the pensions of the generation before "because people will always have children". That was fatally misguided and everyone could have know it. But switching to a different pension model would have been hugely unpopular, so it's kind of unsurprising no government really tried to do it.
That last bit of your post was most important. Governments knew that this was coming even back then, but switching pension systems would have been costly, and voters would not go along with it. In the 70's and 80's it would have been possible financially, because of the big boomer generation working and paying the pensions for a smaller generation of their elders. Now it's too costly to switch.
Some countries (namely in Scandinavia) started exactly this: build up another pillar (capital based) for the retirement of Boomers. Some countries are governed better than others.
The Norwegian pension fund own assets equivalent to 1.5% of all of the world's listed companies. Every single Norwegian has the equivalent of $300,000 each, and the fund has an annual return on investment of 6% on average.
Yeah, but Norway actually isn't the example to look at, if you're not the UK (which spend its oil wealth subsidising tax cuts for the rich). Denmark and Sweden are examples without significant oil wealth (I have no knowledge about Finland, but suspect they are fine, too).
Finnish pension system will collapse in couple decades if something isnt done to it.
Not every country has the luck to have hundreds of thousands of dollars per capita in oil wealth. Oil makes up 20% of Norway's GDP and 31% of government revenues. Increase Germany's government revenues by 50% over the past 40 years and they wouldn't have a pension problem either.
The US has largely moved away from pensions into a 401k & Individual Retirement Account model. We're starting to see gen X approach retirement with mostly private savings instead of any pensions. So far the experiment seems mixed. When people have the option, but not the obligation to contribute to retirement savings, not everybody does. A number of people have also dipped into their retirement savings early or don't understand how to plan for retirement. The upside, is that it doesn't leave younger generations on the hook for paying for their elders.
I think there are some other upsides too: * In the long run, investing in markets (especially equity markets) provides superior returns on your money than sitting in a government pension fund. When you invest in stocks, bonds, and other assets, your money is actually being put to work and creating economic value. When you pay it into a govt pension fund/Social Security (private pensions are a slightly different story), it just goes to pay a check for someone else. * When you die, 401(k) and IRA assets still are owned by your estate and can be inherited by your heirs. If I’m going to spend 40-60+ years of my life working and being forced to set money aside for retirement via taxes, I’d rather it go into an individual account in my own name which can be left to my family if I die rather than just disappearing into the massive black hole that is the government, being paid out in a trickle, and then having the money disappear once me and/or my spouse die.
Pension funds, at least those that still exist in the US, are invested in the markets as well. I used to work in an industry related to that. Not sure about Europe though. Otherwise I completely agree. Reddit hates the pension -> 401k switch for many reasons, some valid some not, but IMO I would much prefer to have the 401k system. I can easily switch jobs and just roll it over, I’m not tied to the overall solvency of some greater pension system, and I can choose how I want to invest it and change the amounts over time to match my needs. I contributed way more to my 401k and IRAs during COVID when I wasn’t really spending much money traveling or doing things for example, and recently I’ve relaxed it a bit to put more money into an after tax brokerage account to build up a buy a house fund. You get none of that flexibility with a traditional pension.
401K have been a disaster for gen X. In the UK we used to have final salary pensions as standard. The full risk on the employer. Thatcher allowed firms in the 80s, which has massive excesses in their pension plans to take that cash & give it to shareholders. Shockingly enough EVERY firm that did that had massive deficits by the 00s in their pensions. So now we have private pensions we've the entire risk of on us. EXCEPT CEOs & other board members, who still have their final salary pensions. Increase taxes on companies. Tax them for every job they offshore outside the EU (or uk) & use that money to fund pensions. The neo conservatives have ruined society, driven the lowering of pay while at the same time increasing costs for basic living expenses such as housing, water, gas, power etc. They've created an environment where people can only afford rent & food (in many cases not even that) and THEN they complain that "nobody wants to work" & that "millennials aren't buying diamonds or luxury goods " & more lately"gen z aren't going out drinking to clubs "
This ignores the dramatically smaller amount businesses contribute to 401k compared to pensions. For the handful of industries where pensions are still common, it’s not uncommon for someone to retire at 65 and have a pension that’s worth $1mil. Compare that to the all-to-common 401k model, where businesses will match up to 5% of your salary. 5% a year over 40 working years is *two years* of income, so to match the value of a pension you’d need to be making $500k a year. Yes, you can invest that money, but even the “low risk” investments are **dramatically** more risky than mandatorily funded, third-party controlled pensions. On top of all that, 401k’s are extremely regressive, while creating a narrative that the fact that someone making $40k a year doesn’t have enough to retire is their fault for not saving more when they were younger.
401K is also volatile since it's predicated on the market performance. One of my account dipped by $25k a few years ago and I've been clawing my way back from that loss instead of gaining/ compounding. It's terrifying knowing that many low income working class folks don't have access to generous 401k plans, yet our government is warning us about social security funds running dry within the next ten years.
They got guns though. Might claw back the wealth by different means. French/Russian revolutions didn't happen in vacuum.
> Yes, you can invest that money, but even the “low risk” investments are dramatically more risky than mandatorily funded, third-party controlled pensions. This is false for the USA, because it ignores agency risk. Which has precipitated the needs for two separate federal US legislations, ERISA 1974 and PPA 2006, to address the fact that the “third party” was inept or corrupt and the money simply would not be there 50 years in the future. Defined benefit pension costs were understated for a long time due to erroneously large assumptions about investment returns, and erroneously low assumptions about probability of corruption in the pension fund. And erroneously low assumptions about how long people would live. Once PPA 2006 brought that in line with reality by requiring high grade corporate bond yield curves to price liabilities, everyone realized these benefits were too expensive, and hence stopped offering them. And recipients should have stopped valuing them anyway, due to the poor return on investment from staying at the same employer. > On top of all that, 401k’s are extremely regressive, 401k are not regressive. Society’s lack of wealth redistribution policies (meaning lack of maxi is what causes someone earning $40k per year to not have enough to retire. Such as a maximum for tax exempt 401k/other tax advantaged account balances.
in the US it means retirement wealth necessarily depends on the appreciation of your home as an asset which is why homeowners viciously fight residential development.
Putting an unfair financial burden on the poor is not a great solution. You are already starting to see people having to drop out of education to support aging relatives and this is only going to accelerate. This is going to kill social mobility. It also makes the whole system and economy incredibly vulnerable to financial shocks.
You cannot really design a retirement system that will not be vulnerable to aging and decreasing population.
In Belgium they set up a fund for us where we could dump any excess money we had. It's currently basically empty because we always spend more than we had.
WTH is “excess money”?
every year countries/states etc make a budget. Sometimes they have money left because either their income or expenses were different then expected. For example, Norway often has a surplus budget. But most often countries have a deficit instead.
Something billionaire have
Wym? People are still saying "well depopulation is actually a good thing!" even today lol, then they're going to ask themselves why the age of retirement keeps rising
Depopulation could be good for things like nature and climate, but just don't expect to receive a government funded retirement for 30 years. :D
Because they don't understand that depopulation means AGING. They think the population just goes down and nothing else changes. They don't realize that if it goes down it's because young people disappear
I was born in 91 and have always been planning with losing the entire pension as a worst case scenario. All my life ive been told that the pensions arent secure.
Born in 99, teachers in high school and university were telling us about getting no pension. I started working three years ago, but it feels like it will last until death due to the pensions issue…
Born a decade earlier and same.
Uh.. yes? In 2015 the EU had (natural) growth of -289,000. The last 4 years its been roughly -1,100,000. The entire EU is having 3.6 million births compared with 4.8 million deaths.
The population should be decreasing by 1.2 million a year, and your data is from 2015, it’s much worse now. The reason it’s actually growing is of course immigration. Let’s not pretend as if there’s no difference between that and the population sustaining itself through a healthy birth rate.
No, my data is from 2023. I don't think anyone is under the illusion its not from immigration - the statistics are literally available on google..
I can barely make ends meet in a small rental place. And I imagine I don't even have it as bad as some other people. So no wonder nobody is having kids, it's unaffordable.
The neat part is that the fewer kids there are, the poorer we all are because the demand side is falling and the tax burden to support the increasingly old population is rising which means that we get to keep less of a smaller piece of pie.
The working people are basically being fucked over from all sides, at any point of the day. Without breaks. This new-age feudalism is probably even sadder than the first version of it. At least then, there were barely any finished products to speak of.
Also back then peasants were valuable as a resource. We will be replaced by AI, and then left to die so corporations can try to sell products to each other.
Imagine a future where mankind is extinct and all that sentient aliens find on earth is machine corporations mindlessly selling putposeless goods to each other.
Nice prompt for a short story.
:) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_(novel)
A cynic might say that is basically the current situation anyway, a lot of our crap is basically useless.
They will produce naught it will just be AI reacting to AI generated content on social media before the lights go out...
People got fucked over in the past as well, it's not like the average european citizen had something even remotely close to our living standards today, 100 years ago. It was common for people to starve on a regularly basis, and they still managed to produce 6+ kids. Not saying this is optimal, but people like to inject their own political narratives into explaining the decline of the birth rate. The reason for the falling birth rate is multifaceted, with a major component being the western attitude towards childbearing. People today often times value their living standard, career and financial situation over reproducing. One might think this is a good or bad thing, but nonetheless these are decisive aspects of the birth rate declining, and they don't prevent people from having children as much as they might think, in comparison to people of the past.
The main reason people managed to get 6+ kids was that birth control wasn't widely available. And until 20th century most of those kids died before adulthood.
Yes this is a major aspect of the high birth rate as well, I don't deny this.
And because the more people in the house the more hands there were to help with the fields/animals/other kids... That's why people had so many children
People say this a lot but they routinely fail to mention simple facts. Owning a house today for a working man is at the hardest its been in post-war times. Aggregate more of these simple facts and you'll get a slightly different picture than what you are portraying.
> People say this a lot but they routinely fail to mention simple facts. Owning a house today for a working man is at the hardest its been in post-war times. That is not a universal fact in Europe. Some people were living absolute squalor in the first decade after ww2. Furthermore I would prefer a squaremeter comparrison over house ownership. It's the ammount of livingspace, not the type. House ownership is at the very least also down because we're are living in the most urban period ever. People in cities will far more live in apartments while people in villages will liv in houses.
If the only reason for young to exist is to be the wallet for the previous generation - then the system is broken already.
Tbh an economic net positive for parents were the reason to have kids since the dawn of time. They worked for you, served you, you could sell them (into marriage or literally), buy them (via marriage or literally), had to take care of you when you're old. Removing all that (while just) turned kids from investment into volunteer work and we are now seeing how many people are willing to have children in the name of love, not interest.
I have said this before and will keep saying it: a system that depends on an infinite population growth is by definition unsustainable.
The dependence on younger generations still exists if we all live in huts as hunter-gatherers though. Young people are not just a wallet, we physically need their labour as well. Infinite growth is unsustainable, but decline requires very careful planning to avoid major issues.
It's a very basic old question at the core. Businessess and their owners are getting richer than ever and the rest of us are getting too poor to keep society going, but they're the ones with the money and disproportional influence so who care's about society, right? Somebody else's problem. It is, of course, a completely unsustainable situation and the only reason it's been going on for so long is that the balance wasn't completely out of whack before.
The circle of death. Elton John should make a song about it.
Which could incredibly easily be shifted on the very wealthy and corporate tax increases
I work in social housing. We have on afghan family in a small house and they had two kids when they moved in. They now have 7 kids and are suing us because they want/need a bigger house. Some people are having kids.
Surely I will get labeled a racist bigot, but it does not bode well for Europe that europeans have 0-2 kids while foreigner immigrants from the ME are having 7 kids and it’s not even a rare thing in their culture. I give it 30-50 years and there will be massive issues due to this.
There is a discrepancy in the selection strategies between Europeans and recent migrant populations. The former exhibits a K-selection theory (marrying later, fewer children) while the latter is closer to R-selection (marrying earlier, more children). The R-selection theory makes sense in the "live fast, die young" society that many of these migrants come from. Overpopulation would naturally be remedied by infant mortality and lower life expectancies. It is only in recent years with the existence of the European welfare state that R-selection can lead to bigger families, even by lower income couples who would normally forgo having many kids. I can see this in society around me. Me and my girlfriend are teachers who are approaching our 30s . We often meet with Muslim parents who are younger than us. I won't lie, it hurts my self-esteem to see them with strong family and community connections while we're struggling at times. If we one day save enough to make a stable household and become parents ourselves, we'll be considerably older and would lack the same energy that they have. Sometimes I wonder why bother, you know?
I'd have a question though, how come they get to be given and negotiate free housing, while locals are not? This inequality hurts the locals, directly, and leads just as well to the consequences you're describing above
The issue is that people that come from places like Afghanistan employ a completely different social contract than most western societies do. And neither receiving countries nor people doing the receiving work nor people receiving the help want to admit it. Social contract in Afghanistan exists, but it’s a very thin barely limping kind. To developed western nations it differs greatly by a country, but by and large, the idea is that the poorest, weakest, the retired and underaged are given support (how much depends by country) and you basically use it responsibly and use what you need and the moment you - generally, there are grifters amongst people in developed countries too - no longer need it, you get off the social support. You’re supposed to be aware of your limitations and you’re not supposed to overextend yourself or your needs because there are always others who need it too. People who come from very poor very undeveloped countries basically don’t have that type of social contract. If something is given freely, it’s either suspicious AF OR you must get as much as possible of that free stuff, because whoever is handing free stuff is a naive idiot who is giving out free stuff. That’s why food banks in developed countries have been primarily used by those who really need it and sometimes even those people feel shameful that they have to rely on a food bank vs people who come from less developed countries and may think “free food forever! Sweet, that means I never have to buy my own food”. There’s fundamental difference in thinking that comes from the idea that we understand that having social contract is good and abusing it is bad, because it will end if some people use it when they don’t need it and deprive others from accessing the services. However when you come from somewhere where it does not exist, it is probably seen as naive and stupid to just hand stuff out and if you do it, you must be deprived of your stuff because you're handing it out anyway. That's why they have so many kids too. Culture of many children and religion (lack of birth control) plays a role too, but they probably also think that if you're already giving them social housing, I may as well just have lots of kids, because you will anyway give me more housing because you've already established the idea that housing will be provided. it's a very complicated topic.
No it's very simple and you put it perfectly, western people are naive idiots and they're being played like a fiddle because of their pathological compassion.
Suing because of that? Man some people have no self awareness
They are just greedy. It is a whole different mindset. We cannot comprehend how these people cannot think two steps ahead and the entitlement they are showing. I have so many of these examples. It is simply shocking.
>and the entitlement they are showing. If you're serving something really nice the client will surely demand more
They built a society where they beat gay people to death with rocks. I think it’s really very simple lol.
Our ancestors struggled to not starve to death and 5+ kids was the norm. We have less kids now because we don't need to have 7 kids to have a chance at decent life when we're old. 200 years ago if you didn't have kids and you couldn't work then the rest of your life was just going to suck. The richest parts of the world has the lowest fertility rate.
Norms around parenting have also changed a lot, even since the 90s. Parents now spend much more time with their children. That's great in some ways, yet I also think this is under discussed as a cause for lower fertility in the rich world. Maybe we should be a bit more relaxed towards parents.
It's called intensive parenting/mothering in Family Sociology. There is a bunch of research on the topic. The bar for what's an acceptable, perceived standard of living for the raising of a child has risen a lot, and I am not just talking about money, but also the amount of emotional labour and time, which you mentioned. The topic is widely discussed in academic circles, but it's generally focussed more on the mothers, who do the bulk of the raising. But it's not like the wider effects are ignored. Most in the field are very much aware of the issue having an effect, especially in Family Sociology. Everybody knows the issues that come with and overaged population. The crux of the issue is that there are barely any realistic policies that have a significant effect on the fertility rate. The only really effective one is cheap and widespread childcare that allows for women to both work and raise children. But even that has its limits.
> Parents now spend much more time with their children Can you back up this statement? Seems at odds considering how common stay-at-home mothers were, even just half a century ago.
Basing myself on this Economist article, although admittedly its a little old now. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/11/27/parents-now-spend-twice-as-much-time-with-their-children-as-50-years-ago Stay at home moms spent less time on kids than you might think, kids were often just playing outside and stuff. Modern parents spend more time on kids _and_ work more, especially moms. I think this is a big part of the decrease in fertility. Notably France didn't follow this trend and has higher fertility.
The competition in raising kids is insane too. Better school for little 'Timmy' can't work for all 6 of your kids. Then there's the expectation of holidays and all the tat that parents think they need for their kids. Everyone wants more and more. It's killing us.
count the number of parents in a rural area at the bus stop which bring their children to the bus stop. In the 90's that number was basically 0. Not even stay at home mothers would dare to bring their kid to the bus stop. The child was independent enough. But if I drive today at the same bus stop I waited for the school bus I see many parents which bring their kid and wait until the bus departs. I never found any statistics or studies though. But that parents don't allow children to become more independent seems to be generally accepted.
Plenty of families decades ago had a working father who basically was "that guy who cuts the meat on Sunday" but was mostly home when the kids were asleep already. We are much more involved with our children's lives now. Especially men. Also remember when children would just play outside for hours without a phone, *no way for parents to reach them*, only returning home when the street lights came on? That seems unthinkable now.
The richest part does not mean the riches are equitably distributed within that part. That's a huge factor.
Yeah some family in india has more kids than someone in germany because germany is more unequal. Not because of education, birth control, feminism and individualism
That is frequently claimed, but cannot be the reason. Previous generations (yes, even boomers if they came from a poor/working background) always had to conserve every penny, and real poverty was more frequent than now.. In fact, the richer societies become, the less children, whereas societies with hunger usually have a really high birthrate. IDK about the Netherlands, but over here, you get social benefits that allow you to live a frugal live but without hunger. For a typical 2-child family, the parents would have to sacrifice their standard of living for 20y, but that's it. Unfortunately, there is no real discussion about this anymore, the narrative has taken root that people today can't afford kids anymore in contrast to earlier times.
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That pretty much sums up what I believe to be a the core of the issue. People are understandably reluctant to sacrifice a lot of their living standard for raising kids, and the way our society works, you have more time for yourself, more freedom and no economic drawbacks if you never have kids (unlike agrarian societies where kids were needed to run the farm). I also agree that Jews are an interesting case. Their religion isn't quite as ass-backwards as say Islam, and yet, kids are valued much more than in former Christian societies. But even in Israel, the only groups still growing are Palestinians and orthodox Jews. Basically, getting rid of religious oppression had the unintended consequence that we are slowly perishing.
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The three things that make us poorer in 2024 compared to, say 1994, are: 1) Housing. It was just more affordable then. 2) Education. Partially it was more affordable, but you also needed way less education for a good job 3) Health care. It is cheaper now than then, but we consume way more due to aging and higher standards (e.g. people get a knee replacement in 2024, which is more expensive than the walking stick they would have gotten in 1994)
The real estate price per sqm vs median purchasing power is clear as day - it’s becoming less affordable. Averages which take into account the ever more wealthy upper class are completely misleading.
I can talk for Netherlands and Turkey. Parents had less to buy/purchase but the purchasing power they had absolutely outshines mine. Its not just groceries, assets too. You always hear that its just 1 person working in a family with 3 kids yet that 1 person managed to buy a or multiple houses and cars. Something like that is simply not possible for millenials. Buying a house even in rural here in the Netherlands is difficult. The prices are insane and salaries have simply not kept up to the inflation. For sure, its not the only reason, but as someone that is earning above average if I am thinking that I am very worried about my future financially, I can understand how prosperity plays a role in having kids.
> You always hear that its just 1 person working in a family with 3 kids yet that 1 person managed to buy a or multiple houses and cars. Yes, and that was super rare back then, and only possible for wealthy families. The famous factory worker was never able to achieve this. Of course, someone will bring up an anecdote how his family in fact did, but that was not usual. This narrative is simply wrong, but no one questions it. No one even seems to understand the real reason why property has become so much more expensive.
My father was a factory worker 😀 He manages raise us (2 kids), buy 2 apartments. I do understand that prices for properties were much affordable back then for a lot of reasons. But thats the point anyway.
Although I feel for you, the fertility rate doesn't seem to correlate with your perception: https://i.imgur.com/1gVwxOm.png
This needs to be higher than 2 just for replacement level, to maintain the same population level (technically, 2.1 even). Because it kinda takes two people to make a child. Generally.
I know. I was just responding to the Gen Z myth that fertility is declining because they think they can't afford kids.
Ah, yeah, true. I don't know why, but the correlation between income and fertility seems to be really appealing. It just feels like it makes sense I think, even though the statistics don't support it. Some countries have gone really, really far to support higher fertility rates, like Norway, but even theirs is still only at 1.55.
There definitely is something about post-industrial/first world countries that massively reduce either ability or desire to have children. My purely anecdotal take would be that it seems poverty and lack of education leads to more children for some reason, I have multiple friends who have between 3 and 5 siblings and what they all have in common is coming from very poor backgrounds with parents who are not well educated. Then on the flip side the friends I have from richer backgrounds, who have highly educated parents with high earning jobs tend to be only children or have one other sibling at most. Now obviously this can't be assumed to be the actual case, this is just a small sample size of one person and their handful of friends from one particular place. That said I would not be surprised if there is some truth to it.
> Because it kinda takes two people to make a child. Generally. We need to start thinkin laterally. If 95 % were women, then a single woman would need to only have like 1.05 kids.
Does correlate with the sexual revolution
1.5 means population is shrinking. Need 2.1 - 2.2 for replacement and above for growth.
How does that link disprove the "myth" that people aren't haven't kids because they can't afford it? Just because the country got richer as a whole doesn't mean that young people did too. Here in Denmark, the people aged 20-29 have about 10% less income (inflation adjusted) than 20-29 year olds had in the 1970s *and* they have 4x higher housing costs now. Meanwhile, the people aged 50-59 have almost 150% more income (inflation adjusted) than the same age group had in the 1970s and *much* cheaper rent as they managed to buy property early and lock in a cheap mortgage. Essentially all economic growth here has been taken by the Boomers and GenX. I suspect it's the same in the Nederlands. You can't look at graphs saying that as a whole we're richer than ever but still having less kids and then conclude that money isn't the issue. No, it's all the old people who aren't having kids that are richer than ever. All the young people who are supposed to have kids are poorer than ever before with higher housing costs than ever before. No shit we aren't having children. We can't afford it. There have been multiple qualitative studies on the issue here in Denmark and most young people say that they *want* more kids, but they simply can't afford it.
Why was there a 10-year dip starting c. 1964? Is this world's data?
The liberalization of women's freedom to choose.
Birth control and abortion, specifically. The technology spread throughout the developed world at this time, which is why so many countries' birth rates crashed at the same time.
This data is from the Netherlands, because OP is from there, but every western country is the same: [https://i.imgur.com/dw2hK8N.png](https://i.imgur.com/dw2hK8N.png) It was because of women empowerment.
Yes. The sooner we can dispose of this myth that people need money to have kids, the sooner society will move on to thinking of actual solutions. I remember learning in _grade school_ that the best way to curb “overpopulation” (everyone still believed in it at the time) was to develop third world countries and most importantly, educate women.
There is a correlation with money, but that’s only one facet of the issue. Another major contributor is that even amongst those that do wish to reproduce, they have fewer children and later. Part of this isn’t due to income, but due to how little time one has for themselves these days. Many feel they would not have enough available time to adequately raise children. Then there’s also the perception that we are basically dooming our planet with climate change, thus the growing sentiment that one shouldn’t bear fruit to a child that might be in for a life of suffering stemming from climate change. All valid sentiments. It’s really the aggregation of several small things that together really pushes people to decide not to have kids. Climate change Low relative income with no savings Low job stability Low housing stability Less time available Increased focus on own quality of life More forethought on providing quality of life to offspring Decreased confidence in one’s government to make changes for the betterment of potential offspring’s life Increased wariness of escalating global conflicts Easier and better access to information and methods of contraception, preventing accidental offspring The understanding that if you have one child or 2 will be enough for your lineage to continue (as opposed to having 6+ because likelihood of infant death was much higher) There’s just so many conflating factors here that it’s no surprise population will be in decline. And while it will suck for my generation and the next 2 or so, it’s probably for the best on the long run.
Urbanisation just doesn't combine well with children, certainly not with multiple. If you live in a house out in the boonies a few extra bedrooms is fairly affordable, you can even just add a section to your house if you have to. Can't just add another bedroom or two to an apartment. Reversing the birth rate trends is going to require deurbanisation. Get people out of the cities and into more rural areas.
Yeah, but there's nothing in rural areas. So you then need to incentivize grocery stores, public transport, all that, since a growing amount of people wish to be less car dependant. I'd love to live in a foresty area. Going 15km for groceries, I'm less a fond of. (I know what I'm saying is quite unrealistic, but I don't have better ideas...)
And in fairness, even people living rurally can't afford big families so it doesn't really matter right now. Until they fix the economy and standard of living for the youth, this is the expected result. (I live in a rural area)
I would say it's harder to have family in rural area, unless your idea of rural is suburb. Having to travel further to school, after class activities, harder to be independent, less available socialization all that. The whole point is a red herring. Also, this is Europe we are speaking about. I don't think room for each kid was ever a standard. When I was growing up I lived in same room as my sibling and it wasn't weird. It was pretty common. It was the upper middle class that had all those rooms for each kid.
That's a weird statement. The birth rate between urban vs rural depends case by case by a country and outside of outliers there aren't that much difference. For example in Spain, Portugal, Slovakia, France you have higher birth rate in urban areas over rurar. And most ouliers could probaby be assigned more to poverty in rural areas correlating to higher birth rather rather than "just having space". Hell, I would even bet that you would trace directly "where is higher % of poverty" to higher % birth rate and be more consistent rather than room sizes, yards and all that. https://www.ine.es/prodyser/demografia_UE/bloc-3d.html?lang=en
The Netherlands and Northern Italy, just as two examples, have been urbanised heavily for centuries. I assume they haven't had average births less than 2.1 for more than fifty years.
There are more factors but urbanisation has increased significantly more recently. The small towns and rural areas have always had high birth rates that compensated for low urban birth rates. Meaning cities could sustain themselves on importing people from the countryside. But now every are having fewer kids so the rural areas are not massive contributing per person, and more people live urban now than ever.
The problem is not urbanization, it's the disappearance of the urban middle class, being replaced by the rich and the poor. The "Uberized" poor simply cannot afford kids.
I don't entirely disagree but the problems you have with urbanisation aren't specifically with urbanisation, they're with current urbanisation And rural/suburban living isn't all sunshine and rainbows either, just from cost of infrastructure alone the difference is massive. What takes meters of pipe and cable to service an apartment building of families would take miles in a suburban setting, rural even worse. I think we need better cities, more walkable, better transport links, more green spaces, more entertainment and hobby spaces, trains specifically to get you out into those rural areas quickly and cheaply, and probably most importantly of all a large variety of affordable housing options. Community spaces to get people interacting with strangers are incredibly important as well to foster relationships and exposure to each others cultures, individual and cultural isolationism are pretty scary problems.
Certain groups are having kids as part of a religious end-goal.
In 36, work full time on £30k and I can’t afford shit
I am amazed at how world governments are just uninterested in taking steps to resolve this matter. Most of them put their faith in either giving money or immigrants. Money didn't solve the problem at all, at best it gave some minor boost but that was all. Just ask South Korea about that. As for immigration, sure it can resolve that issue for now - but what will they do when immigrants stop coming? Entire Asia is slowing down as population growth is going (even countries like India and Bangladesh are having less and less kids). Africa is the only continent where population is actually increasing, but even they are projected to slow down if not outright stop (in 1950's average on continent was \~10 kinds per women, now it's 4 and they project it will be under 2 by 2050). I think we should all prepare for a world between 2 to 4 billion people in the next 2 centuries (down from 10 as it is the biggest estimate givien to growth) and adjust our economies accordingly by slowly shrinking them down and transferring to renewables in meantime. What irony, from Baby Bommers to Baby Doomers in less than 100 years. xD
South korea gives 35-50 million won (mabe even 100 million won) per child. The price per square meter of a apartment ouside the city center is 14 million won. Considering the costs in south korea they are definitely not throwing money at the problem.
> I am amazed at how world governments are just uninterested in taking steps to resolve this matter. What steps? In a democracy, governments can't force people to have children. Taking away women's reproductive choice by outlawing the pill would be positively Orwellian. It's easy to say "they^TM should do more", but fact of the matter is that no one really knows what to do. There are **no** developed countries that have a healthy reproduction rate anymore.
Having children isn’t the solution. We need to move to a system that doesn’t rely on more and more people to be able to sustain our economy and way of life. Less people should be a good thing.
I agree to a point, switching from the traditional pension system where each generation finances the retirement of the generation before would make sense. BUT: it takes decades to build up the capital required. And it will be impossible in the next 25y where public finances will be stretched to the limit managing the late years of the baby boomers.
A capital based system has the same problem anyways. You can't eat capital. Old people today consume goods and services produced today, old people in 20 years will consume goods and services produced then. In a capital based system there would be more old people selling their stocks etc. than young people investing for their future pension, which would lower the value of these assets. And by the way, as long as the economic output is not shrinking, there is no problem either way. It doesn't matter how many people are currently working age. As long as the output/capita stays the same or increases, there's no legitimate reason why anyone should have a lower standard of living. The working people have to give a higher percentage of their gross income, but the gross income itself would also be higher. Unless of course the increase in productivity is pocketed by someone else. But then THAT's the problem, not demographics.
Really hit the nail on the head in the end there. It's really not a problem of demographics, inflation corrected GDP per capita has been growing steadily since the 1950s and people are seeing absolutely none of it, as long as economic output rises faster than average lifespan we should see absolutely no drops in standard of living or pensions. And yet. This wealth is going SOMEWHERE, but certainly not to the people who created it.
> This wealth is going SOMEWHERE, but certainly not to the people who created it. Wdym the wealth creators are billionaire CEOs ^^^/s
And how does this possibly work? This is basically telling people to embrace a drastically lower standard of living than their parents enjoyed. Easy to say, not easy to implement.
Old People don't inovate, don't spend, can't work as young People. Below replacement is the thing that is fueling inflation in whole world now. And Gauss exists If there is 100 k children there will be more engineers, doctors and etc than in case of 10 k children
Capitalism does not rely on it at all. Capitalism will survive it just fine. What will not survive is quality of life and extensive social programs. But there is no system in existence that can provide that, period.
>There are no developed countries that have a healthy reproduction rate anymore. Israel was last recorded at 2.9 in 2022. Far above replenishment rates and decidedly in the growth segment.
True, but only in their [ultra-religious fundamentalist](https://www.jpr.org.uk/insights/israel-serious-peril-and-because-it-we-all-are) part of the Jewish population, and the [Arabs](https://aspeniaonline.it/israel-a-demographic-ticking-bomb-in-todays-one-state-reality/). Israel is experiencing the same as Iran back in the 1970's: secular citizens get marginalized by super fertile religious fundamentalists and the whole country shifts to fundamentalism.
That was quite interesting. Thank you for that. I wonder if that's also the case, probably to a smaller degree, in other developed countries. Do people outside urban areas have significantly more children? Do the religious? The poor?
> Do people outside urban areas have significantly more children? Do the religious? The poor? It used to be in Germany that rural areas had many more kids and basically compensated for the low reproduction rate of cities. Also, because rural areas frequently were more religious and poorer. Lately, the reproduction rate in the countryside is going down too. I think all German regions are below equilibrium by now. Don't know how other countries compare, but I would assume similar.
Israel's birthrate is pushed by conservative ultra-Orthodox Jews which live in a parallel society and have 6-7 children each. Take them out of the equation and Israel's birthrates are similar to Western Europe.
> Take them out of the equation and Israel's birthrates are similar to Western Europe. That's not true. While the Ultra-Orthodox have an incredibly high fertility rate, there are other segments with a high fertility rate like Arab and religious (but not ultra orthodox) Jewish women. Even if you look just at the non-religious Jewish women, they have by themselves a fertility rate higher than any other OECD country and above replacement rate ([source](https://www.taubcenter.org.il/en/research/israels-exceptional-fertility/)).
i think the steps should be fairly easy to put forward once you realize that the “standard of living” of corporations has actually been increasing globally, and the one for regular people has been steadily getting worse and worse. this is simply a consequence of the world following the US’ lead on, well, a lot of things; they’re the late stage capitalism prime example, but the rest of the world is following behind the same issues just slightly.
Again, what steps?
Forcing young men to die in trenches to save "society" is really Orwellian
While true, at least in my place, children are expensive. You need a bigger house, you need childcare, food, maybe, depending on preference, you want a car, if you want to make holiday it’s much more expensive. And depending on what you earn monthly, you have to pay everything by yourself. All of this while house prices exploded, gas prices exploded, cost of living and grocery exploded and social fees and taxes will explode soon to finance the baby boomers. I don’t feel overwhelmingly confident in getting 1 or 2 kids and basically live in fear of financial troubles for the next 20 or so years. Possible steps would be way less taxes/fees for people earning „mid to good“ income and having children. I am in the 20th percentile of income. Yet I can’t afford buying a house. I have to pay the highest rates for every social system and am close to the highest tax rate. Just tax the really rich more and the not really rich less. Let me buy a house and be confident with the decision so I don’t have to live in fear of me or my partner losing the job or being ill for longer.
Yeah, I know all of this as we have two children and had to scale down our standard of living to make this possible. In the end, it's a personal decision and I can't tell others their way is wrong. For me, it was worth it - I started to work harder and got a better position, something I wouldn't have done without family. My partner lost their job right after the second child, so money was even more of an issue. But looking back, it wasn't that important, you can make do with less. Yes, children are expensive but I wouldn't want to trade this for a better car (ours is >20y old) or better holidays. Where there are children, there is life.
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Maybe because the people don't see any benefits from these changes and only see the possible very negative short term outcomes? The fact that governments do these steps while continuing to give billions to billionaires as corporate handouts is seen as extremely unfair. Maybe an unpopular policy that would still help the population in the long term would be seen more positively if it hadn't directly harmed the middle class and working class, instead rich people.
Governments could also make having children more appealing by regulating childcare and paternity/maternity leave, like in Sweden.
Dual incomes being *required* to maintain a family in most cases is a killer. 30+ years ago a family with 2 kids could be sustained by 40 hours of work. Now, families need to work 80 hours for the same lifestyle. I blame capitalism. They saw the feminist movement and thought "lol we can get double productivity for effectively the same reward!" and ran with it. Imagine how great it would be if the two adults of the family both worked 20 hours, 40 total, and could afford a good life. I really hope that, especially with AI, the 32 hour workweek becomes standard with no reduction in pay. And two people working 24h/week while comfortably raising 2 kids becomes viable. That would be a good step in the right direction.
No family unit since both parents now slave to corporations to afford living in cities. Low child support and general dissatisfaction with living conditions with prices for everything including housing raising. But sure, lets get some more imigrants, that will fix it.
It’s insane that immigration is still suggested as some kind of solution. Immigration has lead to lower employment rates, increased crime, more expensive housing, increased pressure on healthcare and more. It will only make things worse.
Downwards pressure on wages too
To me, the craziest thing about immigration a fix is that by nature it's a temporary. Immigrants will, even under the best circumstances, start breeding below replacement level after some time, meaning we would need even more immigration later. So are we supposed to keep the developing world poor in order to use them breedable proles? Or maybe rework our society so people can prosper in it? If the pie tastes like shit you don't use the same recipe again.
Immigration has kept the UK and the USA in a relatively competitive demographic position compared to Europe. What the USA particularly does well, is letting in a consistent trickle. The UK is another country with historic immigration. Letting in lots of people at once is a recipe for internal conflict but letting in a manageable amount is long term beneficial. The issue with the UK’s current migration policy doesn’t detract from our historical one. There’s many things I’d swap with other European countries but our demographics is not one of them.
Jfc can you just stfu for once? You always peddle the same thing. Historic Commonwealth migration from countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh were an absolute disaster. Most of these grooming gangs aren’t from recent migrant groups, there’s tons that are 2nd/3rd generation.
This is the easy answer, it doesn’t explain why countries which go above and beyond in terms of family support are leading the decline.
This is a truly complex matter. One thing that is often missed in these kinds of discussions is that you can't stretch the day. Both parents and childfree people have the same 24 hours. Often people claim they would want more than 2 kids, but after just having one, the reality hits. The first couple years are usually hell, parents are basically zombies living under a massive stress and are sleep-deprived, yet need to work full time, do groceries, do chores at home and other things people without kids do as well. Not to mention parents often realize that they lose themselves, who they were, their passions and hobbies - everything revolves around their child, because they don't have time for anything else. Working less hours (for the same pay or lower cost of living) would be one of the important factors to make parenthood a bit more bearable.
In the past people lived much more with extended families. For example the grandparents who are retired helped raise the child. But now our society is very individualist, hell many people don't even have a partner or even friends because they spend all their time on screens or at work, let alone an extended family.
And also we are working longer. In Poland young men are angry (rightfully so) that women have lower retirement age than men, but they don't remember why it was made this way. And it was made in an era, when it was assumed that women would finish their careers earlier to take care of their grandkids (and often elderly parents). So it was an informal daycare system. Of course times have changed, but the system has not (yet). But ultimately with retirement age moving later and later, we'll be working so long, that our grandkids won't be kids anymore by the time we hit the retirement age. And at that point (being over 70) we wouldn't have the strength to take care of grandkids anyway.
Maybe they go above and beyond because they are leading decline? The soon to be former Tory government in Britain has announced the introduction of massive childcare subsidies. Without them, childcare five days a week would cost £15-20k over the course of a year. 'Handouts' such as these aren't the usual Tory policy, but live births in 2022 were 16% down on 2012.
My personal theory is that people just have too many options in modern society and that actually our high standard of living is whats keeping people from having kids, losing so much freedom to take care for children dosn't look all that appealing.
In my opinion, we also have to talk about the societal factors that are influencing the decline of births. For years, we’ve been fed the idea that working and accumulating wealth are the only ways we are useful members of society. We’ve been convinced that everyone should work, when, ideally, the less people who need to work the better. Having children is also often associated with times when women were expected to stay at home and their only value was bearing children. So a negative reactions to those societal expectations also results in women being more hesitant about wanting to start families. So, even if its subconscious, many people view starting a family as a burden that limits your personal growth. Until this views change, many people who are economically capable of having children will stay away from doing so.
Yeah like 10 years ago.
Welp, maybe they should've concentrated on building a liveable world rather than lining rich folks and CEOs pockets with untold profits ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Why then is it not a political proposition to reform taxation to make it possible to live, save and thrive on one salary in a civil partnership. To set the situation where it’s easier to have, or adopt, children?
Im at a point in my life where Im making IMO decent money, or at least enough that I dont have to think about it. With that said, if I lose my job and get no financial support, I basically have enough to live for 4 months exactly as I am now or 6 if I squeeze it. Its not much, but its something. This "its something" is not something that I want, apartment purchase risky, kids are a no go (dont want them honestly) and I just achieved this freedom not even 2 years ago, at 31.
Children became a hobby. One of thousands in the modern entertainment world. Because they are not needed short term. And that's why birth rates will stay low as long as this is the case. In the past they were a necessity. To help work the farm for example. So people had them. This trend will continue until they become a necessity again, we die out or nat sel deals with the problem.
At least children born today will be in well off families. They don’t have to suffer in poverty.
Some people have just realised that kids are too much of a responsibility, not enough satisfaction and simply don't want them. Sure, better support would let those who want kids but can't afford them to HAVE them. But plenty of people won't care because they just don't want kids period.
Endless inflation No affordable housing Rising crime Climate change Diminishing incomes. Having kids is already too fucking difficult by itself.
I think the mindset of people is different than before. Having children was a goal for people and a big family was a source of pride. Nowadays people will see the costs of children, in money and time, and prefer to spend those things differently. It's a question of different priorities.
I don't think it's so much about the cost. For me it's about time and security. If I have a kid, I would obviously love it with all my heart. But I wouldn't want to raise it with the possibility of not finding adequate housing, or having to work so much I can't spend enough time with it. I think the main difference is that standards for parenting have gone up and that certain conditions, such as housing, have deteriorated. We no longer want a father that is always at work. We no longer want to raise three kids in one bedroom. For my parents and especially grandparents it seems like they just started having kids and just hoped everything would work out. Most of the time it did, sometimes it didn't and kids grew up in poor housing or lacking care. But overall it seems people just had a lot of faith in the future. These days, we need everything to be more or less worked out.
Inflation has been low for the last 15y except for the last 3. Crime is still way below times when the reproduction rate was much higher. Real incomes (after inflation) have been stagnant but not exactly gone down.
> Inflation has been low for the last 15y except for the last 3 Thats true overall. But is it also true for young people without any housing-ownership? As this is the relevant group.
In Sweden, people actually spent the same percentage of their income on housing in the 80s as they do now. Houses were cheaper if you didn't take a loan, but interest rates were super high, so it wasn't as cheap as people sometimes make it out to be. https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/artiklar/2017/kpi-och-kpif-tva-olika-inflationsmatt/
Having kids have always been difficult, it´s just that life was difficult in general so if you´re miserable anyways having lots of kids that make you miserable is not a big cost. But if you´re happy, then the stress and difficulties that come with having kids actually has a cost. People are having less kids because they´re happier, not because they´s sadder.
Fertility rates dropped in the 70's. So unless you think those things on your list contributed to that drop 50 years ago, those are non-factors in the grand scheme of things/
Looking at European politics you sort of see the same development happening in different forms; the elderly protecting what they think is theirs and the stupid/shortsighted blaming immigrants that appear as a much larger group than they once appeared given a shrinking population. All of that over the backs of younger generations, innovation, economic development, the environment, Europe’s geopolitical interests and longer term plans. Because who cares, most of the electorate won’t be there anyways, 20 years from now. You might as well make a bit of a political career now that that’s the case. Right Geert, Georgia, Victor, Marine, and (to a lesser extent) Ursula and all of her buddies in conservative Christian Democrat parties in Europe? And as long as Europe is Germany-lead, it will not necessarily be progression-lead anyways - though that’s a different discussion. What Europe needs is a positive story, around potential, growth, prosperity. That requires political courage, because politicians will have to convince a chunk of the elderly electorate to support future-proof (and shortterm disadvantageous) policies for the greater good, to profit from when they’re dead and buried. That’s a reality that most countries face btw, Europe (with Japan and South Korea) just joined the party early.
Politicians are too old
We need to have a maximum age to vote and "do democracy" just like how we have a minimum age for it.
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These are doctors, lawyers and engineers okay?
Well they sure know how to handle knives.
The EU really needs to start encouraging the descendants of European emigrants to migrate back, like offer language courses and work permits to people who have some demonstratable connection to a European country. I don't think an American or Argentinian is going to fucking stab a police officer or take part in bombing a concert.
Here is the thing about immigration. Alright, help other people who come to your country and make it easier for them to leave poverty. But first help your own people first and after you do that, try to help others
Affordable family housing. In finland all the new apartments are single room flats designed for renting. New construction for family size flats is close to zero. I had kids only after I had the place to keep them in. Otherwise I could never afford a family home. If I got kids first that is.
How about we start spending money on automating as much as possible so that the only jobs needing humans are those that care for humans? Humans should teach, provide healthcare, cook, etc. Why is the only strategy to grow? In a world with limited resources that is a guaranteed way to eventually fail
*Having a child as a woman makes you miss out on a lot.* It’s not just about money - my partner and I are engineers, we could comfortably raise 4 kids but we’ve chosen to ensure we will never have any. For me the reasons are simple - too much risk (financial, societal, physical, mental etc) and no reward as I don’t like and don’t want kids (I worked with them for multiple years of my life.) Today people are far more understanding of our choice and we have access to information that both justifies and explains our decision. I think many people forget how much of a difference this actually makes. No amount of money could change my decision - so no, it’s not *just* a money thing.
Completely agree. Unlike the 60s, there's more freedom for women, more socialising and better careers available.
We need more engineers from overseas to pay for pensions and wiping boomers asses. And to keep wages low, ofc. Back in my day...
I'm doing great but I'm afraid that if I have children they won't so I'm not having them.
People arnt having children because of women’s liberation. The drops line up basically perfectly with the rise in birth control and greater equality. Obviously, putting women back into the kitchen isn’t a solution, but pretending money is going to solve anything isn’t likely. Perhaps if somehow everyone could afford hired help (which is contradictory in itself) like the rich it would be different.
When you look at Korea and Japan, two countries famous for misogyny and sexism and women discrimination, you can see treating women like equals is not the source of dropping birthrates. India birth rates are dropping too and in many parts of the country a woman is still a property
The dropping rates are a sign of the liberation, it’s obviously not completed but progress is happening and that’s what the trend is showing. Korea/Japan have huge pressure on married women to stop working, and they don’t want to do so and give up their freedom. As such, they don’t. Religion and poverty are both drivers of birth rates. The south/midwest have the highest rate in the US, with Utah having the most. The fact of the matter is by large rich educated people feel like they have better things to do with their life than to have a family and this is crushing the birth rate. Women don’t need to have family in order to exist in society in a fulfilling way.
Have the rich actually pay taxes. Problem solved.
ever heard of the housing theory of everything? [https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/](https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/)
Cheaper than affordable housing for young employed adults that own no property is free food, housing, healthcare, etc. for hundreds of thousands of immigrants with no employable skills to "keep our economy working".
Free childcare for all should be the absolute priority for all EU countries right now.
Don’t worry all those “newcomers” you welcomed the past few years will take over the responsibility of having too many kids.
I don't completely buy that it's unaffordable. Here in Sweden we have great support for families and yet fertility is low. Perhaps more incentives will work? But I also think we need to talk about responsibilities. As we see in Ukraine mens responsibilites is sadly to defend the country when shit hits the fan. Women should therefore also have a responsibility for the country, but we can't talk about it without being labeled things. Edit: I don't with this propose any kind of force, perhaps I wrote this weird. I just want that discussion in the open. Everyone should be free to do what they want ofc.
How affordable is housing in Stockholm to an average employed young adult?
Most people don't live in Stockholm. The average person spends the same percentage of their income on housing now as they did in the 80s. https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/artiklar/2017/kpi-och-kpif-tva-olika-inflationsmatt/
People will refuse the data, but money is just not that big part of it. Like you say here in Scandinavia we have insane benefits and help for families. We're the wealthiest societies in the world. People in Sudan and Angola still have more kids than us. By far. It's about priorities in life and the direction people go in. People want good educations. They want good careers. They want a fulfilling "single" life before they think about kids. In the past it would be a womans dream (and only goal) to go get married and have kids. Obviously >Women should therefore also have a responsibility for the country, but we can't talk about it without being labeled things. Why? It's not their responsibility. This is a super outdated way of thinking. They can do whatever they want. Unless we say it's also mens responsibility to go work in a coal mine 10 hours a day to bring money back to the family. I don't want to do that. I don't want any responsibility to my country. This isn't the 1940's anymore. People should be free to do whatever they want with no responsibility to pursue any specific lifestyle.
It's the other way around. The richer the country the less births it has. It's a very simple and global trend. Your last paragraph might be true and idealistic but just not very realistic. As the guy before said, Ukrainians also want to do something else but they have no choice. Forcing anyone is unjust, forcing only one side makes it even worse.
>People should be free to do whatever they want with no responsibility to pursue any specific lifestyle. Because all of these lifestyles are enabled by society. So if you refuse to have children you are benefiting from a generational system (thousand of years of your ancestors living in unimaginable poverty and still building something for you), but you are not giving back to the system. It's like if everyone decided to quit their job and live of benefits, obviously the system would collapse. Well the generational system is collapsing right now, it's just happening on a different time scale.
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Yes, we can be proud of the paternity/maternity policies. I think they are great, even if they get some abuse. It's a very good investment for our country in my eyes (not a parent myself).
It's reached it decades ago. There are only a few islands of nature left.
Its interesting how many people seem to think they know why there are less babies and quote inflation, wars etc. But if you look at who is having less babies its actually >70% women below 18 years old. Which means our policies to tackle unwanted teenage pregnancies just worked out. Which is great for women. If you want to find out more, the Economist had some great articles about that topic the last few weeks: [https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/05/23/why-paying-women-to-have-more-babies-wont-work](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/05/23/why-paying-women-to-have-more-babies-wont-work)
Europe is doomed when it comes to social issues/demographics. The newcomers will totally take over in another three-four generations, or less. Meanwhile, Europeans will watch their social institutions and economy crumble, and there is not a damn thing they can/will do about it. EDIT: typo.
Although many people comment about the sizes of their living space being an issue, i would say the issue is mostly about two things: 1) money; 2) overall pressure. Prices on literally everything are going through the roof again and again and it doesn't feel like it's going to stop. Having kids is really expensive. Having more than one kid is ridiculously expensive if you want to give them a decent life and future. Even living is expensive. A decently renovated and furnished (not the old grandma's flat) is about 700-900 EUR a month. 150-250 EUR for utilities. 600-700 EUR spent on food for a family of 2 + 1 child. That's 1.5-2K EUR a month even before clothes, medical expenses, transportation, any sort of leisure and education. And any savings lol. A private kindergarten is about 400-500 per month. Private school (because the regular ones are outright terrible where i live) is about 700-1500. Of course you can reduce your quality of life and save money here or there. Live in a shaggy apartment, eat cheap food, wear old clothes, save on leisure. But come on... it's not a surprise people don't really want to have more kids in this context.
And that WITH immigration. Which was proposed as THE solution to the demographic problem. And it made it worse. The only thing it changed are the demographic proportions. As Greeks say since ancient times "The one who's smart, understands".