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Comment by julianlam | Hacker News Reader

The article shows a graph of reasons why Japanese respondents were not having children.

Roughly ~22% (can't tell due to the graphical nature) responded "Struggling to conceive".

If you have a full FIFTH of your population willing but not able to have children, that's a lower hanging fruit to pick than somehow incentivising people who don't want to have children to change their mind.

Fertility treatment is almost never brought up... as though it were taboo. That needs to change. The cost of an IVF cycle is somewhere around $20,000 USD. It's a huge cost to bear as an individual, it's a drop in the bucket for a government, and pays for itself many times over when the conceived child enters the workforce.

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Struggling to conceive is the result of starting too late in their life to have children.

> A woman's fertility peaks lasts during the twenties and first half of thirties

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_maternal_age

*for some, or even many. Not all.

Not all indeed. But across a population of millions, that has a serious impact.

The US has 330 million people, and assuming a roughly equal split means you're looking at ~165 million Men and 165 million women.

Assume that 1/3 of those 165 million women are able to have kids -- they're not too young, or post-menopausal. That's ~55 million women who can have kids.

If there is even a tiny amount of issues with being over age, like that only impacts 1-4% of pregnant women, that's still anywhere form 0.5 to 2.2 million pregnancies.

2 million babies that are going to not happen, or have problems. There are US states with fewer people. Even a tiny variance here can impact large populations greatly.

In the west, this is a big issue because feminism told women they can have it all. Turns out work doesn't leave much time for having kids. I think men actually have the same issue, though more because a lack of social safety net and capitalism drives them to produce rather than have balance in their lives.

Something's off with society and incentives, but I'm at a loss for how to fix it.

Looks at costs. Poor nations have high fertility. Rich nations have low fertility despite having an abundance of everything people in poor nations would clamor for.

Rich nations tend to be poor in social connectedness and community. This means dating and maintaining friendships is more difficult in richer nations.

Taking the context of dating in richer nations: If a dude from a rich country wanted to find a good wife, they would probably be better off looking in poorer nations where people aren't as likely to be spoiled, self-absorbed shits. Women in richer nations tend to want to screw around until they're 35-45 and then have an instant husband and kids. The last apartment complex I made the misfortune of selecting was bursting with mostly non-Ivy League office workers whose sole goals in life were sex, drugs, alcoholism, and imagining themselves as wealthy celebrity IG models. <unsolicited-dating-advice-department> I turned down this absolutely gorgeous woman mid-/early-20's who telegraphed she was self-centered, superficial, uncurious, and in a "maybe open" relationship, e.g., open to fooling around or an upgrade. The advice bit: A dude (or anyone really) can save themselves much grief by not monopolizing conversation and actively listen to the words and actions of others. In my calculus, it's cheaper and less painful to get an FWB if you need that but keep them at a distance. Most just aren't relationship material. Plus, I don't see how anyone in a richer country can find a reliable spouse when there is zero social context and zero accountability for behavior: dating apps only exacerbate the situation.

I generally agree, but you should change your opinion on poorer countries. The trend you describe is spreading everywhere. Even in that article they mention Thailand’s rate in 2022 was estimated at 1.32

This partially true as an overall trend, but is thankfully, not yet a universal fact. The "flattening" effects of globalization bring diabetes, divorce, and time and distance between relatives.

80's Eddie Murphy ridiculous bits notwithstanding, places like Rwanda are still socially conservative and fairly traditional. Certain Catholic-heavy countries and small island nations also tend to be very traditional. I don't mean "backwards" in ways like the Taliban, but have greater social cohesion, a sense that other people matter, and neighborliness.

> feminism told women they can have it all. Turns out work doesn't leave much time for having kids.

How many jobs are fulfilling enough one would want to sacrifice family time, or even just housework for? Doctors, scientists, architects, engineers, artists.. after that, the vast majority of jobs are just a way to make ends meet, not a means of self-fulfillment.

> The cost of an IVF cycle is somewhere around $20,000 USD.

Is this the cost in Japan or is this the cost in the US? Not trying to provoke a discussion on US healthcare, but it’s less than half that cost here in New Zealand (and additional subsidies are available too). Healthcare tends to be relatively inexpensive in New Zealand relative to the US IVF may be cheaper in Japan?

https://www.fertilityassociates.co.nz/treatment-costs-and-pa...

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/the-high-cost-of-ivf/DXTXOVBNF...

USA. This was a private cycle without insurance, plus cost of medications.

> The cost of an IVF cycle is somewhere around $20,000 USD. It's a huge cost to bear as an individual, it's a drop in the bucket for a government, and pays for itself many times over when the conceived child enters the workforce.

This is extremely controversial in many circles, but subsidizing IVF for native born citizens, especially college educated, in countries like South Korea, Japan and the West has statistically better results than population increase through immigration. The effect are even more pronounced in countries with family-based immigrations, as often immigrants once settled will sponsor their aging parents into the country.

Just giving incentives to these families to have a third child (bearing in mind it requires more space, larger vehicle and so on) would have outsized returns compared to the negligible costs.

Note that I'm pro-immigration but it's about time we recognize it won't and can't solve all demographic problems. [0] [1]

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/03/07/the-ma...

[1] https://hbr.org/2020/05/research-the-immigrant-income-gap

IVF is not guaranteed to work, it could take multiple cycles each costing $20,000. Generally delaying finding a partner on the assumption that there is always IVF is also probably not a wise strategy.

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