I don’t think society has yet realized the cascading effects this will have on fertility rate and compression of the demographic pyramid.
Well, that's where you're wrong (with respect to housing in the USA).
Municipal zoning laws mean that houses are not getting built. Apartment growth is not keeping up either. Nor is condo growth. In the places with jobs, there is no available housing.
This lack of housing is what is keeping houses at top dollar in spite of the mortgage rate tripling over the span of a year.
This is not why the US is, or more accurately some states in the US are, banning abortion. It is very much a moral thing for them: they want to punish sex before marriage, especially for young girls, or maybe they really do believe fetuses are sentient, but it definitely isn't about promoting population growth.
America has had a higher immigration rate than most of Europe for a couple of hundred years now.
I think that’s the popular narrative, but the real reason is population decline. Someone somewhere must understand the implications of a small number of people in the US. Not just because there are fewer taxpayers but there also fewer people to support the logistics of war. I dont like the idea but I think that is part of the reason.
Europe is not the US, it’s not a country, and is not made of non European immigrants - though all Europeans are closely related. And that means that population decline is already causing political and social tension. Because to maintain the economy people from the outside are coming in and locals dont like it. There is no European country without tension. Not something I like either.
The only way to solve these issues is to make it possible for people to have children and family life - traditional or not - of their own accord.
Corporate capitalism doesnt allow for that. It causes market anomalies - ie people unable to even dream of owning a house, it causes mental health issues due to forcing people to sit in office settings with office politics, and it damages small businesses. Corporatism is damaging to national security and social cohesion.
I think the way to solve many of the population and independence of the younger generation is an aggressive development of small to medium sized businesses. Free people are more likely to want a family in my view. Basically, we need a return to actual capitalism.
> Housing prices have a significant impact on a family's decision to have children, according to a new study by Lisa Dettling and Melissa Schettini Kearney. In House Prices and Birth Rates: The Impact of the Real Estate Market on the Decision to Have a Baby (NBER Working Paper No. 17485), they find that a 10 percent increase in home prices leads to a 1 percent decrease in births among non-homeowners in an average metropolitan area. However, the negative effect among non-owners is offset by a 4.5 percent increase in births among current homeowners, who are now wealthier. The total fertility effect of an increase in house prices varies across demographic groups, largely because their rates of homeownership differ. The authors conclude that "house prices are a relevant factor in a couple's decision to have a baby."
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w17485/w174...
(look to South Korea if you want to see the future: https://time.com/6488894/south-korea-low-fertility-rate-tren... ["The number of babies expected per woman probably dropped this year to 0.72 and will continue to fall through 2025, when it’s expected to reach 0.65, the statistical office said Thursday in its latest population forecasts. South Korea already has the world’s lowest fertility rate at 0.78 as of 2022."])
Current US mores ("be able to afford house, then start family") are driving the housing price:fertility correlation.
But those mores can change, say, to become more aligned with the non-US, multi-generational world.
And honestly, I think that would be a net positive on US culture.
https://www.axios.com/2021/11/24/more-americans-childless-pr...
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/19/growing-s...
https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/4141600-pro-natalist...
So we are told, but this reeks of pretend-helplessness, an excuse not to even try. The Czech Republic raised its fertility rate from 1.1 in 1999, to 1.8 in 2021 [1,2], so it is empirically possible.
[1] https://stoppopulationdecline.org/re-familisation-czech-repu...
[2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location...
40%-50% of global pregnancies are unintended annually. When contraceptives are readily available and women are empowered, the fertility rate falls. Is there enough fiat to change that? There is a light cone based on aggregate productive labor participation, and it shrinks as the population shrinks.
https://www.unfpa.org/press/nearly-half-all-pregnancies-are-...
https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-...
"We shouldn't try because it won't work. We know it won't work because there are so few examples of it working."
Most countries used to have above-replacement fertility. At least some countries that implement natalist policies recover fertility. While not exactly a reversal of low fertility, Israel is an example of an advanced economy with above-replacement fertility.
Evidence points overwhelmingly towards this being a fixable problem, if only we try. Certainly few other problems are approached this way - we don't give up on reducing CO2 emissions or plastic pollution just because we've so far not succeeded. One only approaches a problem this way if one doesn't want to solve it.
We require a return to maturity and responsibility and clear, focused thoughts across the board. We need to have higher standards for truth and accurate information and accurate statistics. We need less climate fear-mongering and doom-scrolling. The world and civilization are not ending yet many youth are blasted by endless propaganda and negativity from a young age.
We need to be smart and fixated on what’s true again, in all areas. Truth over lies and truthful statements and processes over half-truths or lies.
So it’s a values and wisdom thing, which has been absent or pulled out from beneath people by the sudden subversion of reasoned and nuanced thinking by easy access to qualitatively cheap information and sound bites.
I think the appetite for nuance will come back and this will represent a return to truth and consequently to more emphasis on family and especially the nuclear family.
I believe those costs will decrease in real terms with time. Note that we were also higher up discussing staying home longer precisely to facilitate more affordability for the individual, an additional 3-5 years saving and investing into career and skills will help most individuals in this area significantly if they can do it.
How many average metropolitan areas experienced 10% increases in home prices? That’s a lot to decrease births by just 1%
> Not leaving so soon and investing into your career and saving up money will eventually enable more people to choose parenthood.
That might be true if it was a choice made to save money but instead it's not a choice and there isn't any money.
How do you know this?
> That might be true if it was a choice made to save money but instead it's not a choice and there isn't any money.
I’m betting savings rates will go up.
[1] The effect of immigration shocks on native fertility outcomes: evidence from a natural experiment - https://izajodm.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40176-018...
These results suggest that immigration shocks do have implications for the fertility decisions and outcomes of natives, though these tend only to be temporary and short-lived. There therefore appear to be little long-term or sustained consequences for the fertility of natives from governments pursuing labour augmenting strategies through more open immigration policies.
Immigration to the US is at its highest level since the 1910s, in both absolute and relative terms: https://cis.org/Graph-Immigrants-US-Number-Percent