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Comment by ardaoweo | Hacker News Reader

Here in Finland apparently 50% of 35yo males, and 35% of 35yo females have no children. Fertility rate in 2023 was 1.26. In comparison, 2015 saw fertility rate of 1.65, and it has been below replacement level since 1969. 61% of under 40yo people live in rental apartments, this share having risen about 10% from 2010. Also, apartments built today are about 9 square meters smaller on average compares to 10 years ago. I live in a two bedroom apartment of about 55 squares, and today this would be a typical three bedroom apartment size.

Housing has certainly become more expensive and lower quality in larger cities where most jobs are, and working life has become more unstable. Still, in my opinion cultural factors are a more significant reason for falling birth rates.

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One of my grandmothers, raised 3 children in a 1 bedroom house, alone (my grandfather died right after the youngest one was born).

I see people now-a-days complaining that they don't have money, or space, or time and I just scoff at them. We aren't having children because society stopped seeing laziness as a negative trait. Everyone around us keeps telling us "you need to take time to focus on yourself": which usually translates to spending the day browsing through Netflix and ordering food because you can't even be bothered to cook.

This is making for very unhappy, empty lives.

Threads about having kids are always filled with judgemental condescending comments like this. It's fascinating.

None of this discussion is productive. Nobody is going to change their mind about having kids because of a thread on HN.

I guess because having/not having kids is such a monumental decision, people feel the need to justify that their choice is the right one.

Communities like HN and Slashdot are why I'm not religious any more. And they've also made me more conscious of my choices and their impact on the environment and future generations.

The question is: did ahe want to raise her children like that and would she have chosen to do it that way if she had a choice. People raise children that exist any way they can. People don't choose more children in a bad situation. We can conjecture your grandmother didn't think it was ideal because she didn't have any more children during a time where having more than 3 wouldn't have been strange.

My country is (or was) profoundly catholic. It was not well looked upon to remarry after getting widowed.

My grandmother never remarried, so she never had any more children.

I agree that there are a large number of people who overthink having kids and so don't but i don't think not having children makes ones life 'empty' or 'unhappy'. Like everything, it really depends on an individual, some people thrive as parents, others really regret it.

I moved to Finland a few years ago, and I by and large agree with this analysis.

I had the interesting experience of moving straight to rural Pohjois-Pohjanmaa first, before moving to one of the big cities for work. It's for that reason that I'm mostly convinced it's cultural as well - most of our friends up there have 2 to 6 kids, despite making quite a bit less than us city slickers.

I'm just always wondering why the ratio is not more close 50% / 50% between males and woman?

On birth male/female ratio is pretty much 50/50. So at any stage (except older >70 because woman usually lives longer) ratio should be similar. LGBT are just 10% of population and distribution between gays/lesbians seems also 50/50.

Based on that if there is a single male there is another single female somewhere. The only reason that comes to my mind that more female migrated from Finland somewhere else or there is a big immigration of males into Finland.

There could be various other reasons as well. For instance, males tend to be older in a family than females, so the 35-year cut-off may be too early to consider. Additionally, there is the desirability factor, where the most successful or desirable males may have multiple 'families,' or at least children from multiple women

Yes, here married men are about 3.5 years older on average than their wives, and average age of mothers has been rising. So, a significant percentage of those men will become fathers after 35, reducing the gap between genders. I think you're right about the second point as well. 87% of single parents in Finland are women, and it's probably easier for the men to remarry and have more children at that point.

Nevertheless, it's also notable that the majority of long-term unemployed are men by a significant margin. Average educational outcomes of women are better than for men these days. There's a much higher incidence of young men than young women dropping out of education and work. These men are statistically much less likely to have children than others.

For a woman (with a working utero) to have a baby, all that is needed is ONE man willing to have unprotected sex with her. Those are not hard to find, especially if she's willing to lie about whether she's on the pill.

A man will generally only become a father if he finds a woman that WANTS to have children with him. If he's unattractive, chances are she will select someone else. Many women will prefer even married men over an unattractive, low status one.

3 bedrooms plus a bath on 55 sq/m sounds pretty tightly packed huh, mind sharing a listing? I’m quite curious as to the layout.

I’m in Belgium where we’ve historically built larger than necessary apartments (and houses) so there’s a decent amount of housing stock to raise a family in, but the tides have turned and new apartments are also mostly smaller 1 and 2 bedrooms targeting singles. The latter sucks because if you’re a young family looking for an affordable but modern place (read: energy efficient) your options are slim.

Actually I meant a three room apartment (three rooms + bathroom), so I guess that's really a two bedroom apartment using US definition. Anyway, here's an example of a three room apartment packed into 41.5 square meters excluding balcony.

https://www.etuovi.com/kohde/38837797?haku=M2075336606

Another typical example with 4 rooms + bathroom packed into 65.5 squares:

https://www.etuovi.com/kohde/u24978?haku=M2075340353

Three bedroom or three room?

Even in the crowded Poland, I can't really believe in three bedroom + living room 55 square meter apartament.

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