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Comment by jjk166 | Hacker News Reader

Shy of paying living wages for jobs with decent work life balance and building sufficient housing, of course.

Over and over this is repeated, but wages are not the reason for decline in birth rates IMO.

Talk to your friends, they might verbally say 'money', but then you see them go on trips and buy food at restaurants. Its much easier socially to say 'money', than 'I don't like/want kids'.

The only reason I have a ton of kids, is because I am planning on setting them up for political purposes as I play Dynasty. Its selfish, and I hope to make lots of money and power from them.

No one else has this mentality. The better question is: "Why does someone want kids?"

Given most people are hedonists(assumed). Would a hedonist want kids? Maybe. They are cute which is dopamine inducing. But less fancy food and lots of crying pains.

> Talk to your friends, they might verbally say 'money', but then you see them go on trips and buy food at restaurants. Its much easier socially to say 'money', than 'I don't like/want kids'.

Going on trips and eating out are luxuries some can afford because they don't have children...

Is this a novelty account? The comment + username makes it feel like it, but I'm not used to seeing this type of poster on HN.

There was a time, not that long ago, when going on trips and eating at restaurants was not mutually exclusive with having kids.

Depends on the restaurant. I'm apparently the only white family that will bring my kids to an Indian restaurant in this city. Once in a while I'll see kids with their India family, but all the other customers are adults who seem to think Indian restaurants are not for kids. (the staff seems to agree that they are serving family friendly food - it is what they ate growing up)

That sounds less like a money issue and more a cultural thing.

exactly, many places are not welcoming of kids.

There was a time, not that long ago, where going on trips and eating at restaurants were not affordable for 90% of people, but they still had kids.

This is clearly a multifaceted topic.

No, these are two different topics. Travel and food became less expensive because technology advances. This is what we'd expect to happen and has nothing to do with kids.

We got to the point where travel, food, and child rearing were all readily affordable things. Now it is no longer the case.

Our technological ability to travel or produce food has not diminished, indeed these things are cheaper than ever. The cost of child rearing, relative to people's earnings, has gone up.

I think that's an interesting thought, but would frame it a little bit differently. I'm not sure the true cost of child rearing has increased in the bare minimum requirements are still quite cheap. Instead, I think there's been an escalation of expectation or perceived minimum around both child rearing and material life.

It would be fascinating to read or perform a study looking at what it would cost to obtain the median material conditions of life from say 1924.

I would expect it would be quite cheap. I imagine a tiny house smaller than modern apartments located in a rural area. There would be no healthcare, cell phone, Electronics, or car.

If these were the expectations, I think it is still very possible to support the family and children on a single income.

Edit: I found this awesome USDA guide from 1934 for how to set up a substance farm on 1 acre.

https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/ipd/small/exhibits/show/su....

Im partial to layout 1, for land north of the Mason-Dixon line, where average quality farmland is about 11k/acre: https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/ipd/small/files/original/5...

Sure, it probably wouldn't be too expensive to achieve a typical 1924 quality of life, it would be even cheaper to achieve an 1824 quality of life, but it should be deeply alarming that a typical 1994 quality of life is out of reach.

Again, you used to be able to have healthcare, and a cellphone, and electronics, and a car, and all these other things (all of which were much more expensive to produce at the time) while simultaneously comfortably raising a family. A nice home in a good area was once a staple of the middle class, not a luxury for the elites.

We didn't sacrifice having children to improve our quality of life elsewhere, technological development has allowed us to keep our material possessions as we get poorer and poorer, while the costs of life that can't be reduced through technology - real estate, education, child care, etc - skyrocket.

What do you think stops us from going back to 1994 material conditions and costs?

Population is a big one that is a pretty big non-starter. Urbanization would be difficult. Housing and zoning codes might be possible. Childcare regulations is possible but unpopular. Lowering taxes to 1994 levels is possible, but unpopular.

I think you hit the nail on the head with hedonism as a root cause, particularly happiness utilitarianism in my mind.

There are lots of sentimental reasons a romantic might have kids even if it makes them less happy. In our current culture, sentimental and romantic are synonymous with stupid or foolish.

Birth rates fall when societies get richer, not when they get poorer. Additionally, rates are falling all the same in the states with the most generous welfare policies.

Birth rates fall when infant mortality falls, which tends to coincide with societies getting richer.

At the same time, countries tend to get richer when their birth rates fall, as people are spending their time working to produce economic value instead of having kids.

Compare say France, with a fertility rate of 1.82 and a GDP per capita of $43k to South Korea with a fertility rate of 0.88 and a GDP per capita of $42k.

Do not mistake correlation with causation. And do not mistake society getting richer with the individuals in a society having more access to the time and space necessary for raising a family.

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