The Fertility Crisis – highlights from the comments section

I'm not sure I understand the tone and goals of the piece overall, but the concluding list is certainly interesting (reproducing below). One thing it appears to be missing is reference to young women's mental state at present, which on average is very low per recent studies -- i.e., women are generally very unhappy right now.

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1. We can make houses more affordable for young people, but that means we need to lower the “asset value” for existing property owners.

2. We can make intergenerational family houses the norm, but that means undoing the last several decades where we made fun of people for “living at home.”

3. We can start adopting the values of high fertility cultures, such as Israel or the Mormons, but that means taking a hit to our GDP.

4. We can move back to an agrarian society, but that’s another hit to our GDP.

5. We can convince people that the future is going to be bright, and that it’s actually a great time to have kids, but that means convincing people that worries about AI risk, climate catastrophe, crumbling infrastructure, nuclear wars, and future pandemics are just overblown.

6. We can create a robust social safety net where people who get fired or have a medical emergency aren’t worried they will be completely ruined, but that means creating a society where we pretend to care about poor people.

7. We can make child care more affordable, but that means creating a society where we pretend to care about children.

8. We can convince women that it’s better to be a stay at home mom than a worker in the economy, but that’s going to be very difficult to do without coming across as completely regressive.

9. We can convince men that it’s better to be a stay at home dad than a worker in the economy, but that means valuing men beyond their bank account.

10. We can take away women’s bodily autonomy — which, well, let’s check back in 2028.

Children are like a hardmode tamagotchi for more than a decade with essentially no or very delayed economic payoff for the parents. Now an uncomfortable idea could be that you make the lives of (voluntarily) childless, reproductive-age people so difficult that just having 2-3 children is the easier path.

Not only could this have terrible side effects, it's also very much against the idea of finding good solutions via self-organization. Maybe there's deep biopsychosocial wisdom in the fertility crisis that we aren't seeing yet.

The article notes the horrific increases in the cost of modest "starter" housing.

But not the similar increases in the cost of education.

Nor of non-emergency medical costs.

Nor of childcare - which, back in the day, the latter was very often "free" by current standards. Because of extended family living in the same area. And letting young children roam the neighborhood, and walk to school by themselves, and bike to the store, and etc. was perfectly acceptable.

Nor of ...

I have a very simple theory.

The cost of land determines cost of living, and high cost of living means fewer children.

It’s the biggest first-order trend in the data. Places with cheap land have high fertility.

The financialization of land means the poorest person has to compete against the richest in the housing market.

Doubly true in a globalized market where any foreign individual or corporation can buy the land.

Lower birth rates is NOT a crisis. In fact, it is the most effective SOLUTION to the ACTUAL crisis of HUMAN OVERPOPULATION which is at the root of every problem e.g. climate change, dwindling resources, increased transmission of disease, etc.

For most people it costs to have kids... for some it pays.... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27712032/