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Comment by meowfly | Hacker News Reader

For this reason, I have been pretty convinced that the only way this is solved is via culture and I am skeptical it's worth the cultural change.

For starters, Money and Macro looked into this and a lot of the fertility decline is the result of less unplanned pregnancy. Teenager's are far less likely to give birth. This is seen as a good thing.

In many places of the world, woman not having children is seen as bad (see China's shengnu dialog), but that's also immediately also recognized as misogynistic by liberal minded people. So I'm not sure it's worth solving either.

So it's basically a classic case of societal values bumping up against personal autonomy. In my mind, the best option is to prepare for population decline and mitigate against the downsides.

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> a lot of the fertility decline is the result of less unplanned pregnancy. Teenager's are far less likely to give birth.

I do genealogy and have created 10s of 1000s of profiles, mostly of people in the US from 1850-1950. Much of what I see aligns with common knowledge of historical birth rates and parenting stats.

But not everything. One exception is that (Adult-Reaching) First-Born kids of moms <18 is a significantly smaller demographic than I would have expected. Families that start with moms in early-mid-late 20s are all better represented.

This isn't to throw shade on common knowledge. I suspect our CK is missing some nuances in the data (data from the groups I work on).

  To give another example of missing nuance: We know historical lifespan averages were strongly shaped by infant mortality but they were also shaped by labor-related deaths (ex:black lung).

> lot of the fertility decline is the result of less unplanned pregnancy. Teenager's are far less likely to give birth. This is seen as a good thing.

When I consider the notion that impregnated 16(?)-19yo's were a primary driver of population growth, I find evidence for and against it.

Pro isn't about the number of births per se - it's about the number of child producing relationships that began after our school age daughters got knocked up.

Against is that the earliest (and latest!) birthing ages are historically highest for stillbirths and other life-ending birth issues. And youngest parents are (historically) the most likely to experience a first child death (that commonly ends young relationships).

Mitigating the 'Against' column is that modern medicine reduces those deaths.

Mitigating the mitigation is that the ability to access to modern medicine is in decline for young+poor parents - at the same time a war on kid-saving vaccines is heating up.

Just a clarification to my comment.

If I remember correctly, I don't think the claim was teen pregnancy was the "primary driver of population growth" but one of the variables that has a large impact on fertility rates. Most people see the reduction in teen moms as a positive development.

I also think the reduction in unplanned pregnancy to be a net positive. So 20 somethings finishing school before starting a family is good, but it's also probably resposible for fewer large families. I believe polling shows most woman want more children than they actually end up having. I'm sure part of that explanation is that people are starting families later in life.

> I don't think the claim was teen pregnancy was the "primary driver of population growth" but one of the variables

When I restated your original argument, I was careful to say "a" primary driver.

My own counter argument is based on worthwhile data but is submitted without the evidence thereof. Given that last, I'm inclined to frame your assertions in reasonable light.

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