Families say cost of housing means they'll have fewer or no children
npr.org
npr.org
My parents home was a 45 min commute to the city when they bought it in '93, now it's 90+ min. Their home is worth $1.2M, which both of us being tech workers we could afford but if one of us lost our jobs the other can't float us for very long. A home, with that commute, is not worth the precariousness. All that money, all that time away from your kid (plus complicated logistics getting to / from day care that closes before our work day ends) it's not worth it.
So, babies in apartments. We actually love it. Everything is walkable, there are parks, playgrounds, pools, elevators for strollers, we walk to the market, the pediatrician, the library, daycare etc. BUT there are NO 3 BEDROOM APARTMENTS. They do not exist, whether for small families, young people starting out and splitting rent, couples with remote jobs who want separate offices. 3 BEDROOM APARTMENTS DO NOT EXIST so, there will be fewer children.
I am not sure if you somehow mean something different, but 3 bedroom apartments absolutely do exist. I know for a fact that they exist in California, Texas and Florida. I don't have direct experience with them in other states however.
Idk where you are, but I grew up in a 3 bedroom apartment as a kid in the Bay Area in the 1990s and 2000s - we couldn't afford a house until I entered HS (nor did my parents want to take the risk until they had a GC, which itself took 12 years).
I also had friends who grew up in 4 person households with 2 bedrooms (also fairly common).
There were a lot of apartment complexes filled with us 1.5 gen immigrants, as our parents came from India, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Israel, and Russia on H1Bs, L1s, and EB1s.
Growing up in an apartment was a fairly common story for a large segment of us Californians of 1st and 1.5 gen immigrant descent.
Here’s a video on the subject: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iRdwXQb7CfM
Long story short though, modern fire mitigation techniques (materials, sprinklers, fire doors) greatly reduce the risk posed by having just one staircase, which would open up a wide array of apartment layouts.
I asked her why developers don't build 3-5 bedroom flats anymore. And got a bunch of answers. I said so this is basic failure of the free market to provide what society needs? And she said yes absolutely.
This is the exact problem Japan is facing. You should go read up on how well that's "self-correcting" (it isn't)
Even now landlords will prefer to keep a building empty rather than lower the rent.
Currently western democracies are dominated by 50+ years old, who tend to vote more conservative policies, which benefit them.
Why would we spend very large amounts of the GDP to support old people through health and retirement programs, but refuse to fund quality daycare, schools and child-oriented infrastructure (playgrounds, sports clubs and so on). Especially given that a healthy and educated youth will create tomorrow's prosperity for the country. Unlike the old who have already lived their lives.
If you think that I'm exagerating, I'd suggest listening to what happens in city councils, in retired-dominated cities: they often refuse improvements for families to fund their own programs. It's not a myth, I saw it with my own eyes, and it's very rational.
If a child inherits an estate, or earns significant money, their parents are supposed to manage it until they're adults. Why wouldn't it the same for votes?
I mean, do whatever you want just stop blaming everything else for it. You don't want kids. Don't have them.
Gen Z is living in smaller apartments than their grandparents were living.
Clearly value isn't going to local communities, this will correct itself when people pull their money out of the stock market. As long as people believe Walmart or Nvidia will make them more money in the long term than improving their local infrastructure costs will continue to rise. If the AI bubble pops house prices will collapse, if not then there is a lot of money to be made.
If you have trillion x returns you would pull candy out of a babies mouth to invest
If you think about it, it is impressive how we’ve managed to practically drown out nature’s sole driving force of life itself. That’s how beaten younger folks feel.
In America, most of the people without kids don't want them and blame external factors instead of being honest.
There is an obvious freeloading aspect here.
Seriously, this whole "freeloading" nonsense is why this country still hasn't gotten universal healthcare. Because everytime someone brings it up, people shout "why should I work to provide a benefit to people who don't work to provide a benefit for me"? Because it lowers costs for EVERYONE, regardless of the fraction who don't work. And because we should live in a society that values taking care of each other instead of "screw you what's in it for me?"
It's "inverse solidarity", where the poor (the parents who had to pay in time and money to produce new members of the society) end up worse off and their offspring will have to pay for the rich, who didn't spend to have children. The fact that we need to argue such simple matter says a lot about how most people don't understand what a society is.
Funny thing is if people suggested forcing people (directly or, in this case, indirectly) into not having children, people would be up in arms about it.
How is it alright, meanwhile, to be forced, directly or, again, indirectly in this case, to have children?
It was the case a century ago. Society wasn't much worse off. But even with pure private retirement planning, it doesn't fix the issue that there are less and less productive members of the society as the population ages, while the needs increase.
> Whether to have children or not should be a personal decision
Which ends up affecting the whole society in aggregate. If my car pollutes too much, it's ok, but if too many people has the same car, then it becomes a problem. So society decided to add incentives to reduce the car pollution (in this case, fines).
> Funny thing is if people suggested forcing people (directly or, in this case, indirectly) into not having children, people would be up in arms about it.
The Chinese experiment shows otherwise.
> How is it alright, meanwhile, to be forced, directly or, again, indirectly in this case, to have children?
You can add fiscal incentives, many countries have them, condition old age benefits to how many children you had, or public care homes' access, etc. This also allows to free ressources to help today's childless people and parents to have more children.
Ressources are not infinite and at some point we need to choose if we prioritize old people or young people. My point of view is that this prioritization should depend on how many children you had. If you invested time, money and energy (I had to wake up 4 times to feed my daughter last night, for instance) to perpetuate society, why would it treat you the same as the people who didn't want to do the same effort?
Not having children is a personal choice, but it doesn't mean that it should be free of personal consequences.