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Comment by ahtihn | Hacker News Reader

> Many people can't afford to have kids

Wrong. Poor people have 0 problems having kids.

People can afford kids, they don't want to compromise on lifestyle.

You’re making a value statement in a discussion about factual information. Regardless of whether you think avoiding children for economic reasons is good or bad, it’s the leading reason cited by people who choose to delay having children. Regardless of whether it’s perception or real, that is the problem the needs to be solved if you want people to have kids.

Does it matter that "it's the leading reason cited" if it's further questioning shows it not to be true?

I've heard it many many times from many different people, and not once has it been the actual reason.

I prefer the results of studies to the anecdotes of some people you know.

doesnt mean the solution is bombarding them with free money from the state. in a democracy there is probably no sensible or passable solution regardless.

> Poor people have 0 problems having kids.

A simply WILD statement given the rates of children raised in poverty with all the trauma and issues that gives, who then oftentimes grow up to be their parents doing the exact same thing.

> People can afford kids, they don't want to compromise on lifestyle.

Previous generations didn't have to, ours does. So if people don't want to make that compromise, they won't.

Maybe if we made it systemically a bit less awful to be parents more people would do it.

we are talking about germany here. no child in germany needs to grow up in poverty even if both parents are unemployed and are living on social welfare.

Poverty exists everywhere and Germany is no exception. Looking into it, the average welfare recipient is going to get ballpark 80% of what someone earning minimum wage does. Granted their lives are more stable, at least from an outside view given that the government programs directly cover rent and utilities. That said those numbers only really work for people in practice by way of budget conscious spending, i.e. grocery store brand foods and really no luxuries to speak of. By any definition, that's still poverty and is still subject to the stressors that implies. Making it so people don't end up homeless is certainly a good thing, and I'll definitely give them props for it, but like, if you were a poor kid growing up, you still knew that. Your clothes were never new for the school year, you don't get nearly as many fun foods or treats, your toys aren't as nice, all the rest. All the little psychological dings that add up to adults with issues around money management and delayed gratification. And that's assuming the parent is devoted and caring, if that's not the case, you can have ALL KINDS OF BAD in this system too.

Like, again, still beats the shit out of America's system, but it's far from perfect too.

if you were a poor kid growing up, you still knew that

i have been there, and i disagree. it's of course about attitude. and yes, sure we didn't get expensive clothes, but that wasn't an issue not in the school i went to. things might have changed, but i am sorry, it's not the problem of a welfare system to account for materialism. i was a boy scout and i got all my clothes from army surplus stores because that's what we were into. not the army style, but the sturdy hiking stuff. i was able to save up for an expensive leather school bag, not the cheap stuff everyone else in school had. i could do that because we were thrifty and didn't waste money on other unneeded luxuries. fun foods, treats? why? i am a lot healthier now because we didn't get that, and, most importantly, there was never any desire for that either. so no stress at all. as a child i never once felt that we didn't have enough money. i was proud of the way we lived.

i raise my kids the same way now. money is not the issue here. our toys were almost exclusively lego. lego is expensive, but only if it is new and if you insist on expensive presents every year. it also lasts a lifetime. you don't need to spend a lot every year to have enough to play with. and nowadays there are alternative brands that are a lot cheaper and just as good. oh, we also had comic books. lots of them. we bought and traded them on flea markets. why would they have to be new, when you could get them used at a fraction of the cost?

that's assuming the parent is devoted and caring

in your scenario the parents already failed. again, it is not the job of the welfare system to account for bad spending habits. but i get it. that argument is not new. i heard it already when i was young. and i just didn't get it. i was able to afford everything that i wanted, and i never felt i was missing anything just because our money was limited. i didn't feel that the money was limited. i didn't know that i was poor. my classmates in school didn't know that i was poor. i didn't notice that some other kids in my class were rich either. even those who actually were. at worst i saw some kids spending money on things that i would never waste my money on, but i didn't envy them. i was able to participate in every scout camp and trip that our group was doing. i was a member of a sailing club and made my sailing license. i was able to travel to various countries in europe and even to america. by the time i finished school i had done more traveling than any of my peers.

sure, i had financial support for that airplane flight, but that's the point. these things are available to everyone, regardless of income. anyone who doesn't take advantage of what is offered is either blind, ignorant or stupid.

to summarize: money is not the issue. what matters is a society where people care for each other and make efforts to ensure that everyone is included, regardless of their income. the problem is, that people don't see that. they argue that the money is not enough, when in reality the problem is lack of education (how to spend your money wisely), the wrong values, false pride that prevents people from accepting help, envy, selfishness, i don't know...

Then why are birth rates falling across all income levels in all countries? Please take the time to research your position.

"This perception, however, is false. In most human societies, poverty does not predict higher fertility, and well-to-do families often have the highest fertility. When families in America have more money, they tend to have more children. The stereotype of fertility being skewed towards low-income women is a product of basically two data analysis errors: 1) failure to control for important underlying cultural stratification, and 2) failure to adequately deal with the relationship between age, income, and fertility."

https://ifstudies.org/blog/more-money-more-babies-whats-the-...

> Then why are birth rates falling across all income levels in all countries? Please take the time to research your position.

Well yeah, if they are falling across all income levels then not being able to afford children can’t be the reason.

Birth rates are falling all around because access (including knowledge about) to contraceptives has increased over the years. Here in Jamaica just a few decades ago it was a regular thing to see women in poverty with a bunch of kids, and we had a decent birth rate. Today our birth rate is way lower, but I'm pretty sure there's still a lot of sex happening among especially those considered poor. It seems contradictory, but while they don't mind having kids, they'd rather not.

In a complex situation this is perhaps the most idiotic reductive thing you could think. But if you must insist on being reductive than i'd go with:

People could feed kids, but they can't afford to give their child a lifestyle similar to their own childhood.

Bullshit. Ignorant people (which correlates to poor) don’t think about the long term responsibilities of having children and just fuck unprotected on a Friday night. Oops

almost always the case especially in germany where you are already incentivised with super low income taxes, free kindergarten and a shit load of other payments from the goverment. its basically impossible to be poor enough not to afford children unless you are doing it intentionally.

Super low income taxes?

The general income tax brackets break down in Germany is as follows:

- Up to €12,348: 0% (Tax-free allowance)

- €12,349 – €69,878: 14% to 42% (Progressive increase)

- €69,879 – €277,825: 42% (Proportional rate)

- Over €277,826: 45% (Reichensteuer or "rich tax")

Source: https://www.expatrio.com/about-germany/german-tax-system

IMO: that doesn't look "super low".

A better tax system is the one used by Estonia: a flat tax rate of 22%

Source: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/estonia/individual/taxes-on-per...

its low in practice for a family with a single earner is what i meant. ehegattenpsplitting. but yes by default its obviously very high but thats kind of the norm for western countries.

I wasn't aware that Germany had super low income taxes. It is certainly possible to game the welfare system and many people do, but if you want a decent standard of living then you need to be employed.

if you marry you basically half your income tax burden if your partner is not employed. there are also child support payments from the government of several hundred € per month that you get as well as free kindergarten, schooling and higher ed. if you are poor you get money from the state until you hit a minimum income threshhold which together with all the other payments is more than enough to have 2 children.

children will massively compromise your lifestyle, not just financially but they require a lot of "labor" from you. this is probably the most important piece of the social contract and if you are breaking it you should be penalized.

> but they require a lot of "labor" from you

Unpaid work. If that work were paid enough through tax incentives and state aid, people would have been having children. But it's not. If they have children, they will be working intensely at their day job in an economic environment that expects ever-increasing productivity from everyone, and then doing more work when they get home. Japan did that. People started collapsing where they worked or stopped having children. Now they are trying to reduce workload, increase financial security and increase wages.

Germany set itself on the road to depopulation.

why would it be paid? you get the value back through the social contract. monetary incentives for children are empirically proven to be very ineffective. so the ship will go down regardless. why not to punish the culprits out of spite?

> you get the value back through the social contract

That was in the earlier decades when there actually was a social contract. Now the entire society is a profit extraction machine that has people working until they drop.

> monetary incentives for children are empirically proven to be very ineffective

On the contrary. Monetary incentives made immigrant families raise numerous kids. The problem was that natives of Germany weren't doing it. Or, maybe very few from the very low income segments were doing it.

> monetary incentives for children are empirically proven to be very ineffective

Money is like violence. If it didn't work you didn't use enough.

> why not to punish the culprits out of spite?

Is there a difference between penalizing the (by choice) childless and lavishing money on those who have children? Seems about the same to me.

doesnt make sense unless money has no meaning anymore.

children will massively compromise your lifestyle

why though? if you feel that way then in my opinion there is something wrong on your expectation of your lifestyle. or rather, on what our society projects what our lifestyle should be like.

but in my opinion we are also doing it wrong. we delay having children for to long, and we spend our 20s either working to hard or enjoying our freedom, and then we have children in our 30s and 40s and then in our 50s we are to old to enjoy the rest of our life. if we had children in the early 20s then they would be grown up in our 40s and we would be able to enjoy our freedom then. get the hard stuff, including raising children out of the way first.

of course, in order to do that, we need a society that values and supports that. and that's what we messed up in the west. in china it is much more normal to have children early, and people are more supportive and tolerant.

its true tho, basically all the time after working your 9-5 you have to invest into your children. i personally still want to have children in my mid 20s. i don't really care about the downside due to my ideological conviction. but even if you are a rational actor and respect the social contract you must bear the burden.

yes, but this should not be seen as a compromise of your lifestyle. especially if, as you say, you actually want children. you are doing yourself a disservice. looking at children as a burden will only grow resentment.

sure, having children means that my freedom to do something else is limited. but i don't see that as a burden. it's a choice. and i don't regret that choice one bit. i wanted this experience, even if it went differently than expected. in that sense, expecting that you won't have time for something else is good. but make it a positive choice, not something that you only begrudgingly accept because you feel you have to. if your children feel that you felt forced to have children they will resent you for it. it diminishes your love for them, at least in their eyes.

children can be a challenge, they can demand sacrifice, but every minute i spend with them also enriches my life, and when they are grown up and have children on their own i will look at them as a challenge that i have mastered, not a burden that i took on to fulfill a social contract.

i dont really have resentment toward having children. my only resentment is toward having to pay into a social system where the majority of recipients don't understand why having no children is breaking the social contract.

So you want others to be miserable like you, to feel better?

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