Women aren’t pumping out enough babies. The birthrate is below the replacement rate in countries across the world. It’s not a good situation. A society can’t survive with too many old people playing MahJong in the Villages and not enough young people producing wealth. The declining childbirth rate is already impacting colleges and public education.
With the rising costs of housing, persistent student loan debt, and heavy childcare costs, it’s no wonder that couples are postponing babies indefinitely. Many say they cannot afford to have children.
Conservative groups are proposing ideas to encourage women to have more babies. But their ideas are laughably insufficient. You can’t put a down payment on a half-million-dollar house in the Jersey suburbs with a $5,000 “cash bonus” after childbirth. To maintain an acceptable quality of life in a society with fewer resources, young people are making the rational decision to forgo children.
Read more at Apt. 11D, the newsletter
Apt. 11d 
Car seat laws! you can’t fit three car seats in the back seat! So people stop at two. Either repeal the car seat laws (California has now raised the age you have to have your kid in a car seat to 8! “children under 8 years old or shorter than 4’9″ must be secured in a car seat or booster seat in the back seat. Children under 2 years old must be rear-facing unless they weigh 40 pounds or more or are 40 inches tall or more.” )
Jesus Christ, you get a masters and save like a bastard for a down payment and then have a kid, then another – you are pushing forty by the time kid #1 is eight and could squinch in between the car seats of baby 2 and three and basically your breeding years are over.
Either repeal the car seat laws, or the laws of arithmetic, or subsidize new three row minivans for all parents with two kids already.
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“Car seat laws! you can’t fit three car seats in the back seat! So people stop at two.”
LOL, that is not why I stopped at 2. I stopped at 2 because both of us had to work full-time. Also, having babies made me kind of mentally ill (PPD).
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Looks to me like Ivana Greco is reading our little dialog here! https://www.theamericanconservative.com/want-more-kids-make-cheaper-minivans/
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I am so tired of the alarmism of America-first pronatalists. The world population was 3 billion in the 1960s – within my lifetime! – and it’s 8 billion now, so the problem is not that the world needs more children. The problem is distribution. Rich countries could solve this by allowing more immigration, and also by supporting the poorer countries of the world through good aid programs, but no, we must have a pure country “untainted” by immigrants and “our” money is wasted on keeping babies from dying overseas.
Young people who pay attention to climate change issues are genuinely worried about bringing their kids into a pending environmental disaster. Maybe they are being overcautious but it is a genuine concern.
af
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They want white babies, because they want the servants in their dystopia to match their skin color.
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Interesting theory! Honestly I can’t imagine they’ve give it that much thought though. Lutnick/Bessent’s whole thing is “it’ll be so awesome when generations of your family go back to working in manufacturing” – which, awesome… if these are unionized manufacturing jobs with short work days, oodles of paid leave, excellent regulations guaranteeing safe working conditions, and early retirement. Somehow I’m guessing that’s not what he has in mind.
There used to be a regular commenter on 11d who was a midwestern woman in a good union job. She always had interesting perspectives.
I read the Lutnick himself (or was it Bessent, I get them mixed up) is the child of a professor and an artist, and Lutnick has two kids in their 20s who he has appointed to very nice jobs at Cantor Fitzgerald.
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I have sympathy for people who want to have children but can’t because they just can’t see how to swing it financially. It’s a failure of economic policy.
Interestingly near this post there was an older post of apt11d about caregiving “The tax advantage of babies” from 2010 where some commenters talked about caring for elderly parents or expecting to be cared for by their children. I’m starting to see people having trouble caring for their aging parents. One friend thought she’d be able to do it because she is single with no kids but a job loss some years back followed up by having to take lower paid work due to age discrimination means she is now working full time plus part time and is frazzled trying to care for her mom. Increasing rents are scaring her even more. Another guy is doing ok driving part time for Uber while living with and caring for his aging dad. He’s relying on Medicaid for his glaucoma care but new work rules might make it hard for him to care for his dad and stay on Medicaid. People say “just hire someone” as if it is that easy.
Marianne
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How can we care for vulnerable family members without economic devastation? We have to figure out this problem.
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We’re obviously going to get the devastation for at least a bit. On top of the current age distribution being very unhelpful for the workforce participation rate, we’re cutting the workforce by attacking immigration and, apparently, trying to make it harder for mothers to work. Plus, the interest rate that the U.S. pays on debt is rising and is likely to continue to do so, making less available for social services even before Trump steals it.
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When Bismarck set the retirement age for Germany at 70 in the 1880s, the life expectancy of a 70 yo was five years. In 2020, life expectancy of a 70 yo in the US is fifteen years. AND that expected life frequently includes a prolonged period of frailty and need for a LOT of services. So it’s not like we need to get back to some prelapsarian golden age – we are in new terrain. Hang on rough ride ahead. Dave
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“People say “just hire someone” as if it is that easy.”
OMG, it is absolutely not that easy.
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The only outside help my family found actually helpful for my elderly mother was Meals on Wheels. Bless those volunteers who deliver food and provide a daily check in. My mother was a self pay in that she paid the full price (something like 5 dollars a day at the time) but it was worth it to have someone who, if she didn’t answer the door, would call us.
I also am aware that many poor seniors would barely eat if it wasn’t for this program. Which is facing cuts by the current administration.
Marianne
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I set up Meals and Wheels for my parents for the daily check-in and because they couldn’t drive and they cancelled it because dad didn’t like the food.
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MH that’s another challenge – parents don’t do what you want. My mom refused to wear her medical alert fob.
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Old white people are going to be the death of me.
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“parents don’t do what you want.” Get this logic: it’d be great if my parents would go on Meals on Wheels. They could comfortably pay in full and would be happy to do so. But they don’t think (at 85) that they should waste the volunteers’ time – my mother volunteered for them for years and said it’s hard to get volunteers so the program should only be used by “people who really need it.”
Now, it’s true that they don’t absolutely have to have it. At this moment they can manage. But I live three hours away and can see the handwriting on the wall.
Also, my sister (also lives out of town) found someone who could drive them to medical appointments but they also decided they don’t really need that. Aieeeeee.
af
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As long as they don’t need to go on freeways, it will probably be fine.
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