I knew it was dropping but I wasn’t aware that it’s declined by 20% over the last 15 years. College enrollments are going to fall off a cliff. Finding employees is going to be impossible, etc.
https://econofact.org/the-mystery-of...u-s-birth-rate
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I knew it was dropping but I wasn’t aware that it’s declined by 20% over the last 15 years. College enrollments are going to fall off a cliff. Finding employees is going to be impossible, etc.
https://econofact.org/the-mystery-of...u-s-birth-rate
Finding manufacturing employees will be really difficult in the coming years.
For anybody in my generation (and especially younger), this isn't surprising. My wife and I would like to have kids, no way we can afford it yet and TBH time is running out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Catfan73
The article talks about how there is no one cause. While this is true, it doesn't mean there aren't a number of related factors which are driving this:
- the ever-increasing education requirements for jobs - Quite simply, people have to stay in school longer to get an equivalent job to previous years. What used to require a high-school diploma now often requires a bachelors or even a masters degree. The longer you are in school, the longer it takes to start a family. This is evidenced by the fact that birth rates in women's 30's and 40's are actually increasing.
- student debt loads - when I am talking about student loans, I am not talking about the nut-jobbery the media loves to do when they mention social science majors with $100k in debt. I am talking about your everyday college student who typically leaves school with around $20k (median, to get rid of the outliers) in student loan debt. This is debt that can't be avoided and MUST be serviced immediately (deferment is short-term and makes it build). This is debt at a time when traditionally, people are saving up to buy a house and start a family.
- high rental prices - when huge chunks of your salary go to paying rent and student loans, it gets to be VERY hard to build a nest egg.
- high housing prices - quite simply, whether anyone likes it or not, apartments are not conducive to raising a family. Is it possible? Yes. Does it increase the stress? Yes. Does it increase the pressure against starting a family? Yes. Due to a combination of corporations buying up family homes to rent, flipping companies buying starter homes and selling them for high value, and NIMBY "don't build high density buildings near me", there is a huge lack of supply for new family properties unless you come from wealth or high earner.
- dual-income families are a must - everything above conspires such that dual income households are almost a must for the majority of workers. It is extremely difficult to get by, let alone get ahead, on a single salary any more. This means the wife has to work too, which with the lack of maternity/paternity leave for many workers increases the pressure to not have kids.
Add in increased availability of contraception so that people aren’t having unwanted children (a damn good thing) and you can explain the vast majority of the situation.
I read the article they link to and the authors should be embarrassed. Their analysis is sloppy and elementary at best. The meat of the article consists of single variate analysis for a number of variables and them basically throwing their hands up and saying "It's impossible to solve", as if a decision about having a kid isn't often dependent on a number of factors working together.
They also often misconstrue cause and effect in their variables. For example, they often state "shifting priorities for women". These priorities are often shifting, not by choice but by the necessity to have two incomes in a family just to survive. Similarly, they looked at rent increases without considering that rent increase as a percent of income is a far more important metric than the mean increase across the board.
Good post. I think it’s interesting that the factors you mentioned are having such an effect now, like we’ve reached some sort of tipping point. It’s never been cheap to have children; my wife and said the same sort of things—just as soon as we can afford it, we’ll start. We finally just said let’s have a kid, even though we never did get to the point of really having any money, and that was 20 years ago. There are probably some societal factors at play also. There’s always been sort of an unwritten rule that the reason you got married was to start a family for example. I’m not sure that many young couples today share that viewpoint, or in fact are actually getting married.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens at colleges around the country. Faculty will be downsized, programs consolidated, some regional state schools may even have to close. Now I’m wondering how it might affect the college athletics landscape….
Pedro, Trust me when I say this. you can never afford kids...until you have one. You make it work.Quote:
Originally Posted by PedroDaGr8
What he said.
Quote:
Originally Posted by VirginiaCat
Yes, this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Catfan73
My wife and I had pre-marital counseling with the priest that was going to marry us. By the way, I highly recommend something like this for anyone, even if your church doesn't require it, and even if it is non-secular. Most of the discussion we had related to non-religious areas, some of which we had not discussed before we became engaged and we were thankful that the subjects were raised.
One of them related to children. My wife and I both were of the same mindset that we would "get established" first, and then begin our family. The wise old priest looked at us and told us that if we waited for that, it would never happen.
We got married, and I had a Masters degree I wanted to obtain before we began our family, so we waited that long. But we were certainly not established, in any way.
Of course, that pattern continued with child number one, children number two and three, child number four, and child number five. Sometimes during that time period we have sacrificed, but I wouldn't trade any of it.
It's a personal decision for everyone. My oldest child just had twins, as everyone here knows. I don't know if my oldest son will ever have children, or his brother or youngest sister. Cute story-my youngest daughter called my wife while we were in Cincinnati, about 10 PM. She asked her what she was doing and my wife said she was feeding one of the babies. My youngest daughter then remarked that it was awfully late for the baby to be up LOL.
When my wife told her that they were on a every three hour feeding schedule, she immediately said, "Way to go sis. Thanks for taking one for the team."
Having said all this, financial concerns are always real as well and in today's world, it may be even more real. If having a family with children is important, though, please do not let financial concerns dictate the timing. There is no perfect time.
I come from a big Catholic family—I have four brothers and four sisters—but the next generation is only 12 children total from the nine of us. There used to be a lot more family farms also and couples had large families to help work the farm. I think a lot of factors, certainly including the financial concerns, have been building toward this over the last couple of generations. It’s interesting though that the birth rate is in such deep decline now.
To say my parents were dying for grandchildren was a huge understatement. At our wedding reception they asked Mrs. BEvans and me when they could expect them. We chuckled and told them we weren't even going to entertain the idea for a couple of years, at least. Somewhere God chuckled, too. 9 weeks later we found out Mrs. BEvans was pregnant. It turned out to be a great thing--if we'd gone with our plan, we might've kept kicking the can down the road.
At the time I was dead set on 2, period, end of story, and that's what we did. I look back now and wish we'd had more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PedroDaGr8
I couldn't afford one, so I had two. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by VirginiaCat
Girls age 5 and 7. They are now my world.
Yeah, Mrs. Suncat and I would like to have some grandchildren before we check out, but I "DO NOT" like my daughter's beau. He's not good enough for her, truth be told, and I don't like the whole South American heritage thing, but that's because those Colombian bastards tried to kill me and some of my fellow grunts when we were down there trying to help them fend off the Communistas. I kinda tend to hold a grudge over stuff like that.
My son.......he loves women, but he is ultra picky, and may just end up holding out for the right one until it's too late. He only likes Filipinas, so his choices are immediately downsized here in the U.S., especially locally.
My oldest daughter in KY has 3 kids, and they're all great, but we didn't know each other until the last several years. 2 boys, one girl, and they're all basically grown now, so that is what it is.
I would love to be able to bounce a baby in my lap like some of you have been fortunate enough to do and do the whole Grandpa thing, but I honestly don't see it happening anytime soon.
This a 1000x over. You figure out ways to make it work.Quote:
Originally Posted by VirginiaCat
I’m child broke but wouldn’t have it any other way. Let’s see, 18k in braces, gonna be about 35k in cars when I buy this next one if I get off easy like the last two, 6k per year in car insurance, prob 150 per month in cell phone, and that’s before we clothe and feed them. It will be my greatest joy and accomplishment and I sure hope they have grandkids so I can watch it happen all over again.
BTW, back to topic...
This is probably the BIGGEST Reason we need to fix our immigration system. We need immigrants. But we need the legal method to work.
This is not a random event that is isolated to the USA. China is going to run out of cheap labor in the next 20 years as are many other developed nations.
Absolutely correct IMOQuote:
Originally Posted by VirginiaCat