I’m not a pro-natalist in the sense of this article, but I do wish housing was less expensive, which I believe is one of the biggest barriers to family formation in this generation.
Where I live (the United States), it’s become very difficult for young people to be able to afford renting or buying a home in a safe neighborhood. High housing prices mean higher prices for goods and services since the workers have to pay for their own housing, plus shops need to pay their own rent, and insurance companies can charge higher premiums to insure more expensive property. This has far-reaching effects. The lifestyle that was once affordable for a variety of middle-income professions now requires much higher income levels. Entering those higher-paying professions often requires more schooling, which often requires taking on large amounts of student loan debt. That debt can be an albatross, especially if one’s career plans are interrupted, resulting in being on the hook for unsustainably high monthly payments.
Unfortunately, there are many lower-income neighborhoods in America that suffer from high crime and underperforming public schools. I grew up in such neighborhoods, and it’s been a mission of mine not to live in such neighborhoods again if I could help it. Two things my parents instilled in me helped lead to my escape from poverty: (1) taking advantage of educational opportunities available to me, and (2) not engaging in activities that would repeat the cycle of poverty, such as having children before I was able to adequately provide for them.
There are many people choosing to delay relationships and having children until they’re able to adequately provide for their future children. Unfortunately, with the cost of living rising faster than the ability for many people to keep up, they may be putting off children until it becomes biologically impossible to have them.
Perhaps if the cost of living wasn’t so high and where people working regular jobs had a shot at a middle-class lifestyle like their parents did, maybe this would raise birth rates in America.
Of course, this isn’t the only reason for lower birth rates, and this isn’t universally applicable. Japan, for example, has relatively affordable housing, but an even lower birth rate than the US. I believe Japan’s low birth rate has more to do with the work culture, but I digress.
> Where I live (the United States), it’s become very difficult for young people to be able to afford renting or buying a home in a safe neighborhood.
By comparison to times when birthrates were significantly higher, every neighborhood is a safe neighborhood. And while the share devoted to housing specifically has gone up, overall cost of living compared to wages has dropped (real wages have increased) significantly. Pretty much all the financial reasons people point to as armchair explanations are inconsistent with the data.
There's possibly a factor that, outside of the lowest income sector, expectations of material situation necessary as a prerequisite for raising children have grown faster than improvements in actual material conditions (driven, possibly, by saturated media coverage of both fictional lifestyles and the actual lifestyles of people far richer than average), and there's probably other social changes that economic statistics don't capture (like maybe anticipation of social, including familial, support in child raising has dropped, increasing reliance on services obtained in the market).
> deliberate trolling, making people angry, making people outraged
God saves those kids if that's what they are being taught.
Sad to watch what's happening to the US. Total lack of political/cultural figures that can unify and provide direction. Future narratives are outsourced to tabloid level philosophies - one day bitcoin is going to solve everything, another day a wall, then tariffs etc grounded in nothing that unifies the people.
I’m not a pro-natalist in the sense of this article, but I do wish housing was less expensive, which I believe is one of the biggest barriers to family formation in this generation.
Where I live (the United States), it’s become very difficult for young people to be able to afford renting or buying a home in a safe neighborhood. High housing prices mean higher prices for goods and services since the workers have to pay for their own housing, plus shops need to pay their own rent, and insurance companies can charge higher premiums to insure more expensive property. This has far-reaching effects. The lifestyle that was once affordable for a variety of middle-income professions now requires much higher income levels. Entering those higher-paying professions often requires more schooling, which often requires taking on large amounts of student loan debt. That debt can be an albatross, especially if one’s career plans are interrupted, resulting in being on the hook for unsustainably high monthly payments.
Unfortunately, there are many lower-income neighborhoods in America that suffer from high crime and underperforming public schools. I grew up in such neighborhoods, and it’s been a mission of mine not to live in such neighborhoods again if I could help it. Two things my parents instilled in me helped lead to my escape from poverty: (1) taking advantage of educational opportunities available to me, and (2) not engaging in activities that would repeat the cycle of poverty, such as having children before I was able to adequately provide for them.
There are many people choosing to delay relationships and having children until they’re able to adequately provide for their future children. Unfortunately, with the cost of living rising faster than the ability for many people to keep up, they may be putting off children until it becomes biologically impossible to have them.
Perhaps if the cost of living wasn’t so high and where people working regular jobs had a shot at a middle-class lifestyle like their parents did, maybe this would raise birth rates in America.
Of course, this isn’t the only reason for lower birth rates, and this isn’t universally applicable. Japan, for example, has relatively affordable housing, but an even lower birth rate than the US. I believe Japan’s low birth rate has more to do with the work culture, but I digress.
> Where I live (the United States), it’s become very difficult for young people to be able to afford renting or buying a home in a safe neighborhood.
By comparison to times when birthrates were significantly higher, every neighborhood is a safe neighborhood. And while the share devoted to housing specifically has gone up, overall cost of living compared to wages has dropped (real wages have increased) significantly. Pretty much all the financial reasons people point to as armchair explanations are inconsistent with the data.
There's possibly a factor that, outside of the lowest income sector, expectations of material situation necessary as a prerequisite for raising children have grown faster than improvements in actual material conditions (driven, possibly, by saturated media coverage of both fictional lifestyles and the actual lifestyles of people far richer than average), and there's probably other social changes that economic statistics don't capture (like maybe anticipation of social, including familial, support in child raising has dropped, increasing reliance on services obtained in the market).
> housing was less expensive, which I believe is one of the biggest barriers to family formation in this generation.
According to Pew Research, the top reasons they people under 50 cite for not having children are:
- they just don’t want to (57%)
- they want to focus on other things (44%)
- concerns about the state of the world (38%)
- can’t afford to raise a child (36%)
- concerns about the environment (26%)
- etc.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/07/25/reasons...
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> deliberate trolling, making people angry, making people outraged
God saves those kids if that's what they are being taught.
Sad to watch what's happening to the US. Total lack of political/cultural figures that can unify and provide direction. Future narratives are outsourced to tabloid level philosophies - one day bitcoin is going to solve everything, another day a wall, then tariffs etc grounded in nothing that unifies the people.
RSS title: How tech bros and trad wives are fuelling America's pronatalist movement
Web title: Why Donald Trump, Elon Musk and JD Vance want to 'Make America procreate again' through pronatalism
URL title: americas pronatalism movement driven by trump musk vance