The linked study claims they did. That their birth rates were lower before they implemented that.
I want to point out that the sentiment,
Not exactly solving the problem.
is not useful. Very few problems can be solved by only one thing. Especially complex problems that are the net result of many confounding factors. Their solutions are always going to be partial and of the form “do this to help mitigate”.
Reading through it now. Agree with both that it is quite a slog and interesting!
The quickish overview of it does seem to say that.
And yes something is better than nothing.
But let’s be clear: these are still modest impacts and modest impacts are not going to be enough for the situations in South Korea or Japan.
Modest impacts coupled with controlled immigration may be enough for a more modestly below replacement level birthrate circumstance.
And I do agree that giving other paths to adulting than college for both men and women, more emphasis on trades with paid apprenticeships as an option for example, coupled with subsidized and available childcare, might facilitate couples considering starting earlier.
Yes to research on making it easier and safer to have children for a longer period of time. That’s inclusive of but not limited to IVF technology.
I think the takeaway is that Norway isn’t South Korea because they made it a lot easier to have kids.
That is not a justified conclusion. I refer you to the NYT gift link a bit above. The countries falling off the cliff mainly have societal attitudes in which mothers do the drudgery of parenting without support from the dads. Subsidizing childcare doesn’t change that.
Norway isn’t South Korea because husbands are more equal partners there. That’s the biggest factor in keeping it a modest amount below replacement level rather than falling off the cliff.
Or good public transportation, bike paths, and pedestrian friendly design.
My toddler’s class has 15 slots and 2 teachers. Not that far from 10 to 1.
I can’t agree. Taking public transportation with multiple young kids is not so easy (only two hands to hold on to them and even just keeping them on track without holding isn’t so easy - though we could certainly start trying to make young kids more independent again - but that goes back to expecting less of parents, which has been previously mentioned), and it’s even more the case with walking (littlest ones can’t walk, weather, etc.)
Also clothes, toys, food containers, boxes, machines to make all those things, and probably some other things I’ve not listed. And this is only if we can eliminate all those wasteful things that very rich people now demand be made. Creating a world society in which everyone lives in the most sustainable way would be very difficult.
People getting too old and not enough babies being born is not, in fact, what is going to destroy us.
Mass starvation is one of the likeliest. Destabilizing of vast swaths of the world due to desperate migrations of the dying. Revolutions that beget more chaos. World-wide wars over water. Unstoppable pandemics of the scale of bubonic plague in 12th century Europe. Genocides. The razing of cities and destruction of communication and trade.
Many of these seem far more likely to me than tweaking demographics, and rescue via new technology. Why? Because people are far more stupid, short-sighted, and selfish than you all seem to imagine. No one will save us from ourselves, and make no mistake, we are coming for us.
Appreciate the connection.
The impact of dysfunctional demographics is failing economies. And the populations and leadership of stressed economies, whose people are becoming poorer, are more prone to acting on stupidity, and selfishly, than ever. Your visions of our end increase in likelihood.
Hand in hand with this objective would be limits on the number of single family rentals that one person or corporate entity could own. It would be illegal for a corporation to own hundreds of thousands of houses for rent.
I think a lot of it is the workaholic culture that both Japan and South Korea are well known for. A woman is a lot less likely to want to have children with a man she barely has any time with, and he literally can’t both spend most of his waking hours at work and contribute equally to child care. So a woman there is presented with the scenario of raising children mostly by herself for a man whom she’ll rarely get to interact with; it shouldn’t surprise anyone that women don’t find that appealing.
There’s also the issue of how putting off the solution of encouraging immigration has strongly contributed to the situation getting that bad in the first place. If they’d allowed increased immigration when the demographic issues started showing up, then a relatively modest increase in immigration over time would have been enough to balance out their demographics. But by waiting and hoping for the issue to solve itself for so many years they’ve dug themselves into a demographic imbalance where as you say, “modest” immigration would no longer be enough to correct things.
Efficiency is literally the thing that enables human civilization. The only reason we can have cities and governments and dedicated artists and technology and everything else is because we only have to spend 1% of the population on food instead of 99%. The same goes for energy and housing and medical and everything else. None of this would exist if people didn’t constantly drive efficiency.
Obviously you don’t need a director and administrative staff and a dedicated facility and all that, since home daycares exist and they basically work fine, with some pros and cons. Not to mention that obviously people have had communal childcare systems since humans have even existed.
Nevertheless, there are efficiencies to be had in a center, like the fact that a dedicated janitor is cheaper than having the staff doing it in off hours, because they’re specialized and you can pay them less.
Call the parents. Who are present but occupied. It actually works out well for them, since they don’t need to supervise the kids constantly but will be notified if something goes wrong. Worst-case, I can call 911 on their behalf.
So what? In fact, the expensive parts of solar panels (the structure) hardly break down at all, and in any case are made of materials (glass and aluminum) that exist in essentially infinite quantity. The parts that do break down (over decades) can be recycled. There is a claim that I see repeated often, that solar panels don’t pay for their own energy cost, but it’s just a complete lie. They pay for themselves very quickly.
A tiny fraction (a couple percent) of Earth’s landmass is sufficient to power all of the current population. The US could power itself just with the land we’re stupidly using for ethanol production.
Totally false. But I’d be happy to point out the flaws in their analysis if you direct me to your sources.
And just to emphasize, the sustainable population the way we’re currently doing things is zero. Because we’re drawing from inherently unsustainable sources. That doesn’t have to be the case.
(Just to satisfy the nit-pickers, I’m talking sustainability in the millions of years range. Longer than that and the oceans boil, the sun turns into a red giant, the universe evaporates into a sea of warm photons, etc…).
I would argue that there is no practical way to change, given human nature. I used to think there was, since it was so fucking obvious that we absolutely must. But that was fifty years ago. Now I see that because we absolutely must is not a convincing argument for anyone but a negligible few.
That’s nice. Still not the primary factor I look for in my child care providers, though.
I see you didn’t answer the question, so I’ll ask again - are you a parent?
a) no, they don’t. Look at just one state’s example. No licencing needed if you watch 5 or fewer kids? WTF?
b) they wouldn’t scale. If everyone wanted home- rather than centre-based daycare, how would that work out?
Then the parents are the caregivers, you’re just a smarter nanny cam. That’s not childcare.
My neighbors ran a LICENSED in home day care. One of the “backup” carers was the owners mother in law who was a raging alcoholic with multiple DUIs. Another was her husband, who died of an overdose.
The place is still licensed.
Because if you really insist on responsible caregivers who can pass a background check and have to have proper coverage for breaks (even just bathroom breaks), never mind employees who get sick (or can’t work for some reason) or have training or keep records, you can’t just divide minimum wage by the allowable ratio and get the per hour cost of childcare.
I mean it’s not rocket science.
Oh wait, rocket science doesn’t work that way either.
Yet that has been the culture for a very long time, while the huge drop off in birthrate is recent.
The hypothesis promoted in the NYT piece I shared here is on the money. Again from the article:
The lowest-fertility countries, Goldin found, modernized so recently and rapidly that social norms around gender equality didn’t have time to catch up. That left women with far more economic opportunity but not much more help from their husbands at home.
Workaholic males are part of those norms, true.
Pulling backwards to more regressive norms, as many of the current pro-natalists desire, is likely to be harmful to the goal of more babies.
More affordable and available childcare could help modestly.
More support in general, and not just financial, maybe more?
That is part of the grandparents bit. The friends having kids around the same time. Workplace policies that support parenting by both genders. The latter may be easier to accomplish with more work from home and flexible schedules as long as the work gets done.
But again, none of those will be enough. We will also need to embrace and welcome controlled and compassionate immigration as well. The “huddled masses” have always been the secret sauce.
And increase productivity.
Rocket science ain’t brain surgery.