World population reaches 8 billion

[clearspira]

I'm finding different figures for this on Google, but raising a child up to 18 is anything up to £200,000/$300,000. And that does NOT include higher education fees.

Damn though! There is merit to the idea that no one can afford kids anymore.

[ProfessorDetective]

I'm finding different figures for this on Google, but raising a child up to 18 is anything up to £200,000/$300,000. And that does NOT include higher education fees.

Damn though! There is merit to the idea that no one can afford kids anymore.

For Context: median annual personal income in the US is about $63k as of 2022, while annual HOUSEHOLD income is about $68k. Nearly four and a half years of income to raise ONE kid.

[Frustration]

I realize this will likely be poorly received, but:

Higher education isn't a necessity for raising children.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I don’t believe that’s being suggested as an issue.

[Frustration]

Our expectations for how we should live were set in an era of ever-increasing prosperity. Then things started to go downhill, and we found that we couldn't maintain that standard of living without ever-increasing effort. Now it's commonplace for marital partners to both work and still not meet their expectations.

That's the reason people are having fewer kids. In the past they did so successfully with many fewer resources, precisely because their expectations were lower. That's no longer possible.

[ProfessorDetective]

Our expectations for how we should live were set in an era of ever-increasing prosperity. Then things started to go downhill, and we found that we couldn't maintain that standard of living without ever-increasing effort. Now it's commonplace for marital partners to both work and still not meet their expectations.

That's the reason people are having fewer kids. In the past they did so successfully with many fewer resources, precisely because their expectations were lower. That's no longer possible.

Most folks' expectations are three square meals, a stable roof over their heads, AND a working phone. Preferable from only working one job, MAYBE two.

People gave up on the big house and the two cars back around 2008. Now we've given up on the 2.5 kids. How much lower do we have to sink?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Liberalization is an underlying component. Geographically I think it's a consequent of urbanization mixed specifically with the development of information/technology infrastructure as a cultural facet.

Boom.

[clearspira]

Our expectations for how we should live were set in an era of ever-increasing prosperity. Then things started to go downhill, and we found that we couldn't maintain that standard of living without ever-increasing effort. Now it's commonplace for marital partners to both work and still not meet their expectations.

That's the reason people are having fewer kids. In the past they did so successfully with many fewer resources, precisely because their expectations were lower. That's no longer possible.

This particular problem started when we let women/minorities into the workplace and was then amplified by mass immigration. (I'm not saying we shouldnt have done this, just stating a fact).

When it was just white men working you (the employer) had access to a very, very limited pool of talent. You paid them high wages and gave them great perks or they were gone and were probably irreplaceable. You could run a household on just his wages alone because he was being paid just that well.

But when women entered the workforce, that was double the available pool. When minorities entered the workforce that was double the available pool. When mass immigration became a thing, that effectively booted the pool up to an unlimited number.

The employee became replaceable. And you do not need to treat a replacable commodity with respect.

Then layer onto that AI and mechanisation and it was goodnight decent wages. This btw is why boomers had it so good - it was the exact inequalities that they in part fought against that created a different kind of inequality. One based on wealth and class instead of sex or race.

[pilight]

American boomers had it good because the rest of the industrialized world had been flattened by WWII and the US was able to monopolize world production, plus they grew up in a world run on a de facto Gold Standard under the Bretton Woods agreement that kept prices in line.

[Riedquat]

Most folks' expectations are three square meals, a stable roof over their heads, AND a working phone. Preferable from only working one job, MAYBE two.

People gave up on the big house and the two cars back around 2008. Now we've given up on the 2.5 kids. How much lower do we have to sink?

Hopefully we'll come to realise that things like a big house (well bigger than you need for your family) aren't all they're cracked up to be anyway. Not sure how giving up wanting to have enough children to keep growing an already excessive population is "sinking."

The phone is a fairly trivial luxury, if you mean mobile. It's rather worrying that people have got so obsessed with them that they view them as a basic need.