US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further Below Replacement Level

Re:US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further ... by SketchySeaBeast on Thursday May 17, 2018 @03:47PM (#17094848)

I don't think that it's a matter of worldwide standard of living. I wonder if developing nations have an easier time with a young person reaching a comparable standard of living with their parents, and the developed ones have a much larger discrepancy. In a developing nation success might be somewhere to live, and a job. Before someone from north america is "doing well" you need a partner, a 5 bedroom house, two cars, two jobs, and a university education. We can't meet our "needs" until much later in our life.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further ... by dsfyu404ed on Friday May 18, 2018 @08:50AM (#17101005)

>Before someone from north america is "doing well" you need a partner, a 5 bedroom house, two cars, two jobs, and a university education. We can't meet our "needs" until much later in our life.

If it's what your priorities are you can have a home, cars, max out your 401k and be paying back student loans on a single entry level tech salary.

This requires that you put up with a long commute, beater cars, an old house and DIYing a good chunk of skilled trade work that you could hire someone for. You'll be bringing your own lunch to work, drinking beer from a can and not building much cash savings at that stage. Nevertheless it's sustainable on a single entry level tech income in a major urban area and living a couple hours away.

I think that increased spending on luxury things has by implication de-prioritized the "life milestone" things.

Generations ago people bought a house and started a family first. Now people accumulate wealth first and settle down later (which is probably a reflection on the fact that the lifestyle needed to accumulate wealth is not very compatible with settling down).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:US Births Dip to 30-yr Low; Fertility Rate Sinks Further ... by SketchySeaBeast on Friday May 18, 2018 @10:40AM (#17101816)

That's exactly what I'm saying - the goalpost for what "doing well" is has moved, we now expect more of ourselves because of the visible relative affluence of our immediately previous generations. We don't see how the baby boomers started, but we see how they are ending, and that's set the goal for our own success.

[ Parent | on HN ]