I don't think it's particularly a women-centric issue and you're never going to have a real discussion about it while it's posed as one. The majority of the burden of children obviously falls on women but time wise it's a small component, mostly concentrated in the first year or two, versus the 20 years of needing to maintain a household, take the kids to school, etc. that follow. The woman is always going to need take a half a year or more off (ideally) for each child, that's fixed, but who takes the following 20 off is up to the couple.

The question is really whether or not two income households are unquestionably a good thing, to which the answer seems like a strong "No". Even without the birth rate issue I struggle to conceive of mechanism by which it isn't a vicious circle of more people entering the workforce, driving incomes down (and driving the cost of scarce resources like certain housing up), forcing more households to become two income to keep up with no obvious benefit for anyone but the people doing the employing.

>I don't think it's particularly a women-centric issue and you're never going to have a real discussion about it while it's posed as one

Sure it is. Unless men start having babies, then women working and the birth rate consequently decreasing is a women-centric issue.

If you take it as a given that all the men work and will continue to work then yes, women entering workforce means the birth rate declines. But that isn't a given, men can leave the workforce just as women can enter it. My point is that I think it has less to do with women working and more to do with both partners working simultaneously.

I think women working and both partners needing to work simultaneously are inextricably linked though. While this could be a gross oversimplification, adding 1/2 of the population to the workforce would, through the laws of supplyand demand, decrease wages by 1/2 (assuming that all women were not already dedicated to raising children). Yes, men can also leave the workforce just as women can enter it, but would a man be more inclined to leave if he was the only breadwinner because the woman was already raising his children? Sorry I know a lot of this may be considered inflammatory but I don't think these questions are being asked (precisely because they may be seen as inflammatory, though my intention really is not to be controversial).

> While this could be a gross oversimplification, adding 1/2 of the population to the workforce would, through the laws of supplyand demand, decrease wages by 1/2

This presumes zero-sum. That is, it presumes that this growth of the workforce does not affect the total productivity. If instead, more people working means more productivity, then part of that productivity can go to paying wages.

Whether this increase of productivity actually goes towards wages is difficult to say. I think that most of the recent productivity increase have been to the benefit of investors rather than labor.

I think that's true in a historical sense, it was women who joined the workforce as the second household income and started the vicious cycle I proposed (if such a thing exists, what do I know about economics).

But you can still construe the problem both ways, is it women increasingly working outside the home that society takes as an unhealthy unquestionable good or men almost exclusively working outside the home which has been taken as good (or at least normal) since time immemorial.

And it's the same thing with the solution, if we come to the conclusion that somebody should take a smaller part in the workforce to help correct the birth rate and other problems two income households produce, the historical role of women in "creating" the problem doesn't imply they should be the ones to go.

Just because men cannot physically give birth doesn't mean it isn't their issue too. It just happens that it always affects a women due to pregnancy and childbirth and doesn't necessarily affect a father at all, but it can. In fact, including and affecting fathers tends to improve things for women.

People in all sorts of relationships adopt or otherwise have children. Folks die during childbirth. And while men cannot physically give birth, I've met plenty that enjoy child-rearing. If it were possible with my spouse and I, I'd happily work while he stays home. (He legally has to support me due to immigration laws). My ex stayed home while I worked, though to be fair, he was on disability. I do not have children (and have no plans to), but we have discussed adoption of an non-infant/toddler child (along with their siblings if they have any). While I see plenty of reasons for one of us to take parental leave, I don't see any reason why that would absolutely have to be me instead of him.

Women not working at this point would decrease the birth rate, because the reason people aren't having kids is they feel like they can't afford them, and halving their revenue isn't going to make them afford them more. (In locales where daycare is already very subsidized, which is most of the world.) Of course most of those people can afford kids in the absolute sense, either through paying the subsidized daycare or somebody staying home for what is essentially only a few years, but they don't want to because then they have to live in 1000sqft, own a single car, and cook their own dinner. Which is a lifestyle most people today don't want -- especially not young urban men, if they're making any money at all.

People were raised by their grandparents when I was young. Maybe the problem isn't within the nuclear family but with the idea that it's desirable to move in a different city to your parents, or even that it's an imposition to live with your parents while your children are young.

Only when:

1. We get real scientific input on whether or not it has to be women that stay home with children. And research leans towards two parents spending time with children as being good, not just the mother figure. Also, a safe and secure environment with decently happy parents helps - which seriously doesn't mean women need to stay home unless by choice.

2. When science can figure out whether or not a parent needs to be at home all the time. Right now, it seems that the reason a parent needed to be home was because keeping house took a lot more time than it does now. Parents spend more quality time with children and more time in general than they did years ago, though. Science leans towards "quality" time being important (which is leanient) instead of a parent always being there.

3. When birth rates actually correlate with women working. There are lots of reasons birth rates decline. Not enough security, money, access to medical care, and so on will make rates decline as will one person in the partnership working too much to have the energy for sex. Poor women have had babies for centuries, though, and worked outside the home for those centuries at different times. All that is really needed to make sure the work isn't affecting birth rate is to have decent policies around this and make sure folks can afford safe child care.

I'm not sure this argument holds... Japan has falling birthrates and non-working women. Maybe the cause is somewhere else? Maybe we could legislate that many (most) jobs must take part-time workers (e.g. in Netherlands IIRC), and that parental leave is covered by the government, and that both employee and employer get a bonus when a child is born (correlated with the previous salary, so that more productive/educated people are more incentivised to have kids).

The cause is cultural IMO. It's not cool to have kids and they're seen as a burden by popular culture.

It may be worth to invest into all sorts of cultural programmes to make having kids cool again.

I don't think the discussion to be had is "whether women working is an absolute unquestionable good thing" but rather we should be asking whether we should permit employers to continue making it so difficult to prioritizing parenting. Falling birthrates aren't a gender issue. As pointed out in an another comment below, it's an issue of financial security.

Who's complaining about falling birth rates? The planet is overpopulated, fewer humans can only be a good thing.

Not a day goes by without western media conglomerates publishing an article about how the Japanese are going extinct and need mass immigration now.

I see some local news talking about some minor labor shortages with convenience stores and whatnot, but opening up BBC or CNN you'd think Japan is on the brink of absolute collapse due to being underpopulated with only 120 million people on a tiny, mountainous, barely arable archipelago.

"Not a day goes by without western media conglomerates publishing an article about how the Japanese are going extinct and need mass immigration now."

This isn't the cause of two-income households because Japan is quite broadly one-income households...? This is almost entirely irrelevant to two-income household discussion. (I'm not decided personally how I feel about it, merely pointing out this specific comment is making 0 sense to me)

The parent comment asked, "Who's complaining about falling birth rates?" and he answered that specific question.

I was specifically replying to the comment about falling birth rates.

“The specialization of labor is limited by the extent of the market” - Adam Smith

Having more people is better for us on net because it gives us more human capital and allows us to develop technologies that pay off at scale.

As the world population has grown, our society has gotten wealthier on a per-capita basis, and we still have more than enough food to go around.

It’s not true that overpopulation is happening or that increased population is a negative phenomenon.

The Japanese government for one. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47127738

They already have more pensioners than children being born. The same trend can be seen in virtually every single developed country. We are soon to going to not be able to afford to pay these pensioners if there are not enough people paying taxes. Hopefully you don't actually think pensions are somehow grown on trees.

Ha! Its only hyperbole if it isn't true. Paper money grows on trees!

Yes, we can print the money and the world won't end. There's not some automatic hyper-inflation that happens when money is minted. There's so much around already you see.

Think of cash as points in a game. If we keep playing games, racking up points, the points don't necessarily become worthless. They may change a little as confidence varies.

It's not about the imaginary points. Its about the goods and services. Goods depend, these days, mostly on automation which isn't going away. So little problem there.

That leaves services. Yes, they depend entirely on human capital. So we're going to have to automate, train assistance animals, or use technology to do away with the need. Especially among the elderly who traditionally require more services.

The Japanese government, who would like a workforce capable of sustaining their economy?

I think the OC certainly could've framed it better but declining birth-rates are what drives certain policies[0,1].

One can look at Germany's perspective on migrants as a direct consequence of that (more people working and contributing to the social fund means less of threat of the social structures hitting insolvency).

Though, there's no banners saying, "because of 'x', this is 'y'," one can still derive the subtext from the concerns that the nations are voicing.

So, all of this was just a long-winded way to say that it is a bit disingenous to say that people are complaining about falling birth-rates but it is still a valid concern for many countries - even if they don't come out and explicitly say it.

[0] - https://www.thelocal.se/20190216/hungary-family-plan-reeks-o...

[1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32929962