"The decline could have far-reaching implications for U.S. economic and social policy."
Is this an emergency? Like global warming, it's simultaneously slow and fast. It's so slow, you may think it's not real — alarmism — or not a problem — we'll adjust. But it's fast too, because if we're going to attempt to control the trend, we need to get cracking.
If it is an emergency, what could be done? Is there a role for government? What if government wanted to get involved, really deeply involved? Suggestions? Don't violate any rights. This is a government of laws, in which women have reproductive freedom. But there is the taxing power and the spending power and so forth.
In the style of the environmentalists — who would have us radically reorder life to stave off the perceived calamity — devise some policy. I encourage comic/dystopian brainstorming here, but please keep the foundation of reproductive freedom and other basic American liberties. I'm not asking for "The Handmaid's Tale." That's been done.
December 2, 2012
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 232 of 232Umm. 200k for a BA. 10k per pupil in k-12 in MANY school districts. (increasing far in excess of rate of inflation, by the way.)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/10/21/welders-shortage/1641073/
Don't need a degree in gender studies or PolySci for these jobs.
RE: leslyn:
I don't understand the bias against education I see so often here. American employers are in need of more skilled workers, not less.
From a public policy standpoint, education needs to teach students something to justify its expense. Education isn't good "just because." Whether it's from a madrassah or a womens' studies department, there are some degrees that are more or less useless, though they may fulfill some private psychological or hedonic need on the part of the student.
From the perspective of the student, too, if they're going to burden themselves with massive debt, they need to make sure they're doing it in the context of an overall plan which will enable them to repay that debt (unless they're already rich, in which case, go ahead!). And schools do them no favours by pretending that all courses of study are equal.
RE: Inga:
Means testing of SS and Medicare is great! Paul Ryan was keen on that. Not going to happen though, as long as people keep running adverts about him pushing grannies off cliffs, though. Tends to warn off other politicians from the idea.
I'm all for those who wish to have lots of children, feel free have them. But putting a few things in place to make it easier for couples to have more children, isn't acceptable Americans either.
I don't know about that. It's just that the kinds of things people have been promoting have all been tried abroad. And failed.
You want people to have more kids? It's gonna cost ya up front.
Yeah, you say that, but all the expensive plans seem to be failing wherever they're tested. They're paying out lots of money (which is "success" in politician/activist terms) but achieving no results. The easiest plan, though, is the oldest -- plain old social opprobrium. Free too! Maybe it won't work, but it won't cost anything either.
Meanwhile, eventually we will hit on something. Like everyone being replaced by ultra-fertile Mormons, Muslims, and Evangelical Christians. But that's a long term strategy, and it won't help us now.
Oops.
My bad.
that 10,000 per pupil???
that's
maine
Lastly:
(cause I gots to feed my 3 future tax payer/wage slaves)
Have you teachers out there noticed fewer students.
Sort of like the UAW to GM.
Pilots union to Pan-Am. Bakers union. You can't have your twinkie and eat it too.
And that's what it's all about, isn't it!
Palladian-no, not at all, but it's a somewhat satisfying side benefit. Me Generation parents like mine thought that they were doing the right thing by teaching their daughters that family and marriage were expendable and largely a waste of time, divorce was no big deal as long as the parents wound up "happy" and self-actualized, and that the True Way Forward was for girls to put all their eggs in the postmodern secular basket where breaking the glass ceiling was the most laudable and moral application of a woman's time and talents.
Given that this paradigm has contributed to the implosion of the American family and untold emotional and spiritual damage to individuals, it seems reasonable to me to harbor a sense of confident repudiation of it.
Those of us who have chosen to live fecund lives still have to defend our choices, within our own families (as in my case) and in the society at large. Much has been written in recent years about women dropping out of the corporate rat race and choosing to stay at home, have a bunch of babies and surf Pinterest instead of having one or maybe two kids at age 35 and shoving them into a nanny's arms, prompting furious responses such as this.
@leslyn
I quoted a peer reviewed article, because you wanted evidence. You come back with gossip from Wikipedia.
Brains are developed as teens, we just dumb the crap out of children and imprison them in high schools and colleges. I'm not against education, but campuses are more like resorts to young adults occupied. That is why the brilliant ones just drop out.
Give students a fast track option, so they finish college at 21 compared to 23. I took extra classes and summer courses. I graduated early. I was capable of finishing college, but not marriage or children?
The entry into a mature relationship were purely artifical, due to our education system.
Oh I would do away with prom. As well.
I don't see national population decline as a problem since I value my elbow room and there's an obvious solution:
BUILD MORE ROBOTS!
Inga said "So, let me get this straight, no one is really concerned about immigrants having more children, or minorities, it's the white birth rate that is causing all the angst here?"
I didn't see any racism up-thread. Where did you see it? Where do you detect white racism?
It might be up there somewhere, but I think it's mostly in your head, Inga.
Igna said: But putting a few things in place to make it easier for couples to have more children, isn't acceptable Americans either.
Why isn't it acceptable, Inga?
Good article from Ross Douthat here
It's been annoying to me to hear the phrase "pet parents" in pet food commercials. Owning a Labradoodle doesn't make you a parent, moron.
As a plain practical matter, society, especially a free, democratic society, depends on functional families and rearing of good citizens. This election illustrated the extent to which we've accepted the idea that the government should take all the responsibility off our hands.
Forget the Polar bears, (why aren't they called Arctic bears?) affluent Americans are the endangered species.
Inga:
Before you make something of the "no one cares" trope, I said a couple of times that I care: I am concerned about global drops in fertility. I think the entire human race is at risk, not just "us" in America (whoever "us" is).
But John:
Robots require a large carbon footprint, which, from what I've read, is the reason we should celebrate the dropping American birthrate.
and, also, there are lots of other people who would like your elbow room too. Yours. Specifically.
@Renee,
I asked for evidence from a scientist.
I don't see how you call a printed interview "peer reviewed."
Your generalizations are breathtaking. Such as, "the brilliant ones just drop out."
You've changed the parameters from high school, to high school and college now. Interesting.
Since when do students normally graduate with a degree at 23? Why should they need an accelerated track to accomplish what they can by 21?
I thought your point was to get children out of school when they are fertile so they can start the family thing. Since the thread was about birth rates. But I'm not going to comb back through to look. I'm done with this one.
Balfegor and 2little: I count technical education and apprenticeship as higher education.
And if a person wants to get a college degree, that's fine too. We need an educated, skilled work force.
What's odd is talking as if we don't need higher education.
Leslyn:
We absolutely need higher education. But it should be treated as a commodity or investment. Not an idol. Society needs to consider the ROI. Otherwise we get what we have now.
If you think education is expensive....try 16 trillion national debt.
Oh...
And people used to do this for themselves, until the Gov decided everyone should go to college. Unintended consequences at work.
As a social conservative, it is my belief that abortion only happens because the callous, deadbeat man abandoned the mother once he found out about her pregnancy, and thus the poor girl had no choice but to abort the child.
That is the primary reason abortion happens in America.
Hence, the solution is to make the laws regarding child support and custody far more rigid and strict than they are now.
This is the fate of women and children we are talking about here! We have to punish the men who cause these problems.
KMG:
whoa.
Want an eye opener?
Google "paternal discrepancy child support"
oops
discordance not discrepancy
2littlemuch2late,
Yeah, one of things you're late on is getting your sarcasm detector recalibrated.
Lower percentage of children, higher national debt. What could possible go wrong?
To everyone proposing a tax on the childless to pay for their SS:
1. Fine, don't give me any (and don't tax me for any after my parents are dead). I'll take care of myself.
2. Tax women, not men. I wanted children very much. I see no reason to be taxed for failing the only objective measure of who is a suitable father: getting a woman to allow me to impregnate them (see OP about reproductive freedom for women...given they have it, charging me for not reproducing is wrong).
To be honest, given the men who did get to father children the neighborhood where I lived for the last half of the aughts, even with their children I'm a much more productive member of society (and already paying positive taxes, unlike them).
@kmg: As a social conservative, it is my belief that abortion only happens because the callous, deadbeat man abandoned the mother once he found out about her pregnancy, and thus the poor girl had no choice but to abort the child.
Of course that's the issue, which is why it is an unconstitutional burden to require a women to inform her husband (not obtain consent, inform) she is seeking an abortion. Suggesting they inform non-marital fathers is right out.
Hence, the solution is to make the laws regarding child support and custody far more rigid and strict than they are now.
Glad to see you still support notification (or at least billing) if the woman doesn't abort (sorry, forced to abort by fleeing deadbeat dad).
You can already be imprisoned for child support debt, what do you want? The death penalty.
Thank you for telling me every man who wanted a child only to find out later his wife or girlfriend aborted one actually caused it by not wanting a child.
Obviously the biggest negative factor to the drop in birth rates is homosexuality. Punish such by instant [non-due process]death. Hey, maybe converting the world to Islam is the answer.
<blockquote>
Given America's looming fiscal failure (and I don't mean the fiscal cliff) and collapse, I've advised my nearing adult children not to have children
--Tim
</blockquote>
Actually, I'm going the other way and advising my children to have as many children that they can (and that they can afford more than they might imagine). After the collapse Tim envisions, no more Social Security. Ones children will be ones surest security in old age.
That seques into my pro-natalist advice: Abolish Social Security along with most other government social welfare schemes. This will sharply encourage (admittedly, after some delay as the public wises up to the reality that government dole programs obscure) reliance on family. And that requires one to make a family.
Your HTML cannot be accepted: Tag is not allowed: BLOCKQUOTE
I'm mostly kidding here, but tell me if this doesn't actually cut to the heart of the problem:
Make your Social Security benefits partly based on the number of children you have had who have themselves earned 40 Social Security credits.
This incentive requires not only having children, but raising them well enough that they become productive and hold jobs.
Obviously some people are infertile, children die before entering the workforce, etc. But isn't the childless couple a free rider on the system?
Sometimes it comes down to fear of the future, as I fear for my kids burdened with so many issues, that I can feel for those who make an intentful decision not to have kids.
However I'm optimistic as I can be, hopefully they are the solution.
Just as it is in the EU. Birthrates are dropping because those that would normally have children can no longer afford to. The responsible in society are paying for the irresponsible to have all the children they want, and with the welfare state to support it all...
Fun times are all that can ensue...
It's all about incentives. As we become more and more socialist, there's less and less reason to have those inconvenient, expensive kids.
Here's how to fix it.
1. Eliminate the nanny tax.
2. Mandate a state college education cost no more than $10,000, subsidies included. No more rock climbing walls, schools are for educating and that requires a student, a teacher, and a desk.
3. Gigantic tax breaks for kids. I was surprised to find out that in our tax situation (two working parents) we get essentially no tax break at all. Everyone who pays taxes should get a $5,000 tax credit per future taxpayer (yes, this favors the rich, as it should because they produce better taxpayers -- we don't need more lifelong welfare cases).
History does show a trend toward population shrinkage in urban areas and most of the areas with low birth rates are densely populated and urbanized , Germany included.
It could be that people don't like raising families in such environments especially at the wages they are getting and so they have smaller families.
Also unemployment and underemployment rates are very high, take Spain which has a birth rate on par with that of Germany.
It also has a 50% youth unemployment rate and probably an even higher underemployment rate.
There is no way these people can pay for kids. The fact that Spaniards have as many as they do suggest that they love children, they simply can't afford them.
if the West fixes the wage and housing issues birth rates will likely go up a bit.
A caveat though, a great many political systems today were developed in a pre birth control world . The pill and its successors are going nowhere
Those days of "free automatic babies" are at an end. Heck they started ending with universal literacy and increased with television.
People at least ones able to sustain modernity won't give you boredom babies, accidental babies or any other kind than the ones they want.
This means counting on replacement much less endless growth is folly. Good jobs will raise rates but we may simply have reached a maximum. deal with that.
"I don't understand the bias against education I see so often here. American employers are in need of more skilled workers, not less."
Confuses "education" with "obtaining skills."
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