zlacker

>>toomuc+(OP)
The ratio of housing cost vs real income almost tripled over the last 20 years in Sweden. Add a looming climate crisis and a self-fulfillment-oriented culture and you get very few new babies.

>>brtkdo+T5
> The ratio of housing cost vs real income almost tripled over the last 20 years in Sweden

I think this is all that needs to be said on these articles.

(There's a lot more that _could_ be said, such as how few actual birthing HN readers there are, but I think the economics is really simple at the root of it.)

Besides, even the countries with really the worst outlook and conditions aren't falling all that fast. Russia since the high point of the 1990s: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/russia-popula...

>>pjc50+57
But what is driving the housing prices up in the Nordics? Population decline would suggest weakening demand. The EU is famous for long lasting housing so lack of new inventory shouldn't hit supply side that hard.

>>stonem+s8
Population decline lags affordable property shortages (see Japan [1], where property price declines are following after rural population declines). The results of fertility decisions take years, or even decades, to see (although total fertility rate and annual births is a lower lag indicator). For example, declining school enrollment in the US is from fertility decisions made half a decade ago [2], because that's about the time when those kids born would've enrolled.

If there is insufficient supply, housing prices go up.

[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/7/14/japans-abandoned...

[2] https://www.ey.com/en_us/strategy/declining-enrollment-in-pu...

>>toomuc+A8
We are thinking about a second kid now, and realized...we kind of screwed up. Women are really most fertile from their 20s to very early 30s (and also have the best chance of a healthy baby, etc...), it is a time when most people aren't even thinking about getting married yet these days, let alone having kids! When you finally figure out you are ready...well...it is much harder to have a kid.

So we really needed to think of this a few years ago. It might still be possible, but now it is an uphill battle and will be a much higher risk pregnancy to boot.

>>seanmc+al
If the woman is 35 and over it is called a geriatric pregnancy. Need to do a bunch of additional tests to make sure the kid doesn't have genetic defects.

>>thijso+xo
Fun (?) fact: Birth defect risk for an over 40 pregnancy is the same as with a first cousin.