zlacker

A few common counterarguments and my responses:

Kids don't have to be super expensive!

This is true, but it's also true for most people they are. To make them not expensive, you have to avoid a lot of things that most people consider a normal, middle-class part of a regular lifestyle or a middle-class way of raising children. I won't dispute that there are probably smarter low-cost ways to raise kids, but we're talking about parents as they are and will continue to be, not parents as some idealistic frugality experts: people will want to pay for music lessons and for vacations to Disneyland. Especially if they were already taking equivalent vacations before they had kids.

Why should I have to pay for your kids?

Because collectively, people having children is what supports society, especially when it comes to people eventually retiring. If there are no more workers when it comes time for you to retire, society doesn't work. If there are not enough workers, society doesn't work well. The proportion of government budgets that different nations are paying out towards elder care via pensions and healthcare is huge and increasing because of changes in this ratio; the fewer workers you have, the more something's gotta give.

Can't we just use immigration?

This actually isn't a horrible idea, it's just that this is likely only a temporary solution, for one simple reason: birth rates are low or dropping nearly everywhere now. You can only take the excess youth from other countries for so long before that won't really work anymore. Eventually, it'll be shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic, especially as more and more developing or previously-developing countries improve their own economic situations.

There are also possible issues with cultural integration of immigrants, but I don't disagree that using immigration as part of the solution is a good idea at least for a while (and certainly, some countries already do this; the US has been below replacement rate for a while but has still had an increasing population).

What about robots doing all our work so we don't need workers?

In the sufficiently long term, yes that might work, we might get fully automated luxury communism (I'm certainly not against the idea). It's just that

a) We don't know how long it'll take until we actually have robots capable of doing all the basic things you need in a society like growing food, constructing buildings, practicing medicine, teaching people things, etc. and also

b) So far, humanity has done an awesome job of basically making up new jobs that require humans every time we get rid of existing jobs that require humans. The number of people we need to grow food has collapsed, the number of people we need for industrial production per unit of <thing> has steadily been decreasing for a long time, and yet somehow we keep coming up with more jobs for people to do, new ideas of what counts as a necessity (your great great grandparents probably didn't consider individual therapy to be one).

>>Tulliu+(OP)
> To make them not expensive, you have to avoid a lot of things that most people consider a normal, middle-class part of a regular lifestyle or a middle-class way of raising children.

Well, you can make the middle-class lifestyle affordable.

It's not Disney vacations that make people give-up on childbirth. It's housing and schooling.

>>Tulliu+(OP)
Couple of thoughts. (1) To me, immigration can indeed fill the gap. An endless supply of people wish to leave poorer , or hotter (which is a problem with climate change) countries, for richer ones. This will hurt the poorer countries that end up with an ageing population. OTOH if those poorer countries are becoming too hot to live in, that's a good move for people , although awful for those left behind. (2) Cost of raising kids - in my experience the richer people are the more they seem to worry. Maybe those of us raised on less are simply used to being creative about getting by on less, and unfazed by the prospect. To use your 2 examples- music lessons can be had in many ways, often cheap/almost free such as joining a community music group where people will pass on skills. Disneyland - hardly essential, or any form of hardship for a child to miss out on that, IMHO. There are many ways to have a meaningful life, get plenty of education etc, without spending a fortune. While housing has gone up a lot, my parents' generation will say that in the past there were housing booms too, followed by super high interest rates, and everything else used to take relatively more of income, including food and clothes. A difference then was public transport was better in many ways and cheaper, so a car not as essential. I think the main difference now is peoples' expectations. Since the planet can't sustain ever-increasing consumption habits, probably its a good thing people are having less kids.

>>nickd2+x8
As I pointed out already, it is not in fact endless, and most of those poorer countries are steadily becoming richer. South Korea used to be poor as shit, not so much anymore. Eastern Europe has improved massively, parts of it have caught up to parts of Western Europe. China isn't nearly as poor as it was a few decades ago either.

>>Tulliu+Aa
I was thinking of countries more like India and Nigeria, both of which, despite becoming richer and having lower fertility themselves, have populations projected to exceed China's, and both projected to become too hot to live in without big problems. Its not literally an "endless" supply, but its easily enough to cover gaps in the west. If fertility fell 75% in the west, could probably fill it with people from those countries. And that might be a win-win in certain ways. The west then doesn't have an aging population. People in too hot countries get to move. The suffering happens to old people left in poor hot countries, which is a sad thing. In the end yes you are correct its not endless, but this must be a very long way off.

>>nickd2+ce
I think endless supply of "brown" people is going to become limited supply of brow immigration because voices in rich western countries are not going to see that as win-win.

>>maxglu+Ks
Do you foresee a massive upsurge in racism then? I hope not, and that over time people will become more sensible about seeing those who look different from them as simply "other people". In the UK, some of the most racist people are dying out and being replaced with people who are used to growing up in a multi-ethnic society and having friends that look different. There was some hoo-hah a couple years back when politicians wanted to stir up racism and the England football team was having none if it, they are a bunch of young lads of many colours who value each other equally, as it should be. OTOH unfortunately we now have right-wing politicians who themselves are non-white who are trying to stir up racism against people the same colour as them.

>>maxglu+Ks
human capitals in these countries is not distribuited the same as in the western world or even most of asia. Thats reality under the luxury belief that anybody can be "integrated"

>>nickd2+6w2
I'm in Canada and pro-immigration young demographics liberal leaning are starting to signal against immigration - too much inflows driving costs up (housing which I think UK understands). PoC right-wing politicians and if UK constituent anything like Canadian conservatives, it reflects lots of immigrant PoCs have, fuck you, got mine, attitude towards new immigrants. They didn't claw their way to the west from global south, to "suffer" mass inflow from global south diminishing perks of the west. They like their priveledge as well. Maybe we can sort out cost of living crisis that reduces immigration friction, but I suspect not, because the fuck you, got mine interests runs deep.

>>kwere+AO2
Yeah, there's a upper bound to skilled labour production in developing countries unless they massively improve education, but that's also an enviroment correlated with better development and less outflows. But there's plenty of bodies, IMO not everyone has luxury to prioritize skilled immigration like Anglo countries (who themselves lose cream to US), and even Anglo countries might eventually have to settle for less skilled if what is needed is just bodies to keep economy growing. Even if productiity return is subpar.

>>marcos+B3
I 100% agree. Though even if those things were more reasonably priced, they would still be more expensive for people with kids. You do need some more space with kids to maintain the same standard of living, and most people prefer easier access to green space (yard and/or close by parks) when they have kids.

That's why huge subsidies to reach financial parity are probably necessary.