German Federal Election 23rd February 2025

[crazy canuck]

Child care is not the solution. We have almost free child care here and, well, it doesn't seem to matter much.

Solution to what?  Neil and I are talking about what would be the solution to not having adequate child care. Although Neil rejects the premise that we have inadequate child care.

[Zanza]

The republicans might succeed with their misogynistic attempts. No contraceptives might be the answer.

I would put that under 'misery'. Not convinced it would have the desired effect either.

I am not really aware of whether there are countries that banned contraceptives and whether that turned around reproductive rates. Even a place like Afghanistan under the Taleban had falling birth rates. Iran had a small bump in the early 1980s when they introduced their theocracy, but it fell rapidly from the mid-80s.

[Threviel]

Child care is not the solution. We have almost free child care here and, well, it doesn't seem to matter much.

Solution to what?  Neil and I are talking about what would be the solution to not having adequate child care. Although Neil rejects the premise that we have inadequate child care.

Sorry. To demographics.

[crazy canuck]

Child care is not the solution. We have almost free child care here and, well, it doesn't seem to matter much.

Solution to what?  Neil and I are talking about what would be the solution to not having adequate child care. Although Neil rejects the premise that we have inadequate child care.

Sorry. To demographics.

Oh, yeah certainly not a solution to demographics. A lot goes into that solution, including a properly functioning immigration system.  But a side point is that the reason we allow young educated workers to immigrate is so that they will contribute to the workforce, so it is not logical to create disincentives for them to work when they have children and there is no available child care.

[Neil]

I am not sure you are understanding my point.  It isn't that childcare is expensive.  The point is that it is not available for all regardless of price.  If you don't believe me, do a quick search of the waiting lists.

There does seem to be some availability here.  Maybe it's worse in the lower mainland.  Either way, the issue must be resolved, and when you're bringing in the elderly you're getting a short term benefit for a few families at the cost of massive public expenses down the road. 

[Barrister]

It will be interesting in two or so decades when virtually all countries in the world will face demographic collapse. By then only central Africa and some utter shitholes like Afghanistan will have surplus working age population.

Well, yes.  The way we are going now, certainly.  But I have some hope that our economic policies will change so that life becomes comfortable (affordable) enough for couples to have children again.   

What makes you expect that? No country in the world has so far made such a turnaround. High fertility seems to only exist together with misery.

The height of Canadian birth rates was during the good times of the late 50s and 60s.  Birth rates in the 70s declined a bit, but if we can get back to what, for some reason, is remembered as the bad old days, I would think that was a considerable improvement.

I don't wish to be disrespectful, but hormonal birth control was only introduced in 1960, which goes a long way to explain high birth rates in the 1950s and 1960s (when it was only just becoming normalized).  It's also associated with wide-spread vaccination - in earlier decades you still had high birth rates, but equally high infant death rates.

Immigration is a useful stop-gap for low birth rates in the West, but as pointed out that's all it is.

Women's rights, subsidized child care, "baby bonuses" - all seem to have fairly minor effects on total fertility.

We just seem to have developed a culture that does not value raising children, and it's seen as purely optional.  I have no idea how we change that.

My wife is one of three sisters.  Each of them had three kids in turn.  Now my kids, and my younger sister-in-law's kids, are too young to be having babies.  But my older sister-in-law's kids (I can call her that - she's 7 days older than me) are in their 20s and 30s, and honestly with almost zero prospect of them having kids - either naturally, through adoption, or whatever.  Almost all of their friends have no kids.  It's just not something they seem to even consider.

[Threviel]

Yeah, it's an interesting problem. The only real long-term solution is increased nativity, but then there's the problem that there's a limit to how many humans the Earth can feed. A little demographic collapse isn't necessarily bad.

[Barrister]

I am not sure you are understanding my point.  It isn't that childcare is expensive.  The point is that it is not available for all regardless of price.  If you don't believe me, do a quick search of the waiting lists.

There does seem to be some availability here.  Maybe it's worse in the lower mainland.  Either way, the issue must be resolved, and when you're bringing in the elderly you're getting a short term benefit for a few families at the cost of massive public expenses down the road. 

I do have to say that as much as I just downplayed the cost of childcare - the cost of childcare is huge.

When our kids were younger we went through all the options - we did daycare, we did a nanny, and eventually my wife stayed home to run a dayhome for ours and other kids.  We did the dayhome because her salary (and she's not a lawyer or anything but is a college graduate) went 80-90% to childcare costs.

The thing is though - having kids is really expensive.  Even if you zero out the cost of childcare specifically - you need a larger home, food, clothes, and just the time and effort involved.

I don't see how raising kids would ever make sense - from a purely economic perspective.  Even in the "who will look after you when you're old", surely the answer is to save money then hire caregivers when you're old.

It has to be something in the culture that makes us value children above and beyond the cost.

[Barrister]

Yeah, it's an interesting problem. The only real long-term solution is increased nativity, but then there's the problem that there's a limit to how many humans the Earth can feed. A little demographic collapse isn't necessarily bad.

It's actually pretty damn bad.

[Jacob]

A little demographic collapse isn't necessarily bad.

I don't know if you're right about that, but I guess we (or our near descendants) will find out one way or the other.

[Valmy]

We just seem to have developed a culture that does not value raising children, and it's seen as purely optional.  I have no idea how we change that.

Yeah it is not just a culture but an entire economic structure. Kids are expensive and everything associated with them is expensive. Plus there is tons of responsibility. And very little services and support outside of public schools which are a crapshoot depending on where you live. They could be great, and a wonderful asset to you as a parent, or they could be total garbage and another thing you have to struggle with.

So expect large expenses, lots of stress and hard work, and very little support. With nothing really in return besides the warm fuzzy feelings you get and even that is problematic because parenting is supposed to be done with the welfare of the kids in mind, not so you get warm fuzzies. Now I have very little interest in my family just being a bunch of olds as I age towards the sweet release of death so I will shoulder these burdens but I can certainly see people looking at this and thinking "yeah, no thanks." Life is tough enough just covering your own needs.

I wasn't around back when each woman had an average of four children so I don't know how things were back then or what those incentives were. But it can be a pretty thankless job these days.

[Valmy]

Yeah, it's an interesting problem. The only real long-term solution is increased nativity, but then there's the problem that there's a limit to how many humans the Earth can feed. A little demographic collapse isn't necessarily bad.

It's actually pretty damn bad.

The only thing worse is a demographic explosion.

[Sheilbh]

Demographics wise immigration is not the answer either. In Sweden, once an immigrant family becomes integrated their demographic collapses like everyone else, I assume that holds true everywhere.

It's probably worth noting the global demographics - because it's not just Europe:


It's really striking but the world has been speed-running declines in birth rates that took rich European countries decades to achieve. I've no idea what this world looks like or if there's any "fix" to it.

I think it's slightly worrying that it is another area where Silicon Valley types have (terrifying) ideas.

[Valmy]

Yeah I have been saying that for awhile. The immigration issue is eventually going to go away very organically. All those right wing freaks worrying about being replaced can rest easy. Nobody is having babies anymore.

Well expect me, I had three.

[Jacob]

I assume "high income" is just a different way to say "Western Europe + US + Canada"?