
Fertility rates decrease as rents increase - jseliger
https://www.fastcompany.com/40508725/people-arent-having-babies-because-the-rent-is-too-damn-high?utm_content=buffer3bae4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
======
lkrubner
Here on Hacker News there was some discussion of the article from the
Economist, six weeks ago, titled "The link between polygamy and war". This was
in response to that essay:

" _This suggests that political stability depends on young men being able to
pursue their romantic dreams. This would apply in any country, not just
African countries. In nations in the West, an important limiting factor is the
ability to get one’s own apartment. That is, the ratio of average male wage to
average rent. In the USA, the happiest year for this ratio was 1958, when
people were spending 22% of their income on rent, on average. Not by
coincidence, this was the peak year of the Baby Boom. In some sense, it was
the best year in history to be a young white male in the USA. It was the year
when it was easiest for an 18 year old male to get out of high school, get
their own apartment, marry their high school sweetheart, and start a family.
And of course, young people did this in huge numbers, which is why 1958
remains the peak year for teenage pregnancy in the USA._ "

[http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/do-men-become-
warlike...](http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/do-men-become-warlike-if-
they-do-not-have-women)

------
crazygringo
> _And a team of economists have now crunched the data proving that zoning and
> restrictive land-use regulations–forces that contribute to making housing so
> expensive in cities like San Francisco and New York–are actually driving
> fertility rates downward._

Are they actually _preventing_ couples from having children, or are couples
simply _moving away_ from those areas in order to have their children
elsewhere?

And on top of that, are the kind of people who move _to_ NYC or SF already the
kind of people planning not to have a kid over the next 5-10 years, or ever?

Taking a quick look at the original paper, the authors don't appear to address
these potential factors at all.

~~~
electricslpnsld
> And on top of that, are the kind of people who move to NYC or SF already the
> kind of people planning not to have a kid over the next 5-10 years, or ever?

For what it is worth, NYC as a whole is quite child friendly. Take a stroll
around Park Slope and you're tripping over gaggles of children. Now San
Francisco? I'm amazed when I see someone under 18.

~~~
nikanj
Let's say that huge gaggle of kids is is 850 children. New York has some 8 500
000 people living in it. That's an adult-to-kid ratio of one to ten thousand.

It's really hard to estimate birth rates by observing people, as our brains
just aren't equipped to handle the numbers present. We see the hundreds of
children, and flat out refuse to believe there's a decline in births.

~~~
pavel_lishin
You can't compare a gaggle of kids in one particular part of Park Slope to the
greater New York City metropolitan area and draw a ratio from that.

I might as well say that the ratio of rats to people in the city is one-to-
eight-million because I saw one rat this morning.

~~~
nikanj
I think we're saying the same thing. You can't say NY is child friendly, just
because you saw a lot of kids at the park.

------
xupybd
I think there is more at play here. Some of the highest birth rates are still
in the lowest economic groups. While high rents are a problem and a no doubt
causing economic hardships preventing young families from having children I
think this is an over simplification of a larger problem.

~~~
hackits
It is cheaper for us to down-size to a 2 bedroom unit and have one partner
working full time than it is to pay for day care for the little one. Even with
all the reduced childcare here in Australia the difference at the end of the
week comes to $20.

Granted I'm all-ways amazed that in the West on one hand the news proclaim and
medical professionals to have children when the women are in there 20's.
Although the support and service's such as cheap day-care and family centered
activities are completely lacking to support that mind-set.

The message most young people receive is `It is healthy to have children when
you're younger`. The reality is `Yes you can, but I hope you like living in a
studio apartment counting your monies well all your colleges/friends are
having fun`.

That and in today modern world having a child in your 20's is more or less
considered social suicide.

The only to maintain a life-style and support structure for young women would
be to find a partner who can support them and their child well at the same
time maintaining their quality of life. Something such partners are very small
so there is a lot of competition for this type of partner.

~~~
closeparen
I’ve always wondered how this can sanity-check. Surely the pool of potential
child-care workers is approximately all of humanity, and one worker can care
for several children. It’s socially important, but not scarce. How, then, do
childcare costs exceed the productive capacity of so many educated,
specialized, experienced professionals?

This would seem to indicate that many jobs are bullshit, wages are suppressed,
or there is artificial scarcity in the day care business.

~~~
hackits
Supply/Demand, also consideration when government get involved it's like doing
brain surgery with a base ball bat (its going to get messy)

To my understanding talking to the ladies at the child-care center's. The
center is required to not exceed x number of children per day/per hour. They
can only hire people with the clearance to supervise children after getting
their Certificate 3 in child care. Then the staff need to under-go
skills/training on their time to improve working with children.

Then you have insurance for the workers, building and also the necessary
security and fire drills to be conducted regularly and kept up-to-date.

You have over-time pay, inclusive of when parents are late to pick up the
children from day care.

~~~
closeparen
I mean sure, regulation adds some friction, but it seems incredible that the
childcare certificate regime could be so difficult that it prevents legions of
un/underemployed workers from meeting the extreme demand for childcare
services.

It’s a barrier, but so is a Masters in Education. My mother had one, as well
15+ years of classroom experience, and still found it less economically
favorable to teach 25 kids vs. directly care for my brother.

~~~
hackits
I agree it's incredible but (shurg) it's what is. Granted like I said before
on the top above/bellow the only real choice Women can make is to Marry or
Partner who can financially support them and there children during the first
five years. Then once the children go to kinder-garden, school they re-enter
the work-force on a part-time basis.

Though I don't have the numbers with me but here in Australia Asian families
out-source the raring of infant's and children to the grand-parents. Although
talk to any Western family (especially baby boomers) they want nothing to do
with raising grand-children.

------
ohiovr
Going rate for a baby delivery in the hospital was around ten thousand dollars
last time I checked. I bet medicaid would absorb it but if you fall between
dirt poor and middle class it sounds cripling.

~~~
devereaux
I am surprised more families are not planning a trip abroad around the
delivery date, to benefit from cheaper healthcare of a comparable quality +
free extra citizenship for their kid.

The market exists in other countries: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-
island-where-chinese-mother...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-island-where-
chinese-mothers-deliver-american-babies-1513852203)

I am surprised american parents don't hedge their bets by getting a EU
citizenship for their kid. If anything, the kid may benefit from free
healthcare if they get something bad as an adult!

~~~
smnrchrds
Few countries have unrestricted jus soli (birthright citizenship). Among
those, only US and Canada are desirable countries of citizenship. EU countries
who have any sort of jus soli have severely restricted it. See some examples:

Germany: Children born on or after 1 January 2000 to non-German parents
acquire German citizenship at birth, if at least one parent has a permanent
residence permit (and had this status for at least three years) and the parent
was residing in Germany for at least eight years.

France: Children born in France (including overseas territories) to at least
one foreign parent who is also born in France automatically acquire French
citizenship at birth.

Portugal: A child born in Portuguese territory to who does not possess another
nationality is a Portuguese citizen. Also, a person born to foreign parents
who were not serving their respective States at the time of birth is a
Portuguese citizen if the person declares that they want to be Portuguese and
provided that one of the parents has legally resided in Portugal for at least
five years at the time of birth.

Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli)

~~~
devereaux
So Portugal would work.

~~~
smnrchrds
As long as you are able to get legal residence in Portugal and willing to
spend five years there prior to having a child, sure.

~~~
devereaux
I thought the child was to not have another nationality before, then I
realized it was about the parent.

------
dogma1138
I think way too many people rather enjoy the DINK life style rather than have
economic issues.

If anything birth rates are higher in the lower end of the socioeconomic scale
than in the middle and higher end currently.

~~~
surfmike
Part of that is the upper middle class expectation of owning a house and
investing heavily in your child's education. People wait until they are
established to have kids, and higher housing prices push that date back.

~~~
dogma1138
Speaking for my self, my partner and all our late 20s to mid 30s friends it’s
not the money.

We rather rent an apartment across the street from Hyde Park have 2-3 big
vacations each year and do a weekend in Europe every other weekend or so than
have kids.

And this is not even that much of a conscious decision kids were just never
discussed other than the odd “vasectomy commercial” remark when an air raid
siren in a trolley passes by.

There is just something different about this generation and it’s not just the
socioeconomic issues that some millennial mostly those who were born in the
mid-late 90s onwards are having (80s “millennials” are in a pretty good spot
IMO). Whether it’s selfishness or infantilism or something less I don’t know
but this isn’t about money.

Poor people never had problems having kids, heck they never had problems more
kids than the average. Educated people also didn’t had a problem having kids
my mother was pregnant during Uni with my older brother gave birth and was
back after 2 weeks, when she had me she was teaching and basically had birth
came back and we’re going home to breast feed me between classes, I don’t know
of anyone who would do this today not saying they don’t exist but all my
relationships never were with someone that would be willing to sacrifice or
work as hard to have a kid as my mother did.

~~~
richardknop
But surely if you live across the street from Hyde park, go on 2-3 big splashy
vacations per year and travel to Europe for getaways every couple weeks, you
must be in top 1% of earners. And all your friends are likely rich too. So
drawing conclusions from that is meaningless as vast majority of millennials
are financially struggling to even think about that.

~~~
dogma1138
Rich is relative salaried “rich” and wealthy are different things today.

Rent is high but not much higher than SF about £3000 a month total cost for a
2 bed apartment.

This is doable for many professional couples with a decent job in London say
£65000 which is £3800 a month after tax (couple combined pre-tax salary of say
£130-150,000 or higher, so combined monthly of 7000-8000 or more post tax).

Myself, my partner and our friends fall into this category as we earn high 5
figures to low 6 figure salaries and we aren’t wealthy despite of having a
pretty good lifestyle.

Compared to some guy in middle of nowhereshire that makes £22000 a year if
they are lucky we might be considered rich but compared to real money we
aren’t any different than the help.

~~~
NLips
A 'high 5 figures' of £80,000 puts you at the 96% mark according to
[https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-
points-f...](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-
from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax).

The only argument you have for not being 'wealthy' is that you're spending all
your dosh! There's nothing wrong with that, but I'm just trying to show you
aren't anywhere near the median or mode.

~~~
dogma1138
Income != wealth, there are about 800,000 millionaires in the UK which means
that to be in the 1% (well 1.5ish since the UK has 65M and change population)
you need at least 1 million GBP even if you save everything you can with a
80,000K salary you won't get into the 1% in your lifetime.

Being on a good salary means that you can keep a decent lifestyle, however the
moment you are off it it's over you have some savings but they won't last you
for long, wealth is essentially the independent means to secure financial
independence to you and likely your children.

And I never said that I'm near the median, but 65-80K isn't that much for
London even for late 20's early 30's that's pretty much a run of the mill
salary for most general IT roles with some decent experience (5-10 years), and
finance and plenty of other sectors would also get you there.

It's not particularly hard to get into the top 3-1% of income in the UK
especially for what I would say the average demographics of HN, however
getting to the 3-1% of wealth in the UK is a whole other story.

EDIT: The UK likes statistics so...

It looks like the total household wealth needed to be in the 1% in the UK is
2,872,575 GBP to be in the top 10% it's 1,048,537 GBP, so please tell me how
some one who's making even 100,000 a year pre tax is considered a single digit
percenter?

[https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personal...](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/adhocs/007203distributionoftotalhouseholdwealthbypercentilepointstotalfinancialwealthnettotalpropertywealthnettotalphysicalwealthandtotalprivatepensionwealthgreatbritainjuly2012tojune2014)

~~~
NLips
I think you might be replying to someone else - I didn't suggest you were in
the top 1% wealth-wise; just had the potential to be 'wealthy'?

Responding to a few individual points:

Take the 100k amount -> after tax income is ~65k Double that for a couple
("household wealth") = 130k housing = 36k (3k a month) living costs = 30k
(based on the fact plenty of people with much lower salaries live in London)
savings = 64k

It'd take a little under 11 years for 64k of savings per annum to hit 1M,
using long-term index returns, and less than 16 years with no compounding.

If you have a mortgage, two thirds of your housing costs would also be going
to 'savings' i.e. increasing your wealth - that's another 24k a year, which
would also compound pretty rapidly.

So you could be increasing your household net worth by around 90k per year,
which would rapidly put you near the top of the wealth distribution.

Regardless, none of this talk about your high income and low-or-not wealth
refutes the fact that you are far from the median or mode, which is the entire
point of the comment you were responding to... "drawing conclusions from that
is meaningless as vast majority of millennials are financially struggling to
even think about that."

------
Domenic_S
I think people aren’t having babies because there’s too much interesting stuff
to do, and the world has never been as accessible as it is today. Technology
has made nearly every corner of the globe accessible for prices that would
seem magical a generation ago. As far as our ancestors are concerned, we may
as well have invented teleportation.

Then entertainment, wow, the entertainment that’s available at the push of a
button. Every song, every tv show, every movie, right in your own apartment!
Massively multiplayer games, message boards, Wikipedia; the sum of human
knowledge in your pocket.

And you can create stuff, and share it with millions of people without even
leaving your chair. Code, music, art, whatever — make it this morning, 100k
views by lunch.

There is SO MUCH to do, to make, to share, to learn — our world has gotten so
so big just in the last generation that I think I’d be surprised if the birth
rate _didnt_ go down. There are just too many other things vying for our
finite attention.

~~~
Noumenon72
I absolutely agree with you and still think it is totally irrational to have
kids and cut into your fun -- however, you may be interested in [this comment
thread](slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/16/bundles-of-joy/) where many of these
crazy kid-having people explain their point of view. It's worth noting that
whatever unsatisfactory explanations they manage to convince themselves of,
have greater genetic fitness than the ones that convince us. It's very
frustrating that even though wrong, they are guaranteed to prevail through
natural selection.

~~~
piaste
> It's very frustrating that even though wrong, they are guaranteed to prevail
> through natural selection.

I think you're contradicting yourself here.

If you believe it matters whose lineage wins at natural selection, then those
parents are in fact right and you are wrong.

If you believe that it doesn't matter, or that it matters less than having
your childless fun, then you shouldn't find it frustrating that their genes
will win an unimportant game.

------
internetman55
I think computer programmers won't understand this problem since i made enough
to raise a middle class family at my first job out of college

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Your "middle" would likely be "lower" to most people around here.

~~~
internetman55
That could be the case

------
PeterStuer
I have to call BS on this. even the article itself contain 'While it is
impossible to definitively trace a causal link between land use restriction
and fertility, the results here suggest that the two are strongly related in
the data.'

A correlation is shown, but no causation.

If I needed to speculate, even without resorting to hidden variable impacts,
I'd say the market for 'exclusive' housing in less child friendly environments
would tend to be dominated by singles and couples with large disposable
incomes, potentially resulting from being more career than family focused.

'We can't financially afford having another baby, so we wont' does not seem to
hold at all as a rule for primary driver in both present and historic
worldwide reproduction data. If anything, it's the reverse.

~~~
gt_
The HN post title _’Fertility rates decrease as rents increase’_ to the
article’s _’People Aren’t Having Babies Because The Rent’s Too Damn High’_
reflects this well. Thanks HN.

------
eadmund
I think that there's a massive correlation/causation problem here. Yes, it
certainly appears that restrictive zoning laws are inversely correlated with
fertility — but is it possible that the sorts of people who are likely to have
fewer children are drawn towards the sorts of cities which restrict
construction?

------
Powerofmene
There are so many factors that come into play when deciding to have a child w
cost of living being just one of the many. In areas where people are delaying
having a family only after establishing their career, people consider:
reduction to one income or cost of daycare; what needs of children will do to
career and the hours required for career; commute time if having to move out a
bit for more affordable housing; concerns with schools (quality of education
and violence in the school systems); higher incidents of disabilities based on
the age of mother; and rising costs of everything. Autism is steadily
increasing and this shows no signs of changing. Discrimination is rampant
against pregnant women or mothers in the workplace, and general societal ills
all make people question if they want to have children.

It would be very difficult to pinpoint with any accuracy why people are
delaying or forgoing parenthood. Some reasons may be very personal or may be
viewed as insensitive and may keep someone from stating the real reason why
they choose not to have children. They may also may not be able to have
children and give a reason because they do not want to share what they may see
as something very private.

Maybe this article would be better titled “Is high rent contributing to the
decline ..... in high density areas?”

------
paultopia
Skimming over the paper that the article references, it doesn't look like the
authors have a real way of disaggregating two possible causal pathways from
housing costs to delaying/avoiding children:

1\. housing costs --> economizing on housing --> not having room for children

2\. housing (and other) costs --> higher earning --> longer working hours for
both (prospective) parents --> not having time for children.

It would be interesting to know whether people are not producing kids because
they can't afford more space or because they can't afford to sacrifice income
for childrearing.

~~~
mattnewton
Or, as other people have mentioned in the thread, Housing costs -> moving
elsewhere to have kids With the people moving to the city being ones that
don’t plan on children anyways

------
matheweis
This paper is a vast oversimplification of a confluence of many issues, of
which rent is only one - and I’d seriously question the causative effect
suggested here as well.

Aside, the US fertility rate has taken a steep dive since the Great Recession
- during, and for a while after which, the rents were (at least in absolute
terms) quite a bit lower.

I have four kids myself, so I’d like to think I understand at least some of
the issues fairly well.

------
kaffee
Is there no indignity that the boomers will not inflict on their progeny?

------
epx
The perspective of losing everything in a divorce when kids are involve would
be a factor as well.

------
dennisgorelik
People do not like have kids in a high population density environment. Humans
have a trigger that suppresses fertility when there are too many people
around.

~~~
pavel_lishin
[citation needed]

~~~
dennisgorelik
Cities have much lower fertility rates than suburban and rural areal.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12288643](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12288643)

~~~
Domenic_S
That’s a leap. Cities have lower both rates, so humans must have a trigger
that turns down fertility?

~~~
lukealization
The OP nor the study made no indication that the two were related — merely
that they correlate.

~~~
pavel_lishin
OP very explicitly claimed there's a trigger:

> _Humans have a trigger that suppresses fertility when there are too many
> people around_

