Comments on: Do People NEED To Have Children?

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 22:26:49 +0000

Are people seriously saying that people have children primarily altruistically? As a duty? So that everyone’s pensions will be paid in the future? Really? Try to keep up … what we’re saying is that there are internal and external benefits to having children, and that children would be underprovided if they weren’t subsidised. Since they are subsidised, the issue of altruism doesn’t arise.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 17:40:40 +0000

“Second, childraising is a communitarian rather than a rational-self-interest activity. Parents are either wasteful idiots or else they’re contributing something to society.” And those are the only two possibilities? I’m getting really really curious (and baffled) about this stuff. Are people seriously saying that people have children primarily altruistically? As a duty? So that everyone’s pensions will be paid in the future? Really?

By: Jason McCullough

Jason McCullough — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 16:46:44 +0000

So I take it your conversion to the non-ergodic dark side is complete?

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 08:01:52 +0000

Armature, your argument here: The childbearing segment of a generation has children based on the assumption that someone will be around to provide a market for the children’s labor. is daft; there is clearly a form of Say’s law working here. If one has children, then one knows that there will be a population, and therefore a labour market, in future. It is not remotely symmetrical and I respectfully suggest you give up trying to make economic arguments on this point. Jason: yeh, but come on. Show me a 30 year GDP forecast and I’ll show you a man who wasted an afternoon.

By: Jason McCullough

Jason McCullough — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 04:44:36 +0000

“Trends are trends: the family market accounts for much of the popularity of SUVs.” Completely off-topic now, but High and Mighty details the industry research on how people who buy SUVs are mostly narcissitic assholes trying to pretend they don’t have kids. I’m not exaggerating.

By: Jason McCullough

Jason McCullough — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 04:41:47 +0000

“Perhaps, but at the long end, nonergodicity comes into play; who the hell really knows what will happen in 30 years? The bond market tends to sensibly assume that things will get sorted out eventually, both for Humean (things always have in the past) and Kantian (it is impossible to go about your daily business on any other assumption) reasons.” True, but the birth rate shows up pretty clearly in GDP growth estimates. It’s apparently good at calculating much more subtle things, so why not this? Now that I think about it, is there some stat evidence out there on the birth rate and investment returns? Google isn’t producing much. “However, it’s more and more apparent that the PAYG scheme is not going to sustain itself unless we have more children and/or die younger.” …..or we contribute more to the system, which is always off the table for reasons I don’t understand. Oh, and a few minutes of algebra points out that the percentage of lifetime earnings necessary to ensure retirement in exactly the same in a private or public system. The ridiculous “privitization” schemes suggested in the 1990s – and apparently Bush is going to start pushing another as his major policy initiative – all either rely on double-counting or making one generation pay a double retirement rate.

By: Armature

Armature — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 02:20:58 +0000

When I say ‘externality’, I?m making a quite precise economic claim. I’m making the claim that the benefit from a society’s-eye view of there being children is greater than the sum of private benefits (net of private costs) to parents. Sure, but the mere fact that childless people makes plans based on the continued existence of children does not imply the existence of an externality. The externality is intragenerational; between old people who choose to forgo consumption/accumulation in the first period in order to produce children, and those who don’t and who have more capital in the second period as a result. The childbearing segment of a generation has children based on the assumption that someone will be around to provide a market for the children’s labor. This is exactly symmetric with the childless segment’s saving based on the assumption that someone will be around to provide a supply of goods to be consumed (a market for the accumulated capital). Any asymmetry you devise is an artifact of your modeling, not a genuine difference in moral obligation.

By: Chris Clarke

Chris Clarke — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 02:14:06 +0000

many of the posts above are valid, except when they make bone-dumb errors such as taking SUV’s as evidence for their prejudices about population. Well, seeing as I’m the only person in the thread who mentioned SUVs, let me suggest that any bone-dumbness lies solely in the above interpretation of what I actually wrote. Where I live, SUV ownership is very often explained away as necessary for “hauling the kids and all their stuff,” and – though less so in the wake of Keith Bradsher’s work – due to the vehicles’ tanklike structure and the safety drivers assume this conveys to the occupants of the childseat. And non-parents buy a hell of a lot of SUVs too, and most of them never go offroad, and some SUV-driving parents actually need four wheel drive a fair amount of time, and many parents drive their kids around in relatively efficient minivans or hybrid Honda Insights. But trends are trends: the family market accounts for much of the popularity of SUVs. If saying so is bone-dumb, then Ford and Chevrolet and Toyota are spending a lot of bone-dumb money retrofitting their sedan factories to build Excursions and 4Runners.

By: Zizka

Zizka — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 00:47:28 +0000

I haven’t read the whole thread, so I’ll just say what I always say about this. First, children are a big, big money-loser. Not only the direct cost, but also lost opportunity since parents have to spend lots of time on non-paying work and are also less flexible on the market. Second, childraising is a communitarian rather than a rational-self-interest activity. Parents are either wasteful idiots or else they’re contributing something to society. To put it differently, to me someone who has spent his or her time and money on raising a good kid is in a different category from someone who stupidly spent the same time and energy on lottery tickets and booze. If you are allowed to assume rational self-interest and libertarianism, many of the posts above are valid, except when they make bone-dumb errors such as taking SUV’s as evidence for their prejudices about population. In a world of rational self-interest, there would be no children. One of the Chicago economists (Becker?) has concocted an amazing scheme whereby there’s a three-way contract between the two parents and the infant for the respective parties to provide one another with husband-services, wife-services, father-services, mother-services, and child-services. (Presumably the parents collectively negotiate for their incompetent child). Everything can be seen as a market, if you’re allowed to invent fictitious contracts and fictitious commodities.

By: David Yaseen

David Yaseen — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 22:36:05 +0000

Many childless people feel society’s not playing fair by them. “Sure, I’ll help raise your kids if you’ll commit them to keeping me off the streets when I’m old.” Problem is, there’s no such animal. The law says I have to work more hours, pay higher rates of federal and state tax, school property tax, higher health insurance rates, etc., all for the well-being of children I don’t have. Children are taken as a good in themselves that society must nurture. The principle dovetails nicely with our instinctual leanings. Childless people are, increasingly, to fend for themselves. Only in very extreme circumstances—at the emergency room and in the case of utter destitution—is the government active on their personal behalf (behalves?). On the job, preferential treatment of parents is commonplace. I happen to think we’re better off helping ensure that kids are properly nourished and educated, and that money extended to such uses is well-spent. But I’d be a lot happier about helping foot the bill if I had the kind of social support I’d get in, say, Sweden. At a time when the future prospects for most people aren’t great, the perceived fairness of the system is going to be a bigger and bigger issue. As long as we’re at it, we might ponder the potential benefits to society of expenditures directed at developing its aduts, without regard to their status as parents. I’m sure throwing everyone a free college course every semester would yield a net benefit…

By: Matthew

Matthew — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 22:24:43 +0000

Verbal If there aren’t enough children then funded/private pension plans/savings suffer just as much as state PAYG pensions. Read the first few pages of this http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/…/307dcdf30f915c4b8525696200583bf2/ $FILE/Reforming%20Pensions.pdf

By: Verbal

Verbal — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 22:00:03 +0000

Other people’s children may well finance my social security payments, because I live in a country that has chosen a Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) scheme for its pension plans. However, it’s more and more apparent that the PAYG scheme is not going to sustain itself unless we have more children and/or die younger. That is, we’re going to have go to a fully-funded scheme, and possibly a means-tested scheme, if we’re going to have anything at all. Now, maybe I should have a lot more kids to support the Social Security Administration when I’m older. But it’s not my fault that leaders of my parents’ and grandparents’ generation failed to anticipate demographic changes and choose a funded retirement scheme. Now, I am willing to pay school taxes, and so forth, because I want to live in a society which raises healthy, intelligent individuals. That is, I support schools, and benefits for people with children, for the same reasons I support welfare, and homeless outreach, and public-health initiatives. But my support for those things is not based on some sort of cross-generational obligation, nor on a financial plan: it’s much cheaper to save money and use it for retirement than to have children and hope they pay enough in payroll taxes that your government will be able to give you a secure retirement.

By: Verbal

Verbal — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 21:59:55 +0000

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 19:43:59 +0000

I forgot, I meant to answer Jeremy’s question – “So what can happen over the next two centuries, as world population levels off and begins to decline? Am I correct in thinking this is unprecedented in human history?” If you mean population decline, no. The Black Death chopped population in Asia and Europe and it took a looong time to recover – two centuries? I’m not sure, but a long time. And then the population plunge in the Americas in the 15th century and after must have created a considerable hole too, no? Population was rising in other parts of the world at the time, but I don’t think it was rising fast enough to offset the plunge in the Western hemisphere.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 19:30:41 +0000

David—What are the perceived privileges of parents that you talk about? Free public school education for kids? What are the current costs giving rise to all this resentment?