Cognisant
cackling in the trenches
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- Yesterday 9:26 PM
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2009
- Messages
- 11,155
People not having children is creating an economic decline, in agrarian cultures people live with and support their elders directly, if each couple only has one child and the lifespan of the elders is increasing that child ends up crushed by the economic burden of an inverse pyramid scheme.
In more Western capitalist style nations people often don't support their elders directly, rather people accumulate assets and a retirement fund over a lifetime of work then retire on the interest generated by their capital, this retirement fund invests in businesses that employ young workers and those same young workers are renting the real estate assets owned by their society's elders. So it's actually the exact same thing except it's not your children supporting you it's everyone's children and the people who don't have children and focus exclusively on building capital are disproportionately rewarded for doing so, they benefit from other people shouldering that burden.
But the thing is everyone knows this and everyone's trying to screw the system or rather they've already been screwed by the system and are forgoing having children to prepare for their retirement, and this is creating a demographic death spiral as each generation is smaller than the one that came before it and increasingly crushed by the burden of maintaining the ever aging society.
Furthermore men and women are opting out of seeking relationships and having children for their own gender specific reasons. For women financial security means competing in a man's world (more on that in a sec) or surrendering much of the control she has over her own life to a financial benefactor. Being out of the workforce for a few years can be very disadvantageous when applying for a job and being out of the workforce for a longer period of time means potentially returning at an entry level, and certainly not benefiting from years of experience and career progression. By "a man's world" I mean men don't really give a shit about a woman's income, if he's partnering with her to have and raise children he needs her to be young and healthy enough to undertake the incredibly physically demanding role of having children, otherwise what's the point?
As for men there's simply no respect for fatherhood and marriage comes with the very real financial risk of divorce, so we're strongly disincentivized from doing anything other than pursuing our careers and even then what is the money for? Without a wife and kids to support a man has a lot of excess capacity and so a lot of men are checking out of society and seeking self sufficiency instead, or simply getting by on low-wage low-responsibility jobs.
In more Western capitalist style nations people often don't support their elders directly, rather people accumulate assets and a retirement fund over a lifetime of work then retire on the interest generated by their capital, this retirement fund invests in businesses that employ young workers and those same young workers are renting the real estate assets owned by their society's elders. So it's actually the exact same thing except it's not your children supporting you it's everyone's children and the people who don't have children and focus exclusively on building capital are disproportionately rewarded for doing so, they benefit from other people shouldering that burden.
But the thing is everyone knows this and everyone's trying to screw the system or rather they've already been screwed by the system and are forgoing having children to prepare for their retirement, and this is creating a demographic death spiral as each generation is smaller than the one that came before it and increasingly crushed by the burden of maintaining the ever aging society.
Furthermore men and women are opting out of seeking relationships and having children for their own gender specific reasons. For women financial security means competing in a man's world (more on that in a sec) or surrendering much of the control she has over her own life to a financial benefactor. Being out of the workforce for a few years can be very disadvantageous when applying for a job and being out of the workforce for a longer period of time means potentially returning at an entry level, and certainly not benefiting from years of experience and career progression. By "a man's world" I mean men don't really give a shit about a woman's income, if he's partnering with her to have and raise children he needs her to be young and healthy enough to undertake the incredibly physically demanding role of having children, otherwise what's the point?
As for men there's simply no respect for fatherhood and marriage comes with the very real financial risk of divorce, so we're strongly disincentivized from doing anything other than pursuing our careers and even then what is the money for? Without a wife and kids to support a man has a lot of excess capacity and so a lot of men are checking out of society and seeking self sufficiency instead, or simply getting by on low-wage low-responsibility jobs.