If you scroll to the bottom of the article, they post their sources, including studies published in peer reviewed journals. I’m sure most of us see this headline and go, “Duh,” but here we have hard data. Every time our billionaire and political overlords wring their hands about birthrates, the collective response from all of us should be, “fuck you, pay me, or kick rocks.”
Lowering birthrates is a fascinating problem
It’s a global problem that has affected nearly every country. There are so many different explanations going around, and we can always compare the explanations to different countries and their birthrate
For the commodification of housing as an explanation, I can think of examples in favor of it, and that contradict it. It’s a more compelling explanation than others though
In favor: Japan was the first country to reach extreme housing commodification levels. For about 30 years from the mid-50s to the mid 80s, Japanese housing and real estate values exploded. Very famously, the land under the imperial palace was worth more than all the real estate in California combined. Japan followed this period about 20 years later by becoming the first country to start experiencing significant birthrate decline
China could be a good example here. Their birthrate has collapsed at the same time their housing did, but the time frame is completely different than Japan. It’s tough to use them both as an example when they have such drastically different apparent results
Against it: The countries generally considered to have the worst housing crisis at the moment are New Zealand, Canada, and the US, yet the countries with the lowest birth rates are South Korea and Taiwan. Housing in South Korea and Taiwan is moderately commodified, but certainly nowhere near as badly as other countries
Japan can also be an argument against it here. For the past 20+ years, housing has been extremely cheap in Japan. They thoroughly solved their housing crisis. If housing commodification is a driving cause for lowering birthrates, why has it only had a small rebound?
As an aside, Japan solved their housing crisis by implementing an inheritance tax (which took 20+ years to really have an impact), and completely re-working zoning to be permissive by default after the bubble popped. More countries should do that, because housing is now cheaper in central Tokyo than it is in “cheap” mid-size American towns like Fargo, ND
Turns out people don’t want kids when they’re stuck in their moms basement with no future
You guys have your own basement?
Ikr. I live in the living room dorm with 3 generations and 2 families.
The family next door is nice and rich, they are on the first door to the left and they can afford a whole room for their family of four.
I never should have had that avocado toast back in 2008.
“The fertility collapse in the West is not primarily about women choosing careers over children, nor about cultural rejection of parenthood, nor about access to contraception. These factors exist, but they explain only part of the story.”
Yeah, except you can’t tell how big impact each of those factors has. Or maybe you can but this article doesn’t say it. They simply list bunch of factors and claim that housing is the most important one without providing any evidence. All they really show is that housing is a factor which I don’t think anyone sane was arguing against.
Wow, there was no way to see this one coming.
i saw it coming so i pulled out
I see what you did there! 😆
creep
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No shit Sherlock
We never got the chance to have kids but all my family and friends have a bunch. All I see is how everyone is struggling to get by. The only way this current generation can survive is if their parents help them out with everything … housing, food, employment, education, health, child care. If you don’t have parents who are able or capable, you’re not going to make it.
In the 80s and 90s it was possible to get by on your own and make a bit of a living if you worked hard enough. It’s not possible any more and I have no idea how any one under the age of 20 can survive the future without wealthy parents. And the scary part is that those wealthy parents are dying off … in the next 20/30 years, those wealthy parents are expecting to have their kids look after them in old age. Those kids will be debt looking after themselves in 20/30 years and either won’t have the energy or money to look after their parents.
I’m screwed as far as I can see … we don’t have any dependants so by the time I get old and feeble, I’m going to be pushed into a corner of some dumpy old age home and left to die in my own dirty diaper.
Kind of. I was a teen in the 80s and had kids in the 90s and 00s. The 80s were hard, the economy was not great, where I live you can always get a job (even now, and even back then) but to make rent we had 6 people working the minimum wage jobs. 3 couples in one house.
I did buy a shitty house cheap (there don’t seem to be any of those anymore) but then we had 4 people living on 15k a year, could not maintain a house, could not improve much because the insurance was so high.
Downtown was dead, Ybor was dead, there was blight and violence, so much violence and crime.
Now it seems everything is fancy and safe and pretty and so expensive. Downtown has apartments but out of reach on a regular salary, you still need 6 minimum wage workers to rent a house.
As Hayes Carll says in his American Dream song: “Nothing changes, even when it wants to.”
“I’d like to raise a family. Let’s see what a 4-bedroom condo costs in the city with decent schools and transit. 2 000 000 USD? Hah. No kids it is, then.”
And when you smash their nests, birds don’t lay eggs
see also: it used to be possible to support a family on one income
You know you hit on something here probably unexpectedly.
Ive been bothered by the way the housing market is going against all logic “how can it just keep going up???”
I blamed all sorts of things but stopped when I think I found the formula.
The entry price of housing is in your area is equal to the borrowing power of the AVERAGE household. Seriously test it, go and find the average household income in your area, go to a mortgage calculator and work out what the amount they can borrow is.
So, back when say 15% of houses were dual income, housing was affordable on a single income. But when it tips over, house prices go up. Because johnny landscaper and carol hairdresser can get a loan for $1m that is the entry level house price in your area. Because they will always maximise their purchase.
So what happens, given that logic, when mortgage times go from 25 to 30 years? The household has more borrowing power - house prices up.
Buuut. If the price of eggs stay high, borrowing power decreases. If interest rates go up, prices go down.
Now finally then. What happens when we start moving our parents / grandparents into the house? What about if - on average - we will split the mortgage with a larger household size? It will become the average, and when it’s the average, it will be the rule.
Anything that pushes up demand without increase in supply has an inevitable and unfortunate result… bigger mortgages are definitely part of that.
only in USA, certainly not where I’m from
Not only in USA, in Spain too.
So USA and western Europe. Still, in most countries that was never possible
I’m British 🤷♀️ not saying it was the case everywhere but it was possible/within reach for a fair amount of people here, or at least one full time and one part time working parent.
Not only pay! Also create a safe and reliable social security net that would effectively kick in in case of need! Also build low income but good quality housing close to the jobs that are paying you and close to social contacts. Also install a minimum wage that is actually meaningful to sustain a family on 1.5 salary, if not even higher.
That’s why saying “I don’t care about politics” is shortsighted. Politics enters constantly into your life and influences your options and decisions.
When people say they don’t care about politics it’s mainly because they’re so utterly disenfranchised they avoid it rather than feel frustrated at their complete lack of ability to change anything, all while getting into arguments with friends and neighbors.
If the problem is wages, wouldn’t we expect to see Singapore, Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands, Taiwan, or the US to be leading in fertility rate? They are all near the top of per capita PPP
Singapore and Taiwan are near the absolute bottom for fertility rate (Taiwan also has relatively affordable housing)
Perhaps wealth inequality is a confounding factor here? Of those countries, only the US has particularly high wealth inequality. Japan and South Korea are among the lowest for wealth inequality
Further, when you look at the fertility rate, how many high income countries do you see with fertility rates above replacement? Very few. Then take a look at the break down by high/middle/low income countries. It’s a very strong negative correlation between income and birth rate
Finally, a very interesting country to look at: North Korea. North Korea has consistently had a steady decrease in fertility rate since the 60s. The vast majority of North Koreans do not receive wages of any kind. They do not have to pay for housing. They largely do not feel economic fluctuations… until things collapse
Which brings me to: The Arduous March. In 1995 the food supply collapsed. Within the course of a year, life expectancy dropped by 10 years. The death rate doubled. Infant mortality doubled. Yet the fertility rate continued a steady ~2% decline per year. Why?
There is a baseline decrease in fertility rate, independent of current individual economic or social conditions. Supporting this is the global birthrate decline. Global fertility rate peaked around 1960
Here is where I stray from data to draw my own conclusions: My hypothesis, based on these data points, is that modern advanced manufacturing, especially in electronics cause dispersed (e.g. air borne) environmental factors that have had the largest effect on birthrate
This explains why Japan was hit first. Why Taiwan, China, South Korea, and Singapore have the lowest birth rates in the world now. It explains why sub-Saharan Africa has the highest birth rates. Then individual variance in a region, like Switzerland compared to Italy and Finland, is then explained by all the other factors such as wages, housing commodification, women’s rights, cost of child rearing, etc.
The US has little to no advanced manufacturing these days and there are birth rate issues thousands of miles away from places where it does happen.
It’s both, and for the same reasons.
Wages - Greedy fucks wringing every cent out of the working class Housing - Greedy fucks turning shelter into a rental capture hell scape
Rent takes all surplus value, that’s it’s function.
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Corporations are always waiting for wages to go up so it can justify their inflation even if their costs do not rise.
It’s odd that when everything’s are going to be done cheaper than ever, it will cost you more.
Oh cool, another blindingly obvious study that is going to be ignored by everyone with the power do do anything about it.
Yes, we are aware. Now… fix it?
Who could ever have guessed that family’s need proper housing that’s affordable.
Who could have ever predicted that 2 square centimeters at 9 quintillion dollars is a disaster in the making?
No way anyone one could have seen this coming with the multiple looming catastrophes that could upend life!
I like data.
What do they even mean by commodification? There’s literally houses out there but the prices are ridiculous and others are just holding onto property without listing them. The housing is there. They’re just rigging it and gatekeeping the rest of us.
Commodification is not the right word here. Financialization is the usual one.
Commodification implies that housing is being mass produced and prices are dropping as profit margins fall. That’s clearly not what’s happening.
Financialization implies that housing has become an investment that is increasingly targeted by the finance industry. This is actually happening a lot more than people think. Finance companies have full time real estate staff who are out there buying up housing on a daily basis.
Instead of people buying a house because they need a home, they are purchasing the house as a way to make more money. Instead of living in the house, they rent it out, and the renters just end up paying the mortgage. The owner holds the property for a certain amount of time, then sells the house after it appreciates and makes a profit. Houses that they already own can be used to leverage for more loans to purchase even more. Houses are no longer seen as a place to live, or a home, they are now seen as a way to generate income. If people that have money keep buying more and more houses without living in them, they end up creating scarcity, which drives up prices. Commodification is the process of turning something, such as a good, service, idea, or cultural artifact, into a commodity that can be bought and sold in a market. This often changes the item’s original meaning or significance by transforming its social or cultural value into an economic one based on supply, demand, and price. Now, the very things we need just to survive, food, shelter, water, and medical care are being comodified to pump as much profit from it as possible. Juxtapose this with wage stagnation despite increased productivity in the past century and inflation, it’s pretty clear that corporate entities would rather see us dead for short term profits than keep us as customers.
What you said. They’re rigging it against us. They’re literally gatekeeping us from getting anything.
