The US Census Bureau thread

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I think a lot of it actually has to do with conformity within peer groups. People pick up a signal on when it's acceptable to have kids based upon when their peers have kids. So a highly-educated woman will feel the time "isn't right" until she has friends and coworkers around the same age who are popping them out. This can end up incredibly twisted in say academia, where the norm is you're supposed to wait until you achieve tenure to have a child - at which point you're probably over 40 and might not be able to conceive at all any longer.

While many academic females wait until they have a faculty job and are settled in to have children, I'm not familiar with any who waited for tenure (which at the earliest is unlikely to predate 37 or 38)! Many departments I'm aware of allow women to add a year to their tenure "clock" if they have a child, though I believe this is a relatively new policy and maybe it differs across fields .

But I think your overall point is correct... the youngest female in my peer group to have kids was at 29 and it's only now at 32-35 that a lot of people are.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by benp

While there may be varied individual causes, dropping fertility rates is a global phenomenon, in rich and poor countries alike. I see the phenomenon as nature's adjusting to the spike in birth rates over the last two centuries and the accompanying increase in longevity, and that humans have somehow approached or passed some tipping point in that balance.

The global fertility rate is now 2.3 births/woman in 2021. In 1990 it was 3.2, and in 1950 it was 4.7. The replacement rate is considered to be 2.1.

Yep. Fertility rates are now at or below replacement rates in much of the developing world, including most of Latin America, North Africa, and most of Asia.

In another few generations, pretty much the only countries which have a real excess of young adults who would drive immigration will be in Sub-Saharan Africa - meaning the future of immigration is overwhelmingly black.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Yep. Fertility rates are now at or below replacement rates in much of the developing world, including most of Latin America, North Africa, and most of Asia.

In another few generations, pretty much the only countries which have a real excess of young adults who would drive immigration will be in Sub-Saharan Africa - meaning the future of immigration is overwhelmingly black.

I don't think this necessarily follows. A nation with a declining population can still have major net outmigration. Eastern Europe generally follows this pattern. Some of the worst demographic projections on the planet, but significant outmigration.

Rich countries with democratic norms can grow almost indefinitely, even if the planet overall declines.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by benp

While there may be varied individual causes, dropping fertility rates is a global phenomenon, in rich and poor countries alike. I see the phenomenon as nature's adjusting to the spike in birth rates over the last two centuries and the accompanying increase in longevity, and that humans have somehow approached or passed some tipping point in that balance.

The global fertility rate is now 2.3 births/woman in 2021. In 1990 it was 3.2, and in 1950 it was 4.7. The replacement rate is considered to be 2.1.

This is probably closer to the truth. Technology has eliminated the primary reason that people had large families over the past several centuries (more hands to bring in income). In rich countries, kids are an economic burden. If you're affluent, they can be viewed as a luxury. If you're not affluent, they can easily become obstacles to opportunity.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't think this necessarily follows. A nation with a declining population can still have major net outmigration. Eastern Europe generally follows this pattern. Some of the worst demographic projections on the planet, but significant outmigration.

Rich countries with democratic norms can grow almost indefinitely, even if the planet overall declines.

Eastern Europe is a special case, because it's part of a single labor market now with much wealthier areas in Western Europe, meaning somewhere like Bulgaria is more akin to West Virginia than anything.

But there's also examples like Mexico, where immigration to the U.S. slowed to a trickle once the birth rate fell by enough that there were enough domestic jobs for the new 18 year olds entering the workforce.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

This is probably closer to the truth. Technology has eliminated the primary reason that people had large families over the past several centuries (more hands to bring in income). In rich countries, kids are an economic burden. If you're affluent, they can be viewed as a luxury. If you're not affluent, they can easily become obstacles to opportunity.

It bears mentioning however the idea that you can "supercharge" your kids by effectively throwing money at them is almost certainly wrong. Putting all your eggs in one basket is a risky endeavor, because sometimes kids end up with various more-or-less inborn traits which will limit their success (not as smart as parents, addiction-prone, mental illness, etc.) If you want to maximize the chances that one of your kids is successful, it's better to have a few more.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by eschaton

It bears mentioning however the idea that you can "supercharge" your kids by effectively throwing money at them is almost certainly wrong. Putting all your eggs in one basket is a risky endeavor, because sometimes kids end up with various more-or-less inborn traits which will limit their success (not as smart as parents, addiction-prone, mental illness, etc.) If you want to maximize the chances that one of your kids is successful, it's better to have a few more.

Depends on the objective. The reason for having kids today seems more about a personal fulfillment than an economic incentive. In 1870, a family might've needed 5 boys to tend a farm, and 4 girls to help keep the house. In the early 20th century, before child labor laws, kids could go earn paychecks for the family. Even into the mid-20th century, having a few kids was a way to spread the responsibilities of maintaining the household. Nowadays, they really don't provide a financial contribution to the bottom line (well, I guess the new child credit changes this for some families). The reasoning for having them is completely detached from economics, so it's more like a luxury item.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Crawford

U.S. births have fallen off a cliff. We're Europe, demographically.

Which means we need much more immigration. Time to open up immigration, at least to Germany levels, but ideally more to Canada levels.

TFR falling from 2.12 to 1.64 in a 13-year timespan is a massive change. The US is just above Germany now, something unthinkable.

About reach Canadians levels, that's almost 4 million people/year. I don't know where the US can find so many people. And unlike Canada, they cannot be picky.

Originally Posted by eschaton

Eastern Europe is a special case, because it's part of a single labor market now with much wealthier areas in Western Europe, meaning somewhere like Bulgaria is more akin to West Virginia than anything.

But there's also examples like Mexico, where immigration to the U.S. slowed to a trickle once the birth rate fell by enough that there were enough domestic jobs for the new 18 year olds entering the workforce.

Exactly. A Pole would just take a high-speed train or a short flight and get a job in Germany or Britain.

In any case, the source dries. A shrinking 10 million people country will have much less young adults available than a 10 million growing one.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Depends on the objective. The reason for having kids today seems more about a personal fulfillment than an economic incentive. In 1870, a family might've needed 5 boys to tend a farm, and 4 girls to help keep the house. In the early 20th century, before child labor laws, kids could go earn paychecks for the family. Even into the mid-20th century, having a few kids was a way to spread the responsibilities of maintaining the household. Nowadays, they really don't provide a financial contribution to the bottom line (well, I guess the new child credit changes this for some families). The reasoning for having them is completely detached from economics, so it's more like a luxury item.

I get what you're saying, but I still think it applies. Professional-class parents might not need or expect their children to financially support them, but if they plow tens of thousands of dollars into "enriching" day cares for little Mason and he becomes a professional ski instructor who's not much for reading chances are pretty high they'll look at it as something of a failure of parenting in old age, no matter how much they love him. This is because for a lot of people they treat their kids as an extension of their own ego, and an inability of their children to achieve as much as they do is thus an assault on their own self-conception.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The reasoning for having them is completely detached from economics, so it's more like a luxury item.

well, that, along with being one of the most important biological imperatives of life itself.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

well, that, along with being one of the most important biological imperatives of life itself.

Sure, humans need offspring to continue the human species, but a lot of what we're talking about in this thread is cultural. Hunter-gatherer humans actually didn't have a lot of kids, because they were a burden to feed and protect (and modern humans are probably, by far, the largest group of primates to have ever existed). The population of human beings ballooned over the past several centuries because of changing economic needs.

[benp]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Sure, humans need offspring to continue the human species, but a lot of what we're talking about in this thread is cultural. Hunter-gatherer humans actually didn't have a lot of kids, because they were a burden to feed and protect (and modern humans are probably, by far, the largest group of primates to have ever existed). The population of human beings ballooned over the past several centuries because of changing economic needs.

The population boomed because fewer babies and children died, fewer mothers died giving birth, fewer adults lived dangerous lives, food became more abundant so fewer people starved, and better hygiene and health care led to longer lives.

Economically, all children are an economic burden for many many years, and keep parents poor, sometimes for decades.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Sure, humans need offspring to continue the human species, but a lot of what we're talking about in this thread is cultural. Hunter-gatherer humans actually didn't have a lot of kids, because they were a burden to feed and protect (and modern humans are probably, by far, the largest group of primates to have ever existed). The population of human beings ballooned over the past several centuries because of changing economic needs.

yes, for sure, in fully developed modern economies the pendulum has now swung back to children being much more of an economic burden as opposed to an economic boon.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

well, that, along with being one of the most important biological imperatives of life itself.

Humans probably don't have a biological imperative to reproduce. A sex drive - up until birth control - was good enough, since sexual intercourse between men and women would usually result in a pregnancy eventually. Then, once a baby arrived, the mother needed to have some level of maternal instinct so she didn't just abandon it. That's all that was needed.

Think of it as analogous to our instinct to breathe. Surprisingly, when we hold our breath our instinctive desire to catch a breath doesn't come from a need for oxygen, but a need to purge our body from carbon dioxide. This is why people can die quickly in caves with low oxygen - your body doesn't register anything is wrong because you're getting all your CO2 out, and then you pass out suddenly and die soon after unless someone aids you. Given being in deep caves wasn't something we did commonly evolutionarily speaking, the kludge regarding CO2 was fine though for 99.9% of cases.


So yeah, I think our desire to actually have kids is culturally mediated, for the most part. That said, given birth control being widespread means those who don't want children no longer have them, there's going to be crazy selection in favor of whatever traits make someone either really want kids, or be really, really bad at family planning.

[benp]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Humans probably don't have a biological imperative to reproduce. A sex drive - up until birth control - was good enough, since sexual intercourse between men and women would usually result in a pregnancy eventually. Then, once a baby arrived, the mother needed to have some level of maternal instinct so she didn't just abandon it. That's all that was needed.

Think of it as analogous to our instinct to breathe. Surprisingly, when we hold our breath our instinctive desire to catch a breath doesn't come from a need for oxygen, but a need to purge our body from carbon dioxide. This is why people can die quickly in caves with low oxygen - your body doesn't register anything is wrong because you're getting all your CO2 out, and then you pass out suddenly and die soon after unless someone aids you. Given being in deep caves wasn't something we did commonly evolutionarily speaking, the kludge regarding CO2 was fine though for 99.9% of cases.


So yeah, I think our desire to actually have kids is culturally mediated, for the most part. That said, given birth control being widespread means those who don't want children no longer have them, there's going to be crazy selection in favor of whatever traits make someone either really want kids, or be really, really bad at family planning.

I don't understand your first statement. The sex drive is the biological imperative. The baby may be an afterthought, but the drive is certainly nature's way to facilitate reproduction. And based on my years among the females in the family, "baby fever" was a real thing among most of them.

[C.]

This thread has become a little cringey.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by benp

I don't understand your first statement. The sex drive is the biological imperative. The baby may be an afterthought, but the drive is certainly nature's way to facilitate reproduction. And based on my years among the females in the family, "baby fever" was a real thing among most of them.

It's a kludge of natural selection. Desiring sex was enough to get a baby, and as long as you didn't abandon the baby, enough to ensure your genes got passed on.

That's not to say there aren't some people who desire babies, but some of this may be culturally mediated. Lots of people historically ended up with kids who didn't particularly like them. I had a grandmother like this...didn't like kids (even her own after she had them) but had four children because it was expected of her.

[ChiSoxRox]

A neat measure of a place's "urban intensity" is the sum of the population-density products, i.e. the number before dividing by population to get weighted density. So this number (divided by 10^9 to be managable) is what I'm calling "urban intensity." A populous county or a dense county will be higher ranked on the intensity list, doubly so for a county with both.

The top US counties by this "urban intensity:"

Manhattan: 183
Brooklyn: 165
Los Angeles: 133
Queens: 112
Bronx: 107
Cook, IL: 73.8
Philadelphia: 35.2
Miami-Dade: 32.1
San Francisco: 29.3
Orange, CA: 27.4
Harris, TX: 27.1
Hudson, NJ: 27.0
San Diego: 24.3
Maricopa, AZ: 22.6
Suffolk, MA: 20.7

Not perfect -- DC is a key omission. 14.2 on this index.

But a neat new perspective: for this urban intensity measure, the boroughs of NYC hold their own versus the LA/Cook goliaths.

Since the national weighted population density includes these sums in the calculation, this also shows the most significant counties in the US for WPD. Manhattan alone is 552 of the national 5,792 WPD figure --nearly 10% of the national WPD!

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

A neat measure of a place's "urban intensity" is the sum of the population-density products, i.e. the number before dividing by population to get weighted density. So this number (divided by 10^9 to be managable) is what I'm calling "urban intensity." A populous county or a dense county will be higher ranked on the intensity list, doubly so for a county with both.

The top US counties by this "urban intensity:"

Manhattan: 183
Brooklyn: 165
Los Angeles: 133
Queens: 112
Bronx: 107
Cook, IL: 73.8
Philadelphia: 35.2
Miami-Dade: 32.1
San Francisco: 29.3
Orange, CA: 27.4
Harris, TX: 27.1
Hudson, NJ: 27.0
San Diego: 24.3
Maricopa, AZ: 22.6
Suffolk, MA: 20.7

Not perfect -- DC is a key omission. 14.2 on this index.

But a neat new perspective: for this urban intensity measure, the boroughs of NYC hold their own versus the LA/Cook goliaths.

Since the national weighted population density includes these sums in the calculation, this also shows the most significant counties in the US for WPD. Manhattan alone is 552 of the national 5,792 WPD figure --nearly 10% of the national WPD!

Maricopa County:
Area: 9,224 mi²
Population: 4.485 million (2019)

San Diego County:
Area: 4,526 mi²
Population: 3.338 million (2019)


Manhattan:
Land area: 22.82 mi²
Population: 1.632 million (2019)

Its not really comparable.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Maricopa County:
Area: 9,224 mi²
Population: 4.485 million (2019)

San Diego County:
Area: 4,526 mi²
Population: 3.338 million (2019)


Manhattan:
Land area: 22.82 mi²
Population: 1.632 million (2019)

Its not really comparable.

True, but that is a nice angle on just how unique NYC is: of those three, the winner is the smallest one.

ETA: Also, this measure is strictly cumulative. Carve out a Manhattan population chunk of San Diego or Houston, and their values drop, making the gap wider.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

A neat measure of a place's "urban intensity" is the sum of the population-density products, i.e. the number before dividing by population to get weighted density. So this number (divided by 10^9 to be managable) is what I'm calling "urban intensity." A populous county or a dense county will be higher ranked on the intensity list, doubly so for a county with both.

The top US counties by this "urban intensity:"

Manhattan: 183
Brooklyn: 165
Los Angeles: 133
Queens: 112
Bronx: 107
Cook, IL: 73.8
Philadelphia: 35.2
Miami-Dade: 32.1
San Francisco: 29.3
Orange, CA: 27.4
Harris, TX: 27.1
Hudson, NJ: 27.0
San Diego: 24.3
Maricopa, AZ: 22.6
Suffolk, MA: 20.7

Not perfect -- DC is a key omission. 14.2 on this index.

But a neat new perspective: for this urban intensity measure, the boroughs of NYC hold their own versus the LA/Cook goliaths.

Since the national weighted population density includes these sums in the calculation, this also shows the most significant counties in the US for WPD. Manhattan alone is 552 of the national 5,792 WPD figure --nearly 10% of the national WPD!

Hmm. My gut says that a lot of counties in the Great Lakes should score better than Maricopa, AZ? Wayne County, MI, Hennepin, MN, Cuyahoga, OH, and Milwaukee?