I'm holding out hope for a grassroots educational campaign to tell young people that if they want families they need to have them early. Oddly enough it isn't that the last few generations have wanted kids any less, that percentage of people has stayed relatively constant. What happened is a lot of people decided to delay having a family in favour of a career or just enjoying their 20s and then found out the hard way what no one bothered to tell them; how difficult it is to conceive after 30. That means a good percentage of people that wanted to have children simply can't.
Even if we successfully turn the trend around there'll still be a generational gap that will cause a series of smaller generations going forward.
How much of that financial anxiety is caused by would-be grandparents taking a "you're on your own, kid" attitude to their children and then wondering why they choose to focus on career instead of reproduction?
Far be it from me to cover for the Boomers’ greedy shortsightedness, but iirc we’re now at 52% of 18-29 year olds living at home and a large percentage of young married couples being DINKs (dual income, no kids). And current day Boomers poll fairly solidly against stuff like NAFTA and offshoring.
So imo, it’s not 2020s grandkid-wanting Boomers/GenX going “you’re on your own, kid” so much as it’s their greedy younger selves getting manipulated into mortgaging their eventual children’s future away in the 80s and 90s.
A distinction without a difference I guess, but the root of this problem stems from the Reagan/Clinton eras and not many people seem interested in discussing how we can successfully roll back some of the more egregious anti-worker legal/regulatory changes from those days.
Sort of agree with this, I feel that way about the hippies of the 60's though. Watching videos of them sitting around in Golden Gate Park narcissistically talking about how they are disillusioned with their parents' work ethic and they don't align with traditional values (like hard work). It's like watching a group of people throw away their generational inheritance and complaining about having too much free time and easy money.
There's a lot to admire in the boomers I think, they had a great culture, and they contributed a massive amount of technological and scientific progress as well. But agree they never had the competition these newer generations are facing and so did not do enough to prepare their kids for a more competitive world (I mean, some did, but not enough).
My understanding of the disillusionment with the hard work ethic stems from the question of "toward which goal?" Hard work for the sake of having worked hard is how your boss gets rich, from that view.
I like your analysis. It passes the gut check, unlike the garbage that assumes that it's all personal responsibility that can magically be solved today through better choices. It doesn't matter much what choices the Boomers/X make today, as the damage was done long before the general public recognized there would be problems.
> I'm holding out hope for a grassroots educational campaign to tell young people that if they want families they need to have them early.
Yeah it’s still not too late for this sort of thing in the West. Though the cynic in me thinks it’s very unlikely the political class travels the idealogical axis from today’s mostly explicit anti-natalism to having the political willpower necessary for implementing pro-family policies.
At least we have a chance. Places like South Korea/Japan might as well change their national mottos to “omae wa mou shindeiru”
We shouldn't turn the trend around though. Most of our environmental problems including most likely this one, are caused by our overpopulation and increased welfare. We just need too many resources, this can't continue.
So if people organically decide (or due to this sperm count thing are forced) to have fewer kids, this is really a brilliant thing for the planet.
Anti-human garbage take IMO. The planet is not more important than humanity. Vast swathes of this planet are uninhabited by humans, people have been predicting for generations that too many people would destroy civilization and the planet and none of it has come true (see the Population Bomb "predictions" section on Wikipedia for a laugh)
This narrative has been popular, especially among wealthy, educated, people for a long long time. But most of it is hogwash.
Even if we successfully turn the trend around there'll still be a generational gap that will cause a series of smaller generations going forward.