<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>smt88</author><text>This is a popular theory on reddit, but it&amp;#x27;s not true. Birth rates are extremely low even in countries that &lt;i&gt;paid parents to stay at home&lt;/i&gt; with kids and generally have good work culture.&lt;p&gt;You would also expect birth rates to be lowest among people working 2-3 low-wage jobs, which is also not true.&lt;p&gt;As financial stability and safety increase, birth rates go down. That&amp;#x27;s the only common driver of it.&lt;p&gt;Historically, children were sources of unpaid labor. They worked (either at the family business or outside the job), raised younger siblings, and took care of elderly parents.&lt;p&gt;In short, children were (and sometimes are) a social safety net. What happens in societies that try to eliminate poverty, take care of the elderly, and ban child labor? A lower birth rate.&lt;p&gt;Low birth rates are not a problem (and reflect enormous amounts of social progress). We just need to solve the Ponzi scheme of retirement and elder care, which I think is doable with automation.</text><parent_chain><item><author>yrgulation</author><text>&amp;gt; Their populations will shrink with mathematical certainty.&lt;p&gt;Yeah you know why? Because both parents sitting in offices 8 hours a day have no means of looking after their kids. And a mother giving birth needs to return to work in a few months time, else she there&amp;#x27;s no pay. Oh and neither parent can give up work to raise these future adults because living expenses are too high. I don&amp;#x27;t know why everyone is so surprised by the raging population decline. Most of the western world is not child friendly, simple as that.</text></item><item><author>Barrera</author><text>Haven&amp;#x27;t read the book, but for those who don&amp;#x27;t know who Zeihan is, his work follows two threads of post-WWII history:&lt;p&gt;1. Deglobalization; and&lt;p&gt;2. Depopulation&lt;p&gt;The article focuses mostly on deglobalization, but depopulation is in the horse pulling the cart.&lt;p&gt;Many are familiar with the deglobalization idea from the last US presidential administration. The current administration kept those tariffs, and abided by the previous commitment to exit Afghanistan. Zeihan argues that this trend toward increasing isolationism goes back decades.&lt;p&gt;What may seem less familiar is the demographic implosion the entire world is undergoing - a baby bust. The vast majority of major countries with the exception of the US and Mexico have passed a point of no return demographically. Their populations will shrink with mathematical certainty. As their populations ebb, so will their economic growth prospects and place on the world stage. The problem is especially pronounced in Asia and Europe, but can be found everywhere.&lt;p&gt;The reason for the bust: people moved to cities. On a farm, kids are free labor. In a city, kids are expensive conversational pieces.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>The end of the world is just beginning for shipping</title><url>https://gcaptain.com/end-of-the-world-is-just-beginning-book-review/</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>ajuc</author><text>Nah. EU is &amp;quot;the west&amp;quot; too, and it&amp;#x27;s more people than US. And maternity leaves here are around 6-12 months. Population still decreases. Significant part of EU was under communism and had baby booms then despite abysmal pay and much WORSE standards of living then than now. Now their populations go down despite the face they are much wealthier and well off. I live in Poland. There&amp;#x27;s no comparison, when I look at photos and videos made in 80s in my country it looks like 3rd world. I haven&amp;#x27;t realized then but now when I look back it&amp;#x27;s crazy how much changed. But people had kids then and don&amp;#x27;t have kids now.&lt;p&gt;What changed is perspectives. In communism you&amp;#x27;d earn almost the same no matter where, how much, and how well you worked. And money mattered little anyway, you couldn&amp;#x27;t buy anything with them, you had to have connections to &amp;quot;arrange&amp;quot; anything (even basic building materials were &amp;quot;arranged&amp;quot; through social networks not bought from a shop). So people invested in families and big social networks to survive. And had lots of kids cause there wasn&amp;#x27;t much else to do. No career to sacrifice, no recreation other than drinking and partying. No internet. TV had 2 channels and most people had only black-and-white receivers. Culture was only accessible in big cities. Half the families had no car. You couldn&amp;#x27;t travel abroad easily. There was censorship. There were blackouts at the night.&lt;p&gt;Why not have kids in these circumstances? What are you losing?&lt;p&gt;Now your standard of living depends mostly on your education and working ethic. And it can vary greatly. Sky is the limit. You can have a yacht. You can travel all over the world. You can be unemployed and live under the bridge. And anything in between.&lt;p&gt;You don&amp;#x27;t need other people to survive. Money are very important. Career is an option. There&amp;#x27;s LOTS of ways to spend time and money. Having a kid is a big sacrifice in this world. So people work more and have smaller families.&lt;p&gt;The parts of each country that are less wealthy are usually also the parts with highest natural growth.&lt;p&gt;Basically - economic growth and development reduces natural growth. Pro-family laws are nice, but they don&amp;#x27;t change the basic calculation of pros vs cons as much as the changes in societies did.</text><parent_chain><item><author>yrgulation</author><text>&amp;gt; Their populations will shrink with mathematical certainty.&lt;p&gt;Yeah you know why? Because both parents sitting in offices 8 hours a day have no means of looking after their kids. And a mother giving birth needs to return to work in a few months time, else she there&amp;#x27;s no pay. Oh and neither parent can give up work to raise these future adults because living expenses are too high. I don&amp;#x27;t know why everyone is so surprised by the raging population decline. Most of the western world is not child friendly, simple as that.</text></item><item><author>Barrera</author><text>Haven&amp;#x27;t read the book, but for those who don&amp;#x27;t know who Zeihan is, his work follows two threads of post-WWII history:&lt;p&gt;1. Deglobalization; and&lt;p&gt;2. Depopulation&lt;p&gt;The article focuses mostly on deglobalization, but depopulation is in the horse pulling the cart.&lt;p&gt;Many are familiar with the deglobalization idea from the last US presidential administration. The current administration kept those tariffs, and abided by the previous commitment to exit Afghanistan. Zeihan argues that this trend toward increasing isolationism goes back decades.&lt;p&gt;What may seem less familiar is the demographic implosion the entire world is undergoing - a baby bust. The vast majority of major countries with the exception of the US and Mexico have passed a point of no return demographically. Their populations will shrink with mathematical certainty. As their populations ebb, so will their economic growth prospects and place on the world stage. The problem is especially pronounced in Asia and Europe, but can be found everywhere.&lt;p&gt;The reason for the bust: people moved to cities. On a farm, kids are free labor. In a city, kids are expensive conversational pieces.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>The end of the world is just beginning for shipping</title><url>https://gcaptain.com/end-of-the-world-is-just-beginning-book-review/</url></story>