<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>dmm</author><text>&amp;gt; The world already has almost 8 billion people though&lt;p&gt;The grocery stores are already full of food, why do we still need farms? If you ever plan to stop working you need young people to buy your 401k stocks from you and pay for your Social Security.&lt;p&gt;The problem with low fertility rates is not (primarily) population decline, it&amp;#x27;s demographic collapse. As long as fertility is below replacement the proportion of elderly increases _forever_.&lt;p&gt;What about immigration?&lt;p&gt;The US is in a much better position wrt to this than many other nations because of our high rates of immigration but low fertility is a global phenomenon outside of a handful of places like Nigeria and Afghanistan.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; the fertility rate continues to decline regardless.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;re right. Nobody has figured out how to raise fertility rates once they start dropping.</text><parent_chain><item><author>toomuchtodo</author><text>Extremely unlikely there will ever be a will to do this considering the long term value to be compensated (hundreds of thousands of dollars per child, if not $1MM). Society is too short sighted and short term financially focused.&lt;p&gt;The world already has almost 8 billion people though (with population momentum landing is at 10B-11B by the end of the century), so I’m hard pressed to argue for more children (and the necessary policy and financial support) when we, in aggregate, already don’t take care of the ones here (no subsidized child care, limited parental leave, half a million kids in foster care at any one time [US], ~120 million unintended pregnancies globally annually, etc). Also consider that in parts of Europe where pro natalist policies are very robust (subsidized childcare, very generous leave policies, and “baby bonuses”), the fertility rate continues to decline regardless. Kids might be valuable to society, but the data supports the idea they are not as important to individuals (opportunity costs, life choices, etc).</text></item><item><author>lotsofpulp</author><text>Society needs to pay a competitive price relative to their other options.</text></item><item><author>sprash</author><text>Welcome to the world of dysgenics where the brightest and most diligent are not reproducing.</text></item><item><author>ipnon</author><text>In the middle class where women graduate college at twice the rate as men, move to big cities for a lucrative career, and delay childbirth until their 30s, women are easily outpacing men in earnings.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Young women earn more than young men in several U.S. cities</title><url>https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/28/young-women-are-out-earning-young-men-in-several-u-s-cities/</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>PragmaticPulp</author><text>&amp;gt; Extremely unlikely there will ever be a will to do this considering the long term value to be compensated (hundreds of thousands of dollars per child, if not $1MM).&lt;p&gt;Parent here. You don’t need $1mm to raise a kid. You don’t need anywhere close to that, actually.&lt;p&gt;Kids aren’t free, obviously, but this internet meme that they’ll bankrupt you is getting out of control.&lt;p&gt;Honestly, how do you think people making the median US household income are affording kids? Multiple kids, even? I hope it’s obvious that households with two kids earning &amp;lt;$100K per year (a common situation) aren’t spending $1mm on each of them.</text><parent_chain><item><author>toomuchtodo</author><text>Extremely unlikely there will ever be a will to do this considering the long term value to be compensated (hundreds of thousands of dollars per child, if not $1MM). Society is too short sighted and short term financially focused.&lt;p&gt;The world already has almost 8 billion people though (with population momentum landing is at 10B-11B by the end of the century), so I’m hard pressed to argue for more children (and the necessary policy and financial support) when we, in aggregate, already don’t take care of the ones here (no subsidized child care, limited parental leave, half a million kids in foster care at any one time [US], ~120 million unintended pregnancies globally annually, etc). Also consider that in parts of Europe where pro natalist policies are very robust (subsidized childcare, very generous leave policies, and “baby bonuses”), the fertility rate continues to decline regardless. Kids might be valuable to society, but the data supports the idea they are not as important to individuals (opportunity costs, life choices, etc).</text></item><item><author>lotsofpulp</author><text>Society needs to pay a competitive price relative to their other options.</text></item><item><author>sprash</author><text>Welcome to the world of dysgenics where the brightest and most diligent are not reproducing.</text></item><item><author>ipnon</author><text>In the middle class where women graduate college at twice the rate as men, move to big cities for a lucrative career, and delay childbirth until their 30s, women are easily outpacing men in earnings.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Young women earn more than young men in several U.S. cities</title><url>https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/28/young-women-are-out-earning-young-men-in-several-u-s-cities/</url></story>