Astro Hacker News - About Rx Kids

drayfield |next [-]

What a fantastic charity, I really love the idea.

dominicq |next |previous [-]

Rx? Is it like Rx by Paul Le Roux, famous drug kingpin?

usernametaken29 |next |previous [-]

Germany recently discussed raising health insurance premiums for families (because families cause higher costs). Instead of the stick we need to use the carrot. Everybody is asking why birth rates plummet. It’s simple. Having a family costs a fuckton of money. I personally know a bunch of well-off people who have decided against children since they don’t think they’ll be able to sustain any way of middle class existence with kids. Having a program that supports mothers like this, cash, no strings attached, is awesome. The last thing people need is to jump 1000x bureaucratic hoops when they’re broke and have basically zero sleep. Hats off, cool charity!

fredrikholm |root |parent |next [-]

> Everybody is asking why birth rates plummet. It’s simple. Having a family costs a fuckton of money.

It's a factor, it's not the only factor.

Decrease in teenage pregnancies, decrease in alcohol consumption, contraception and day after pills, higher levels of education, less socialized culture, less generational housing etc.

Having a child is more than often a deliberate, calculated decision that is made by adults whereas in the old world pregnancies happened left and right with little to say about it. Support systems existed because the problem was pervasive. Now the problem is generally gone, and the support systems thereafter.

No country has managed to reverse the trend of declining birth rates. The better quality of life people have, the fewer children people tend to have.

It's not just about who does and who doesn't have children, it's also how many children per family. 1-2 children is the new normal. My grandpa was #7.

eru |root |parent |next [-]

> No country has managed to reverse the trend of declining birth rates.

Perhaps we can learn from the past? Birthrates between the world wars were below replacement level in much of the western world. Then the trend reversed for a while.

rcxdude |root |parent [-]

Question is why was this the case? I feel a natural explanation is it's a reaction to there being less people around on account of the huge number of deaths, in which case there's probably little reason to worry: if birth rate increases as population drops then the system should tend to equalise itself. If it's something else related to a gigantic war specifically then it's a bit less certain (one very important question is was the growth just a displacement in time from all the couples who could not have a child during the war but now can?).

woodpanel |root |parent |previous [-]

> No country has managed to reverse the trend of declining birth rate

May I point you to the State of Israel? Its TFR sits at 3.

And if we really want to be nitpicky, and concentrating on the "reverse"-part of your statement, then even Balkan countries shine, as they literally managed to reverse the trend.

po1nt |root |parent |previous [-]

IMHO we should just accept the lower income. Since women entered workforce we got used to the inflated lifestyle. We should just accept that having a kid will cost you money and it's fine. It's the best purchase there is.

Some might decide to buy more expensive car or larger house and that's cool choice as well. But in the end will bring you just a temporary happiness and maybe some social status boost.

Screw consumerism, just have a child.

collabs |root |parent |next [-]

On the contrary, strike! Refuse to have children completely until society and in particular the wealthy uphold their end of the bargain and make universal free of cost childcare a reality.

Love your own life, refuse to have children for free!

rcxdude |root |parent |next |previous [-]

This might be a useful attitude to have individually but it's not really a plan of how to solve the systemic issue.

madduci |root |parent |next |previous [-]

I disagree. Why should we accept lower income, while billionaires are doing whatever they want, in the most illegal ways?

Unions and Fight for your rights, that's what we need

fssys |root |parent |previous [-]

you need the larger house to have the kid!

GaryBluto |previous [-]

Such a strained metaphor designed to obscure the fact it's just taxpayer-funded welfare for expectant and new mothers without any background checks, drug testing, income limits or work requirements.