Great piece! Your point about how any pro-natal policy would not only have to restore parents to the financial parity with non-parents, but to also push them ahead is something I hadn't thought about before. But it makes complete sense. It also gets darker when one considers this could also be achieved by enacting social penalties on non-parents (much like how it used to be done). People also care about social prestige as much as, often more than, money.
I wonder if governments and people like to focus more on the money part of the equation, as opposed to the prestige, because (A) the money side seems easier to solve than the more intangible prestige side, and/or (B) the prestige aspect is something we're too self-conscious to be honest about.
Yes! Status is multi-faceted and hardly just about the $. Heartily agree w/ both points A & B, money being more quantifiable and prestige more anti-memetic
A lot of people don't like the way things are headed. It's harder and harder to land a great summer internship, buy a nice house, go to Harvard, etc. There is SO much more competition. We're given methods for waiting and waiting until we're "ready" to have kids, and then, there's trouble affording it still and even more problems finding a partner. Frequently, many children are unplanned, not necessarily unwanted but happen in relationships that are falling apart and were never healthy to start with. Children happen. People adapt. Also, more and more women are battling infertility, sometimes because they have deferred having children for so long. Also, they find....partners are just NOT THERE.
Thought provoking piece. Really enjoyed it Natasha.
In my "set," of wealthy sixty-somethings, having grandchildren is a status marker. My wife and I will (try to) avoid mentioning grandchildren to friends who don't have them because we think it's a form of bragging. (did I just do some preterition?)
Also among the wealthy thirty somethings I know who live in NYC, having children is a status marker. Because having children in a place like Manhattan signals the ability to afford a certain lifestyle and to have successfully found a partner.
I don't think that's why people choose to have children. But children are expensive!
Perhaps there's a point on the socioeconomic scale where prestige and having children coincide.
This doesn't surprise me at all! I see it in my own set, too--and it's exactly what I was referring to re: the exception of "higher birthrates at the tippy top, among the most secure."
I missed that sentence. There's a connection here with increased assortative mating at the "tippy top."
There are two math causes of the decline in TFR. One is women not having children and the other is women having fewer children. Both would relate to the reality and perception that the bar to having a large family w/o a loss in status has gotten higher. I wonder if this is mostly an urban upper middle class phenomenon.
So effectively the best remedy for population level fertility issues would be to somehow (probably impossible, tho if it was achieved for such intuitively undesirable things like certain kinds of mental illness, maybe not entirely impossible ?) boost the positional status of parenthood, especially motherhood?
I think this is a great text and all the parts of the model seem plausible. What I think it's perhaps missing (but it's a part of the "only achievable at the highest level" perhaps) is the way parenthood is nowadays portrayed not only as resulting in status lowering side effects but also huge responsibility where we risk traumatising children for life with minor slippages (I blame pop psych pseudo therapeutic babble and the notion of human inherent emotional fragility) AND something extraordinarily difficult to do well, or possibly at all.
Reminded me somehow of Ellery Llloyd's "People Like Her"
Jane Austen, she's not, but it was readable and enjoyable, and, frankly, I had no idea of all this industry before...blogging. Was eye-opening, as they say. To me.
I'd wager babies are million times harder to lose, than prestige. Maybe it's one of the reasons. Maybe not.
Hard to tell. It did distract me when I needed it. even re-read it. It's quite ironically written, despite it being a thriller, so maybe yes? Mocks that culture a lot.
Natasha is heir to Weber and Veblen in explaining our drive for status, making this thinking more accessible to the rest of us without sounding as self-serious and melancholic as Alain de Botton ("Status Anxiety"). We're trading actual heirs for digital air, too busy curating the "selfie" to consider the "selfless"? Our avatars are living their best life, even if we aren't. We can love the heaviness of Natasha's light touch.
Great piece! Your point about how any pro-natal policy would not only have to restore parents to the financial parity with non-parents, but to also push them ahead is something I hadn't thought about before. But it makes complete sense. It also gets darker when one considers this could also be achieved by enacting social penalties on non-parents (much like how it used to be done). People also care about social prestige as much as, often more than, money.
I wonder if governments and people like to focus more on the money part of the equation, as opposed to the prestige, because (A) the money side seems easier to solve than the more intangible prestige side, and/or (B) the prestige aspect is something we're too self-conscious to be honest about.
Yes! Status is multi-faceted and hardly just about the $. Heartily agree w/ both points A & B, money being more quantifiable and prestige more anti-memetic
A lot of people don't like the way things are headed. It's harder and harder to land a great summer internship, buy a nice house, go to Harvard, etc. There is SO much more competition. We're given methods for waiting and waiting until we're "ready" to have kids, and then, there's trouble affording it still and even more problems finding a partner. Frequently, many children are unplanned, not necessarily unwanted but happen in relationships that are falling apart and were never healthy to start with. Children happen. People adapt. Also, more and more women are battling infertility, sometimes because they have deferred having children for so long. Also, they find....partners are just NOT THERE.
Some excellent points here, thanks. Agree in particular that the infertility issue seems closely related to partnering/age.
Also, some STD/STIs/Bacterial Infections can cause infertility
Thought provoking piece. Really enjoyed it Natasha.
In my "set," of wealthy sixty-somethings, having grandchildren is a status marker. My wife and I will (try to) avoid mentioning grandchildren to friends who don't have them because we think it's a form of bragging. (did I just do some preterition?)
Also among the wealthy thirty somethings I know who live in NYC, having children is a status marker. Because having children in a place like Manhattan signals the ability to afford a certain lifestyle and to have successfully found a partner.
I don't think that's why people choose to have children. But children are expensive!
Perhaps there's a point on the socioeconomic scale where prestige and having children coincide.
This doesn't surprise me at all! I see it in my own set, too--and it's exactly what I was referring to re: the exception of "higher birthrates at the tippy top, among the most secure."
I missed that sentence. There's a connection here with increased assortative mating at the "tippy top."
There are two math causes of the decline in TFR. One is women not having children and the other is women having fewer children. Both would relate to the reality and perception that the bar to having a large family w/o a loss in status has gotten higher. I wonder if this is mostly an urban upper middle class phenomenon.
It's a fascinating topic. Thanks for tackling it.
Agree—“a lot of kids” tippy top is 4 not 8! & in upper middle 1 or 2 when 20 years ago might have been 3-4
I personally think it's a form of jinxing. Mentioning kids. If I do it means I feel either more relaxed or overcame some stupid superstition/
(I don't have grandchildren yet but I really want to. I'm a bit too young for that, in human yea rs, yet I don't care.)
Sorry if I sound not exactly on the point of the discussion. It's fascinating, as usual. Love the post and the discussion.
But i feel a bit like that girl with the matches.
Maybe tomorrow I'll feel differently. Happens often
will try to catch your conversation later -thank you for sharing the link
okay. bow out for now -you have a great Sunday
Jinxing feels close to antimemesis—thanks for reading & hope to see you Tues.
I have nothing smart to say but this was a fantastic read 👌🏼
On the contrary, this is an extremely smart thing to say (thank you)
So effectively the best remedy for population level fertility issues would be to somehow (probably impossible, tho if it was achieved for such intuitively undesirable things like certain kinds of mental illness, maybe not entirely impossible ?) boost the positional status of parenthood, especially motherhood?
I think this is a great text and all the parts of the model seem plausible. What I think it's perhaps missing (but it's a part of the "only achievable at the highest level" perhaps) is the way parenthood is nowadays portrayed not only as resulting in status lowering side effects but also huge responsibility where we risk traumatising children for life with minor slippages (I blame pop psych pseudo therapeutic babble and the notion of human inherent emotional fragility) AND something extraordinarily difficult to do well, or possibly at all.
Good point—screwing the kids up yet another scary risk!
Reminded me somehow of Ellery Llloyd's "People Like Her"
Jane Austen, she's not, but it was readable and enjoyable, and, frankly, I had no idea of all this industry before...blogging. Was eye-opening, as they say. To me.
I'd wager babies are million times harder to lose, than prestige. Maybe it's one of the reasons. Maybe not.
I haven’t read it! Should I?
Hard to tell. It did distract me when I needed it. even re-read it. It's quite ironically written, despite it being a thriller, so maybe yes? Mocks that culture a lot.
Natasha is heir to Weber and Veblen in explaining our drive for status, making this thinking more accessible to the rest of us without sounding as self-serious and melancholic as Alain de Botton ("Status Anxiety"). We're trading actual heirs for digital air, too busy curating the "selfie" to consider the "selfless"? Our avatars are living their best life, even if we aren't. We can love the heaviness of Natasha's light touch.
Weber and Veblen!! Thank you!