The Network Effect Of People Having 0-1 Kids

I got the screenshot from this podcast interview, which is with Anastasia Berg, who wrote this book about why people and do not have children. This is an interesting topic to me because I go through infertility, which sucks in its own right (but is probably largely my fault). If you’ve ever gone through infertility or miscarriage issues, you start to just, well … for lack of a better term, you start to question a lot of things that other people maybe don’t question. I wouldn’t say I have ever questioned “What is the actual point of kids and why do people do this?” in the grand scheme, as I do understand why people have kids. I myself have spent about $31,000 unsuccessfully trying to have a kid, and the lack of a kid can color my marriage on its worst days. So I get it. But it’s still a question I’ve had to ask, whereas someone in the “looked at her and got her pregnant” boat probably never had to even contemplate it. They set a reasonable number of kids and either hit it or went over it. Nice. Not my life script.

There’s a small moral panic about birth rates and fertility and all that, with some even tying the discussion to a decline in American Hope. I wouldn’t say the issue is “hope” but rather “affordability.” That said, I’m no scholar or oligarch, ya know? So my opinion, as a male with slow sperm, probably doesn’t mean much here.

Still, it’s helpful to break this moral panic into two parts. To start, we have:

Reasons fertility might be harder nowadays

• Later age of marriage
• People are not healthy
• Microplastics
• Spermageddon

Those factors make it harder for people to get pregnant — so maybe they want 4–5 kids and think they handle/afford 4–5 kids, but they never get the shot at even one. And obviously you should foster and adopt children, because many children are born into horrible situations and you might be able to make their life better, but this is also a very complicated emotional dance, especially for some women — especially because their mothers, grandmothers, and friends will tell them how magical and spiritual childbirth is (which I would assume is true; don’t hate me for writing this as a guy, please).

Then you come to:

Fertility is easy, but still less kids are had

• Can’t afford them
• Lack family support
• Would rather a smaller family

When you come to this list, you tend to look at the state of American fertility and think, OK, so maybe three groups are having kids, right?

1. The very rich
2. Those who cannot plan well (which is sometimes a dog whistle for “the poor”)
3. The very religious

Now you can kinda understand why the far-right gets in bed with churches. Obviously it’s about votes and power and control, but churches tend to have good little servants of God who want to re-populate the flock at 4–5 kids. To a right-leaning power-seeking guy, that means “more workers” and “more taxable income” down the road. Let’s ignore automation for a second, even though that’s a big concern and I think it does factor into family planning decisions nowadays.

Now, between those two lists, let’s also consider: are boys and girls even meeting and having sex anymore?

Once you parse out all of those factors, now you come to the moral or philosophical question of “Why do people have kids?” That’s what the podcast above attempts to solve, and this decision varies by person and background and everything else, including whether they can have kids. I think most people have kids for the experience and to do a better job than they perceive their parents to have done, but again, it’s all varied by person.

Now as you consider all this, let’s look at the pull-quote above. This part is not discussed as much: “network effects.”

Basically, think of a sorority house where a bunch of sisters get “ring by spring” and start having babies at 24–25. Nice! Well, the other sisters from that era will now want to have babies, because they’re cute and Instagram-friendly and the experience seems cool and plus it’s now all your friends talk about, so there’s a network effect of desire to have this yourself. This happens in many female friend groups and sisterhoods, not just sororities, but that was an easy example.

But now imagine that, at 30, a group of 10 female friends only has two babies across them. I know groups like this. At 35, maybe there’s six babies. Well, the women turning 36, 37, etc. really haven’t had a ton of experience with babies — it’s been work and hanging out and friends and seeing their parents age and vagaries of adulthood — so now, how compelled do they feel to crank out a kid? Probably not as compelled. It varies by woman and couple, obviously, but if you don’t see or know that many babies, the pull isn’t as strong.

This is why, I guess, some people fear we’ll end as a society in 991 years. That feels pretty far-fetched, but I do agree we’ll have less people in the future. And that has impacts on the social safety net, absolutely. I’d say it has impacts on employment, but I honestly don’t know how many more years white-collar work at good salaries has. It seems like it’s starting to die out, honestly, and our oligarchs definitely would prefer automation.

I think we’ll keep having babies, of course, but the numbers will be lower — and one aspect of that is absolutely this network effect concept.