tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281789906349841218.post8769798502097486123..comments2023-10-22T12:01:32.633-04:00Comments on The Lurking Canary: :: I Smell Old ManBuffyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14901971975109018287noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281789906349841218.post-87179221859262059292007-08-15T11:34:00.000-04:002007-08-15T11:34:00.000-04:00One more comment on this thread: Fight Crime Inve...One more comment on this thread: Fight Crime Invest in Kids just released a study showing that many women delay childbearing because of the overwhelming cost of childcare and preschool: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=ind_focus.story&STORY=/www/story/08-14-2007/0004645374&EDATE=TUE+Aug+14+2007,+12:42+PM<BR/><BR/>They are calling for additional money for Head Start and Child Care and Development block grants. <BR/><BR/>I completely support this, of course, but it's unclear from the poll whether the women delaying childbirth are the same women who use these federally-supported programs. The larger point remains, however: if you want women to have babies, you have to make it feasible at the most basic levels.Kirstenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09332550775893618503noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281789906349841218.post-6063919366471564702007-08-14T11:30:00.000-04:002007-08-14T11:30:00.000-04:00I do! I do! Really, I do. I'm just fascinated a...I do! I do! Really, I do. I'm just fascinated about how millions of very individual choices can have an impact on a macro level, and this is an excellent example. In some ways it's so simple: "Gosh looking at my Italian mama, I (well-educated modern Italian gal) have no interest in getting up early and ironing my 25-year old son's jockey shorts, and then making breakfast for everyone before I go off to work myself. So maybe not so much with the childbearing..." And this very personal decision is being replicated again and again by thousands of Italian women in their 20s. <BR/><BR/>The Economist is the Economist. They are always going to look to the market first, so I'll forgive them that. Ladybec does make an interesting point. What are the subtle policy differences and what are their impacts? I would postulate that countries that want to encourage childbearing would be more successful if they a) have no objection to manipulating social behaviors through policy, and b) have had a history of liberal social policy already (e.g., Sweden, the Netherlands). <BR/><BR/>I think women can see through temporary incentive-based policies ("we'll give you $500 and a new toaster if you squeeze a couple out!"), but COUPLES respond well to broader social policies ("Hey, we can BOTH stay home for several months at a time, so we don't have to send little Sven to day care until he's 18 months old!"). Oh, and little Sven doesn't expect mommy to iron his briefs. Yuck.Kirstenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09332550775893618503noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4281789906349841218.post-82982837973725239112007-08-13T20:07:00.000-04:002007-08-13T20:07:00.000-04:00Yeah, someone over there really needed a better ed...Yeah, someone over there really needed a better editor. I thought I couldn't understand the article because of the way you were cutting it up, but when I read the whole thing, it really was just poorly written/constructed. Nor is anything he is saying really all that revolutionary to anyone who's been studying fertility patterns in industrialized countries, though he's dramatically oversimplifying. <BR/><BR/>But in the end, I think there is a difference about whether you are trying to institute equality for equality's sake or to get more women into the workforce for economic reasons or to encourage more women to have children because the policies you design do have subtle differences, and the motivations do actually matter. Of course, one could argue that in the U.S., we probably have the worst of all worlds since I'm not sure we have agreement that we're trying to do any of those things so we have a labor market that doesn't really meet any of those needs particularly well. And yet, our fertility remains relatively high comparatively to many of the other industrialized nations in spite of labor policies that would seem to suggest that it shouldn't. Hmmm...<BR/><BR/>Who wants to be a demographer in their next life?ladybechttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05504043456559742275noreply@blogger.com