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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9045 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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given that the birth rate decline is being caused by less coupling, and not by mothers having fewer children.

I thought that was precisely what the main problem was: mothers stopping at 1-2 when they should be having 3+.

Nope. Mothers in America have more children today than they did 30 years ago. But coupling (and therefore fertility) has been falling worldwide, driving down fertility.

The gradual long-term decline in fertility from the Baby Boom until things stabilised around 2000, which was manageable in the west and only civilisation-threatening in first-world Asia, was mostly couples who would previously have 3-4 stopping at 2. It appears to be multi-causal, with child seat laws being a surprisingly large contributor (because they mean that if you want 3 kids in the burbs you need 3 child seats, and therefore a minivan). The post-2010 collapse in fertility is mostly due to less coupling, with increasingly conventional wisdom that smartphones and social media are at fault.

No, you can absolutely fit three child seats into a standard SUV.

Would free minivans to all families with 2 kids help?

I someone gave me a minivan, I would have considered a fourth child, though really getting married two years sooner would have helped more with that.

Couldn't you just... buy a minivan?

No.

If you can afford one. Yes minivans are cheaper than total childcare costs but that's not how families make budgeting decisions.

Given how the used car market in the United States has lost it's goddamn mind, possibly not. But I haven't been pricing minivans as of late.

Not in the UK, because it doesn't cover the additional cost of fuelling a minivan (at £1.30 or more a litre) compared to a small family car.

Not in the US, because the problem with minivans is stigma and not cost, in a country where what you drive is the main way you express your identity and social status in public.

You just need to lower the upper age limit for mandatory child seats.

Driving a minivan when you have kids is not stigmatized in the US, although it's lower status for dad than a pickup truck 'it's my wife's car' is a totally acceptable excuse.

The huge SUVs can fit 6 people and aren't looked down on in the US. It's like driving a truck, except there are seats instead of the truck bed.

Yes. This is the same data I have previously seen posted on Marginal Revolution, for example. Demographic implosion has been happening for decades and is continuing, but the causes have changed.

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