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November 26, 2005
Aging Population
People are waiting longer in life to have children. I know that this is true for me, but according to a number of articles and Stats Canada it's true for the general population as well. The article that I've linked to kinda irks me though, I mean aren't PEOPLE waiting to have kids, not just women? When I was pregnant, I wasn't having a baby, WE were.
Anyway, people are waiting longer to have kids and it's mainly that people want to feel secure financially and/or establish their career before they take on the responsibility of a child. I get that, we really struggled with whether we should start a family yet when we are still struggling financially and we really had to weigh my age versus when we could realistically expect to be in a comfortable financial position. My age won the debate. While I'm sure that 33 doesn't seem that old, it's such a crap shoot when it comes to fertility and to be completely honest, I suspected that I couldn't get pregnant - obviously and thank goodness, I was wrong.
Which makes me wonder, why are we essentially one of the first of our friends to have kids? I have two other girlfriends who have babies and they weren't that far ahead of me. On Steve's side of our circle of friends, we are the first - with one couple soon to join us in the land with baby. Yay! But every one of us with or thinking about being with child is in their early thirties.
This means that for the most part we are going to have fairly small families and we're going to be a lot older, on average, than our parents were when our kids hit the teenage years. Is that better or worse or just different? Will we be so old that we don't relate to what they are going through, or will we be more mature and therefore better equipped to parent and have less of a need to be best friends with our kids. Which, for the record, I think is inappropriate - your job as a parent is not to be popular.
So, us GenXers are finally having kids just when the Baby Boomers are (hopefully, come on for chrissakes) giving up their power. I don't think that is coincidence. I think it is very telling that the Boomers are FINALLY being forced to retire and the GenXers are finally starting families. It takes time to work up to a position that pays a salary that will support a comfortable standard of living including children. There has got to be a connection between the Boomers holding onto these positions longer that the generation before them and the GenXers waiting longer to have children.
In BC, K-12 school enrollment has been on a pretty steady decline since around 1999. I'm sure there are other contributing factors, but partially, all of our waiting is contributing to a falling birth rate and the already aging population. Which leads to all kinds of tax-base issues and a reliance on immigration to maintain our population base. Nothing wrong with that really, but it sure isn't giving any of my friends incentive to start having babies and isn't that what this post is really about. Me wanting to have more people to have play dates with during the week? 'Cause I am nothing if not COMPLETELY SELFISH about wanting my friends to start pumping out babies.
Call me crazy, but maybe the government should start giving us incentives to have kids, like free child care or larger baby bonus payments or base-level maternity pay for women who weren't working full-time before getting pregnant and higher pay for those were - couldn't hurt. Don't they want to ensure a higher tax base for the future? Don't they want me to have more people to go for coffee with and commiserate with about sleep deprivation and dirty diapers?
Posted by leah at November 26, 2005 06:33 PM
Comments
Leah, I hear ya (on pretty much all fronts) and of course I am among the childless (if you don't count the part-time 9 year old) but planning to one day not be. And I do think that the "job market"/economy and how job security and career patterns have changed since our parents were doing this makes a huge difference. And it certainly isn't about women working (most of my friends' moms worked too) but more complex than that. I know that as a self employed person (and Martin being self employed as well) it is a really tricky proposition. We do not stand to gain any kind of mat/parental leave (but you know that situation already). In Quebec they have now started (as of Jan 05 I believe) a mat leave for self employeed folks, and I think it should be interesting to see what that does do to birthrates in terms of both increases, and changes in demographics as to who is having children. I heard recently about how France tackled their low birthrates sometime in the last century, and how the govt tried all kinds of things that didn't work ("bonus" cash if you had a kid, making abortion difficult, etc) and that what finally worked was subsidized daycare and maternity leave.
Posted by: emira at November 27, 2005 03:34 PM
If you want birthrate to climb or just not fall then you must provide cheap, flexible, and quality day care (just as emira said). In all developed economies women are in positions where they want to develop careers and having a child sets you back permanently in terms of finances and promotions. Places like Japan and Italy are trying their best to shame women into having kids or just handing out cash, neither of which is working. Only when real equality (equality recognizing that women have children and that it is not something to be penalized for) exists will you get the replacement of your population.
Now of course I could go on and on and on about there being too many people in the world but that wouldn't help Leah find friends now would it ;)
Posted by: brishen at November 29, 2005 11:22 PM