May 05, 2015
Catherine Rampell used her column to note the decline in birthrates among millennials. She identifies the weak economy as a main factor behind the drop. However she warns that this drop in birthrates is “bad news for older folks” because:
“for economic reasons — including cultivating the next generation of Americans to work and pay for the benefits of their many, many elders — we still need more babies.”
This is not true. If we have fewer people entering the labor force, we would expect that they would move into higher productivity, higher paying jobs. This might mean that fewer people would be willing to work at near minimum wages at McDonalds or Walmart (we would therefore have fewer McDonalds and Walmarts) and would instead work at higher paying jobs in health care, manufacturing, or other sectors. A worker earning $60,000 a year in the health care sector can afford to pay much more to support retirees than a worker earning $20,000 a year at Walmart. The impact of a smaller number of workers can easily be offset by an increase in the productivity per worker.
Fewer children will also mean less demand on public services (e.g schools) and infrastructure. It also means less environmental damage.
It is also worth noting that Rampell’s concern about too few children goes 180 degrees against the concern that robots will take the jobs. In other words, if you are concerned that we won’t have enough workers, then you must think the robot worriers are nuts.
It is a problem if people feel they are unable to have children for financial reasons because we should want people to have good lives. That means having children if they want them. It is definitely not a problem for the rest of us if they don’t have children.
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