Declining population part II: the relative nature of wealth

I starting writing about last Sunday’s NY Times Magazine article on declining birthrates, but the post got too long and I had to cut it off before I could address the real crux of the article, which is why are women having fewer children?

I previously wrote that women delay childbearing when they face resource insecurity. That explanation still holds. In that article I explained that, today, young people are comparatively worse off compared to years past. This is, in part, because of the importance of acquired human capital in the modern economy. It now requires decades of human capital accumulation before a person can make a decent salary, by which time the prime childbearing age is past.

The NY Times article discussed none of the above issues. The focus was, primarily, about the role of women in both the home and in the labor force. But the author of the article failed to see the complete picture. Today, married women need to work in order to maintain status parity with other similarly situated couples. In the past, when it was not socially acceptable for married women to work and have careers, women didn’t give up any income by delaying childbearing. In fact, delaying child bearing caused a woman’s status to decrease because society looked down on married women who didn’t have any children.

There are serious consequences to not being able to maintain status parity with your peers. See my previous blog post about the relative nature of wealth which has a link to a very good article by Cornell University professor Robert Frank.

There may be a lot of educated white people who wouldn’t mind living in a cheap neighborhood if their neighbors were other educated white people with a similar mindset, but the reality is that living in a cheap neighborhood means living with uneducated minorities with anti-social behaviors. Having less money and more children means sending your children to public schools in lower class neighborhoods, putting them at a big disadvantage to children of the elite who attend the best schools where they gain prestigious credentials that then enable them to enter the highest paying career tracks. The same probably applies to Europe which has foolishly allowed immigration of low IQ minorities. Recently, in France, a Jewish kid was beat up severely by “youths of African origin,” no doubt because his parents were too poor to live in a safe neighborhood.

Comments

[PA]

It's interesting to compare the often very different qualities of countries with low TFRs, in terms of the often-cited factors of diversity, religiosity, and wealth:

USA (Euro pop.)
- high diversity
- high religiosity
- high wealth

Russia, Bulgaria
- low diversity
- low religiosity,
- low wealth

Poland, most other CE Europe nations
- low diversity
- high religiosity
- medium wealth

Korea, Czech Rep.
- low diversity
- low religiosity
- medium wealth

Japan
- low diversity
- low religiosity
- high wealth

[PA]

Western Europe (Catholic)
- high diversity
- high religiosity
- medium wealth

Western Europe (Protestant)
- high diversity
- low religiosity
- high wealth

[David Alexander]

but the reality is that living in a cheap neighborhood means living with uneducated minorities with anti-social behaviors

North Massapequa, NY

97.32% White
0.22% African American
1.15% Asian
3.23% Latino

The median income for a household in the CDP was $70,825, and the median income for a family was $76,958.

Median Home Price: $549K

Syosset, NY

85% White
.50% Black
12% Asian
2.92% Latino

The median income for a household in the CDP was $98,690, and the median income for a family was $107,570.

Median Home Price: $799K

Again, this is just a small sample, but I'll allow the reader to make their own determinations about the validity of Half Sigma's argument.

[PA]

but the reality is that living in a cheap neighborhood means living with uneducated minorities with anti-social behaviors

Generally very true around major urban centers.

There are very low-cost places I've driven through in Ohio or Missouri where I would be happy to live.... except that there is not a lot of work there of the kind I could do.

[Gannon]

Population decline is specially bad for old people.
1. Population decline means that accumulated capital (of which older people have more) is worth less and labour is worth more. Specially real estate value loses a lot of value if population declines.
2. Social security, medicaid and medicare, retirements and so on are all financed by young, working people. At a certain point the system will colapse, or at least benefits will have to be gretaly reduced.

[Peter]

That beating of the Jewish young man in France appears to have been part of a gang-related fight (Jews vs. Africans), not an unprovoked attack.

[Half Sigma]

That beating of the Jewish young man in France appears to have been part of a gang-related fight

All the more reason why you don't want to live in a low prole neighborhood where kids join gangs.

[c.o. jones]

"...living in a cheap neighborhood means living with uneducated minorities with anti-social behaviors."

Asian minorities do not tend to be uneducated, but there are always exceptions to every rule. Maybe better to say "NAMs" i.e. non-Asian minorities.

[Half Sigma]

c.o.jones,

I once lived in an apartment complex that was predominantly Indian (that's south-Asian Indian and not Native American Indian), and it was perfectly safe, but their cooking smelled real funny, and I still would have preferred white neighbors cooking normal food.

[Joe Schmoe]

The schools aren't that great in blue-collar white and Asian neighborhoods. I grew up in a blue-collar suburban neighborhood in the Midwest, and and while the schools were obviously far better than those in the ghetto, most upper-middle-class people would not really consider them acceptable.

My HS had a full compliment of AP classes, but no one from my high school got into an Ivy League college -- ever. 99% of the good students went to Big State U, and ever year one or two kids would get into a second-tier private college like Northwestern.

Blue-collar white high schools can offer a solid education, but not one that upper-middle-class people would really consider to be "good."

I currently live in a suburb of Los Angeles that is approximately 70% Asian. The public schools really aren't that great here, either.

Asians are smart, and Asian parents really value education, but FOB Asian immigrants really aren't sophisticated consumers of education.

If your dad got a 6th grade education back in China and your mom works at a nail salon and does not speak English, they really aren't in a position to evaluate the quality of US schools. They know what Harvard is, what an A is, and how to make you study for six hours a night, but if your senior English class is reading Joyce's Dubliners instead of Ulysses, that won't mean anything to your FOB parents no matter how important education is to them. As a result, the schools here just aren't as good as they could be despite the large percentage of Asians.

I also think that Asians place too much emphasis on rote learning. My neighborhood of FOB Asians is right next to a community of wealthy Asians, and that community's high school has the highest average SAT score in California. However, I would not send my kids to school there because I believe that Asian educational methods have a big downside. There is more to education than Calculus, and IMO the Asian schools de-emphasize the other stuff too much.

As a result, I am sending my kids to private schools. Anyway, just $0.02 from someone who has experienced the schools in both blue-collar white neighborhoods and non-ghetto minority neighborhoods.

[Vim]

HS:

1. Why is it always some of the story with you?

"The attack occurred in a neighborhood where rival black, Arab and Jewish gangs rumble regularly. Police said that Saturday's beating was preceded by scuffles, reportedly over a stolen motorbike. They said Haddad had, in the past, participated in a fight. "

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/AntiSemi/12934.htm

(Haddad would be the kid that got hurt.)

The other thing is that the perpertrators are 14-17 so they are probably predisposed to be moronic anyway.

The other annoying thing is where you say this:

"Recently, in France, a Jewish kid was beat up severely by “youths of African origin,” no doubt because his parents were too poor to live in a safe neighborhood."

... as if Jews shouldn't be poor. If they don't have any money in 2008 in France, maybe there is a reason for that and it's related to why their son ends up in street brawls.

2. So now minorities are also responsible for white people not having children?

"There may be a lot of educated white people who wouldn’t mind living in a cheap neighborhood if their neighbors were other educated white people with a similar mindset, but the reality is that living in a cheap neighborhood means living with uneducated minorities with anti-social behaviors."

One and one always equals black/hispanic deficiency for you doesn't it? I probably cause cancer too. I'm white people kyptonite.

[Behave]

Why is it always some of the story with you?

Why is it always the same thing with NAMs? You know, the crime(I'll leave out the other pathologies for now). Please pick a new thing to cry about.

[Dragon Horse]

No one should be surprised by Sigma...

Historically speaking, white racist and their apologizers have always play upon the notion of white victimhood during wartime and structural economic downturns. From the Revolutionary War, the War in 1812, Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam—watch the trends in the economy. The Ku Klux Klan was born in the aftermath of the Civil War. The Klan was revisited during the race riots in the Bloody Summer of 1919 (WWI) that began with the East St. Louis Massacre in 1917. After the Brown v. Board decision (Korean War) the states in the Confederate Bloc added the Confederate battle flag to their state flag and the White Citizen’s Council was born as well as the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan. White racists never go away.

Now it is black and HIspanic (especially blacks) fault white men can't get white women pregnant. LOL

Sounds like a beta male argument, I'm faily confident most men on this site have no wife, girlfriend, etc. So it is not like they can procreate if they want to.

Take some personal responsibility for a change and stop crying.

[Whiny Black]

"Take some personal responsibility for a change and stop crying."

Excellent advive for the pathological black community. Dragon Horse, I commend your courage! And oh yeah, LOL!

[c23]

I agree that cheap housing with decent neighbors would be acceptable. If you could have a covenant in a neighborhood which would require that residents have no criminal record and an IQ over (say) 100, you could have a livable, yet cheap neighborhood. You could even build with newfangled technologies like this: http://www.calearth.org/EcoDome.htm

which allow a house to be built for a few thousand dollars.

As it is we have to outbid each other to live away from the dysfunctional underclass.

Unfortunately, the courts would be sure to strike down such a covenant as "racist," even if they made no reference to race, because we all know which races would be disproportionately excluded.