Baby boom generation starting to retire in or around 2030

..

Look I blame your mother, perhaps you can't read

I said people who can afford kids tend to have less

It's a fact

If my mammy was making me anything, it would be from beyond the grave.

The fact is people are forced to choose to have less/no kids because they can't afford it. End of. It has fuck all to do with "progressives", or women in a career,

Sorry, but you can't dismiss the huge demographic change that has occured because of women's participation in the workforce. You just can't. If that didn't happen along with the access to contraception, people would be still popping out 5,6,7+ kids while mum stays at home to raise the family while dad goes to work.

As to Laissez-faire/right-wing/neoliberalism, can you give more details on how exactly this has contributed to the housing issues experienced around the world. I might even agree with you on some points, but I think you just want to dish out a bit of anti-something word salad.

its easy out being a dad of 12 1950s but not a mom of 12

This is very true, and the data proves this.

Back in the day, the stereotype was that Dad went to work to earn money, and Mum stayed at home as child rearing was women's work. The Dad would often not be around and wouldn't spend nearly as much time rearing their children as Mum.

Data proves this.

So, the back-in-the-day stuff is one of biased nostalgia which is more male-dominant.

It's interesting that this is reflected here, that the most anti-boomer sentiments are posted by men.

And you and others can't place the entirety of blame for lower birth rates on working women, no matter how much you'd like that to be the answer.

The costs of things are the issue. Not the fact that women are in work and in a lot of case HAVE to be. Gone are the days when the woman could quit work and stay at home and lad brought home the bacon. The reality today is that for most folk two people have be working if they're even to contemplate a mortgage. A mortgage that they'll most likely be in they're old age before it's paid off. Throwing a kid or kids into that does come easy.

Contrary to how how you're trying paint it, if the cost of living wasnt so out of control, the birth rate would be probably be higher. Because it wouldn't be prohibitive to actually have a few kids.

The cost of everything nowadays is the barrier to people having 5, 6, 7+ kids.

And you and others can't place the entirety of blame for lower birth rates on working women, no matter how much you'd like that to be the answer.

Entirety, No. I neve claimed that.

A significant part. Yes, absolutely.

The costs of things are the issue. 

I would agree.

I saw this link in another forum. I think its a good preamble as why we have the world we have.

Not sure if Nixon was a Neo-Liberal or an advocate of Laissez-faire economics.

But in summary the Gold Standard being dropped with Bretton-Woods ending has had profound effects on Central Banks and money.

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

By the way, Nixon et all were no Boomers, they were the 'Silent Generation'.

Gone are the days when the woman could quit work and stay at home and lad brought home the bacon

I think you are engaging is the mythical 'ah the good ol'days' fallacy of nostalgia.

Again, you are a man. It appears to be usually men trotting you this line of argument about the good old days when men were the breadwinners.

The reality today is that for most folk two people have be working if they're even to contemplate a mortgage.

Why is that?

Because that nice house in a nice middle-class suburb will have scores of other dual-income earners trying to buy the same property. Instead of one income, there is now 2 and that is the norm now. Goes back to my original point. More money chasing the good nice homes.

Contrary to how how you're trying paint it, if the cost of living wasnt so out of control, the birth rate would be probably be higher. Because it wouldn't be prohibitive to actually have a few kids.

I would agree with this tbh. But again, why is stuff so expensive? Who and what is the cause of this?

Boomers or Central Bankers.

If one had free state-run or funded Universal childcare for every child older than 12 months, this would certainly help.

This nostalgia for a mythical golden age when women were happy to give free leash to their inherent motherly nature being housewives and mothers to large families is nostalgia which affects men of all ages, but among women, only those too young to have actually known women of that era (I'm thinking of the current trend on US sites for pretty young women to market themselves as "tradwives" influencers).

It seems to have as its basis the notion that women were somehow fooled into abandoning this happy situation for the misery of working and earning their own money.

Being rather older than that generation (and not male) I remember older women giving birth literally cursing their husbands for having made them pregnant yet again. It was considered kind of amusing - but the truth is that the only reason they hadn't been raped was because marital rape was not legally a thing at the time. I didn't realise it then either, it took me a while to understand exactly what it all meant. But they hadn't consented to being pregnant because nobody, including the women themselves, had thought their consent was necessary.

So just to remind everyone: women weren't fooled by some Big Business Plot into wanting jobs outside the home. They felt the need to have paid work because it's not always possible to know what the future holds, and the fear of being left penniless due to accident or abandonment, sometimes with half a dozen children to look after, was not something the women of my mother's generation imagined - it was something they saw happening around them. They mostly couldn't do much to prevent that, ie couldn't in practice, get a job. My generation could, and did. Sure, it can be tough - but our lives are better than theirs were.

Nobody said it was.

But you are

No, I'm not. That can't be made any clearer to you.

There is a correlation between women getting more educated and joining the workforce and lower birthrates. Are you denying this?

No. What I'm saying is it's not the MAIN reason. The ability to afford children is the main reason why there are lower birth rates.

Among a number of factors, people are thinking twice about entering into parenthood, because the cost of everything has become so ridiculously high, including children. So, therefore, we are putting off having kids until later in life, or choosing not to have them at all.

This isn't difficult to understand.

Then why engage in nostalgia

I'm not engaging in any nostalgia. I'm merely stating a fact. The days when the mother stayed at home and minded the kids are over. That's not a lament, it's a comment on reality. The fact that you think there's any "nostalgia" attached says to me you haven't understood the point being made.

The side discussion you've butted into came about because I objected to another poster characterising low birth rates as being the fault of women in work. A position that I disagree with.

My position is that the cost of living has gotten so out of hand that people are trepidatious about taking the leap of having a kid, or kids, and why wouldn't they be.

And why is that?

I've already told you. Successive government attitudes have let free market thinking absorb everything, to the point where prices for goods have become absurd and the ability to pay for those goods are gaping wider and wider. This has been a trend for quite some time. The more things cost, the more people get priced out of paying for them. This applies to having children as well.

Over 10,000 social and affordable homes were built last year, the most since the 1970's.

Not enough. Not even remotely enough.

There needs to be a more comprehensive overhaul to our attitude to housing in this country. Frankly, our inability to house of citizens is shameful and our governmental hands off approach is going to lead to a disaster and we're already seeing the seeds of that disaster playing out.

We have vast swathes of people with an inability to put a permanent roof over the their heads. An entire generation that will never have a stable home.

Eh, this was the case for most going way back

No, it bloody well wasn't. There was never a time before the last few decades where people indebted themselves until they were retirement age just to buy a modest home. Don't be ridiculous.

In 1970, during the good old days, only 1/3 of homes in the UK had
central heating. The situation in Ireland was probably worse as we were
poorer.

This has feck all to do the point being made. And for the record I grew up in a house without central heating.

We should just let ourselves go extinct…. fade away into oblivion in style. 😎

There is something very undignified about this desperate attempt to artificially keep birth rates high, while at the same time the global picture regarding population is that we are reaching dangerous levels with massive pressure on resources and the obvious looming climate disaster. Maybe if Ireland really does care about this planet, we could just stop adding to this problem and accept the natural stagnation/decline in our population?

It's not like this planet desperately needs 8 billion humans, are we that important? It's actually shocking to me, that we have brought in all these climate policies and targets, but nobody at the international policy level thought to put any rules into action regarding birth rate controls on nations - considering this is the biggest factor in carbon emissions above anything else you could care to mention!

About this:

No, it bloody well wasn't. There was never a time before the last few decades where people indebted themselves until they were retirement age just to buy a modest home. Don't be ridiculous.

That was because many people in cities never got to the stage of owning their own homes at all, not even when they got close to retirement. This was somewhat disguised in Ireland by the fact that a largely rural population were land owners (unlike in England) but in cities many people could not even think of buying. The tenements in Dublin were not owner-occupied!

If you've lived through what has been described as an economic miracle on this Island over the last 20-30 years, and you were being responsible with your earnings, you should be well set up for retirement financially.

Public pensions should only be for people who were on modest incomes their whole life, working unskilled jobs etc. Unfortunately, many people in this country squandered their money with greed and extravagant lifestyle choices. And we are a very entitled bunch tbh, with everyone thinking they "deserve" this or that.

In previous generations, pensioners didn't live extravagant lives in retirement, travelling around the world and living it up etc… the fact that many people view this as a natural lifestyle that they are owed and have earned is quite bizarre really. Retirement will go back to being what it always was, people living modestly and being very careful with what small financial resources they have until they kick the bucket. That is more the natural order of things.

Why do people imagine that in a society where there's even more retirees than there are now there will be a reduced, means-tested or even no state pension? They're already the strongest voting bloc, why would they get weaker when they're a much larger fraction of the population?