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Ficus Benjamina's avatar

Cross-posted from Twitter:

I’ve heard several other people report similar things about what their friends are planning. I think you’re on to something.

At the same time, there are two major caveats as to what your observations imply about overall fertility:

One: sorting. Other people’s “observations of friends” have produced very different averages. In the linked thread, many people report <1.0TFR averages, even >35yo.

People who want kids (or don’t) tend to disproportionately make friends with each other.

Two: the “friendship paradox”. Your friends very likely have more friends than the average person, because if they didn’t have friends, they wouldn’t be your friend!

And we know that people with fewer friends are less likely to get married or have kids. So “observations of friends” are likely to systematically overestimate fertility.

I’m curious if you have data on a cohort that is _not_ selected (e.g. a plausibly random sample of your high school classmates).

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Arif's avatar

Another thing I’ve heard some other people who work on this propose for the college educated class, is shortening the length of college degrees by a year or two.

The current 4 year college pathway means you enter the workforce in your mid-twenties and will end up being financially stable only in your early thirties.

If the time to attain those qualifications was shortened a bit, you could enter the workforce in your early 20s and have the same duration of time earning money and as a result become financially stable in your late 20s instead. Which could be a potential sweet spot where you’re still highly fertile and now financially stable.

Also gives some more time to people at that stage of their career to date more if they haven’t already since women in their early 30s stress out but if they were in their late 20s instead but still in the same financial position, they could vet men better and date better too.

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