Comments on: Stop Stale Eggs, Jobs?

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 15:35:02 +0000

My physical attractions were so strong at the age of 15 that 37 years later I still remember fondly features of the bodies I fondled, and realize seeing these women grown, that that memory would carry me through a lot. Same with women I was attracted to in college, their 50 year old selves hold for me much of the same affect that their 19 year old selves did back in the day. (My wife and I met, married and had kids in the range 39-42 years or so. There was no doubt a component of “if not now, when?” which drove us.)

As the world becomes richer and healthier (or at least the part we seem to participate in) intergenerational cooperation within families would seem to be a “natural” response. I have often thought I would enjoy it if my daughters had kids at a relatively young age and stayed in the family home. Most of the downside of early parenthood seems removed by a well-off healthy intergenerational aid. Indeed, where kids are had young by the poor and not-as-healthy, you see this intergenerational thing happening anyway. Why wouldn’t it work where people are healthy and wealthy?

By: Floccina

Floccina — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:02:36 +0000

Thanks that is some interesting reading.

By: Floccina

Floccina — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:00:15 +0000

Tangential – I sometimes think that that earlier marriage might yield more average lifetime utility by allowing more people to have regular sex starting earlier but I guess that is a different subject.

By: nazgulnarsil

nazgulnarsil — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:36:11 +0000

I suppose that I have nothing to complain about as long as increases in quality of living outpace population growth.

By: Ed

Ed — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:00:27 +0000

People don’t really want to have kids. Women’s hormones might drive them to try it out, but actually having kids is regrettable work. Men don’t even pretend to care. Note the stats on divorce, abandonment, etc.

By: John Maxwell IV

John Maxwell IV — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:33:14 +0000

Eric doesn’t want to have his wife chosen from a pool of ~100 15-year-old rural Manitobans.

By: Oliver Steele

Oliver Steele — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:33:34 +0000

By: Red

Red — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:18:18 +0000

I’ve read that the first born usually out performs his/her brother’s and sisters. Is this biological or sociological? If it’s biological that the earlier the child is born in it’s parents life the better it does then that’s a strong argument to move birth back to younger ages.

By: burger flipper

burger flipper — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:58:00 +0000

By: Karl Smith

Karl Smith — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:13:14 +0000

This seems like a bit of overkill to me.

Lets assume for a second that current life choice decisions are optimal if we ignore fertility. That is, estimates of fertility are the only consistent error people are making.

Then the question is, do we fix life choices or do we fix fertility? My gut reaction is that fixing fertility is likely to be the lower cost option. Even ignoring possible efficiency losses from breaking up secondary and tertiary schooling there is the simple issue that young people are very excited about their possible careers and eager to embark on them.

The biological clock often doesn’t start ticking until later. We should seek to align biology with those preferences.