I am a little surprised that Huemer doesn't make the connection between increased education level (time spent in school) and delayed marriage and child bearing. How many college kids get married while they are in college? How many graduate students are married before their finishing their degree? Getting married seems like a big lift whe…
I am a little surprised that Huemer doesn't make the connection between increased education level (time spent in school) and delayed marriage and child bearing. How many college kids get married while they are in college? How many graduate students are married before their finishing their degree? Getting married seems like a big lift when you don't know where you will be living and working, so if you are not planning to stay in the same city or your spouse has no preference on where you go it can be hard to make work. People don't like to get married and have kids before they feel settled, and you can't be settled until after you are both done getting the job situation started. Not that it ever becomes fully settled, but the amount of volatility before the first few years of your career is immense.
And that is on the parent's side; when thinking about how many kids to have how much education they are going to have to pay for comes into play as well. If parents think they are going to have to support their kids for 25 odd years just so the kids will be able to reach the same career opportunities as their parents that will severely limit how many kids the parents will be inclined to have when they are young and relatively poor compared to if the kids are ready to support themselves at say 18. How many college educated people are going to like the idea of telling some of their kids "Sorry, you don't get to go to college" while the others go?
We see this all over nature: the longer the duration of a species' dependency on the parents, and the more intense that dependency, the fewer off-spring parents of that species will produce. As education (and I use the term loosely... "time spent in school" is probably more accurate) increases, and thus time when the children are largely dependent on the parents, we should expect to see lower numbers of children. Tied in with the resultant delay in those kids settling down and having kids of their own as responsible adults (and the fact that by the time most people are out of college they have ~18 years left to have kids without complications becoming more prevalent) it should be no surprise that excessive time spent in school drives down fertility in a way not associated with income.
I am a little surprised that Huemer doesn't make the connection between increased education level (time spent in school) and delayed marriage and child bearing. How many college kids get married while they are in college? How many graduate students are married before their finishing their degree? Getting married seems like a big lift when you don't know where you will be living and working, so if you are not planning to stay in the same city or your spouse has no preference on where you go it can be hard to make work. People don't like to get married and have kids before they feel settled, and you can't be settled until after you are both done getting the job situation started. Not that it ever becomes fully settled, but the amount of volatility before the first few years of your career is immense.
And that is on the parent's side; when thinking about how many kids to have how much education they are going to have to pay for comes into play as well. If parents think they are going to have to support their kids for 25 odd years just so the kids will be able to reach the same career opportunities as their parents that will severely limit how many kids the parents will be inclined to have when they are young and relatively poor compared to if the kids are ready to support themselves at say 18. How many college educated people are going to like the idea of telling some of their kids "Sorry, you don't get to go to college" while the others go?
We see this all over nature: the longer the duration of a species' dependency on the parents, and the more intense that dependency, the fewer off-spring parents of that species will produce. As education (and I use the term loosely... "time spent in school" is probably more accurate) increases, and thus time when the children are largely dependent on the parents, we should expect to see lower numbers of children. Tied in with the resultant delay in those kids settling down and having kids of their own as responsible adults (and the fact that by the time most people are out of college they have ~18 years left to have kids without complications becoming more prevalent) it should be no surprise that excessive time spent in school drives down fertility in a way not associated with income.
All good points.
This is correct. I was surprised that Huemer didn't notice the connection as well.