[office_drone]

With all the talk of the impending fertility crisis, I very much believe that WFH helps significantly.

1) It makes parenting easier by letting the parent be more present. 2) It allows parents to buy houses with more bedrooms and more greenspace further from expensive cities. 3) It allows workers to stay in one location for a long time, helping form community.

And it's low-carbon to boot.

[gumby]

FWIW it's a fertility "crisis", not the. Globally, the fertility rate exceed the replacement rate -- there are plenty of people being born.

Your points are good regardless of the fertility rate.

[0xcafefood]

It's probably too simplistic to just look at a global average. Developed countries (largely Western and Asian ones) have fertility rates well below their replacement levels, while sub-Saharan African nations (many of which are on food aid) have fertility well above replacement levels. These don't cancel one another out in terms of effects on humanity. Not economically, not culturally, not geopolitically.

[invalidOrTaken]

This map (scroll down to the chart and click the "Map" tab) is worth a look though.

https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate

[tivert]

> FWIW it's a fertility "crisis", not the. Globally, the fertility rate exceed the replacement rate -- there are plenty of people being born.

Right now. IIRC, current projections are for global populations to start to decline before the end of the century, and I think fall sharply in the next. I think only sub-Saharan Africa is the only region that reproduces at much greater than replacement rate, and even there birthrates are declining. Formerly high reproduction rate places like India are now at replacement rate, and their birthrates are continuing to fall.

[worik]

> there are plenty of people being born.

The reports I hear from demographics is that is not true

Depending on your definition of "plenty"

Below replacement rate in most developed countries.

Upending economic arrangements everywhere.

IMO not a bad thing.

[HideousKojima]

Worldwide average fertility rate is 2.35, just barely above the replacement rate of 2.1, and it's projected to continue to fall well below 2.1.

[Thorrez]

The number of babies being born is decreasing each year globally. 2012 was the peek.

[ActorNightly]

There isn't a definitive statement that can be made about fertility crisis. The number of 2.1 as the replacement rate is based on some estimate of human labor output. This could very well be lower in reality (i.e humans can be more efficient with technology that is not currently reflected in economics)

[docdeek]

I always understood 2.1 to be the replacement rate because it would be two children to 'replace' two parents, with the 0.1 being to cover the inevitable deaths of a person before reproducing or for infertility.

[HideousKojima]

>The number of 2.1 as the replacement rate is based on some estimate of human labor output.

Replacement rate has to do with keeping the actual population number stable, not labor output whatsoever. It's 2.1 instead of just 2 because of infertility, child mortality (and mortality before reproducing generally), etc.

It has literally nothing to do with robots or efficient labor. Any TFR lower than ~2.1 will result in the total population shrinking.

[stefan_]

What "human labor output" can make up for a fertility rate below 2? Can you show your work?

[RestlessMind]

> houses with more bedrooms > further from .. cities > low-carbon to boot

those seem contradictory. How can a suburban/exurban sprawl be low carbon? And even if WFH workers don't drive themselves, someone still needs to drive to ship their Amazon deliveries to their homes or to move groceries and gas to nearby stores.

[skhunted]

Buying larger houses further spread out decreases population density. This is not low-carbon to boot.

[travisb]

There isn't a clear cut answer to this.

Lower population density does not necessarily equate to higher carbon footprint, especially when commuting downtown for work has been eliminated. Above a certain point density has diseconomies of scale of its own.

For example, if you are comparing, say, a three bedroom house in a large metropolitan area versus a four bedroom house in a small town, the reduced total driving time because driving distances are less in the small town (everything is in town, but town is tiny) can make up for a lot of efficiencies of scale.

The common argument is that we should put people into apartments instead, but that isn't always a clear total system win. For example if somebody is really into fishing letting them live near a lake with space to store their own boat will be more carbon efficient than stuffing them into an apartment where every weekend they drive to the storage place on the outskirts of town to pick their boat up, then drive three hours or so to the lake.

[bluescrn]

vs. endless commuting by car?

Many people don't want to be in dense cities. Lack of open/green space, noise, crime, and the worst place to be during any sort of crisis.