“Car Seats as Contraception”
The abstract quoted below estimates the child car seat benefit to cost ratio at 57 to 8,000. Does this count as two posts in a row here connecting with La Llorona?
“Since 1977, U.S. states have passed laws steadily raising the age for which a child must ride in a car safety seat. These laws significantly raise the cost of having a third child, as many regular-sized cars cannot fit three child seats in the back. Using census data and state-year variation in laws, we estimate that when women have two children of ages requiring mandated car seats, they have a lower annual probability of giving birth by 0.73 percentage points. Consistent with a causal channel, this effect is limited to third child births, is concentrated in households with access to a car, and is larger when a male is present (when both front seats are likely to be occupied). We estimate that these laws prevented only 57 car crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017. Simultaneously, they led to a permanent reduction of approximately 8,000 births in the same year, and 145,000 fewer births since 1980, with 90% of this decline being since 2000.”
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | No Tag
G.
October 1, 2020
I am old enough that we took family trips with my mother nursing in the front seat.
We all lived.
If we must have little shells for the kid to ride in, I wonder if it would be possible to make double or triple seat car-seats.
Rozy
October 1, 2020
Because our fifth child, fourth boy, was so skinny, by weight guidelines he should have been in a booster seat until he was in eighth grade. Not happening folks. The idea that we must be protected at all times from all possible bad outcomes is patently ridiculous. I do believe in infant and toddler car seats, but beyond that fahgetaboutit. (And the worst thing is telling people not to use second hand car seats because they may have been in an accident and have “hidden damage”. What possible damage could they have? There are no moving parts, no electronics, nothing hidden!)
sute
October 1, 2020
Rozy – plastics do degrade over time, with oxygen, various fumes, glues residues, and especially sunlight.
A old “undamaged” car seat might well fail the exact same stress test it passed when it was new. At least that’s the case for the protective plastic equipment I’m involved in making.
Now is it likely the seat will fail in use or in a typical accident? Not likely. And anything atypical is likely to cause damage no matter what. But technically, the advice is sound, if the risk very low.
MC
October 1, 2020
Most of these laws were passed with little fanfare but with a very focused push from lobbyists for the car-seat manufacturing industry.
Eric
October 2, 2020
My observation has been that whenever families around here have more than one child, they think they need to replace their four-door with a minivan.
Patrick Henry
October 2, 2020
8,000 is a lot. Think about the extra burden and cost on families that do have that additional child.
But 8000 is nothing compared to Social Security. Across countries, there is a very consistent result that guaranteed old-age pensions reduce fertility by a whopping .5 TFR.
bruce charlton
October 2, 2020
Don’t worry, the problem will *soon* be over – assuming the Great Reset is implemented (which is supposed to be completed in a decade): cars (for the non-Establishment masses), and indeed personal-recreational travel, will rapdily (maybe via expensive electric vehicles that don’t function) be a thing of the past.
G.
October 2, 2020
That is a relief
John Mansfield
October 2, 2020
Related to the car seats and reduced fertility, is the increase in age for a driver’s license. In my state can’t receive drive with nonrelatives in the car until several months past 17. So no youth picking up other youth to go to seminary, and also no carloads of teens driving to a dance across town or in another town. No 16-year-olds picking up a girl at her house to go out on a date, and no 18-year-olds who have already been on a few dates.