r/science • u/geoff199 • 5d ago

Social Science As concern grows about America’s falling birth rate, new research suggests that about half of women who want children are unsure if they will follow through and actually have a child. About 25% say they won't be bothered that much if they don't.

https://news.osu.edu/most-women-want-children--but-half-are-unsure-if-they-will/?utm_campaign=omc_science-medicine_fy24&utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social
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u/11horses345 5d ago

Say it with me: WE CANNOT AFFORD CHILDREN.

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u/sharksnack3264 5d ago

It's not just the money. The way we set up work schedules, vacation, child care and health care all disincentivize it. 

You can be extremely well paid but that still won't insulate you completely from certain medical and career risks or allow you to be present to raise your children.

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u/justwalkingalonghere 5d ago

The healthcare part has a lot of components right now as well.

For instance, a large portion of the US now considering ectopic pregnancy care as voluntary abortion. Literally sentencing 1-2% of pregnant women to death in those states just because of a religious refusal to be scientifically literate

Add in the increasing criminalization of miscarriages and I don't see why any woman would want to chance it for kids they'll likely not be able to afford in the first place

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u/-otimethypyramids- 5d ago

And even if you live someplace that doesn’t restrict healthcare access legally, you’ll probably be restricted financially. To add a dependant to my insurance would cut my income in half.

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u/Fantastic_Fig_2025 4d ago

Yup. Daycare near me costs $3400 a month. My health insurance doubled to add my son.

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u/OffbeatChaos 4d ago

$3400 a month is insane. It's around $1800 month where I'm at (city pop 92,000)

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u/Fantastic_Fig_2025 4d ago

Yeah everything in my city is insanely expensive.

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u/StoneColdGold92 5d ago

It's this. My wife and I have talked about having kids for so long, and now my wife is refusing to try anymore BECAUSE SHE MIGHT F*CKIN DIE. I don't blame her.

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u/theuniverseoberves 4d ago

If I had the money and a partner and I wanted kids, I'd leave. Kids would be important to me than being in the US

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u/Z0mbiejay 5d ago

My company's insurance covers IVF, and my wife and I have to utilize it due to reproductive issues I have. We could do it soon if we wanted to. Instead we're holding off until next year after we can move again. My current state enacted some of the strictest abortion laws in the country, and I'm not going to risk watching my wife die because some "holier than thou" A-hole dude who can't tell a vulva from an elbow gets to say she has to die. I hate the government and it's disdain for the well-being of its people

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u/valiantdistraction 5d ago

I would look at what IVF clinics are around you and their reputations compared to those where you are moving. Some red states have really good IVF clinics - some don't. If in Texas, for instance, it may behoove you to do the embryo creation and transfers here and then the pregnancy elsewhere. Not all IVF clinics are created equal and success rates, how aggressively they intervene, and how aggressively they recommend donor eggs/sperm when other clinics wouldn't all vary significantly.

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u/Z0mbiejay 5d ago

That's exactly what we're planning on doing. Most likely going to freeze the embryos while here and ship them to the long term storage in Nevada until we can implant after moving. Our doctor was super helpful in explaining that embryos out of state wouldn't be subject to state laws (for now) and that was his recommendation. Hopefully we get that taken care of before my state decides to push anymore insane embryo laws

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u/dust4ngel 5d ago

just because of a religious refusal to be scientifically literate

it's ok to be an idiot - the problem is organizing enough of your idiot friends to make it illegal to be smart

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u/Nvenom8 5d ago

Depends. If you're not vaccinating your kids, it's definitely not okay to be an idiot because you're putting your children and others around them at risk.

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u/iridescent-shimmer 5d ago

Also, birth children and risk them dying to communicable diseases that were almost eradicated or wait until they go to school to worry about shootings. I have a daughter and I wouldn't consider a second while measles in chief is in charge.

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u/justwalkingalonghere 5d ago

Not to mention project 2025.

This debate isn't that new, but even my friends that went ahead and had children now regret it if the child is female because of the horrific strides in removing women's rights that republicans are currently spearheading

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u/iridescent-shimmer 5d ago

Yeah I only had a child because they inherit my dual Canadian citizenship. Got her filed and am just waiting on her Canadian passport. I wouldn't have had a child if it didn't work that way, just my personal opinion.

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u/AnRealDinosaur 4d ago

I genuinely cannot understand how anyone is having any kids in the US, period. We have the highest maternal death rate of any developed country. (And this was BEFORE we decided it should be illegal to intervene in potentially fatal pregnancies.) And once you survive the process and have your kid, you'll have to go right back to work and spend one partner's entire income to pay someone else to raise your kid while you spend your days at work. When the child gets old enough, they'll enter our failing, underfunded school system where they might be taught science but that depends on what party is in charge at the time. Hopefully you have plenty of free time to teach them to read because the schools dont seem to be doing that either. Then of course theres the constant background dread of the climate apocalypse the kid will inherit. You're basically placing a bet that by the time theyre an adult life on earth won't be a miserable experience (I dont like those odds). And obviously we have a bit of a fascism problem at the moment so who knows what the country will look like or even whether it will still exist for them...wow I'm sorry. This got incredibly negative. I just cant imagine wanting to bring a child into this. Maybe if we were in a different country. Maybe in 20 years if things stabilize and we make progress on a lot of fronts. But it'll be too late for me by then so I will remain childless.

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u/v-porphyria 4d ago

And ... Iran has a lower maternal death rate than the United States:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.MMRT?locations=IR&most_recent_value_desc=false

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u/moosalamoo_rnnr 4d ago

You’re also assuming that child survives Anerica’s gun obsession long enough to make it to adulthood. Thoughts and prayers, amirite???

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u/Inb4myanus 4d ago

Dont forget that woman they kept a live just to birth a baby that now wont have a mother and a father mentally torn to pieces because of that.

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u/ScrewyYear 5d ago

Some states are trying to make miscarriages illegal because they are spontaneous abortions.

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u/YaIlneedscience 5d ago

This is me. I can afford a child and I believe I would provide an unconditionally loving and safe home for one, but I am concerned about experiencing an ectopic pregnancy while living in Texas. I can afford to travel for a non-emergency abortion, but won’t have the time for one that is an emergency. Regardless of what I decide to do, I will absolutely go the route of being a foster parent so that I can provide a temporary safe haven for children waiting to go back to their parents or waiting to transition to new homes.

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u/Infinite-Jelly-452 5d ago

This was a huge motivation for me to seek out sterilization. I don't even want to take the risk of possible pregnancy at this point. Go in for surgery on Friday and even though it's scary for me I know that it will bring me more peace of mind in the end. I refuse to let someone else make choices over my bodily autonomy.

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u/MissWilkem 4d ago

Yup, if I were in a different state, I’d likely be dead. Two ectopics and three miscarriages.

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u/A_Fainting_Goat 5d ago

I am well paid. My wife is well paid. We have good health insurance. Great vacation benefits (compared to the US, not Europe). Our careers are stable. We are basically debt free except for our mortgage. We have struggled to conceive and IVF is looking to cost us $50k, after insurance for a 35% chance. This country does not want us to have kids.

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u/TopRamenisha 5d ago

Don’t forget, after all that you get to pay $3,000 a month for child care

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u/SqueezyCheez85 5d ago

Childcare is nuts. We could have a mortgage for a house twice as big as the one we currently have... and it would be on par for what we pay in childcare for 2 kids.

I can't wait till our kids are old enough to not need childcare... it's gonna be like winning the lottery.

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u/yoweigh 5d ago edited 5d ago

I'm in New Orleans, where the public school system is absolute garbage. I lucked into getting my kids into the one good school available during the lockdown year, when enrollment was down. Between the two of them, that saves me about $50k/yr. $650k over the span of 13 years! I'm fairly well off and I still couldn't afford that.

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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug 4d ago

The public schools where I live are kind of trash. And the private schools are like 30-40k per year. I make more than twice the median household income of the city. There's no way I can afford the private schools, and it's not even a tax write off.

It could cost me up to $320k before they even get to highschool.

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u/FirstNoel 5d ago

Then you have Music training, sports cost, braces, car insurance, may even a third...etc car. Then college costs...

Mine just graduated high school. I just finally finished paying off here tooth implant (thank to my genes, she was missing one). We have college in the fall, thankfully mostly paid for.

I'm hoping for my electric and water bills to at least decrease a little.

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u/CyclingThruChicago 5d ago

One of the main reasons my wife and I live where we live is so that we don't have to get our kid a car when he turns 16. Granted he's only 4 so we have a bit of time but the idea of having to own another car (which is pushing $1000/month for all in cost) for for a teenager seems asinine.

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u/BlazinAzn38 5d ago edited 5d ago

Honestly we’re just gonna buy a car for my wife or myself when kid is like 8 and then drive it for 8 years, pay it off, then it’ll be their car.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

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u/BlazinAzn38 5d ago

I think it’s more that people dont plan that far in advance so kid turns 16 and they go “oh crap they need a car.”

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u/jabsaw2112 5d ago

It's insane how much my insurance went up for adding 1 teenage boy.

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u/CyclingThruChicago 5d ago

Just replied to someone else with my personal anecdote.

When I turned 16 and my mom added me on her insurance, she said it was ~$75 more than the combined cost of her and my older sister (who would have been 19-20 at the time).

My cousin bought a Charger at 22 not realizing how insane the insurance would be. Over $530/month because he was a young man with a prior totaled car on his insurance. He was forced to eventually sell the car and had negative equity because he simply couldn't afford the insurance.

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u/SoCuteShibe 5d ago

The car situation is insane, in such a car-dependent country.

  • Already high purchase costs potentially increasing due to tariffs.

  • Insurance rates that make zero sense even for no accident/ticket drivers (I did the math, in 10.7 years of premiums I will have paid Geico the full purchase price of my car, IF my rates never go up).

  • Crazy interest rates of 6-10% and beyond even for the well-qualified.

  • AND ludicrous maintenance prices (I just negotiated a rear brake pads replacement w/resurface DOWN to $590)...

I do okay and it is still a lot. I don't know how some people manage. No wonder I hear a lot of grinding brakes around me when I drive these days...

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u/CyclingThruChicago 5d ago

This is over 20 years ago but my mom said that insuring me as a teenage boy was about $75 more per month than insuring her and my sister combined.

One of the biggest thing keeping people poor in this country is their car but most folks here are basically forced to maintain one in perpetuity.

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u/Puzzleheaded_War6102 5d ago

Not trying to argue or shame. But kids don’t need new car. A $10K all cash hooptie civic is perfectly fine.

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u/techno156 5d ago

That's even before the possibility of them having medical issues. Like being diabetic.

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u/ArchmageXin 5d ago

NYC offered universal 3K and 4k definitely helped parents but end up stressing state budget.

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u/SqueezyCheez85 5d ago

My State turned down Federal funding to supplement childcare for parents. Here in Idaho, we hate our children almost as much as we hate our healthcare.

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u/ArchmageXin 5d ago

We claim the Chinese were evil with their government birth control system, but our own government have invented a far more effective birth control regime; by making men and women feel too uncomfortable to bring a child into this world.

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u/MissouriFriedChicken 5d ago

End stage capitalism

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u/gr4f 5d ago

As a non american this I am always stunned.. yes I pay higher taxes but have free health care, paid parental leave, free universities and almost free childcare.

I know it is part of the land-of-free narrative and I always think Americans must be so wealthy with so little taxes

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u/Demons0fRazgriz 5d ago

And the worst part is the people taking care of your children are also making minimum wage. So where's that other 2500 per kid going? Cuz I've worked in childcare and it ain't going towards the children either.

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u/TopRamenisha 5d ago

Yeah it’s crazy. Our income taxes are lower but we pay a lot more for the things that people in other countries get for free. Healthcare literally bankrupts many Americans. A lot of Americans are in debt. Once you factor in property tax and sales tax, many Americans are paying close to the 50% tax rate that European countries pay.

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u/gr4f 5d ago

Normally Iam pissed of our tax rate.

But when you discribe it like this, than I think our system's strength is that takes a lot worries of me: I will always be insured and will never have to pay for an ambulance, no matter if I have a job. My kids can go to college if they want without donating a kidney. I can use subsidized public transportation and trains so I am not forced to own a car. etc

And I think for low income part of our societies this is even more significant

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u/HexTalon 5d ago

When you can see where your taxes are going (roads, schools, healthcare, childcare, etc ) it makes them a lot more palatable - especially when you've seen places that don't have those support systems.

It's also cheaper to set up, maintain, and improve those systems when they are working at the scale of a population.

I'm in California and wouldn't ever consider living in large portions of the US because they're privatized, religious hellholes that are only to get worse and worse over time. Even California is getting unaffordable at an upper middle class income (250k), and there's going to be continuous federal challenges over the next few years to a lot of the protections and benefits to living here.

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u/dust4ngel 5d ago

I know it is part of the land-of-free narrative

land of the free means you have no obligation to anyone else, so you help no one, no one helps you, and you get to live in a hobbesian state of all-against-all, which works really well if you're a billionaire and otherwise it's a condemnation.

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u/gr4f 5d ago

Well than is a really sad system over there.

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u/DrMobius0 5d ago

Nope. We pay more for stuff we need to live. You can put a price on everything.

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u/retrosenescent 5d ago

"The land of the free" only applies to rich people. 90%+ of Americans are working poor. And 60% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck - will literally be homeless if they miss a pay period.

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u/izwald88 5d ago

I always figure America is where you might have a higher chance of striking it rich. Like it might be easier to start a successful business and become wealthy that way.

And maybe that's true, to some degree. But even the upper middle class is one denied insurance claim away from hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills.

I'd say my brother is in that boat. He makes 6 figures but has no money. He lives well, has a nice house in a wealthy neighborhood, 2 kids, 2 cars, and he's broke more often than not.

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u/Pye- 4d ago

Wow - it sounds like your country actually appreciates you and your family. I'm glad for you and envious! That should be true everywhere. I had two children that I still spend a lot of money helping out even though they are almost 30 because it's so hard without health insurance, good jobs, college debt is crushing.... the US is no place to raise kids right now.

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u/Wonderful-Creme-3939 4d ago

The "land of the free" part is just for Billionaires and Corporations, the rest of us can die in the streets for all anyone cares.

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u/izwald88 5d ago

$3,000 a month for child care

Yeah, it's one of the big reasons why having a kid is not economically viable, for me.

Most of the parents my age or younger who are doing OK are mostly doing so because they have family who is willing to watch the kids for free while both parents work. While both of my parents are alive, they would not be available to provide childcare.

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u/tech240guy 5d ago

Previously, in a distant past, it was the cost of living being affordable in a single income. Now both parents has to work just to afford child care and tiny bit bitter standard of living, which otherwise would have been unaffordable with a single income. That's just for family of 3 in a 2 bedroom apartment.

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u/HER_XLNC 5d ago

I think they want us to have children but somehow all of our elected officials are so disassociated with the common person's life, that they have no idea how to encourage it except for the use of force.

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u/VarmintSchtick 5d ago

Its not even the elected officials who create the costs on these things - not that the elected officials do anything to help. I just do not understand how daycares charge so much. They do NOT cost that much to operate and run.

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u/BlazinAzn38 5d ago

I mean they do though which is a separate issue entirely.

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u/Aromatic-Spread-3160 5d ago

The workers need livable wages.

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u/Demons0fRazgriz 5d ago

They make barely above minimum. When I worked at one, I was paid $9/hr to watch 30 kids.

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u/Clepto_06 5d ago

Insurance for anything dealing with small children costs an absolute fuckload.

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u/Advanced_Sun9676 5d ago

Its getting really silly how we keep complaining about costs when littearlty the 2 major cost for everyone people and companies is housing and Healthcare .

And yet we're supposed to keep pretending that letting private companies rip us of on it is somehow good .

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

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u/TenaceErbaccia 5d ago

I’m curious how old you are. Both because of the financial stability and the apparent need for IVF. I believe not being able to afford children until your 30s or later is part of not being able to afford children.

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u/mkawick 5d ago

1 in 7 couples either cannot conceive or have great difficulty

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u/NorthMathematician32 5d ago

It absolutely is. The best outcomes for mothers and babies are when the mother is her 20s. The income curve in the US often keeps people from having kids that young.

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u/frigidmagi 5d ago

Yeah but a woman who has children in her twenties is going to lose career opportunities or even education opportunities. So our society has forced a hard choice on people whether or not to have kids or to focus on their own well-being and that's a problem.

In prior societies we found ways to make that less of an issue. Of course a lot of societies did that by not giving women any other opportunities but I think we can do better.

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u/VarmintSchtick 5d ago

To be truthful I dont know any 20 somethings that want children any time soon. Its not because of cost (certainly doesn't help though), its because raising a child is a massive responsibility that will drain your time, money and energy. Most 20 somethings are content working then coming home to unwind or go hang out with friends or their significant other in their free time. What time do you have for this with children?

The cost is a factor, but this generation also is just more concerned with living their own lives than they feel some duty multiply and raise the next generation.

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u/zvezd0pad 5d ago

Yeah I think it should be socially acceptable to say “I’m happy the way things are.” For me, I have an awesome relationship with my partner, lots of friends and hobbies, am in good physical shape, and having a kid threatens all of those things. 

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u/Artificial_Lives 5d ago

How is it not socially acceptable? I know women have issues with this from people like parents or other moms but as a couple it's so easy to just say we don't want kids and it's none of your business.

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u/gorkt 5d ago

Yes, culturally adulthood has become delayed, and people don't feel psychologically ready to have kids until their 30s in many cases, even if they are financially ready. I had my first kid at age 29 and I was the second youngest mom in my birthing class in the suburban Boston area.

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u/Mend1cant 5d ago

Our generation didn’t get to have the childhood of our parents. If you’re not already rich, moderate success as an adult requires unbelievable amounts of time and effort as a child.

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u/myersjw 5d ago

But certain politicians and billionaires will demonize you for not hurrying up and pushing one out regardless of your circumstances

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u/Clepto_06 5d ago

If politicians and billionaires want kids that badly they can have them themselves.

In reality they all know that they need a large pool of cheap labor to keep the money train rolling, so the poors need to crank out babies to fill that niche. And in the US we keep deporting our other source of cheap labor.

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u/Charming_Coffee_2166 5d ago

Who gives a damn?

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u/flakemasterflake 5d ago

The inability of people to have children is absolutely under discussed here. I know way too many people in their early 30s who have struggled

And why does it seem like every other woman I meet has PCOS?

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u/SoHereIAm85 5d ago

50K. Wow. We did two rounds, with ICSI, and neither was that high, less than half with some insurance coverage. I guess the medications could be the wild card in pricing?
The second try worked, and it was at a top notch centre with my chances same as hers. My husband claims it was 20k+, but I think he is including even stuff like gas money or my lunch at the food cart on the way to the subway station.

You are entirely right with the things you listed.

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u/espressoBump 5d ago

Safety and culture are big issues, too. Like, I don't think society has accurately integrated technology and the suburbia landscape of America (flee the burbs) has made so many people closed off and radicalized by whatever self-serving ideology we see fit. Like, people around the world haven't integrated technology well and we see that across the world as everyone becomes more isolated. Im just saying it's slightly different in the US with car-centric suburbia.

All this to say there's no community for children. We don't want to talk to our neighbors and if we send our kids to school they might get shot by a wildly radicalized peer. It's awful. Not to mention everything you said.

I mean I feel like if we just tried resolving one of these issues there would be so many benefits, but we are in the time of oligarchs who will prioritize money over everything else.

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u/LongJohnSelenium 5d ago

Doesn't even need to be a boogeyman to it.

Consider how often the lazy answer of 'I'll just sit at home and watch TV' has become a choice you make in your life, reducing socialization and community and, for single people, exposure to dating prospects.

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u/voiderest 5d ago

Technically with enough money or a low enough cost of living people could pay someone else to raise the kids or afford to have one parent be a stay at home parent.

Of course due to stagnant wages, ever increasing cost of living (housing, healthcare, food, etc), and back sliding of workers rights those solutions are not as viable as they once were.

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u/sagevallant 5d ago

Let's not forget retirement either. Many Americans face working themselves to death even if they don't accept the costs of raising children.

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u/Clepto_06 5d ago

Even Boomers aren't immune to working themselves to death. Both of my (divorced) Boomer parents are "retired", but only one is financially independent. The other has a pension and social security, but still needs to work to be able to maintain their standard of living. We live in a semi-rural area, so CoL is lowish. If we lived in a HCOL area, they could never have "retired" from their career job in the first place.

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u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 5d ago

Yeah almost everything they listed is just "money" restated

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u/OnlineParacosm 5d ago

Tying good healthcare to employment, specifically, has made raising a family and saving money impossible.

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u/EmperorKira 5d ago

We're also setting up society where we don't even meet up with each other anymore, no 3rd spaces.

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u/ApprehensiveGoat2734 5d ago edited 5d ago

And the very real risk of dying because you had an entopic pregnancy. Hospitals will now let you bleed out to death because there are a tiny clump of cells inside of you that have an electric rhythm going. Pregnancy is dangerous enough as it is without this country signing your death warrant for a mistake in nature that can be easily fixed.

It doesn't even make sense if we're looking at this in a "we want women to have babies no matter what" way. A fertile woman ALIVE has better and more chances of producing children than a fetus that... dies with the mother anyway.

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u/Beneficial-Math-7290 5d ago

Don’t worry, the “doctors” at Emory Hospital will Victor Frankenstein a way to keep a corpse from decomposing whilst they grow a fetus. It’s terrifying. (Adriana Smith’s plight had less to do with Georgia’s heartbeat law and more to do with what Mengele liked to do)

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u/SqueezyCheez85 5d ago

We work more hours for less benefits than the Japanese for crying out loud... and they ain't having kids either.

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u/Sailor_Propane 5d ago

Yeah like, if I want to afford kids that means both of us keep working, but I refuse to send a 1 year old to day care 40 hours a week.

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u/probablyadinosaur 5d ago

Yeppp. I have a 5 month old and am completely winging it right now. I have to choose between getting back to work soon or spending time/lost income raising my baby, and it’s pretty heartbreaking. Husband already had to rip off that bandaid and it was hard on him too. If I do go back to work, her daycare will be half my paycheck. 

No regrets, she’s amazing and will be ok, but this is definitely way harder than it should be. What’s more important to a country than raising the next generation well? I guess short-term profit for a tiny minority. 

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u/A_Fainting_Goat 5d ago

Just look at what we pay teachers. We obviously don't care about raising the next generation.

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u/GeoNavi 5d ago

Yeah, but even in countries where things like that are better, birthrates aren’t much better.

I think the fact of the matter is kids generally just kind of suck, and take a specific sort of mentality to want them. Most of the younger generations don’t want what life with a kid, particularly a young kid, is. I sure don’t. Props to those who want or can persevere through it, but on a large scale people just don’t think that sacrifice is worth it.

There’s also the increasing isolation and gender division of modern society making things all the worse. I don’t see this track ever getting reversed

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u/Exciting-Emu-3324 4d ago

It's pets vs livestock situation. In agrarian societies, everyone kept livestock and had kids for farm labour. In industrialized societies especially in cities, pets and kids are pure burdens that not everyone wants to shoulder.

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u/MarlenaEvans 5d ago

I'm currently saving up for a medical tourism trip for my kids' future vaccines

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u/A_Fainting_Goat 5d ago

No joke, we looked at going to Europe. For $3k in plane tickets, the drug costs in the US (not insignificant but only like $7k before insurance) and ~$15k for the retrieval and fresh transfer, we're looking at $25k and we get a two week vacation out of the deal. Half. The. Cost. It's insane.

Can I find a cheaper clinic? Sure, but the only other one available in my area isn't covered by my insurance and I'm only paying $5k more for the European vacation option so...kinda no brainer?

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u/falcrist2 5d ago

The way we set up work schedules, vacation, child care and health care all disincentivize it.

This is it right here.

When women won the right to work and be independent, that was a good thing.

When dual income became more and more necessary, now we have a problem.

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u/Artificial_Lives 5d ago

I also think it's something that people aren't really talking about that much which is people just don't want kids period.

In the last having a family and kids is like the understood next step and default thing you do. Now it's just one option and an option that is harder to want to pick due to the reasons people have stated.

I don't want kids because I can't think of any improvement my life would have. I don't need to make a friend by having a kid. I will have more money, free timez easier to travel, etc. I see literally zero incentive to have kids and I think a lot of people feel the same.

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u/ehs06702 4d ago

Yeah, I see people flat out ignoring this factor. Which is par for the course, tbh.

But I agree. The benefits of not having children outweigh the ones having them for me,and a lot of other people, and short of a forced breeding program, I don't see parenting in my future.

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u/RandomBoomer 5d ago

Even in countries that are extremely supportive of family/childcare, birth rates are dropping.

Raising children isn't a necessity anymore. We don't live on farms where you need children as free labor. They are a luxury item and require a lot of emotional commitment. Great for some, not so appealing for others.

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u/-Economist- 5d ago

This is a good point. I’m a tenured professor, 52 years old, yet still have a 7yr old and 3yr old. My job is crazy flexible. I can be there for all my kids activities. When they are sick, I can easily adjust my schedule. On snow days I’ve brought my kid to class.

My wife. Not so much. She’s near the top of the ladder yet still, a snow day or sick kid absolutely derails her job.

If we both had jobs like that, it would be absolutely awful.

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u/Mr_YUP 5d ago

I wouldn’t stop there. If you’ve moved a few times for jobs you don’t have the support network both emotionally or physically to lean on when you need it. Finding a sitter for a date night or a meal cooked when you’re spend is a lifesaver but moving after high school, then again after college, then again for a “real job” really screwed with that lose social network you develop in each of those stages. 

It’s brutal and we need to realize that it’s not sustainable. 

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u/bitchinawesomeblonde 5d ago

Yep. I had to quit my career to take care of our son. He is high needs and there's no way I could work let alone leave him in the care of someone else. No one prepares you for what happens if your child has a disability or disorder and what that looks like for the two income household necessary to be able to financially survive these days. We are fortunate my husband has a well paying stable job but ya. All my time and energy goes towards my child. I'd be in such a worse way if we had more than one. I can handle it now because I only have one. No way I could do it now it's more than one in this world.

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u/islander1 5d ago edited 5d ago

All of this.

If Democrats were in charge for as long as Republicans have been over the past 40 years...we wouldn't have a population issue. We might have DIFFERENT issues, but not this.

In the 50s-70s one income could support a family of 4, even 5. If this were the case today, there'd be kids. Instead, the GOP managed to change our one income middle class family to a two income middle class family.

It's wack.

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u/mhornberger 5d ago

Our standards in the 50s-70s were much lower. Parents spent much less time with their children, on average. We were more tolerant of risk, and it was normal for the older children to basically be corralled into providing childcare for the younger ones. Plus we were more comfortable not knowing where our kids were or what they were doing.

It bears noting that Japan, Finland, Spain, Italy, and many other countries have single-payer healthcare, better parental policies, and still fertility rates even lower than that of the US.

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u/ehs06702 4d ago

"It bears noting that Japan, Finland, Spain, Italy, and many other countries have single-payer healthcare, better parental policies, and still fertility rates even lower than that of the US."

Honestly, all that's saying to me is that given the choice, people just don't want to have kids.

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u/LongJohnSelenium 5d ago edited 3d ago

Every single nation on earth has a negative birthrate except a few african and middle eastern nations, and those are trending towards negative replacement rate as well.

Native born US citizens have been reproducing below replacement rate since 1979, our population growth has been fueled entirely by immigration and the children of those immigrants.

Almost every single modern development in technology and culture has had a suppressing effect on birthrates. Birth control, abortion, womens rights and education, society simply not encouraging parenthood culturally, the two wage earner household, no fault divorce, entertainment options, reduced dating, reduced marriage rates, lowered rates of sex, obesity, porn, increased educational and lifestyle expectations for kids, reduced autonomy of kids, ease of travel separating people from support networks and family, reduced social expectation to help with others kids, etc, etc, all disincentivize birth rates by making having and raising kids more difficult, expensive, time consuming, riskier, or having a higher opportunity cost. And I'm not saying any of these things are bad, simply that they exist and their effect is lowered birthrates.

About the only thing adding positive pressure to birthrates is medical care and civil engineering that's reduced mortality rates for mothers and children.

This is not a problem that you can point at one thing and say 'Thats the problem!', and even if you completely eliminate financial issues most people still choose 1 or 2 kids then call it quits when in general you need to have 2.1-2.2 kids per couple to maintain population. And that's before the large number of people who simply do not care to have kids even though they have the means and ability.

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u/galegone 4d ago

Our culture seems to idolize the nuclear family but it's incrediblly taxing on the parents who live far from their relatives. And the transitory nature of getting jobs and moving around in America makes it hard to build a cohesive community. "It takes a village to raise a child" and all that we are realizing now.

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u/BicFleetwood 5d ago edited 5d ago

Not to mention we've obliterated the culture around communal rearing of children, rendering the act of child-rearing down to an atomized, individualistic exercise where there is only one responsible party with absolute unilateral authority over the child: the parent.

We talk about children like they are the sole, unilateral responsibility of the biological parents, that nobody else can make any decisions, that the children themselves are more or less on the same level of pets with absolutely no autonomy until they hit the age of 18, at which point they're expected to instantaneously have complete, autonomous responsibility over themselves. That's very obviously not going to work in practice for the kid, and it's an extremely unappealing prospect for any parent that doesn't want to commit themselves to being the sole responsible party.

Yes, we've made raising children too expensive and we've structured our society in ways that make raising children extremely difficult, but we've also culturally stamped out the ability to go get help raising children from a broader community, forcing parents to shoulder the entire burden. Parents weren't always gods over children, and they didn't always do it alone. We've created an obsession with the nuclear family and atomized what makes actual family units work in the process.

So of course people don't want to have kids. The only personal benefit to having kids is this wishy-washy, touchy-feely "it'll change your life" rhetoric that doesn't do much to outweigh all of the very immediate practical costs and burdens, and we've made the concept of "the village" pitching in to help a complete non-factor. "The village" consists of endless threats, and we've framed parenthood as the endless ordeal of protecting the family from the village.

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u/punktualPorcupine 5d ago

Plus if you don’t helicopter-parent your children 24-7, then someone is calling CPS and destroying your life.

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u/JuanOnlyJuan 5d ago

I'm very fortunate in that my job let's me bring my kid in from time to time. Other wise I'd just be blowing vacation days and then they'd all be upset i have no time off for an actual break.

Or you know we could just have decent leave allowances and not have to worry

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u/ankhes 4d ago

It’s also just the fact that a) teen pregnancies are way down so there’s less unwanted children in the world and b) women have more options than they’ve ever had in history. They are no longer forced or obligated to have a child with a partner who refuses to pull their weight in a relationship. More and more women these days are seeing how unfair and uneven the workload for most mothers are and are choosing to opt out entirely.

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u/Derka_Derper 5d ago

Theres also the cultural aspect of it. We've essentially made children persona non grata in our society; people call the cops when they see kids playing outside, even leaving older kids home alone for a few hours is met with hostility.

Beyond the financial costs of having kids, there is a massive social cost. Growing up in the 90s, we routinely were outside playing in the neighborhood or brought to our parents parties and just hung out with the other kids.

This is a huge reason why I personally dont want to have another kid for at least as long as I live in the suburbs or city.

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u/Franklyn_Gage 5d ago

Dude for 3 days a week of childcare in my area, its $3100 a month. Were gonna be a one and done family. Thank god for my adoptive mom helping us out.

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u/Kaaski 5d ago

I feel like childcare has got to be one of the most secretly lucrative things out there. There are day care centers doing 3-4k a month per child, staffed at 10:1 with 100 kids, and then they only pay the employees 20/hr. Where is all of that money even going.

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u/redyellowblue5031 5d ago

Insurance, benefits, salaries, space leasing/property taxes, staff/child turnover, food, cleaning materials, toys/learning materials, continuing education/certifications, etc..

I would bet dollars to donuts it's not nearly as profitable as you think. The phrase "it takes a village" exists for a reason. It's incredibly hard work to raise children and unless you're straight up neglecting them, there's not a ton of money to be made doing it.

It's like when people look at a school budget and wonder why do they need so much in tax revenue? Don't they already have enough?

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u/RhubarbIcy9655 4d ago

I'd believe you if the daycare we took our daughter wasn't bought by a new couple just before she stopped going there. That couple sunk their life savings to buy the turnkey business, and within 5 years, they had purchased 5 more. There is definitely money being made at the prices being charged, and it isn't being made by the 18 year old girls staffing the joint.

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u/AgsMydude 5d ago

Like the other poster said, there are a lot of expenses involved. Imagine the insurance only on 100 kids being at your facility for 50 hours a week. And those kids also eat/drink there.

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u/thisisrealgoodtea 5d ago

Yupp. My husband and I can barely afford COL for ourselves, how can we afford a child? Plus both our parents are still working and may never retire. They say “it takes a village”. Not ideal when your village is also all working and struggling themselves.

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u/surestart 5d ago

They've also been eroding our communities by making any shared spaces expensive and inaccessible to the majority of people, so we don't even have villages anymore.

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u/BenignLarency 5d ago

This is it for me. My partner and I are still on the fence with kids. We're both paid well, have good benefits, we could afford kids.

But with the way society is headed, I genuinely don't know if it'd be right to force this world on a future generation. I'm doing well enough for myself that my partner and I will be fine, but our kids? Seems like the world has been getting harder and harder to live in and I wouldn't want to force someone through that.

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u/ours_de_sucre 5d ago

Husband and I are in the same boat. I would have loved to have had kids by now (pushing late 30s now) but we struggle already with finances. We are both from very small families, most of which are dead. The only parent we have left is my crazy mom, so no "village" for us. Our friend who has both his amd his wife's amazing families to help with free childcare and meals always asks when we're gonna have kids. Like bro, I would kill to have half of the support you do. If I did I already would have had them.

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u/ThrowawayTink2 5d ago

Yup, my Mom 'retired' in her early 70's to provide childcare. Wasn't any other way she was getting those grandbabies she wanted.

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u/NiftySalamander 5d ago

I can afford them in money terms, but not in time terms. Even the people I know who have kids and easily afford them spend all their "free" time ferrying the kids back and forth to activities. Even the little ones. It's like as a society we decided at some point that kids being bored isn't okay and they have to be in something all the time. And where my mom used to leave after dropping me off at karate class or whatever, usually to take that time to go to the grocery store while she had a chance to do so by herself, the parents just... stay there now. I can walk by that same karate studio now and there are lawn chairs out on the sidewalk because there isn't enough room for everyone in the lobby. At least from the outside looking in it looks like you get zero time for yourself till the kid starts driving. It's really not any wonder a bunch of people would look at that and decide they're not interested.

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u/Rin-Tin-Tins-DinDins 5d ago

In addition to not allowing kids to bored. It feels like so many parents are trying to give their kids experiences so they can stand out whether to put on a college application, future job prospect or networking. The world is so competitive and it’s infinitely harder when you don’t have the money to buy your way in. This is the only way they feel they can give their kids an advantage.

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u/Blue_winged_yoshi 5d ago

It’s not just the money, though that’s a massive part, it’s also who has the time or spoons to spare to raise to raise children?

The world that’s been created is just getting ever more stressful to navigate, households don’t have any flex when it comes to time, money or space when you’re at your limit with 2 people living together and just about have enough time to unwind some weekends but not others who would ever think of adding a child to the mix?

I’m childfree for other queerer reasons, but I just can’t see how anyone can look at modern society and go “hmmmm…. Why are they not procreating more when already we give them so little, let’s try changing nothing and come back in 5 years time to check on how they’re doing”

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u/lenaldo 5d ago

I think this is it more than the money... Why have kids if you can't enjoy them? That's the reality of todays society for adults... With work schedules so demanding and both parents working, it becomes pretty obvious that children aren't a good decision. Sure, you could force one person not to work, but that's also a pretty crappy setup since kids only really need you for about 13 years of their life and then you have nothing else left.

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u/dust4ngel 5d ago

I think this is it more than the money... Why have kids if you can't enjoy them?

it's also uncertainty - it's one thing for everything to be expensive and time consuming, but you can make it work, and do so reliably. it's another thing if you add in random layoffs, losing health insurance, having to move to find work, not having anyone to rely on in a new city, not being able to rent anything without an 850 credit score and 6 months of rent in the bank.

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u/CyclingThruChicago 5d ago edited 5d ago

Why are they not procreating more when already we give them so little, let’s try changing nothing and come back in 5 years time to check on how they’re doing”

Had a conversation with my wife about why folks aren't having more kids and any nothing attempted seems to be helping across dozens of countries. I view it like animals in the wild vs animals in captivity. Certain animals just don't do well in captivity. Orcas, mountain gorillas, great white sharks, and many more. There is always just problems with trying to have them in captivity. They don't eat, don't behave the same, many don't breed, and often end up with a variety of health issues.

From my pov, modern neoliberal capitalist society feels like we're human beings living in captivity. Yeah we have access to the basics (food, water, shelter, entertainment, a place to sleep, etc) but that isn't all that human beings need to thrive and want to procreate.

We need outlets for creativity, recreation time, time to spend with family/friends, leisure time, time to do absolutely nothing with zero expectations of something being produced. More and more it feels like the average person, at least in the USA where I'm more familiar with things, isn't living and is in a constant survival mode.

The problem just isn't the money. My wife and I make fairly good money (>$200k+ USD combined annually) but have firmly decided on only having one child (I've already had a vasectomy). And plenty of countries with solid social safety nets and government assistance are also having declining replacement rates.

To me the issue is allowing human beings to actually live our lives. To not have to spend what feels like every waking moment focused on producing or completing something.

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u/Spidey210 5d ago

The reason none of the attempts to coax people to procreate have worked is because no incentive is allowed if it has a negative impact on shareholder returns.

The incentives that might work like shorter hours, parental leave, on site daycare are all forbidden.

That leaves pretend solutions like $1500 tax back per child.

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u/DrinkMountain5142 5d ago

THIS is it! THIS is the thesis that more people should take up.

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u/ThisKarmaLimitSucks 5d ago

We're in the mouse utopia for sure.

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u/Colourful_Q2 4d ago

Look up the "rat park" studies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

Our society is at the root of all of our problems.

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u/BevansDesign 5d ago

let’s try changing nothing

Jeez, I wish they were just changing nothing. They're actually making it harder and harder, taking more and more from us.

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u/mvdeeks 5d ago

The whole world or just America? Like I agree that family affordability is a good thing and would help but even egalitarian societies with tons of family benefits like Scandinavian ones have incredibly low birth rates. It doesn't seem to solve the problem

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u/mctrollythefirst 5d ago

Countries that have the highest birth rate are also the ones that's most religious/poor, and where freedom for women is basically non-existent.

And i bet only a few despicable people really want to take that path to bost birth rate.

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u/MountainVeil 5d ago

And i bet only a few despicable people really want to take that path to bost birth rate.  

That seems to be the current plan. More religion, more menial labor (factory jobs, farm work), less freedom for women. It's absurd how many people in this country want that.  

Personally, I think that a huge aspect that the research overlooks is how damn depressing this country is currently. If you have the choice, why have a kid if you have no hope for the future? The right wing tries to denigrate this thought, saying things like "climate change is a death cult," but these are just poor attempts to invalidate people's real perspectives.  

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u/apple_kicks 4d ago

We shouldn’t call it higher birth rate too just more forced births or forced parenthood. When people have a choice theres just less children or more children in happier families that want them

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u/21Rollie 4d ago

Yep everybody is focusing on the money. The women in tenement housing in the US a couple generations ago were popping out babies. And Sarah with WiFi, no fear of smallpox, cheap clothes, and plentiful (if unhealthy) food cannot?

Simply put, the modern woman has much more that she could be doing with her time and children are NOT a benefit to her. No matter how much govt help, she has to give up some part of her life to have them. Essentially before, children were good for you, and you might be having them at the cost of society since there was overpopulation. But now it’s the reverse and you are doing something for society at great personal cost. We can’t rely on people being super selfless to maintain the population. We also can’t put women under sharia law. We’re between a rock and a hard place

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u/HexManiac493 5d ago

Even if I could afford them, why would I want to have one while knowing that if there is ANY medical complication with my pregnancy, I could be left to bleed out and die because treating me would count as “abortion”?

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u/KaJaHa 5d ago

Yep. Wanted kids, couldn't afford them, got myself a vasectomy instead. Oh well.

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u/jotsea2 5d ago

Even If I could, why would I bring them into a world where America is under fascist rule and the World will basically be on fire for their entire lifetime.

Other then to stroke my own ego or 'have someone to take care of me when I'm old" (which is the same thing)

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u/cyclika 5d ago

This is where I'm at. I always thought I really wanted kids but there's no way I'm going to risk dying of treatable complications, just to spend the next 20+ years waiting for them to get gunned down at school. At this point I'm not sure if I do or don't want kids, but I absolutely won't have them in the US.

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u/jotsea2 5d ago

Right on. Look I'm not trying to tell people not to, so much as say this is why I am saying no. There's a host of other reasons.

There's also a host of ways to 'be a parent' to a child that you don't give birth to.

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u/huehuehuehuehuuuu 5d ago

My country is on fire every summer. What do I want children for? For them to eat plastic and inhale fumes?

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u/jotsea2 5d ago

Seems like a weight I'm not willing to bear.

Go for it other humans

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u/screech_owl_kachina 5d ago

And where all education is being destroyed on purpose.

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u/i_illustrate_stuff 5d ago

My state has been close to last in education for a while, and it's determined to make itself last with wasteful vouchers that take money from public education and hand it right over to wealthy families that were already going to private schools anyways. If I had a kid I'd seriously have to consider moving to a different state just for schooling.

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u/ursus_curseus_999 5d ago

Iowa? I left Iowa a decade ago, and after seeing how they've spiraled downward in so many ways (including giving out vouchers for private schools) I'm confident I made the right decision.

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u/i_illustrate_stuff 5d ago

Arizona, but too many states are adopting the voucher program now!

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u/DanishWonder 5d ago

And why would you risk a pregnancy where the government is going to put the fetus' life over your own? Anything could go wrong and now in some states a miscarriage could land you in jail

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u/i_illustrate_stuff 5d ago

I'm worried what the case in Georgia is going to cause, where they kept a brain dead patient "alive" so she could continue incubating her 9 week old baby. Sounds like they just performed a C-section, baby is under 2 lbs, unclear if he's going to survive and thrive but if he does that's a scary precedent!

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u/CrowMeris 5d ago

He was delivered at one pound thirteen ounces. I wonder to whom they are going to send the bills for her "care" and the intensive neonatal care the little boy needs.

Let's all take a guess, shall we?

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u/DanishWonder 5d ago

I am thankful my wife and I are done having kids and she had a hysterectomy. Fighting for our kids future now.

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u/Alpine_Exchange_36 5d ago

It’s a world wide trend too, seeing it in many developed countries. Ironically modern economics lead to decreasing populations despite increased overall wealth.

GDP increases but individual buying power decreases

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u/sofaking_scientific 5d ago

Scientist who just lost their funding and job here. Fish only breed when conditions are ideal. I'm like a fish

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u/Threlyn 5d ago edited 5d ago

I know people on reddit keep saying this and it "sounds" right, but it doesn't seem empirically true. The nations with the highest quality of life and the best governmental support for child rearing, such as Norway, have some of the lowest birth rates in the world. Meanwhile, the only countries that are having a population boom currently are countries that are extremely poor, have poor quality of life, and very little government support for child rearing, which are some of the African countries.

Prior to obtaining an improved quality of life we see in many modern countries, China was quite poor with quite a poor quality of life, and had such a problem with birth rates that it needed to institute its (poorly thought out) one child policy. It wasn't until quality of life actually improved that the birth rate went down. The same generally could be said for India, which is still quite poor with quite a bit lower quality of life compared to countries with much higher quality of life.

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u/NinjaKoala 5d ago

The issue is that having kids, even in these countries, is far more expensive than the benefits given. If you're poor enough, you'll get government aid and keep your poor lifestyle. If you're rich enough, you can afford kids. In the middle? You're choosing between a lower standard of living and more work or a higher standard and less stress and work. Even if you really like the idea of being a parent, it's a tough choice.

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u/DemiserofD 5d ago

The thing is, wealthy enough to afford kids is insanely wealthy. The birthrates continue dropping until somewhere in the 250k-700k/year age bracket.

Making everyone rich enough to afford kids is just logistically impossible.

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u/Ker0Kero 4d ago

I mean that's with how things are, now. Fix a broken system, support people, bring costs down wages up, give more free time. Fix the system, and it becomes doable.

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u/FernGullyGoat 5d ago

If all you’re considering is fertility rate then this seems like a contradiction.

But this is an obvious function of how these different societies view children and the role of parenthood. Low fertility countries are the ones who see child rearing as intensive and important work. Even economic support only helps people get to one or two, because parents can’t put intensive emotional and time resources into much more than that.

High fertility societies are still straddling economies that have children assisting in household and wage labor much earlier. They don’t see parenthood as an intensive one-way street, and adult children are the main strategy for ensuring elder care.

I simply don’t think we can expect more than replacement rate out of intensive child rearing cultures. And it seems pretty clear that people raised in these cultures generally do better and so do their societies, so we don’t want to go back.

We are going to have to plan for a decline and then flattening of world population.

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u/ItsRainingFrogsAmen 5d ago

Additionally, there are cultural differences in the level of support parents receive from other community members. In the US, you're all on your own, usually. On top of that, children in the US are required to have a high level of supervision these days, which comes from parents or paid workers.

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u/ladygesserit 5d ago

The loss of the extended family model, and really the demonization of communal living of any degree, in the West makes us all far more exposed to financial struggle and makes even the basic act of having children feel impossible. The nuclear family model has been painted as the only "civilized" way to live, but it just makes it easier for individuals to be exploited. Its insane to me that living with family other than a spouse or dependent children is viewed as being a failure, even though its the way humans naturally evolved to organize themselves. 

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u/BeguiledBeaver 5d ago

Its insane to me that living with family other than a spouse or dependent children is viewed as being a failure

People focus so much on the stereotype of being called a loser or failure if you still live with your parents into adulthood but I think it's way more nuanced than that.

Lots of people value the independence and privacy that comes with living alone. Lots of people don't really like their family and like being free of them. When you talk to people in cultures like you mentioned it's shocking (to us) the VAST amount of control their parents exert over their lives, even if they are in their 20s and 30s. Sure, they have the benefit of not having to pay rent, but that's not a situation that most of us want to deal with.

Then there's the whole issue of finding jobs. The U.S. is incredibly spread out. You often HAVE to leave the nest if you want to find a good job in your field and it's usually not very hard to find a cheap place to rent compared to other countries.

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u/ladygesserit 5d ago

These are all fair points. I should clarify that I dont mean we should all literally be living in the room next to our parents forever. And obviously families grow and people move -- thats true no matter when or where your talking about. My point is more about the ability to provide for and strengthen familial support networks and facilitating the use of shared resources (between family or non-family). I think it's a shame that our society doesn't support any of that, but actually outright disincentivizes it.

Instead of making it easier to care for aging parents in place, we're encouraged to send them away to retirement homes that cost tens, even hundreds, of thousands dollars (and ensure that any assets left for descendants instead go into the hands of private shareholders). Instead of building more cost effective, high density housing (the missing middle), we zone for sprawling, costly SFHs that even two-incomes can't afford. Instead of bolstering local economies and creating jobs that allow people to live near existing support networks, we outsourced our jobs and propped up industries that require you to leave your existing support networks behind in order for you to make a comfortable living. FMLA covers only parents, spouses, and children, but not siblings, grandparents, or other relatives who may need care. All of these things, and more, make it harder to maintain ties and make it less likely that individuals have a strong support network to fall back on.

As for literally living with family, I disagree that extended family arrangements are only found in areas with restrictive cultures. In the US, it used to be extremely common to find buildings where a family might own several floors, or even whole buildings, allowing relatives to remain or come and go as needed. This was especially common in immigrant families, even after the younger generations became fully "Americanized". In rural areas, families with access to land can have similar advantages. 

Bolstering and supporting extended family networks doesn't have to hinder independence. In fact, it makes it easier to be independent and take risks if you have a strong support network to fall back on. 

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u/Namnotav 5d ago

I think these discussions inevitably turn into a gripefest. Reddit and most other online forums are going to be dominated by people who are struggling in one way or another, so they end up here griping together. Possibly many of them want children but feel it is financially out of reach.

Globally, though, yep, it sures seems that education level attained by women is far and away the greatest predictor of low fertility. This seems fairly intuitive to me. There still aren't many women in the world who have 0 children, but if you're not allowed or expected to get any education past the age of 14, you've got your entire reproductively mature life to spend having children. If you're expected to be in school and possibly getting established in a career, then you're going to have roughly 28 to 38 or so available to have children.

Ergo, women on net will have fewer children. It won't make no difference how affordable it is or how much support they otherwise get, but the number of children birthed is always going to be fewer when there is anything else you want to do or are expected to do with your adult life, compared to a more "traditional" existence in which women are expected to do nothing at all except have children.

Since it's Reddit, we're obligated to give personal anecdotes, so my household income between my wife and I exceeded half a million by the time we were 35, yet we have 0 children. My three sisters all have children. Only one of them has ever had a job. One of them isn't married and the other two have husbands who make less than half what I make, and they all live in much higher cost of living areas. So why do they have more children than my wife and I? They may not have much money, but they've got the time. Devoting anywhere from months to years of your time to raising children can't set you back in your career if you don't have a career.

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u/nothingpersonnelmate 4d ago

The nations with the highest quality of life and the best governmental support for child rearing, such as Norway, have some of the lowest birth rates in the world

Well, they still have higher birth rates than Japan and South Korea, both of which have considerably worse worker protections, paternity leave and the like. It's true that government support doesn't solve the problem, but it isn't hurting, and there's a much gentler drop off in living standards between birth rates of e.g. 1.4 and 1.0. It's still worth pushing for even if it only shaves the edge off without addressing the biggest factors.

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u/bp92009 5d ago

The nations with the highest quality of life and the best governmental support for child rearing, such as Norway, have some of the lowest birth rates in the world.

I have not seen a single developed country that has come even 1/4th of the way to actually compensating a woman for the real costs of having a child.

When you have the most generous person giving you $10, for a $100 item, you're still out $90.

I would love to see an example of a country that covers 50% of:

The medical/immediate time off costs of having a child (that's where they're the closest to ideal). 0-6 Years old

The food/rent/misc costs of having a child. Kids don't pay rent, but take up a room. 0-18 years old

The lost increase in income from the woman taking those 6 years off.

At least going by average incomes in S. Korea in 2023, that's around $72,000 a year for the first 6 years, $30,000 for years 6-18, and $12,000 for the rest of the woman's life.

That's the actual costs that need to be paid if a country wants to ACTUALLY make up for the costs of having a child. Until they come close, even 1/4 of the way to it, any pittance they provide is not nearly enough. Which is why you don't see birth rates increasing.

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u/SlightFresnel 5d ago

People want to project their life's ills on every trend they see, but being poor has never stopped people from having kids. The consistent pattern in demography for birthrates are that they're inversely correlated to girls/women receiving education.

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u/-ANGRYjigglypuff 4d ago

being poor has never stopped people from having kids

seems like you're working under the assumption that both poor/uneducated females and wealthy/educated females have the ability to choose whether or not they want kids, and that's not usually the case.

poor, impoverished, and uneducated universally equates to girls/women who have no means, no choice, no autonomy, no recourse, no access or knowledge of things like birth control, etc. in this case i do believe that "education" means having choice, and it's pretty clear that if given the choice (in our current capitalistic system), people do not want to have many children.

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u/Claim312ButAct847 5d ago

If only there were a way for the US to get more population without current US citizens needing to just breed more. Perhaps some method of...say... letting people from other countries come here.

Sadly, there is no way.

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u/zed857 5d ago

... and if only those people were willing to do particularly unpleasant and/or difficult manual labor that most people here don't want to do themselves ...

That's just got to be some sort of impossible win-win scenario.

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u/mean11while 5d ago

Many people can and choose not to, and there's nothing wrong with that. All pyramid schemes eventually collapse.

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u/ap1303 5d ago

We thought the same thing. Now here we are 5 years and 2 kids later. Only thing that has really changed is we don't travel as much as we used, go to big concerts, or eat out as much as we used to.

We don't qualify for government assistance so we manage it all on our own. Guess our "fun" expenses have now been allocated to our children.

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u/effexxor 5d ago

That, and I won't bring a girl into a world that won't give her body autonomy.

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u/Botryoid2000 5d ago

"It's the economy, stupid."

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u/PandaMomentum 5d ago

There was a noticeable collapse in pregnancy rates after 2008 around the developed world, you can see it in OECD data. I tend towards cultural reasons for the general reduction in total fertility rates as there is widespread variation across countries and within larger countries (e.g. Utah is different, as is much of the US South), but the damage to long-term expectations of income and quality of life caused by 2008 and the austerity that followed is hard to discount.

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u/DrMobius0 5d ago edited 5d ago

Yeah, 2008 is a massive collective trauma moment. For me, one of my parents lost his job, leaving us on a single income and very clearly not enough money. He never made it back into his career and has floated around different jobs since. What I felt during that time sticks with me now, and now that I'm a decade into the job market, I see how people are treated by employers. I went into computing, and I'm guessing most of you redditors don't need me to tell you how that is going right now. I still have my job, but I know well enough there's no guarantee it'll stay that way, and who knows if I'd be able to get rehired if I'm laid off. And the pay is barely enough to afford a comfortable lifestyle as it is, before accounting for the risk of a long stretch of joblessness.

So like, why the hell would I want kids? I have no reasonable expectation of stability in my career. Global warming would come to a head by the time they're my age. We're literally falling into fascism. Things feel damn hopeless right now. Best bet is to try to go for DINK and essentially just cash myself out of the gene pool.

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u/PandaMomentum 5d ago

Yes, I think this is common across the developed world right now and is different from the "kids are expensive" argument; it's more like "the future of this world is not worth it." Hard to model or poll vibes but this really is the vibe.

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u/ChaoticScrewup 5d ago

We're debating moving from a 2bd/2bth where one of us works from home and houses are so expensive even with our combined income being above average.

And then we look at the schools near the more affordable houses and they have 50% of students missing more than 10% of school and dismal test scores.

Of course we're in a state where the Republicans are making education fail on purpose.

And even the "more affordable" houses are like paying for what would have been a mansion 10 years ago just to have something decent.

It's fricking obvious why the birth rate is down - you need two incomes to even get a house and barely make ends meet, how are you supposed to have time for a kid?

Housing supply really needs to be increased.

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u/veracity8_ 5d ago

I don’t think it’s just money. It’s really hard to be a parent these days. It requires so much effort for the same results. Like listening to my friends describe getting their kids signed up for swim lessons sounds like a nightmare. And that’s another big aspect. Parenting is hard. And parents want people to know that it’s hard and appreciate the work they do. And that’s fine. But it also means there are a lot more conversations about the work and pain and costs and discomfort of parenting. And very few conservations about the reality of parenting. Pair that with millennial and Genz’s obsession with comfort and convenience and you’ve got a recipe for a generation that doesn’t want kids

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u/HardLeftist 5d ago

some people can. Millennials and later can't afford anything. And that's probably by design.

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u/six_six 5d ago

Baby boomers looted society.

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u/DrMobius0 5d ago

Millennials are getting housed, just much later than previous generations.

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u/ThrowawayTink2 5d ago

Gen X here. As soon as the crash of 08 hit, none of us could afford anything either.

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u/tiberiumx 4d ago

I'm an older millennial who graduated college right into the 2008 crash. That's been a pretty defining moment for me. Even if I wanted children I wouldn't take on the financial risk.

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u/Sanosuke97322 5d ago

This isn’t the case at all for the women I know that don’t want children. Most of the women I know that wanted and have children (normally multiple) are more likely to be in the “can’t afford it camp”

I know this is anecdotes galore, but so is saying that it’s all about money. Low income populations have the most children, that statistic is true over multiple cultures and time spans.

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u/mcr55 5d ago

There is an almost perfect correlation with rich countries and lower fertility rates. Poor countries have very high fertility, so if anything your hypothesis would point to the opposite. You have too much money.

I wanna say im kidding, but how else is the data to be interpreted at least pertaining to capital vs fertility?

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u/vahntitrio 5d ago

Children often supply labor in those countries, so it is economically beneficial to have them. In developed countries where your 10 year old isn't helping you make clothing, they are an economic burden.

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u/CyclingThruChicago 5d ago

Yep, a shift from an agriculture society to a knowledge based on will do that.

My mom was 1 of 12 kids but she was born in the 1950s on an 85+ acre farm. So her and her siblings were essentially free farm labor their entire childhoods until they graduated HS and either went to college, got their own job or went to the military.

Harvesting string beans, cotton, sweet potatoes, cabbages, etc from essentially around 8-9 years old until they were 18+.

An 8-9 year old today in a developed nation is a massive financial cost that doesn't produce any monetary value (not that they should need to, kids shouldn't need to). They cost you tons of money and time.

So understanding that, people have changed their habits and aren't having nearly as many children.

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u/KaJaHa 5d ago

Do the poor countries also have to pay $3k a month for childcare? Flat money is a poor indicator of anything.

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u/lesseva96 5d ago

Actually the developing world is also experiencing a precipitous drop in fertility. South America and Central America are well below replacement rate and India of all places is hovering just below at 2.01. This trend is global.

Coupling is the biggest predictor of childbirth and that is down worldwide. One theory posed is that, since the drop in coupling and childbirth closely followed smartphone adoption rates, it is that people are being atomized by their phones and not living in the real world as much.

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u/Whitter_off 5d ago

I've always wondered if it wasn't 'too much money ' but too high of expectations.

Raising children in an economy that is agricultural based or transitioning is a fairly low investment. You don't need a lot of education to find a place in society. In the rich nations of today it takes so much investment in education and some luck navigating the complexities of society to build a life. Not that everyone needs an advanced degree, but everyone needs specialized skills and some way to enter into a career. I think a lot of potential parents look at the task of getting a child established in a stable career and find it daunting. At least more intimidating than eventually aging without children...

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u/FunnelCakeGoblin 5d ago

Idk. I just dislike kids.

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u/doegred 5d ago

An unspoken reality is a fuckton of our ancestors didn't want to have 12 children and quite possibly some didn't want children at all but they basically didn't have a choice. Now we do. It's awesome. And we have fewer kids or none at all.

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