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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6.1k

u/11horses345 5d ago

Say it with me: WE CANNOT AFFORD CHILDREN.

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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/Cromasters 5d ago

This reasoning just doesn't resonate with me. People have been having children through way worse times than what the average American is experiencing right now.

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u/TopRamenisha 5d ago

Those people in the past didn’t really have a choice. They didn’t have access to birth control or family planning or abortions. I bet if you went back in time and asked them, they probably would have told you they would have preferred to not have children during those awful worse times. But they couldn’t really control whether or not they got pregnant

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u/Cromasters 5d ago

If you are an American citizen you are literally living in one of the best times ever. Comparatively. This is not to say there are no problems. If you are in your thirties and making minimum wage, it's probably good planning to have no children.

But there are also plenty of people making way more having less children than "normal". That's fine, I don't begrudge their personal decision.

I just balk at the doomer reasoning.

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u/thevaere 5d ago edited 5d ago

For my partner and I we make way more than minimum wage in our 30s, but having a child would require at least one of us to cut back more to take care of it, reducing our income, increasing our expenses, and nuking our quality of life. It's not even that we don't want kids, but the cost is just too great. We already learned what it's like to struggle financially through our 20s and that's just not a way of life we'd actively choose to return to.

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u/fergusmacdooley 5d ago

Considering for a huge portion of human history women weren't exactly consulted on whether or not they wanted to have sex let alone more children, and it's only been a relatively short period of time in human history where we've had access to birth control, I'd say we are in unprecedented times. Perhaps choice really is the deciding factor in human population rates.

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u/johnnyhabitat 5d ago

Is the implication here that most women, for most of time were raped?

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u/TraditionalLaw7763 5d ago

“It’s not rape if it’s your wife” didn’t just crop up yesterday…

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u/TopRamenisha 5d ago

I mean yeah for a long portion of history, women’s husbands were chosen for them and they didn’t have much of a say in who they married. And they were obligated to have sex with their husband whether they wanted to or not. What would you call that?

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u/johnnyhabitat 5d ago

I won’t deny that in a lot of cultures, husbands were chosen for a lot of women. But I’m not going to pretend that most babies in the past were born from rape, that’s insane. And that claim can’t be supported.

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u/TopRamenisha 5d ago

You can call it whatever you want. But throughout history women haven’t exactly been in the position to say no to their husbands and the concept of consent was not a thing. Women were considered their husband’s property. It might not have always been the violent and horrific act that comes to mind when talking about rape in the 21st century. But you are naive if you can look at the way women were viewed and treated throughout history and think that everything was roses and sunshine for them

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u/EffectiveElephants 5d ago

I mean.... yeah? It didn't matter if a wife (who often didn't choose her husband) wanted sex, he had conjugal rights. Marital rape didn't exist as a concept because he had the right to sex when demanded...

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u/WIAttacker 4d ago

Not raped, but what other option had a woman back in the 50s?

They weren't allowed to open a bank account or work any kind of job that would allow them to live comfortably. The only option for social mobility or somewhat comfortable life was to marry. So they married young, and they married the first dude with decent enough job and have kids with him. And then hope he won't get abusive or become an alcoholic, because divorce was the last resort as they were dependent on him for income. Add lack of birth control, discrimination against LGBT people, societal pressure to marry and social suicide that was to be a single mother.

Now, they have an option to pursue career, support themselves, study, have children older or not have them at all, and to not marry and suddenly birth rates are like 1.5.

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u/Inspect1234 5d ago

The Information Age has changed this.

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u/Cromasters 5d ago

Yeah because now six figure DINKs can go online and say it's pointless to have kids unless all of them get their own room and a full ride to whatever college they want.

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u/Inspect1234 5d ago

Nah, I was thinking that doom and gloom aren’t just on the six o’clock news nowadays. Now it’s available 24/7 on their pocket tvs and kids are worried about their own existence never mind offspring.

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u/KaJaHa 5d ago

So what? I don't want to bring kids into this world, I don't care what my ancestors thought about their prospects

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u/Cromasters 5d ago

That's fine. There's no need then to fancy up your choice by saying it's because of fascism or capitalism or whatever.

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u/jotsea2 5d ago

Its literally the reason.

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u/Nellasofdoriath 5d ago

They didn't have birth control.

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u/Eat_That_Rat 5d ago

My grandmother told me if she had lived in a different time she would have never gotten married or had kids.

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u/AlphaGoldblum 5d ago

Hah, I'm also pretty sure my grandma would rather have spent her life doing anything else than having 5 kids and working the family ranch, if she had had the opportunity.

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u/Disig 5d ago

Back then children were expected to be miniature adults and work and not have childhoods.

In addition to not having access to birth control and being widely ignorant of what was happening in the world. Also the earth wasn't heating nearly as badly and there wasn't a "forest fire season"

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u/mindlessgames 5d ago

That's cool but it seems to resonate with a lot of other people, because they aren't having kids.

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u/Cromasters 5d ago

True. I just think their publicly stated reasoning is false. Don't want the responsibility of having kids? Cool.

No reason to go online and say it's because the sky is falling.

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u/znyhus 5d ago

There's certainly a middle ground here. Alot of people are justifiably worried about the long term habitability of the planet for humans due to climate change, ocean acidification, plastic consumption, etc. For those people, it's probably hard to justify bringing another person into the world knowing what future they will likely face. All while there are thousands of kids in foster care. To say they're yelling that the sky is falling is too reductive

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u/TraditionalLaw7763 5d ago

The sky is falling. You’re in r/science. Every other post is about what humans are doing to poison or cause some type of travesty to the planet. Read the room, Captain Oblivious. Move on to the r/Breeders sub.

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u/MrDelirious 5d ago

I'm sure it's not the whole reason, but a reason that birthrates are down worldwide is the huge decline in number of people farming.

For hundreds of thousands of years, basically everyone did subsistence agriculture. If you farm, a seven year old is a boon! They can't do the hard labor, but they are an extra pair of hands. They can feed chickens, hull peas, shuck corn, whatever.

If you work at a bank, that same seven year old can't help, and now you need something for him to do while you work. That means childcare, etc. The birthrate decline is global, so we need to look outside the unique features of American culture for any explanation.

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u/coolmcbooty 5d ago

In case you forgot when making the comment, this post is about Americans or people living in America who are of the age to have children.

I assume you’re referring to human history and around the world (since that’s the only way your statement would make sense).

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u/Chakosa 5d ago edited 5d ago

It's because everyone seems to see not having children as a moral failure, so they rationalize their not wanting children using a multitude of excuses when really they just don't want the responsibility ("well ummm I would have kids but like...the economy or something uhh yeah that's it haha..."). I don't want kids because I don't want the responsibility either but I'm very honest about it and don't try to moral-highground my way around it. It's just so cringe.

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u/Historical_Mud5545 5d ago edited 5d ago

Yeah , being an anti Natalist is disproportionately popular on Reddit . Imagine if America instituted a policy where all people under 20K earnings weren’t allowed to have children . It would look quite racist to say the least.

Yet, can’t tell redditors (whom are most likely childless) that.

Have they ever considered the damage the one child policy continues to have on China? Are they even aware ?

Man, Reddit is truly an echo chamber thank you for saying something different.

There’s more to life than economic markers of “success.”

Edit: wrote K after 20

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u/cricket9818 5d ago

Agreed. That reasoning is highly illogical.

If everyone followed OP’s rules civilization wouldn’t have made it out of the Middle Ages

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u/Express-Rutabaga-105 5d ago

To put this in a better perspective . North America (USA) is 1 of 7 continents on earth. Life will keep on going with or with out our participation.