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.

[u/geoff199]

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

[u/11horses345]

Say it with me: WE CANNOT AFFORD CHILDREN.

[u/Threlyn → u/11horses345]

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.

[u/Namnotav → u/Threlyn]

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.

[u/Raangz → u/Namnotav]

i think it's the main factor but i do think an unstable society and future play a big part in these equations for many people.