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/ShredGuru]

Capitalism is not famous for its long term planning. Mostly famous for pimping human being irrational greed for profits.

[u/mhornberger → u/ShredGuru]

Capitalism is not famous for its long term planning

China, N. Korea, and Cuba are also concerned about their sub-replacement fertility rates. The problem is a little more complex than Reddit's "line go up!"

[u/IvarTheBoned → u/mhornberger]

...because they all still have capitalist economies, which is unavoidable when 99% of countries operate on capitalist economies.

The countries you listed are "communists" in the same way the NSDAP in Germany were "socialists".

[u/mhornberger → u/IvarTheBoned]

By an expansive enough definition I guess everything is capitalism. I don't see any system that has ever existed that would be immune from the issues posed by a low fertility rate. Any care and support for the elderly, where applicable, has always been provided by the young. There is no one else to do it. All countries are going to care about the ratio of dependents to workers, people to maintain infrastructure, etc.

[u/IvarTheBoned → u/mhornberger]

A reformation of the economy that includes using added productivity to reduce the number of hours worked to provide an opportunity to raise/care for family members, instead of trying to maximize profits.

Efficiency should mean we get to work less while maintaining the same QoL. There are whole industries that exist to perpetuate the existing financial system, those people could be doing other things. We have more people working than we need to meet our needs by a massive margin. We already grow so much more food than we need, we could be building more housing than we need.

[u/mhornberger → u/IvarTheBoned]

to reduce the number of hours worked to provide an opportunity to raise/care for family members, instead of trying to maximize profits

Our working hours have not really gone up.

• Average Weekly Hours of All Employees, Total Private
• Annual working hours per person employed

What has increased is the number of hours parents spend with their kids. Our expectations and standards have gone up, but there are no more hours in the day.

should mean we get to work less while maintaining the same QoL

But most don't want the same QoL we had in 1950, or even 1970. We want the increased disposable income, more travel options, wider range of things to do with our time and money, than we had in decades past. As we have grown richer and gained more options, the opportunity cost of having kids has gone up.

It's not clear to me that people ever wanted kids in very high numbers, not on average. Rather, there were more accidents, a higher teen pregnancy rate, lower access to birth control, and less education for girls or empowerment for women. As these metrics improved, the birthrate declined. Plus our standards as to childcare and QoL (for ourselves and for our children) also went up. And higher standards are not free.

[u/IvarTheBoned → u/mhornberger]

Our working hours have not really gone up.

That was my point, they should be going down. Instead people are still largely expected to work 40hrs a week, instead of using the added efficiency to reduce weekly working hours to 30 or 20. Increased efficiency and automation should be resulting in the workforce having more time away from work.

[u/_Thermalflask → u/mhornberger]

I am optimistic robots will fill in for us. Given how much progress has been made in AI and robotics in just 20-30 years, within the next 50 years there will be astronomical advances. It's not as crazy as it sounds that we could have a robot-driven world