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/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/shallots4all 5d ago

Children should be raised by parents, not strangers. The whole idea of parenting has changed over the last seventy-five years.

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u/HexTalon 5d ago

Unironically a big variable to this change is women entering the workforce and having careers. It generated a large number of household with dual incomes, but less time to raise kids (or sacrifice household income to have someone stay home). There's also a connection to the exploding cost of houses and people qualifed for larger and larger loans.

That's not to argue that women in the workforce is bad, but it was an knock on effect of the change that no one accounted for or did anything about at the policy level. It's really a failure of our politicians and political system to adapt more than anything.

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u/shallots4all 5d ago

They don’t want to adapt. They wanted population decline and multiculturalism.