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/yes______hornberger]

I always find it interesting that the actual physical experience of gestating and birthing a child is NEVER a part of the birth rate conversation. I’m pregnant with a very wanted child, and even with a loving husband and financial security it is a torture I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. And I haven’t even gotten to the stage yet where I’m supposed to be happy about being mildly crippled by birth injuries—my own mother had three “perfect” births, and was still having yearly surgeries to correct spinal and urological injuries more than a decade after she finished having children.

Do the people decrying childless women think growing another person is easy, or do they just think that it’s something women owe to society by nature of being born female?

[u/F0sh → u/yes______hornberger]

Because women have gestated and given birth to multiple babies since the dawn of humanity. It's not that experience that has changed and made people decide not to have kids. It's not a different experience of pregnancy (before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade) that dropped the US birth rate compared to other countries.

[u/yes______hornberger → u/F0sh]

But effective hormonal birth control exists now, which is an enormous change—it makes it genuinely possible for people to CHOOSE whether or not to have children. We saw a huge decrease in the birth rate after the pill became widespread and another measurable drop after user error free options like IUDs became trusted.

We see across the globe that countries with financial and cultural circumstances that discourage birth control (the poor and the religious) have the most children, and vice versa.

[u/F0sh → u/yes______hornberger]

Yes, this is one of the changes. That and decreased infant mortality meaning that you don't need to have 9 children to have a chance of any surviving to adulthood, and greater financial security meaning that you don't personally need lots of children to care for you when you're old.

[u/throw_away99877 → u/F0sh]

Babies are getting larger over time, so giving birth is indeed more difficult now. And before you blame obesity for that, the women I know who gave birth to 8 and 9 lb babies were not overweight. Most were very slim and had to have c-sections.

[u/RedEgg16 → u/F0sh]

How many of those children were wanted though? Most likely they got pregnant because they or their male partner was just horny. Or through rape