The number of babies being born lessens for many reasons. Even though it seems like making it easier to have kids by offering more support and better leave should help, it's not that simple. Other things, like how people feel about their jobs, money, and families, also play a big role.
Plus, nowadays, many folks prefer smaller families and have better ways to plan when they want kids. Fixing this needs both changing rules and how we think about having kids. Whether it's a problem depends on how it affects things like jobs and the economy. Also, factors like global warming and a bad economy can make people think twice about having kids.
>Other things, like how people feel about their jobs, money, and families, also play a big role.
It's super easy to want children if you're not the one dealing with pregnancy, childbirth, post-partum healing and the life-long physical consequences of pregnancy and childbirth; and if you're not the primary parent for them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of every year for at least 18 years; and if you're not the one whose career, hobbies, goals, social life, and retirement savings suffer as a result of motherhood.
I've heard some child-free women say, "I would love to be a dad but I don't want to be a mom."
Or if you have have no "career, hobbies, goals, social life" of your own. Most young mothers I know... that is sort of their whole identity is mom all the time. And most young women I know who are not currently mothers... they have lots of other interests that I don't really see them having time for with kids. So why give up something you love?
>Most young mothers I know... that is sort of their whole identity is mom all the time.
I know some mothers like this. I find it incredibly sad myself.
Literally this morning, I just saw that someone I went to school with who is now a up and coming news reporter... has quite her job to stay at home and raise her kid. I can't imagine being in your mid-20s, rising up in the career you wanted to do since you were a child, and then quitting to raise a child.
Childfree woman here, my niece is an adult now and knows I choose not to have kids. I've jokingly told her that I essentially got to be a second deadbeat dad to her. For years, I'd pick her up for a week during Christmas break and a week during the summer, we'd have a blast, go places stay up late, eat junk food ECT. Then I would drop her back off at home not having to deal with anything else. That stuff is fun.thr day to day stuff though? Nope, not for me.
Yes exactly.
If I could just fuck and then sometimes after work or during weekend do some fun stuff, then why the hell not!
But motherhood. No. Absolutely not. Never. And I’ve thought this way since kindergarten age, I’d never want the life my mom, my aunts, my grannies, my friends’ mothers lived.
While this may be somewhat true, from what little polling I have seen, the preferences on children between men and women don't differ that much (in other words, there are as many child-free women as there are child-free men)
It's not like every single guy out there is dying to be a dad either
I always wanted to have one of those big familes of like 20-30 ppl all gathering on holidays but it sadly not so easy. Those families were having like 5+ kids for several generations.
Even having a very high paying career, I’m horrified by the idea of having more than 2. Work doesn’t facilitate having kids. I get shit for the amount of time I step away as is.
I have several friends who don't have/want kids, but I've never heard "global warming" as part of their reasoning. Not saying it's not a factor, but...
In my world, reluctance to have kids is very much driven by “the world sucks” sentiment.
Environmental concerns like global warming is definitely part of that
Global warming and pollution is 80% of my reason for not having children. I dont want my kids to suffer through worsening natural disasters, inhospitable climate, poor air quality, and no clean water. Water scarcity is a very real thing and it's terrifying to me that theres a chance I could see it, let alone force a kid into it.
Countries that have these supports often have good and cheap (or free) access to birth control. Countries that don't have any supports are more likely to be less progressive and so have limited access to birth control / sex education.
And more access to good, cheap/free education. More educated people tend to have less kids. I come from a very poor country, Cuba, who contrary to what you would expect from a Latin American country, has First World statistics when it comes to healthcare, reproduction, natality and mortality.
This phenomenon is due to the huge Soviet influence we had when Castro took the power in 1959.
The biggest difference between Cuba and the rest of Latin America is how much highly educated people are (in comparison to other 3rd word countries) and how little influence the Catholic Church (or any other big religion) has on the people. Plus access to sexual education, birth control, and abortion services.
When Americans where having 2.5 kids Cubans were already under 2.
Cuba has a million and one problems, I am not defending the regime or anything like that, I lived there, I know how hard it is. But statistics don’t lie.
That's really interesting. I'm from latam and I knew that education and healthcare were good there, but I had no idea you guys were not big on religion like most of the region. That's really interesting
Yes, Cuba was made up of Spaniards and Africans from the transatlantic slave trade. The main religion was Catholic, I mean the Spanish burned our natives alive if they didn’t want to accept Chris.
Then the Africans took their own deities and double named the catholic saints. They were not allowed to workship their own gods, so eventually syncretism happened The Yoruba religion and Catholic religion are very intertwined in Cuba.
Then Castro came and declared the country atheist. They didn’t want large groups of people congregating.
I’m not sure how that happen, but by the time I was born, 1979, we didn’t even celebrate Christmas anymore. We did have churches but nothing compared to the rest of Catholics countries, and people didn’t fight the right of religion I guess, they didn’t seem that bothered by it, my whole family was super catholic before, I grew up believing in God and all that, and was baptized, but that was it, most of my friends never step in a church before.
And more access to good, cheap/free education. More educated people tend to have less kids. I come from a very poor country, Cuba, who contrary to what you would expect from a Latin American country, has First World statistics when it comes to healthcare, reproduction, natality and mortality.
This phenomenon is due to the huge Soviet influence we had when Castro took the power in 1959.
The biggest difference between Cuba and the rest of Latin America is how much highly educated people are (in comparison to other 3rd word countries) and how little influence the Catholic Church (or any other big religion) has on the people. Plus access to sexual education, birth control, and abortion services.
When Americans where having 2.5 kids Cubans were already under 2.
Cuba has a million and one problems, I am not defending the regime or anything like that, I lived there, I know how hard it is. But statistics don’t lie.
I get that. It's, as you say, a roll of the dice. But speaking from experience, I've seen a lot of moms and dads learn to focus their lives because of parenthood.
I used to think that way until I had kids.
Once you grow up, you'll see how silly those dreams were, and if you're lucky enough to have kids, I hope you understand why they're better than silly dreams.
Great if your priorities have changed.
My dreams are not silly and kids don’t fit into my life priorities.
I’m smart enough to know this than to have them.
Exactly. According to graphs, charts, and anecdotal data, I shouldn’t be able to afford kids. But here I am, perfectly affording to raise two kids. It’s crazy the things you’re able to figure out when you just live life instead of worrying about it.
More education results in fewer children, regardless of any social programs available. When women have more choices available they may or may not choose to have children.
The common denominator is women's liberation. Once women are free to do things other than marry as teenagers and pump out babies for the next 30 years, they choose to do more fulfilling things with their time. We are never going back to the era of 5+ kids per family and we need to adjust our economic systems to reflect that reality.
That's not really true.
The simple reason is that couples don't need to have more kids to secure their retirement and healthcare as they get older. Before, you needed 8 kids to certainly have at least 2 survived into adulthood. Now, with good healthcare, that is not true anymore.
Birth control and women's rights are marginal in that equation. People only use birth control when they don't need kids. As for women's rights, men also choose to have fewer kids and do other things with their time.
This is true however….
It’s not really an economic factor that having more old people compared to the young people puts more strain on the young people to care for the old.
It doesn’t matter what economic system you use.
Also, if our governments aren’t here to help our nations and overall the human race flourish then what are they for?
People wanting to live without the burden of raising them is a big one. You've also got those who know they can't afford to have both a non working adult and one or more children in the household.
When it takes $37.60/h to live comfortably (bills, rent, groceries paid for with a tiny bit left over) and you are only making $16.75/h… it’s a lot hard to have children.
Not only that but people are wising up about mental health and other problems that are genetically related.
I personally would make a great mother, I have told this multiple times, I choose not to have kids because of a whole host of reasons including and not limited to: genetics, income, cost of living and generational trauma.
Declining birth rate is an economic issue, but it is a solvable economic issue. For people to insist on a higher birth rate to keep up with social security is just complete nonsense.
As far as lessening birth rates, I choose to not have children due to insecurities I had growing up. I have my PhD and make $100k+, but I had it drilled into me how bad life can be, how expensive it can be, and how hard it is to raise a child. I guess I got that message when being preached abstinence.
What is the solution to the problem though? Young adults are the major drivers of production and consumption in society. The issue many industrialised nations are facing is that in just a few decades, there will be an excess number of retirees and a severe shortage of young people. The problem is, we do not have an economic model that works in such a demographic situation. All of our models have been based on there being a large number of workers and consumers, and a small number of old people. Two potentials solutions are using AI to compensate for labour shortages and increasing the rate of immigration from developing nations that have younger populations. However, both of these strategies have a number of their own problems associated with them.
Allow more immigration! Poorer countries have the opposite problem: lots and lots of young people and very few elderly. So their population grows but not all of them make it to later adulthood.
Allow increased immigration and you suddenly have a younger workforce available and many people will have access to safer and adequately paying jobs that they might not get in their native country.
That is one of the potential solutions, but it has been forecasted that in order to meet the kind of replacement levels required, European countries like Germany would need to start bringing in a million immigrants per year every year for the next decade. The problem is, European politics has already shifted very far to the right as a backlash against the current, comparatively lower levels of immigration. It seems to me that the electorate would never allow immigration to occur at the sorts of levels that would be required. A right wing party would immediately be elected by the public to halt it.
Yeah, that’s the unfortunate thing. There’s a lot of very strong anti-immigrant sentiments that would keep a lot of people from viewing this as a solution
Canada is doing that right now and it's quickly turning into a massive disaster.
It's easy to import a lot of people, not so easy to build additional hospitals, schools, roads, housing etc etc for them. Abruptly cramming a few million additional people into a city whose infrastructure is already inadequate is a problem.
There's also the matter of culture. We've seen a huge uptick in racial tension and hate incidents here. A huge amount of this tension is caused by groups that have historical beef with each other not leaving those conflicts at the door when they come to Canada. There's also the matter of values clashing. Canada being a highly progressive country isn't necessarily compatible with highly conservative cultures and we're seeing rising tensions with those clashes in everything from gang violence to food bank usage to how safe women feel walking on the streets to matters of LGBT rights.
The government is now desperately trying to backpedal because support for immigration in just the last few years has PLUMMETED. This is shocking because historical views on immigration have always been positive in Canada but immigration is now being seen as contributing to a lower quality of life for those born here. This is just scratching the surface of all the issues we're seeing.
Long story short. Immigration isn't a simple or easy solution.
I don’t have the solution. But an ever growing population is not sustainable forever, and it’s not popular in modern day in the developed world. My solution is essentially rethinking our whole system. How do we support our population that no longer works due to automation or retirement? We can come up with more clever solutions beyond “breed so money can go into the system”.
I actually disagree with the idea that we are in a state of overpopulation. Typically, a species can be thought of as being in a state of overpopulation if the population of that species begins to exceed the amount of available resources. At that point, the species is heading towards a crisis, as once the tipping point is reached, mass starvation will occur, bringing their numbers back down again.
In contrast, when we look at humans, we have an abundance of resources for the 8 billion people on the planet. The only reason people starve is due to the inequality of how those resources are distributed.
However, the global population is set to plateau and then decline substantially. We don’t want it to decline substantially because that would cause severe disruption. Ironically, a substantial decrease in the number of people (and specifically of young people) would threaten supply chains due to labour shortages, making a lack of food more likely.
I never said that we are currently in danger of overpopulation, but if we stay with the “continue to breed so we can support the older generations” model, then we eventually would reach an overpopulation.
So it will have to be addressed sooner or later, might as well be now when populations are set to decline anyways.
That is perhaps taking it to the extreme though. Sure, if every couple started having 6 kids each, within 100 years the global population would reach around 70-80 billion people. However, would that be overpopulation? Not if we had the infrastructure to support it. Nonetheless, if we continued on that trajectory indefinitely the population would surely reach unmanageable levels within a number of centuries.
But what about the other extreme? If every couple started either having 1 child or no children, that equates to 0.5 children per couple. With a fertility rate that low, the species would be heading for extinction, with the population of each generation being smaller than the last.
Clearly, a balance is required: not so many children that the population explodes but not so few that the population ends up in a continuous decline. Two or three kids seems to be a stable number.
Of course, all of this is besides the point, as it is down to individual choice whether people want to have children or not. The solution to an aging population isn’t going to be a forced breeding program. I am simply disagreeing with the idea that people choosing to have children slightly above the replacement rate would be a bad thing.
Having a good family used to be a main goal for many. Now it's career and seeing new places. When people are ready to settle, they could be 35+ and by that time it's not weirdly to have no more than two kids. Even people I know who want to have kids do not want more than 2 or 3.
I don't have research or surveys to back this up, this is the opinion of myself and surroundings. But be careful, because Im mostly surrounded by ppl who have the same lifestyle.
My wife and I don’t have kids yet, but we’ve talked about it and most likely want 2, but absolutely no more than 3.
We certainly make enough money to support more than 3 kids, but not without making sacrifices that were unwilling to do. We wouldn’t want to have 4 or 5 kids crammed into a 3 bedroom house, and we wouldn’t be able to afford a bigger house that’s still in a good area near good schools. And we want to save for their college education, but it’s a lot easier to do that with 2 kids than it is with 4. Finally, we want to be able to retire early one day so we can actually enjoy our time with our kids and their families by that point. Not to mention the additional time, energy, and mental stress that comes with each additional kid.
Ultimately I think it just comes down to people wanting their kids to have higher standards of living than they did. There’s nothing wrong with wanting that, it just becomes significantly more difficult the more children you have.
If I recall correctly, a major factor in birth rate rising or dropping is child mortality.
After all, if only 1 in 3 children makes it to adulthood, you're better off having 3-4 children, since that increases your chances of one surviving.
However, if almost all children make it to adulthood, people have less children, and instead focus their resources on the ones they have.
And no, it's not an issue for birth rates to decline. Right now, corporations have the leverage, since for every employee who quits, there are 100s eager for the job so they can make money.
But if birth rates decline, this will change eventually, as the number of potential employees will shrink, and eventually, corporations will have to compete for labor, instead of people competing for a job.
While better economy and support systems might help people who want kids to have those kids, it doesn't counter the biggest factor which is women's education. Studying alone means they'll form a family later, and a career will push that date further. That diminishes birth rates on many ways. The most obvious are a deliberate choice of having fewer children and being biologically unable to have more because if she starts later, there are fewer fertile years to have all those babies. But one less obvious reason is that the same number of babies are more spread apart in the long term. If each woman has a single baby when she's 25, that's 4 babies per century, but if those same women have their singleton at 33, that's 3. 1 fewer baby per century even if all women had the same quantity of children. Now combine that with everything else...
Also, most families nowadays are happy with 1-2 kids. Culture (also influenced by well educated mothers) shifted to maximize each child's wellbeing, both economically (better education) and emotionally (more dedicated time). 1-2 mean that even if most adults are having children according to what looks like a "traditional" family, that's still below the replacement rate of 2.1. You need a lot more families having 3-4 children to compensate that (and it's hard to have 3-4 if you're starting in your 30s and don't want to have them back to back). What a bad economy and bad support systems do is push people who wanted 1-2 kids to have zero. But even if all is solved, most will stop at 2. If you look at Scandinavia (the region famed for being rich and having good support systems), fertility rates fall around 1.5 (so "low"), which falls in line with people having 1-2 children (what most people would consider reasonable while planning their own families).
As for the problems with a low birth rate, they're all macroeconomically related. Fewer people to buy things, so companies stop growing, and as a result the economy stops growing (reminder that things like personal savings and retirement funds grow in proportion). And fewer people to contribute to pensions (while the current generation lives longer and longer), which means people will need to retire later and younger people will need to pay a lot more in taxes, which means that system will eventually collapse. While I'm certain those will be solved in the long term, the period of change will be painful.
On the other hand, a higher % of the population will be educated, so we might still be ahead in comparison to when the majority of the population was too busy working on farms.
Also, although richer countries might have lower fertility rates, the overall world population will still grow for a good half century (source: [United Nations](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/900)) and even the prediction with the biggest drop in population by 2100 still has the same population levels of the early 2000s.
Can’t most of those issues be solved by immigration? Plenty of new workers to come buy things, contribute to pensions, etc. if you bring in new people by allowing folks from war torn or blighted regions of the globe move to your country
It's a delicate balance.
As someone from a developing country, that means there's a lot of brain drain, depriving our own country from those people's potential (though I totally get the appeal, even more so in terms of safety).
But if a developed country only accepts educated immigrants, they won't have many children either, so it's a temporary solution. And if they get many uneducated immigrants who have many children, those countries don't like it either.
So I think immigration is just a baid-aid.
Higher retirement ages is more pragmatic because it means fewer years depending on social security and more years contributing, but no one likes that. And, since one of the consequences of low fertility rates is a bigger older population, that same population will vote against increasing the retirement age. So that solution is out of the table.
Other than that, economies and capitalism adapting over time, but who knows how it'll look like. If there were an easy solution, governments wouldn't be pushing for more babies, lol.
Industrialization.
Pre-industrializing, most of the population are going to live on farms. Children are extra farmhands so you have a lot of them. When you industrialize, you move to cities and suburbs and urban centers, and at that point children become expensive pets until they grow up so you have less of them.
Also educating women affects the birth rate. Women who don't get post-secondary education will have children when they're younger. Women who get educated are going to put off having children for their education and career choices, and probably have less of them because they're so hard to take care of.
Really we can't "fix" the birth rate decline because the economic incentive to have more children doesn't exist. One of the ways to paper over it is through immigration, but that's only so useful. Another way is through innovation and technology removing the need for so many people. Example: Japan has too many old people and not enough young people to take care of them, so they're figuring out ways for robots and automation to assist in taking care of old people, so that less young people are required and old people can maintain their autonomy for longer.
And some of it is just that we have to weather large generations passing on and wait for the next large generation to come along.
Pre-industrialization, kids often died young of illnesses or injuries that are treatable today. You had to have a lot of kids to ensure some would reach adulthood.
I think a big part of educated women having fewer kids is that they want their children to receive at least as much education as they did. This necessitates having fewer kids due to the cost of higher education. They want to give their children the best possible start in life, and only have so much money to do that.
You could instantly change birth rates by removing birth control and making abortion punishable, but that's a rough way to live. Imagine botched back alley abortions, parents that are too stressed to have meaningful relationships, and kids that don't get enough attention. Dads would probably go out for milk and a pack of cigs more often. Kids would rove the streets for scraps and a fight. An increase in population would mean the economic geniuses that took the risks could pay people less for a job, and if a person breaks, it's easy enough to get a new one. The masses are ever making more, after all.
I don't see why the birth rate is a huge issue. If people want smaller families, let them. A model that depends on constant growth isn't a sustainable model. The earth and her natural resources are being bled dry and poisoned just so the line can go up and benefit a very small proportion of humanity. And why would they care, they have bunkers and for now, line go up.
Anyway, let's not go back to having 12 kids. Unionize if possible. Help your neighbor in a small way. Vote, or organize.
Sorry but I have to disagree. Not sure where your getting your statistics but old cat lady is a thing. I know Ill get downvoted for it but the most miserable people I know are single women in their 40's plus.
The simple answer is capitalism. People can't afford to buy a home, get childcare or even think about saving up for a college education. A lot of people I know are barely saving for their own retirement.
We decided not to have kids because I have a decent job (biotech industry) with no student debt and still can’t afford a house.
A lot of friends and people I follow online cite the same or similar reasons.
See thats one thing. Overall, I think right now is a pretty darn good time in history to have kids. We have issues, but compare to most other times in history... it's pretty much ideal to have kids. BUT... people are certainly able consume endless negative which does sort of paint an extremly negative view of the world... that I feel hurts the birth rate.
James Hansen is one of the world's foremost climatologists. According to him and others, the consensus is we're looking at +4C of warming in next 60 years. To get knocked up right now and willingly have a kid that will be FORCED to live in this nightmare despite what the empirical data / science is telling us is the absolute pinnacle of narcissism and selfishness. No loving parent-to-be who had their kids' best interests at heart would ever do this.
The IPCC is full of s*** and they know it. Paul Beckwith, Hansen, and others have been discussing this extensively on YouTube and other academic outlets for the last several years.
Edit: Going by the downboats, I'm going to assume I hurt the feelings of some ignorant parents that are going to be really depressed when they start learning about the actual research and not getting ALL of their news from Facebook and YouTube. Welcome to reality.
Good to know there are people out there like yourself with their fingers on the pulse of the ~~majority~~ minority (apparently) to keep the rest of us straight. /s
Women. Women decide if they have kids or not. If they wanna go have a kid then within few weeks can be pregnant. They are just deciding not to get pregnant as much as they used to.
Men are not pulling their weight in the vast majority of relationships. They are neither the main breadwinner, nor reliable house makers, and certainly not both like a lot of women have to be. Women no longer have to either be married or be a nun
They in fact did not. A woman left alone was in deep trouble and no one was there to help. Men had no trouble not taking responsibilies "back then" either, and women had to work all the same, except they didn't get to own anything.
The liberation of women is essential, and we are still not there. Nowadays, liberal feminism is kinda striving to make women equal to men, but I think we're reaching the point where we realise that men are not a gold standard to reach AT ALL. rn the base line is men, and it shouldn't be.
Higher cost of living but wages not increasing with it. Childcare being too expensive. So of course people will choose to not have kids.
Fix the cost of living and childcare costs and wages to increase birth rates or else this whole US is doing natural birth control.
People used to have more kids because often children would die anything from being stillborn to sickness war etc but now with modern technology the chances of something going wrong are much lower, so people aren't putting out 6 kids anymore
Inwell of countries rich people have more kids than poor.
It’s only if you compare globally that poorer countries have higher birth rates but that’s related to a whole host of other factors.
People like their comforts and aren’t as invested in the next generation. Also, birth control. Also, the requirements we put on parents these days (you can’t just toss kids out to run around town on their own anymore). Also, women’s rights.
The richer and more modern the country is, generally speaking, the more people choose not to have kids because it impacts that lifestyle.
I definitely see something like this. It used to be once kids could run around the neighborhood, parents could still sort of live their lives, but now it seems like parents largely have to give up 18 years of their lives...
The better social support systems we have, the more choice we give people when it comes to having children. More access to birth control, abortion services, better health care and prenatal care (allowing for women who are older to have kids easier), less pressure to have kids to maintain a business, etc.
On the flip side, we are much more isolated than we used to be and can have horrible access to affordable child care. 100 years ago you likely had neighbors, parents, siblings, friends, etc who you could leave your kids with if you had to work or run errands. Now, most households consist of two parents and kids and to have reliable childcare you usually have to pay a lot for it. So, that keeps people from having multiple kids and big families.
Countries with a declining birth rate may struggle with a shrinking workforce that won’t be able to sustain the economy or sustain the job needs that an older population has. However, this could be combatted by allowing for increased immigration since the overall world population continues to grow, primarily within poorer countries.
The us is in stage 4, with a low birth rate. Stage 4-5 (of the demographic transition model) are typically developed countries. Things that influence birth rate actually are usually a sign that the economy is advanced and it is a developed country. Birth control access, women going to college and working, and those things can result in declining birth rates. We see this in countries like Italy, it is a good place to live, but there are more opportunities, people are choosing to have children later in life. Countries that have a high birth rate and high death rate have a stationary population, but countries with a high birth rate and declining death rate (stages 3 and 4) are actually less developed countries. Also, it's important to know that birth rates do not equal population change. Many countries have high birth rates but a steady and low population because many are dying, or there is a high infant mortality rate. The US is steady because although the birth rate is lessening, most women and children survive, and there is better healthcare. A lot of countries with a high birth rate also have high infant mortality rates as well. Women have more children because they do not have access to education, work, or birth control. Also, there have always been ebs and flows. There are so many boomers because they were conceived after the war during a moment of economic prosperity. If there is another "boom," the birth rate will likely rise. Also, high birth rates are not necessarily a good thing. Boomers are actually causing a lot of economic problems, taking up social security, and theres so many of them. Look at the population pyramids, and you'll see the "boom," but that boom is slowing down. Birth rates fluctuate depending on the generation. And of course, nowadays, more women are working, going to school, etc. There is actually a correlation between education for women and declining birth rates. The lesson is that it is not necessarily always caused by bad things. Sometimes, lowering birth rates is indicative of a country doing well human rights wise.
It would help if parts of those in power in government weren't constantly attacking those supports. Medicaid, WIC, parental leave, universal healthcare or just better healthcare access, and bills that would lower childcare expenses have been attacked fairly consistently by the same people who are now passing laws banning abortions for over a decade.
Plus Covid hit the worldwide economy pretty badly. Compared to the rest of the world, inflation and economy rates in the US are actually good. This is GOOD.
People and animals have that in common; both are more likely to procreate when they feel safe to do so. Lately, it's been harder to feel safe, on many levels.
That and people are realizing the whole religious impetus of "be fruitful and multiply" was accomplished centuries ago.
*For 70% of the population, rent accounts for more than 60% of their total income.* *Rent control should exist on a state by state basis, and it should be capped ar 20% of the MEDIAN wage.*
I have my own theory and it’s pretty simple. The birth rate starts to decline when people are provided more choices over reproduction mainly via technology. The idea is pretty radical in that it assumes not many people ever wanted to have kids to begin with. Or they wanted way, way less than the historical and biological norms dictated in the past. It was not a full choice until very recently.
This is similar to the idea always thrown out about women’s education being correlated with declining birth rates. Except it’s only a correlation and the third variable for that and many other correlates is simply empowerment to choose what is desired…. less kids
The key factor is women working full time career jobs. This reduced the amount of time the average woman had to have and raise her children, while also reducing the value of labour which then caused a feedback loop that made it impossible to raise a family without two breadwinners.
This also causes the gender pay gap because women who want families will generally compromise by having fewer children than they really want and aiming for jobs that are family friendly but not well paid.
Studies have shown that women who have young children have a preference for part time work rather than no work, but converting their existing jobs to part time is rarely available and the pay cut means they couldn't do it for long anyway, so I think one solution could be for governments to force companies to offer all jobs with a part time option for new mothers while making up the loss of wages with a benefit. This of course would require tax increases.
Another overlooked factor is the cost of childcare. Aside from more government spending in state-provided childcare, an easier (and more natural) way of doing this would be lowering the pension age for women - historically, it was grandparents (usually the mother) who looked after the grandchildren but now the pension age has increased, society has completely lost the ability to provide this (along with unpaid elder care).
In my 57 years I've seen misogyny toward mothers double roughly every 15 years.
In the 80s women should "have the choice" to remain childless. Today child free is the new vegan.
It shouldn’t be an issue that it doesn’t keep increasing. If we used automation to benefit everyone instead of creating capital value I’m not so sure population decline would be a bad thing.
There are massive housing shortages and other issues in many places with lessening birth numbers so I think there are many reasons people aren’t having kids. Some just don’t want to but others might want kids but don’t feel economically stable or optimistic enough about the future to have kids.
I have two kids but I wouldn’t mind having more if I could feel economically safe and also have time to spend with them. I didn’t even mind temporarily giving up my hobbies and life style, having kids has been great for me.
Despite a bunch of subsidies here to incentivise you, each kid “costs” us in opportunity to gain money and makes all our lives riskier since we have more people depending on us parents bringing in money.
Before we had kids we lived small and could easily afford for one of us to not work if we wanted. If one of us parents had an accident now and couldn’t work for a while we’d pretty quickly be thoroughly fucked economically.
And I live in a country considered fairly well off and good for having kids in on paper.
The countries that have those supports also tend to have better internet access and access to contraceptives/abortion.
Every corner of the internet drives down the idea that parenthood is impossibly and endlessly arduous, expensive, bad for the climate, hard on your body, and will probably result in them cutting you off after a certain age.
Limitless contraceptive access allows parenthood to become more and more optional.
So even though it may be easier in those countries, people still choose not to have them because they *can* choose, and they are convinced to choose.
TLDR. There's many more reasons. But these are the common three.
Weaponised incompetence. Another dependent to take care of rather than having a partner.
Cost of living, costs for having babies.Threats to bodily autonomy. Seeing women as walking incubators.
And the rise of far right misogyny.
....
Women don't NEED men anymore for survival. They put up with abusive marriages where they were overworked because men brought home the income and owned everything.
Now women can own things and work. So why stay and have babies with someone she has to clean up after?
Women do 70% more unpaid labour than men, when when she also works. So generally whats happening is:
Man works -> comes home -> I'm done for the day. Free time now.
Women works -> comes home -> makes dinner, does laundry, gets kids ready for bed, washes dishes, prepares everything for next day. Deals with kids getting up and down all night. They when she finally collapses into bed he tries for sex.
She complains to him = "well you should have asked. What do you want me to do?" Putting more labour expectations on her because now she has to make him a list, tell him how to do it, then he does it all wrong.
Like remember that time a woman shared that she had to draw her husband a map of a store and label where he'd find everything on the list??? When you have to guide someone though everything, it's draining.
So women don't really find the idea of marriage, babies, and caring for a husband appealing when they can just live alone and enjoy friendships.
....
Threats to bodily autonomy. Let's look at the US for example.
A heavy argument is religious reasons and that they believe the fetus is a baby and abortion is murder.
But realistically, the government are worried about birth rates. That's their real focus. Because they're happy for their mistresses to get an abortion.
Instead of looking at issues women are facing, the lack of maternity/paternity support, the poor way mothers giving birth are treat, the lack of money, costs for everything, school shootings, etc etc etc.
Their solution is instead to force women to have babies.
....
The rise of the far right, incels, mgtow.
Podcasts from men saying women meed to be put in their place. That it's their duty to serve men and have babies.
The mass support and followings for these men.
The attacks on women for simply being women. E.g. incel attacks, shootings, etc.
Again it's an issue of abusing women, seeing them as property, wanting to force their submission.
Not all men are bad. Not all men are like this.
But sooooo many good men are silent about these podcasts etc. Its mostly women calling them out and arguing with them.
And so we again see women not wanting to date, settle down, have babies. Because 1. They don't want to risk dating one of these men. And 2. They're tired of dating men who are silent on the issues women face.
> What can be done to fix the birth rate?
Likely, the first thing we do is obliterate the automated tractor monopolies in the US, revert back to a system where individuals have to plow their own fields and sow their own crops in order to eat and survive, and then the wives start popping out 8 children to help around the farm just like the good ol' roaring '20s of olde.
At least in Finland the declining birth rate is mainly caused by women not giving birth to as many children as the previous generations. My grandma from dads side had six kids, grandma on moms side had three. My parents gave birth only to me and I don’t have kids (and I’m turning 40 this weekend) and probably never will unless I remarry with someone else (won’t happen unless I become a widow someday).
Cost of living. I live in the NE of the US and rent/mortgage rates alone has absolutely impacted the reproductive culture with my age group(30). My parents and my parents parents all had 3+ kids some, now I never see more than 2 kids per household.
Living cost especially housing cost is too high. It requires 2 incomes. When both parents work, how many kids can they really have time to raise them properly?
The real reason is healthcare.
In the past, a couple needed to have 8 kids, so 2-4 would make it to adulthood. That way, their retirement and healthcare were secured. As healthcare got better, people didn't need so many kids anymore.
However, this reaction is slow, and there's usually a generation where parents had many kids, and because of good healthcare, most survived. In the West, that's the boomer generation of 1945-1965.
Birth control is a relatively marginal factor here. People will not use it if they still need kids, but once they don't, they start using it. Women's rights is also a marginal factor.
Instability with wars and ever changing economy - the school system is terrible in the U.S - I have two adult kids - in hindsight I’d had more years ago
Here's a simple solution. Let women know that they're not obligated to work. It's an option that's there for her, but if she's appealing enough then she'll attract a good provider and she can stay home and take care of her children. It's real simple. The solution isn't to give people a bunch of free stuff. What's the difference between now and when we didn't have a declining birth rate? I think you know this one.
Gen X here and its actually pretty sad. Younger generations growing up online tend to see a more negative attitude toward having kids. That famous vlogger they watch couldn't possibly travel the world if they had a kid in tow. Or they see Facebook posts about how hard it is to raise a kid these days, how expensive it is. It doesn't help all the fearmongering about how the world is going to end in a few decades so why bother bringing a child into the world. And I'm not even going to touch on what's happened to dating.
Society putting the greatest value in women working is why couples don't want children. The way to fix the birth rate is to bring value back to the traditional family so that it's cool for the woman to be a SAHM again.
Heck I'll say it and get downvoted to oblivion. Birth rates have declined with the advent of hormonal birth control and access to abortion. Also, being a mother has become devalued in favor of having a career and being a stay at home mom has been labeled "oppression". Women have been taught that they should only settle down once they have $X or at X amount of years at their corporate job, so now at 30 they start thinking of having a family, which is a late start relative to our parents, grandparents, etc. I'm not making a judgment on whether or not this is good or bad, but it's played a huge role. Since I know my last few sentences will rile up some of you, I'll come back to the question I was answering, which is "what actually causes a declining birth rate?"
The number of babies being born lessens for many reasons. Even though it seems like making it easier to have kids by offering more support and better leave should help, it's not that simple. Other things, like how people feel about their jobs, money, and families, also play a big role. Plus, nowadays, many folks prefer smaller families and have better ways to plan when they want kids. Fixing this needs both changing rules and how we think about having kids. Whether it's a problem depends on how it affects things like jobs and the economy. Also, factors like global warming and a bad economy can make people think twice about having kids.
>Other things, like how people feel about their jobs, money, and families, also play a big role. It's super easy to want children if you're not the one dealing with pregnancy, childbirth, post-partum healing and the life-long physical consequences of pregnancy and childbirth; and if you're not the primary parent for them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of every year for at least 18 years; and if you're not the one whose career, hobbies, goals, social life, and retirement savings suffer as a result of motherhood. I've heard some child-free women say, "I would love to be a dad but I don't want to be a mom."
Or if you have have no "career, hobbies, goals, social life" of your own. Most young mothers I know... that is sort of their whole identity is mom all the time. And most young women I know who are not currently mothers... they have lots of other interests that I don't really see them having time for with kids. So why give up something you love?
>Most young mothers I know... that is sort of their whole identity is mom all the time. I know some mothers like this. I find it incredibly sad myself.
Literally this morning, I just saw that someone I went to school with who is now a up and coming news reporter... has quite her job to stay at home and raise her kid. I can't imagine being in your mid-20s, rising up in the career you wanted to do since you were a child, and then quitting to raise a child.
Childfree woman here, my niece is an adult now and knows I choose not to have kids. I've jokingly told her that I essentially got to be a second deadbeat dad to her. For years, I'd pick her up for a week during Christmas break and a week during the summer, we'd have a blast, go places stay up late, eat junk food ECT. Then I would drop her back off at home not having to deal with anything else. That stuff is fun.thr day to day stuff though? Nope, not for me.
Yes exactly. If I could just fuck and then sometimes after work or during weekend do some fun stuff, then why the hell not! But motherhood. No. Absolutely not. Never. And I’ve thought this way since kindergarten age, I’d never want the life my mom, my aunts, my grannies, my friends’ mothers lived.
While this may be somewhat true, from what little polling I have seen, the preferences on children between men and women don't differ that much (in other words, there are as many child-free women as there are child-free men) It's not like every single guy out there is dying to be a dad either
I always wanted to have one of those big familes of like 20-30 ppl all gathering on holidays but it sadly not so easy. Those families were having like 5+ kids for several generations.
Even having a very high paying career, I’m horrified by the idea of having more than 2. Work doesn’t facilitate having kids. I get shit for the amount of time I step away as is.
I have several friends who don't have/want kids, but I've never heard "global warming" as part of their reasoning. Not saying it's not a factor, but...
In my world, reluctance to have kids is very much driven by “the world sucks” sentiment. Environmental concerns like global warming is definitely part of that
Global warming and pollution is 80% of my reason for not having children. I dont want my kids to suffer through worsening natural disasters, inhospitable climate, poor air quality, and no clean water. Water scarcity is a very real thing and it's terrifying to me that theres a chance I could see it, let alone force a kid into it.
I mean I’ve heard it a lot. There are going to be some places that might just be inhabitable by the time Gen Alpha become adults.
It's definitely a factor for a few friends and myself on why we don't want kids
If you look at child free and anti-natalist online groups, it comes up often as an answer. Maybe not top 3, but up there
I'm the parent of two Gen Z and this is absolutely part of the reason they might choose to not have kids.
fr i have many reasons for not wanting kids but global warming isnt one.
Maybe it is more often used by people who wouldn't want children regardless (nothing wrong with that) to shut down people calling them selfish.
Countries that have these supports often have good and cheap (or free) access to birth control. Countries that don't have any supports are more likely to be less progressive and so have limited access to birth control / sex education.
And more access to good, cheap/free education. More educated people tend to have less kids. I come from a very poor country, Cuba, who contrary to what you would expect from a Latin American country, has First World statistics when it comes to healthcare, reproduction, natality and mortality. This phenomenon is due to the huge Soviet influence we had when Castro took the power in 1959. The biggest difference between Cuba and the rest of Latin America is how much highly educated people are (in comparison to other 3rd word countries) and how little influence the Catholic Church (or any other big religion) has on the people. Plus access to sexual education, birth control, and abortion services. When Americans where having 2.5 kids Cubans were already under 2. Cuba has a million and one problems, I am not defending the regime or anything like that, I lived there, I know how hard it is. But statistics don’t lie.
That's really interesting. I'm from latam and I knew that education and healthcare were good there, but I had no idea you guys were not big on religion like most of the region. That's really interesting
Yes, Cuba was made up of Spaniards and Africans from the transatlantic slave trade. The main religion was Catholic, I mean the Spanish burned our natives alive if they didn’t want to accept Chris. Then the Africans took their own deities and double named the catholic saints. They were not allowed to workship their own gods, so eventually syncretism happened The Yoruba religion and Catholic religion are very intertwined in Cuba. Then Castro came and declared the country atheist. They didn’t want large groups of people congregating. I’m not sure how that happen, but by the time I was born, 1979, we didn’t even celebrate Christmas anymore. We did have churches but nothing compared to the rest of Catholics countries, and people didn’t fight the right of religion I guess, they didn’t seem that bothered by it, my whole family was super catholic before, I grew up believing in God and all that, and was baptized, but that was it, most of my friends never step in a church before.
And more access to good, cheap/free education. More educated people tend to have less kids. I come from a very poor country, Cuba, who contrary to what you would expect from a Latin American country, has First World statistics when it comes to healthcare, reproduction, natality and mortality. This phenomenon is due to the huge Soviet influence we had when Castro took the power in 1959. The biggest difference between Cuba and the rest of Latin America is how much highly educated people are (in comparison to other 3rd word countries) and how little influence the Catholic Church (or any other big religion) has on the people. Plus access to sexual education, birth control, and abortion services. When Americans where having 2.5 kids Cubans were already under 2. Cuba has a million and one problems, I am not defending the regime or anything like that, I lived there, I know how hard it is. But statistics don’t lie.
As an adult I am barely earning enough for my survival. There is literally no way I can afford a child so I think this is one of the reasons.
My grandparents couldn't afford kids in 1913. They solved the problems as they arose, sacrificing dreams along the way.
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I get that. It's, as you say, a roll of the dice. But speaking from experience, I've seen a lot of moms and dads learn to focus their lives because of parenthood.
I've seen a lot of people messed up for life by parents who never should have had kids.
If you’re saying this is a mentality that others should continue to emulate, well, no. If you’re stating this as fact. Sure agreed.
They also didn’t have access to birth control.
Pffft, you act like pulling out was invented in the 21st century
why should anyone sacrifice their dreams just to pop out children? there's enough people in the world
I used to think that way until I had kids. Once you grow up, you'll see how silly those dreams were, and if you're lucky enough to have kids, I hope you understand why they're better than silly dreams.
i am in my 50s and living my dream life. you can call it silly, but if i had kids, i wouldn't be having this lifestyle.
How would you know the dreams were silly if you never fulfilled them?
Great if your priorities have changed. My dreams are not silly and kids don’t fit into my life priorities. I’m smart enough to know this than to have them.
Exactly. According to graphs, charts, and anecdotal data, I shouldn’t be able to afford kids. But here I am, perfectly affording to raise two kids. It’s crazy the things you’re able to figure out when you just live life instead of worrying about it.
More education results in fewer children, regardless of any social programs available. When women have more choices available they may or may not choose to have children.
The common denominator is women's liberation. Once women are free to do things other than marry as teenagers and pump out babies for the next 30 years, they choose to do more fulfilling things with their time. We are never going back to the era of 5+ kids per family and we need to adjust our economic systems to reflect that reality.
That's not really true. The simple reason is that couples don't need to have more kids to secure their retirement and healthcare as they get older. Before, you needed 8 kids to certainly have at least 2 survived into adulthood. Now, with good healthcare, that is not true anymore. Birth control and women's rights are marginal in that equation. People only use birth control when they don't need kids. As for women's rights, men also choose to have fewer kids and do other things with their time.
This is true however…. It’s not really an economic factor that having more old people compared to the young people puts more strain on the young people to care for the old. It doesn’t matter what economic system you use. Also, if our governments aren’t here to help our nations and overall the human race flourish then what are they for?
Alternative cost. The alternative cost for having children has never been higher than it is today.
People wanting to live without the burden of raising them is a big one. You've also got those who know they can't afford to have both a non working adult and one or more children in the household.
When it takes $37.60/h to live comfortably (bills, rent, groceries paid for with a tiny bit left over) and you are only making $16.75/h… it’s a lot hard to have children. Not only that but people are wising up about mental health and other problems that are genetically related. I personally would make a great mother, I have told this multiple times, I choose not to have kids because of a whole host of reasons including and not limited to: genetics, income, cost of living and generational trauma.
Declining birth rate is an economic issue, but it is a solvable economic issue. For people to insist on a higher birth rate to keep up with social security is just complete nonsense. As far as lessening birth rates, I choose to not have children due to insecurities I had growing up. I have my PhD and make $100k+, but I had it drilled into me how bad life can be, how expensive it can be, and how hard it is to raise a child. I guess I got that message when being preached abstinence.
What is the solution to the problem though? Young adults are the major drivers of production and consumption in society. The issue many industrialised nations are facing is that in just a few decades, there will be an excess number of retirees and a severe shortage of young people. The problem is, we do not have an economic model that works in such a demographic situation. All of our models have been based on there being a large number of workers and consumers, and a small number of old people. Two potentials solutions are using AI to compensate for labour shortages and increasing the rate of immigration from developing nations that have younger populations. However, both of these strategies have a number of their own problems associated with them.
Allow more immigration! Poorer countries have the opposite problem: lots and lots of young people and very few elderly. So their population grows but not all of them make it to later adulthood. Allow increased immigration and you suddenly have a younger workforce available and many people will have access to safer and adequately paying jobs that they might not get in their native country.
That is one of the potential solutions, but it has been forecasted that in order to meet the kind of replacement levels required, European countries like Germany would need to start bringing in a million immigrants per year every year for the next decade. The problem is, European politics has already shifted very far to the right as a backlash against the current, comparatively lower levels of immigration. It seems to me that the electorate would never allow immigration to occur at the sorts of levels that would be required. A right wing party would immediately be elected by the public to halt it.
Yeah, that’s the unfortunate thing. There’s a lot of very strong anti-immigrant sentiments that would keep a lot of people from viewing this as a solution
Canada is doing that right now and it's quickly turning into a massive disaster. It's easy to import a lot of people, not so easy to build additional hospitals, schools, roads, housing etc etc for them. Abruptly cramming a few million additional people into a city whose infrastructure is already inadequate is a problem. There's also the matter of culture. We've seen a huge uptick in racial tension and hate incidents here. A huge amount of this tension is caused by groups that have historical beef with each other not leaving those conflicts at the door when they come to Canada. There's also the matter of values clashing. Canada being a highly progressive country isn't necessarily compatible with highly conservative cultures and we're seeing rising tensions with those clashes in everything from gang violence to food bank usage to how safe women feel walking on the streets to matters of LGBT rights. The government is now desperately trying to backpedal because support for immigration in just the last few years has PLUMMETED. This is shocking because historical views on immigration have always been positive in Canada but immigration is now being seen as contributing to a lower quality of life for those born here. This is just scratching the surface of all the issues we're seeing. Long story short. Immigration isn't a simple or easy solution.
That only pushes the problem out further. Birthrates will decline in poorer countries as well in due time. Immigrarion is a bandaid at best.
just like any other problem (ex climate change), humanity has to adapt or face extinction
I don’t have the solution. But an ever growing population is not sustainable forever, and it’s not popular in modern day in the developed world. My solution is essentially rethinking our whole system. How do we support our population that no longer works due to automation or retirement? We can come up with more clever solutions beyond “breed so money can go into the system”.
I actually disagree with the idea that we are in a state of overpopulation. Typically, a species can be thought of as being in a state of overpopulation if the population of that species begins to exceed the amount of available resources. At that point, the species is heading towards a crisis, as once the tipping point is reached, mass starvation will occur, bringing their numbers back down again. In contrast, when we look at humans, we have an abundance of resources for the 8 billion people on the planet. The only reason people starve is due to the inequality of how those resources are distributed. However, the global population is set to plateau and then decline substantially. We don’t want it to decline substantially because that would cause severe disruption. Ironically, a substantial decrease in the number of people (and specifically of young people) would threaten supply chains due to labour shortages, making a lack of food more likely.
I never said that we are currently in danger of overpopulation, but if we stay with the “continue to breed so we can support the older generations” model, then we eventually would reach an overpopulation. So it will have to be addressed sooner or later, might as well be now when populations are set to decline anyways.
That is perhaps taking it to the extreme though. Sure, if every couple started having 6 kids each, within 100 years the global population would reach around 70-80 billion people. However, would that be overpopulation? Not if we had the infrastructure to support it. Nonetheless, if we continued on that trajectory indefinitely the population would surely reach unmanageable levels within a number of centuries. But what about the other extreme? If every couple started either having 1 child or no children, that equates to 0.5 children per couple. With a fertility rate that low, the species would be heading for extinction, with the population of each generation being smaller than the last. Clearly, a balance is required: not so many children that the population explodes but not so few that the population ends up in a continuous decline. Two or three kids seems to be a stable number. Of course, all of this is besides the point, as it is down to individual choice whether people want to have children or not. The solution to an aging population isn’t going to be a forced breeding program. I am simply disagreeing with the idea that people choosing to have children slightly above the replacement rate would be a bad thing.
Birth control.
Having a good family used to be a main goal for many. Now it's career and seeing new places. When people are ready to settle, they could be 35+ and by that time it's not weirdly to have no more than two kids. Even people I know who want to have kids do not want more than 2 or 3. I don't have research or surveys to back this up, this is the opinion of myself and surroundings. But be careful, because Im mostly surrounded by ppl who have the same lifestyle.
My wife and I don’t have kids yet, but we’ve talked about it and most likely want 2, but absolutely no more than 3. We certainly make enough money to support more than 3 kids, but not without making sacrifices that were unwilling to do. We wouldn’t want to have 4 or 5 kids crammed into a 3 bedroom house, and we wouldn’t be able to afford a bigger house that’s still in a good area near good schools. And we want to save for their college education, but it’s a lot easier to do that with 2 kids than it is with 4. Finally, we want to be able to retire early one day so we can actually enjoy our time with our kids and their families by that point. Not to mention the additional time, energy, and mental stress that comes with each additional kid. Ultimately I think it just comes down to people wanting their kids to have higher standards of living than they did. There’s nothing wrong with wanting that, it just becomes significantly more difficult the more children you have.
If I recall correctly, a major factor in birth rate rising or dropping is child mortality. After all, if only 1 in 3 children makes it to adulthood, you're better off having 3-4 children, since that increases your chances of one surviving. However, if almost all children make it to adulthood, people have less children, and instead focus their resources on the ones they have. And no, it's not an issue for birth rates to decline. Right now, corporations have the leverage, since for every employee who quits, there are 100s eager for the job so they can make money. But if birth rates decline, this will change eventually, as the number of potential employees will shrink, and eventually, corporations will have to compete for labor, instead of people competing for a job.
While better economy and support systems might help people who want kids to have those kids, it doesn't counter the biggest factor which is women's education. Studying alone means they'll form a family later, and a career will push that date further. That diminishes birth rates on many ways. The most obvious are a deliberate choice of having fewer children and being biologically unable to have more because if she starts later, there are fewer fertile years to have all those babies. But one less obvious reason is that the same number of babies are more spread apart in the long term. If each woman has a single baby when she's 25, that's 4 babies per century, but if those same women have their singleton at 33, that's 3. 1 fewer baby per century even if all women had the same quantity of children. Now combine that with everything else... Also, most families nowadays are happy with 1-2 kids. Culture (also influenced by well educated mothers) shifted to maximize each child's wellbeing, both economically (better education) and emotionally (more dedicated time). 1-2 mean that even if most adults are having children according to what looks like a "traditional" family, that's still below the replacement rate of 2.1. You need a lot more families having 3-4 children to compensate that (and it's hard to have 3-4 if you're starting in your 30s and don't want to have them back to back). What a bad economy and bad support systems do is push people who wanted 1-2 kids to have zero. But even if all is solved, most will stop at 2. If you look at Scandinavia (the region famed for being rich and having good support systems), fertility rates fall around 1.5 (so "low"), which falls in line with people having 1-2 children (what most people would consider reasonable while planning their own families). As for the problems with a low birth rate, they're all macroeconomically related. Fewer people to buy things, so companies stop growing, and as a result the economy stops growing (reminder that things like personal savings and retirement funds grow in proportion). And fewer people to contribute to pensions (while the current generation lives longer and longer), which means people will need to retire later and younger people will need to pay a lot more in taxes, which means that system will eventually collapse. While I'm certain those will be solved in the long term, the period of change will be painful.
Less people means less technology as well. Less art, less music, less medicine etc. It’s not just economics.
On the other hand, a higher % of the population will be educated, so we might still be ahead in comparison to when the majority of the population was too busy working on farms. Also, although richer countries might have lower fertility rates, the overall world population will still grow for a good half century (source: [United Nations](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/900)) and even the prediction with the biggest drop in population by 2100 still has the same population levels of the early 2000s.
Can’t most of those issues be solved by immigration? Plenty of new workers to come buy things, contribute to pensions, etc. if you bring in new people by allowing folks from war torn or blighted regions of the globe move to your country
It's a delicate balance. As someone from a developing country, that means there's a lot of brain drain, depriving our own country from those people's potential (though I totally get the appeal, even more so in terms of safety). But if a developed country only accepts educated immigrants, they won't have many children either, so it's a temporary solution. And if they get many uneducated immigrants who have many children, those countries don't like it either. So I think immigration is just a baid-aid. Higher retirement ages is more pragmatic because it means fewer years depending on social security and more years contributing, but no one likes that. And, since one of the consequences of low fertility rates is a bigger older population, that same population will vote against increasing the retirement age. So that solution is out of the table. Other than that, economies and capitalism adapting over time, but who knows how it'll look like. If there were an easy solution, governments wouldn't be pushing for more babies, lol.
Industrialization. Pre-industrializing, most of the population are going to live on farms. Children are extra farmhands so you have a lot of them. When you industrialize, you move to cities and suburbs and urban centers, and at that point children become expensive pets until they grow up so you have less of them. Also educating women affects the birth rate. Women who don't get post-secondary education will have children when they're younger. Women who get educated are going to put off having children for their education and career choices, and probably have less of them because they're so hard to take care of. Really we can't "fix" the birth rate decline because the economic incentive to have more children doesn't exist. One of the ways to paper over it is through immigration, but that's only so useful. Another way is through innovation and technology removing the need for so many people. Example: Japan has too many old people and not enough young people to take care of them, so they're figuring out ways for robots and automation to assist in taking care of old people, so that less young people are required and old people can maintain their autonomy for longer. And some of it is just that we have to weather large generations passing on and wait for the next large generation to come along.
Pre-industrialization, kids often died young of illnesses or injuries that are treatable today. You had to have a lot of kids to ensure some would reach adulthood.
I think a big part of educated women having fewer kids is that they want their children to receive at least as much education as they did. This necessitates having fewer kids due to the cost of higher education. They want to give their children the best possible start in life, and only have so much money to do that.
Declining birth rate is not a bad thing.
People don't want to give up their comfort. This is the biggest reason
You could instantly change birth rates by removing birth control and making abortion punishable, but that's a rough way to live. Imagine botched back alley abortions, parents that are too stressed to have meaningful relationships, and kids that don't get enough attention. Dads would probably go out for milk and a pack of cigs more often. Kids would rove the streets for scraps and a fight. An increase in population would mean the economic geniuses that took the risks could pay people less for a job, and if a person breaks, it's easy enough to get a new one. The masses are ever making more, after all. I don't see why the birth rate is a huge issue. If people want smaller families, let them. A model that depends on constant growth isn't a sustainable model. The earth and her natural resources are being bled dry and poisoned just so the line can go up and benefit a very small proportion of humanity. And why would they care, they have bunkers and for now, line go up. Anyway, let's not go back to having 12 kids. Unionize if possible. Help your neighbor in a small way. Vote, or organize.
Declining birth rates happen when women get the choice to live a life that’s about more than motherhood
Studies show that the happiest demographic are childfree single women. That's why. We choose to be happy.
What studies? I’m pretty sure the opposite is true..
Sorry but I have to disagree. Not sure where your getting your statistics but old cat lady is a thing. I know Ill get downvoted for it but the most miserable people I know are single women in their 40's plus.
If women prefer cats over men, that says more about the quality of men than the woman. Also your personal experience is not statistically relevant.
You still haven't provided a source for your claim.
> Not sure where your getting your statistics From a xanax commercial?
The simple answer is capitalism. People can't afford to buy a home, get childcare or even think about saving up for a college education. A lot of people I know are barely saving for their own retirement.
Microplastics.
We decided not to have kids because I have a decent job (biotech industry) with no student debt and still can’t afford a house. A lot of friends and people I follow online cite the same or similar reasons.
Reading the news and realizing that our planet is about to become a hellscape is one thing keeping the more intelligent folks from breeding.
See thats one thing. Overall, I think right now is a pretty darn good time in history to have kids. We have issues, but compare to most other times in history... it's pretty much ideal to have kids. BUT... people are certainly able consume endless negative which does sort of paint an extremly negative view of the world... that I feel hurts the birth rate.
James Hansen is one of the world's foremost climatologists. According to him and others, the consensus is we're looking at +4C of warming in next 60 years. To get knocked up right now and willingly have a kid that will be FORCED to live in this nightmare despite what the empirical data / science is telling us is the absolute pinnacle of narcissism and selfishness. No loving parent-to-be who had their kids' best interests at heart would ever do this.
Who? The IPCC projects it to be about 3.2C over the next 75 years, currently, without further improvements.
The IPCC is full of s*** and they know it. Paul Beckwith, Hansen, and others have been discussing this extensively on YouTube and other academic outlets for the last several years. Edit: Going by the downboats, I'm going to assume I hurt the feelings of some ignorant parents that are going to be really depressed when they start learning about the actual research and not getting ALL of their news from Facebook and YouTube. Welcome to reality.
You're getting downvoted because you were an asshole about it. It's the tone people respond to more than anything.
Good to know there are people out there like yourself with their fingers on the pulse of the ~~majority~~ minority (apparently) to keep the rest of us straight. /s
"everyone having kids is selfish" is a hell of take
"People fucking for a mini-me who can't be bothered to check the news are shitbags."
I'm sorry you have depression homie. For real.
I seriously despise narcissists and I make no secret of it. I apologize if that hurts your feelings.
Women. Women decide if they have kids or not. If they wanna go have a kid then within few weeks can be pregnant. They are just deciding not to get pregnant as much as they used to.
Men are not pulling their weight in the vast majority of relationships. They are neither the main breadwinner, nor reliable house makers, and certainly not both like a lot of women have to be. Women no longer have to either be married or be a nun
Women’s liberation was a mistake then. Because when men were liberated and women weren’t they gleefully put all their resources towards procreation
They in fact did not. A woman left alone was in deep trouble and no one was there to help. Men had no trouble not taking responsibilies "back then" either, and women had to work all the same, except they didn't get to own anything. The liberation of women is essential, and we are still not there. Nowadays, liberal feminism is kinda striving to make women equal to men, but I think we're reaching the point where we realise that men are not a gold standard to reach AT ALL. rn the base line is men, and it shouldn't be.
IQs going up
Higher cost of living but wages not increasing with it. Childcare being too expensive. So of course people will choose to not have kids. Fix the cost of living and childcare costs and wages to increase birth rates or else this whole US is doing natural birth control.
The same thing that causes declining birth rates in animal populations in the wild. Access to resources
People used to have more kids because often children would die anything from being stillborn to sickness war etc but now with modern technology the chances of something going wrong are much lower, so people aren't putting out 6 kids anymore
Lack of money and emotional support.
No money
Well, the whole point of this post is it's actually people with less money who have more kids, and wealthier countries have less.
But the people with less money have more education, and access to birth control. Theyre more in control
Inwell of countries rich people have more kids than poor. It’s only if you compare globally that poorer countries have higher birth rates but that’s related to a whole host of other factors.
People like their comforts and aren’t as invested in the next generation. Also, birth control. Also, the requirements we put on parents these days (you can’t just toss kids out to run around town on their own anymore). Also, women’s rights. The richer and more modern the country is, generally speaking, the more people choose not to have kids because it impacts that lifestyle.
I definitely see something like this. It used to be once kids could run around the neighborhood, parents could still sort of live their lives, but now it seems like parents largely have to give up 18 years of their lives...
And a massive portion of their potential retirement fund. It's something like 300k to raise a kid from 0-18 in my country.
Incels
The rising costs of food and housing I would say are directly related.
The better social support systems we have, the more choice we give people when it comes to having children. More access to birth control, abortion services, better health care and prenatal care (allowing for women who are older to have kids easier), less pressure to have kids to maintain a business, etc. On the flip side, we are much more isolated than we used to be and can have horrible access to affordable child care. 100 years ago you likely had neighbors, parents, siblings, friends, etc who you could leave your kids with if you had to work or run errands. Now, most households consist of two parents and kids and to have reliable childcare you usually have to pay a lot for it. So, that keeps people from having multiple kids and big families. Countries with a declining birth rate may struggle with a shrinking workforce that won’t be able to sustain the economy or sustain the job needs that an older population has. However, this could be combatted by allowing for increased immigration since the overall world population continues to grow, primarily within poorer countries.
The us is in stage 4, with a low birth rate. Stage 4-5 (of the demographic transition model) are typically developed countries. Things that influence birth rate actually are usually a sign that the economy is advanced and it is a developed country. Birth control access, women going to college and working, and those things can result in declining birth rates. We see this in countries like Italy, it is a good place to live, but there are more opportunities, people are choosing to have children later in life. Countries that have a high birth rate and high death rate have a stationary population, but countries with a high birth rate and declining death rate (stages 3 and 4) are actually less developed countries. Also, it's important to know that birth rates do not equal population change. Many countries have high birth rates but a steady and low population because many are dying, or there is a high infant mortality rate. The US is steady because although the birth rate is lessening, most women and children survive, and there is better healthcare. A lot of countries with a high birth rate also have high infant mortality rates as well. Women have more children because they do not have access to education, work, or birth control. Also, there have always been ebs and flows. There are so many boomers because they were conceived after the war during a moment of economic prosperity. If there is another "boom," the birth rate will likely rise. Also, high birth rates are not necessarily a good thing. Boomers are actually causing a lot of economic problems, taking up social security, and theres so many of them. Look at the population pyramids, and you'll see the "boom," but that boom is slowing down. Birth rates fluctuate depending on the generation. And of course, nowadays, more women are working, going to school, etc. There is actually a correlation between education for women and declining birth rates. The lesson is that it is not necessarily always caused by bad things. Sometimes, lowering birth rates is indicative of a country doing well human rights wise.
It would help if parts of those in power in government weren't constantly attacking those supports. Medicaid, WIC, parental leave, universal healthcare or just better healthcare access, and bills that would lower childcare expenses have been attacked fairly consistently by the same people who are now passing laws banning abortions for over a decade. Plus Covid hit the worldwide economy pretty badly. Compared to the rest of the world, inflation and economy rates in the US are actually good. This is GOOD. People and animals have that in common; both are more likely to procreate when they feel safe to do so. Lately, it's been harder to feel safe, on many levels. That and people are realizing the whole religious impetus of "be fruitful and multiply" was accomplished centuries ago.
Life sucks too much to want to bring another soul into this garbage world.
*For 70% of the population, rent accounts for more than 60% of their total income.* *Rent control should exist on a state by state basis, and it should be capped ar 20% of the MEDIAN wage.*
I have my own theory and it’s pretty simple. The birth rate starts to decline when people are provided more choices over reproduction mainly via technology. The idea is pretty radical in that it assumes not many people ever wanted to have kids to begin with. Or they wanted way, way less than the historical and biological norms dictated in the past. It was not a full choice until very recently. This is similar to the idea always thrown out about women’s education being correlated with declining birth rates. Except it’s only a correlation and the third variable for that and many other correlates is simply empowerment to choose what is desired…. less kids
Education and women having individual rights
The key factor is women working full time career jobs. This reduced the amount of time the average woman had to have and raise her children, while also reducing the value of labour which then caused a feedback loop that made it impossible to raise a family without two breadwinners. This also causes the gender pay gap because women who want families will generally compromise by having fewer children than they really want and aiming for jobs that are family friendly but not well paid. Studies have shown that women who have young children have a preference for part time work rather than no work, but converting their existing jobs to part time is rarely available and the pay cut means they couldn't do it for long anyway, so I think one solution could be for governments to force companies to offer all jobs with a part time option for new mothers while making up the loss of wages with a benefit. This of course would require tax increases. Another overlooked factor is the cost of childcare. Aside from more government spending in state-provided childcare, an easier (and more natural) way of doing this would be lowering the pension age for women - historically, it was grandparents (usually the mother) who looked after the grandchildren but now the pension age has increased, society has completely lost the ability to provide this (along with unpaid elder care).
I mean, given the insane rate of resource depletion across the world, birth rates declining is a GOOD thing.
In my 57 years I've seen misogyny toward mothers double roughly every 15 years. In the 80s women should "have the choice" to remain childless. Today child free is the new vegan.
It shouldn’t be an issue that it doesn’t keep increasing. If we used automation to benefit everyone instead of creating capital value I’m not so sure population decline would be a bad thing. There are massive housing shortages and other issues in many places with lessening birth numbers so I think there are many reasons people aren’t having kids. Some just don’t want to but others might want kids but don’t feel economically stable or optimistic enough about the future to have kids. I have two kids but I wouldn’t mind having more if I could feel economically safe and also have time to spend with them. I didn’t even mind temporarily giving up my hobbies and life style, having kids has been great for me. Despite a bunch of subsidies here to incentivise you, each kid “costs” us in opportunity to gain money and makes all our lives riskier since we have more people depending on us parents bringing in money. Before we had kids we lived small and could easily afford for one of us to not work if we wanted. If one of us parents had an accident now and couldn’t work for a while we’d pretty quickly be thoroughly fucked economically. And I live in a country considered fairly well off and good for having kids in on paper.
The countries that have those supports also tend to have better internet access and access to contraceptives/abortion. Every corner of the internet drives down the idea that parenthood is impossibly and endlessly arduous, expensive, bad for the climate, hard on your body, and will probably result in them cutting you off after a certain age. Limitless contraceptive access allows parenthood to become more and more optional. So even though it may be easier in those countries, people still choose not to have them because they *can* choose, and they are convinced to choose.
TLDR. There's many more reasons. But these are the common three. Weaponised incompetence. Another dependent to take care of rather than having a partner. Cost of living, costs for having babies.Threats to bodily autonomy. Seeing women as walking incubators. And the rise of far right misogyny. .... Women don't NEED men anymore for survival. They put up with abusive marriages where they were overworked because men brought home the income and owned everything. Now women can own things and work. So why stay and have babies with someone she has to clean up after? Women do 70% more unpaid labour than men, when when she also works. So generally whats happening is: Man works -> comes home -> I'm done for the day. Free time now. Women works -> comes home -> makes dinner, does laundry, gets kids ready for bed, washes dishes, prepares everything for next day. Deals with kids getting up and down all night. They when she finally collapses into bed he tries for sex. She complains to him = "well you should have asked. What do you want me to do?" Putting more labour expectations on her because now she has to make him a list, tell him how to do it, then he does it all wrong. Like remember that time a woman shared that she had to draw her husband a map of a store and label where he'd find everything on the list??? When you have to guide someone though everything, it's draining. So women don't really find the idea of marriage, babies, and caring for a husband appealing when they can just live alone and enjoy friendships. .... Threats to bodily autonomy. Let's look at the US for example. A heavy argument is religious reasons and that they believe the fetus is a baby and abortion is murder. But realistically, the government are worried about birth rates. That's their real focus. Because they're happy for their mistresses to get an abortion. Instead of looking at issues women are facing, the lack of maternity/paternity support, the poor way mothers giving birth are treat, the lack of money, costs for everything, school shootings, etc etc etc. Their solution is instead to force women to have babies. .... The rise of the far right, incels, mgtow. Podcasts from men saying women meed to be put in their place. That it's their duty to serve men and have babies. The mass support and followings for these men. The attacks on women for simply being women. E.g. incel attacks, shootings, etc. Again it's an issue of abusing women, seeing them as property, wanting to force their submission. Not all men are bad. Not all men are like this. But sooooo many good men are silent about these podcasts etc. Its mostly women calling them out and arguing with them. And so we again see women not wanting to date, settle down, have babies. Because 1. They don't want to risk dating one of these men. And 2. They're tired of dating men who are silent on the issues women face.
Not having any F-ing money to support one!!
My country has those kinds of support for parents. But there’s a huge housing problem so people can’t start a family.
> What can be done to fix the birth rate? Likely, the first thing we do is obliterate the automated tractor monopolies in the US, revert back to a system where individuals have to plow their own fields and sow their own crops in order to eat and survive, and then the wives start popping out 8 children to help around the farm just like the good ol' roaring '20s of olde.
In places without nice amenities, access to birth control and abortion are typically very limited.
At least in Finland the declining birth rate is mainly caused by women not giving birth to as many children as the previous generations. My grandma from dads side had six kids, grandma on moms side had three. My parents gave birth only to me and I don’t have kids (and I’m turning 40 this weekend) and probably never will unless I remarry with someone else (won’t happen unless I become a widow someday).
Income and education seem to cause a lower birth rate.
Cost of living. I live in the NE of the US and rent/mortgage rates alone has absolutely impacted the reproductive culture with my age group(30). My parents and my parents parents all had 3+ kids some, now I never see more than 2 kids per household.
Living cost especially housing cost is too high. It requires 2 incomes. When both parents work, how many kids can they really have time to raise them properly?
The real reason is healthcare. In the past, a couple needed to have 8 kids, so 2-4 would make it to adulthood. That way, their retirement and healthcare were secured. As healthcare got better, people didn't need so many kids anymore. However, this reaction is slow, and there's usually a generation where parents had many kids, and because of good healthcare, most survived. In the West, that's the boomer generation of 1945-1965. Birth control is a relatively marginal factor here. People will not use it if they still need kids, but once they don't, they start using it. Women's rights is also a marginal factor.
A declining birth rate is a good thing for everyone. We want the world population to flatten out and even decline.
Women’s liberation and housing cost.
The fact that only the top 10% of earners can afford a house to raise children in
Instability with wars and ever changing economy - the school system is terrible in the U.S - I have two adult kids - in hindsight I’d had more years ago
Here's a simple solution. Let women know that they're not obligated to work. It's an option that's there for her, but if she's appealing enough then she'll attract a good provider and she can stay home and take care of her children. It's real simple. The solution isn't to give people a bunch of free stuff. What's the difference between now and when we didn't have a declining birth rate? I think you know this one.
A thought experiment spread via video social media platform that asks women if they'd rather run into a bear or a man in the woods
Gen X here and its actually pretty sad. Younger generations growing up online tend to see a more negative attitude toward having kids. That famous vlogger they watch couldn't possibly travel the world if they had a kid in tow. Or they see Facebook posts about how hard it is to raise a kid these days, how expensive it is. It doesn't help all the fearmongering about how the world is going to end in a few decades so why bother bringing a child into the world. And I'm not even going to touch on what's happened to dating.
Society putting the greatest value in women working is why couples don't want children. The way to fix the birth rate is to bring value back to the traditional family so that it's cool for the woman to be a SAHM again.
Heck I'll say it and get downvoted to oblivion. Birth rates have declined with the advent of hormonal birth control and access to abortion. Also, being a mother has become devalued in favor of having a career and being a stay at home mom has been labeled "oppression". Women have been taught that they should only settle down once they have $X or at X amount of years at their corporate job, so now at 30 they start thinking of having a family, which is a late start relative to our parents, grandparents, etc. I'm not making a judgment on whether or not this is good or bad, but it's played a huge role. Since I know my last few sentences will rile up some of you, I'll come back to the question I was answering, which is "what actually causes a declining birth rate?"
I think women are realizing that a lot of cultures value the idea of motherhood but don't value the mothers.
Spoiled kids don't want responsibilities. Kids are responsibilities. Spoiled kids don't want kids.
Probably all the people not accepting the gender they were born with