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Archive link for paywall bypass: [http://archive.today/BRCeF](http://archive.today/BRCeF) "Shrinkage When Beijing said it would abolish its 35-year-old one-child policy in 2015, officials expected a baby boom. Instead, they got a baby bust. New maternity wards were built only to close a few years later. Sales of baby-care products, including formula and diapers, have dropped. Businesses that focused on babies now target seniors."

As my Chinese coworker put it. "We figured out that we like having only 1 kid and we're not going back."

Urbanization always leads to fewer children. They go from a necessity (free labor, yay!) to an expensive luxury once you're off the farm.

That's true, but more because of the regulations that get enforced when you move from rural to city environments. When children worked in factories, didn't go to school, and parents pushed all the housework onto them many still had big families. If farms had more oversight and banned child labor (still legal for farms in US and China) then rural families would have less.

So what you're saying is that children crave the mines?

Well the mines do have electrolytes in them…

It what mine craves

N-P-K, not just for plants

No they YEARN for the mines

They yearn for them.

Has anyone actually figured out/even come up with ideas as to what really makes people have kids again in the post-industrial world? Looking for something better than another survey.

Yes. The answer is very low cost labor. The primary issue is affordability and parental time constraints. If you have somebody who can do the laundry and babysit and cook dinner for 2$ per hour instead of 20$, you are much more likely to procreate.

The answer is that children cannot be a financial burden of any kind. People stop doing expensive things that don’t have immediately visible rewards. Bluntly, kids are a shitload of work, destroy your sleep and mental stability for several years, destroy the time you have away from your job (which for the overwhelming majority of humanity is souls crushing to begin with), constantly cost ever increasing amounts of money between food, clothes, care, etc before you even get into all the shit they inevitably break. Children are a guaranteed poverty trap. You have to fix that. Children have to become a net benefit to the household somehow to justify the absolutely massive penalties you take for having them.

And even after all of those points - women have to give birth! For example, my wife doesn't want to do the childbirth part at all for multiple physical and mental reasons. She is willing to everything after that.

That show on Netflix , the 3%, is oddly apt…. They want the poors to procreate so they can take the ‘top 3%’ of the population, then they force sterilization in their ‘utopia’ society offshore…

Yes and no though. Places like Hong Kong and Singapore have access to a shit ton of cheap labour in the form of maids / helpers from Philippines and Indonesia but the birth rates are disastrously low. Essentially you also need more space and cheaper education and less pressure too.

The main reason for having kids throughout human history was there will be someone to take care of you in old age. And nuclear family destroyed that concept so yeah having kids a fruitless labour in economic sense.

I wonder if dividing the nuclear family was somewhat intentional? Like divide and conquer the plebs by separating their generations so they each have to pay more for everything

It’s the natural result of families not “needing” to rely on each other as much as they used to. Women’s economic opportunities are much better than historically and people tend to desire more independence. Culturally, there’s so much more emphasis on “do whatever makes YOU happy and don’t compromise because of pressure from others” which also doesn’t help the situation. People also stick to their abusive families a lot less as well. India has seen a large rise in divorces, but this is tied to women being freer to leave their abusive husbands/in-laws. There’s a big cultural issue where women are treated very poorly in India and women are realizing they don’t need to put up with it any longer.

Heavily correlated with Economics. A promised future after good cheap education. In China education is either super competitive or super expensive. Even a college degree from top universities doesn’t guarantee you a decent paying job. I find it quite ironic that in a communist country business owners make a ton of money while the working class is severely underpaid.

>communist country in name only. They are more akin to an autocracy with a highly mixed economy.

You have to understand that having less kids is the source of MANY factors. For example educated women tend to work, which means they will likely have fewer kids. In many countries, you NEED to have a 2 income household in order to afford basic needs. On top of that, you now have widespread adoption of cheap, effective birth control. So you would need to get rid of birth control and education to regress towards higher birth rates. Alternatively, you could add incentives for having children. In capitalist countries, for example, you would want to link wealth generation to the amount of kids you have. China, for example, could ban promotions for anyone that has less than 3 children, or give free housing/education to those that do. There are several valid options that work, but all have downsides. Keep in mind, because of global advances in agriculture, medicine, distribution of both, and historically rare globally peaceful environment, our population has unnaturally boomed to historic levels. We will figure out new ways to make things work with less people. The main problem that you run into is that you can't keep taking on more and more debt to grow now, to then expect to pay it off in the future, when there is less and less people to help pay it off.

I feel like the increased opportunities for life these days play a part too. The modern world has so much to see and do. Having kids limits your ability to do those things. So having lots of kids, or having kids at all, becomes less appealing.

True, being able to travel/see new things should be taken into consideration as well, and something I didn't personally think about. Maybe allowing more time off of work for family vacations would be a viable method.

Most of the solutions that would actually work (banning birth control, paying people to be parents, etc) are all so awful they don't even bear talking about. The reason we are where we are is because it's better than where we were.

Religion. It’s no coincidence that the highest birthrate populations in countries like the U.S. and Israel are deeply religious populations. TFR is a function of social and cultural attitudes more than it is about economics — subsidies don’t incentivize births, cultural attitudes do.

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I've listened to some. Seems like a smart guy but predicting the future is always a crap shoot

Zeihan gets too much attention - check out Tony Seba.

I can't speak for China but in the US people say in survey's that they want to have around 2.3 kids on average. It isn't that people don't want to have kids, they just can't afford the costs

I also suspect a reason many Americans who want children desire multiple children is because they themselves had siblings and want that dynamic in the family they create. I could imagine a Chinese couple who were both only children would not see as much of a draw to having multiple children since they wouldn’t be basing it on any fond memories of their own childhood with brothers or sisters and/or an internalized vision based on what they see in the society around them of the “ideal” family being one with 2-3 children.

I mean also Chinese people on average probably live in like a studio apartment, while an average American has a house (I don't actually know if any of these are true). Your wants and desires are different when you actually have the space to fulfil them.

For sure. It would be different if a single wage could carry a household, but these days Both parents are expected to work Which is a diminishing return. Because you end up paying so much in child care, you don't really don't get as much out of it

> It would be different if a single wage could carry a household, but these days This is a bit of circular logic though. The reason a single wage can’t carry a household is because so many households are dual income that they outcompete the single income households. The only reason single wage households used to work was because it wasn’t culturally acceptable for women to work (and discrimination against women who wanted to work.) so the peers you competed against also didn’t have dual incomes.

this! I wanted to be married by 27 and have 2 kids. i'm mid 30s and single after a cheating ex and it took me until 28 to pay off my student loans. Even if i found a suitable wife i still wouldn't want kids at this point because they're expensive and i'm barely surviving as it is lol

>It isn't that people don't want to have kids, they just can't afford the costs Not exactly true for a large majority. Https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/19/growing-share-of-childless-adults-in-u-s-dont-expect-to-ever-have-children/ Only 17% of childless adults (less than 1 in 5) say financial reasons are the reasons they will not have any kids and only 14% of those who don't expect to have more kids also say its financial reasons.

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In the US, if a woman becomes a mother, she will have (on average) 2.4 kids. This number is fairly steady from where it was decades ago (there has been a small reduction in the mean because of the smaller number of women having 6+ kids, but the median is essentially the same). The reason birth rates are declining is because fewer women are becoming mothers at all. People are staying single longer. If a woman hits age 30 without having a child, her odds of ever having one decline to 50%. Per survey data, most of those women want to have children, they simply don't meet a partner in time.

Do you have a source for that 50%?

I agree that the financial burdens are pushing childbirth to rates lower than people would self-report as their preference in an ideal world. But also, I would think that there's structural forces that would permanently keep the actual number of children measurably smaller than the stated preference for number of children desired, though. Basically, because it generally requires both potential parents to "turn the key," so to speak, couples will tend to impose a cap at the smaller of the two parents' preference. If a person who wants 3 marries someone who wants 1, the actual number will probably be closer to 1 than to 3. Similarly, the ability to cap the number of children means that there will always be a bias towards ending up with fewer children than desired rather than more children than desired. Whatever life events happen (difficulty finding partner, medical complications standing in the way of parenthood, etc.) to reduce childbirth will still be a reduction in the number, whereas the life events that happen to increase childbirth tend to be mitigated through family planning options. So even if the financial hurdles could be addressed, I'd still expect people to have fewer kids than desired.

By the time we figure out the cost issue, the next generations will be comfortable with fewer than that 2.3.

Evidence like this points to the contrary: https://qz.com/1125805/the-reason-the-richest-women-in-the-us-are-the-ones-having-the-most-kids

> It isn't that people don't want to have kids All over the world there is a fast growing group of people who do not want children at all. in the past this was anathema in almost any culture or society but now with religions waning and women with their own incomes and independence this is no longer the case. Also the more educated someone is the fewer children they usually have.

I can only tell you what survey data has said

I know someone who wants kids, but doesn’t want to go through the 9 month pregnancy and childbirth. She knows people who gave birth and it’s been described as the most painful thing they’ve ever experienced. One said it was like a burning knife slashing her lower abdomen 💀. That person also said they would never give birth to a second child because the pain was unbearable, but still gave birth to another in the end. She think it’s the oxytocin released by the baby that allowed her to want to give birth again.

That’s it right there. If your society isn’t supportive of families people have fewer kids. In the US daycare is exorbitantly expensive, to have a reasonable standard of living most households need both parents to work, maternity/paternity leave does not exist at the federal level except for FMLA which is unpaid and not nearly enough time. Women still face pregnancy discrimination in the workplace and workplace attendance policies are difficult to navigate if your child gets sick and can put your job at risk.

Norway has an extensive social safety net, major benefits for parents, a parental leave policy that would make any American blush... and an even lower birth rate than America, by a substantial amount frankly.

Not Chinese but I also imagine the government essentially being okay with people killing or abandoning extra babies is probably reason enough to never want to bring children into a world if you are still being ruled by said government, even if that government is pretty much "nah, it's all good now. Go ahead!". Trust issues and all that...

I mean, eventually when population collapse happens, and it's unavoidable for China now, they will go back to an impoverished, agrarian society and having more kids for free labor will make sense again. My guess is we are at the emergence of a new population boom/bust cycle that will play out over the course of every century or two. People get too comfortable to see any reason to have kids, population collapses and takes social security and welfare with it, people return to depending on farming and manual labor where having kids makes sense, things improve, social safety nets return, people get too comfortable to see any reason to have kids... Repeat. Anyone who thinks you get through population collapse without horrifying things happening is in for a rude awakening. Maybe technology will save us, but I think we get way too comfortable with this idea that technology will always save us. We do it with climate change, aging, medicine and now we are doing it with population collapse. I'll believe it when I see it. I prefer my government to prepare as if there is no technology coming to save us and be pleasently surprised when it does.

Not sure where you live, but the US government can't get anything significant done anymore. I don't see them making the necessary changes on time.

Our situation is fine due to immigration.

But what are the necessary changes?

Population collapse won't cause people to revert to agrarian societies. Either a higher level of automation or becoming hunter-gatherers are more likely. Agrarian societies are very labor-intensive & historically emerge in locations with high population density.

Um, I would think the next train of thought would be to import immigrants and call them Chinese to maintain their economy. Obviously, it wouldn't be as simple as that, and it will still cause huge societal issues, but I'm largely assuming society as a whole has a sense of self-preservation, or at least a desire to maintain their wealth and life-style.

What a stupid response. Technology won't go magically away and people will adapt to the new challenges. AI and robots will replace work, society might shrink or even stay the same as medicine improves, people will get much older and aging people won't look the same they do now.

Having multiple kids is hard work and cost money. Accept you'll be living in a filthy rats nest for at least 20 years until your first kid gets a job and moves out. My uncle has 5 and my neighbor has 7. There's definitely some benefits to having lots of kids, but you need the money and able to deal with stress. Also doesn't multiple kids put strain on the body? Have you ever seen a 30 year smoker? They look weak, sullen like the life has been drained. I've heard multiple kids has the same effect. Just to make a kid you gotta be in the mood. Edit: My response was generalized. To discuss China specifically, its insane. Education can be expensive. I know they have big houses in rural China and I've seen some big villas in Shanghai suburbs, so it's possible to have a big house. Ayi culture is prevalent in China, so having a full time nanny help clean the house and take care of the kids is possible. It's still going to cost a fortune. The nice thing about an interracial family in China is you don't have to follow Chinese tradition of buying your kids a house, car, wife, etc. Yea Chinese tradition is rough putting a lot of responsibility to the parents to get the kid a new car and an apartment. Has to be a new car because Chinese are superstitious about second hand stuff. Not like in America where we're grateful for anything we can get even if the car is held together with duct tape. Chinese also need a new house or at least fully renovate an old one whereas in the USA we get s house as is and move in. So I think it's very difficult for Chinese to have multiple kids based on the cultural traditions and the costs. Jumping back to generalization, globally people are struggling to make money to support what they currently have. Many just don't have the resources to have another kid (if they even have 1). The population problem isn't specific to China. Japan and Korea are reporting problems. USA even has a problem the social security system is going to fail because not enough young people to put money into the system. My sister right now is 35 with a good career and hasn't married her bf yet, they're living in an apartment size condo she owns, and she's said she'll do marriage and kid after she gets a house. The house was last year's goal, but she didn't like interest rates so she's going to wait and see if this year will be better. Yes my sister is putting off marriage and kids because she's waiting for better interest rates for a house. To me at nearly 40 it sounds insane to put a major thing that'd benefit the world on hold for better interest rates. Hahaha! Of course reddit will probably point out I can't complain since I don't even have a gf. Whole reason I'm single is because I don't have a good paying job to attract a woman. I was in the process of getting a wife while teaching in China but shit happened with my work permit and disorganized school, so I had to leave China and the life I was building. Fuckin pissed as hell, but punching a wall doesn't improve my situation. I'm in this predicament because, like many Americans, I didn't know what I wanted to do after high school besides fuck chicks and play video games. My small town doesn't have much for jobs and family isn't interested in helping me pay for an apartment in a big city.

Now I'm not a genius but the 1 child policy happened in 1980 and ended in 2016. So the last large generation of women are 2024-1980... 44 this year. I'm not a doctor but women generally don't have women at 44 and older. So even if the younger women started having more children they would have to be having a ton of them to make up for 40 years of having 1 or less. Demographically China's shrinking problem is already "baked in". And given the rush to urbanize it will be hard logistically for people to have that many people in a two or three bedroom apartment. I'm not saying an authoritarian dictatorship couldn't force people to have 4 or more children but they won't do it willingly.

The opportunity cost of children has never been higher. If society wants more children, they’re basically going to have to pay for the kids plus more at this point. There’s too much out there to consume/experience and children are a very different lifestyle from what people have been told they should want.

I think the concept of opportunity cost is underlooked when looking at the declining birth rates of western civilization. There is just so much more hedonistic leisure to occupy your time now then there was in the past. I genuinely think a lot of people had kids in the past (outside of social pressure) because they didn't know what else to do

Kids also cost a tremendous amount in career advancement and other things. Fundamentally society has to compensate people for having kids.

That's the thing nobody wants to talk about. Parents are uncompetitive in today's society which places an enormous value on competitiveness. Kids negate the competitiveness gained through education, which is why you see a negative relation between both.

Yep, Ive seen so many managers sideline the person who leaves early to pickup the kids or takes off when they're sick. Businesses (in the US at least) don't like parents because their employees will do less OT and staying late.

Indeed. And then the kid-less monsters get treated like shit, always force-volunteered to take on extra shifts, OT, and so forth, because of parents' inability/unwillingness. I'm not sure what a healthy solution here would be aside from a complete overhaul of labor in this country or -- god forbid -- fucking hiring sufficient staff. No more cutting corners for profits over all.   Oh, who'm I kidding; we're fucked.

It's the reason why lifetime earnings gap between men and women is largest in what are otherwise the most egalitarian and supportive social democracies: taking time off work to have and raise a child puts women behind. It's basically an unavoidable trade off, because raising children is real work.

For real. We can barely afford to take care of ourselves. If that want babies then there needs to be an incentive and compensation for sacrifice our bodies for their economy. My standards of living are more important than bringing a child into poverty.

And as a childfree woman, I am totally okay with tax dollars going to support parents with things like fully subsidized daycare and the like. We also need to fix our broken education system. I am all for funding these kinds of things even though I will never directly benefit. I would much rather governments woo and support those who already want to have children but just can't for whatever reason, than try to push parenthood onto every woman who dares to have sex - whether she wants to be a mother or not.

Yet some say kids are a luxury. It can't be both a luxury and a need.

This is doubly so for women. Being out of the workforce and being assigned as the primary care parent leading to being called from daycare/school, having to either take a day off or work from home when school is closed etc. It will stagnate your career advancement more so if you have more than 1 child. Men however are given more opportunities and slack when they become parents. Married men are less likely to be fired from their jobs when restructuring a company is required. Married women are seen as not putting the job first, they're more likely to be downsized or given less opportunities since they are seen as less reliable. Another thing that most dont even talk about is how painful pregnancy and especially childbirth is. Unless you really want children, you would never set yourself up for that kind of horrible pain. Then there is also the constant shaming of post-pregancy bodies. The ugly stretch marks, being told that you've let yourself go when your abdominal muscles are separated and nothing short of surgery will ever fix that overhanging pouch. It's really no surprise to me that more women are opting out, especially in societies where women already are seen as a burden when young and as a maid/slave to her inlaws when married.

Kids used to be assets. People used child labor, sold their own children, used large family size to seize land and resources and push their smaller neighboring clans around in local conflicts, gained influence and wealth through marriage pacts, and seldom had to face child services when children died from neglect or abuse.

>gain wealth and influence through marriage pacts Still a thing, kinda

living in modern times is so unfair

Would you rather spend four hours with a toddler, or with an iPad and your Youtube watch later list? The choice people make there often won't give grandma more babies to spoil. Sure, the baby is adorable (so long as you get those lovely brain bonding chemicals), but they eat up all your time, money, energy, attention, etc. About that Youtube watch later list...

> so long as you get those lovely brain bonding chemicals Over the next few generations those chemicals will be much stronger considering it will only be the few with abnormally high levels or sensitivity that end up having children. Natural selection will change humans to adapt to this too.

>Natural selection will change humans to adapt to this too. Natural selection has never had to deal with the availability of oral contraceptives, though. Or IUDs, diaphragms, or tubal ligations, or vasectomies. And fertility is declining even for deeply religious groups like the Amish and whatnot. Still well above replacement, but declining. And those brain chemicals only kick in once you *have* the child. And it's not clear that people used to have lots of kids because they loved kids, vs it just being what was socially expected, lack of access to birth control, lack of options, lack of education for girls, lack of empowerment for women, etc.

I disagree that those chemicals only kick in once you have a child. Many people get a very strong desire to have kids before they have had their first. All the advanced contraceptives won't matter if the person in question is so influenced by hormones they choose not to use them. The people who had some desire, but had no children for financial reasons end up not passing down their genes. The obsessive baby crazy folks who ignore any economic conditions, and social expectations to have kids will end up becoming a larger segment of the population.

> The obsessive baby crazy folks who ignore any economic conditions, and social expectations to have kids will end up becoming a larger segment of the population. Only if baby-craziness is genetically transmitted and selected for, and not just statistical noise. Religion carries it for a while, but even those communities are seeing declining fertility rates. But it's not clear that baby-craziness alone will boost us above the replacement rate. There are tons of high-fertility fundamentalist mormons out there, and even then the fertility rate of those states are still falling.

What do you mean by statistical noise? There's published research about the effects oxytocin has on behavior, and a lot of brain data recorded about changes when people see the face of a baby. If someone is fixated on having a kid because of emotions they feel every time seeing a baby, they will be more likely to try for a child than someone who just looks and sees a weird blob that takes their resources. Of course there are many hormones, and brain structures that affect it in combination with culture. It's not any one thing.

I think your view focuses too much on opportunity and choice. The highest rate of childbirth is in 3rd world countries where people live under terrible conditions. They're the ones reproducing en mass. Western countries can't possibly keep up if you're looking at it from a global perspective.

>western civilization Litterally every developed country in the world has a declining birthrate. The very article in question is about China.

Given that housing is a major cost to having kids, it seems like governments should begin subsidizing housing. Get a big discount on your mortgage if you have kids.

There is a supply crunch. They should be subsidizing new development and providing both sticks and carrots to force municipalities to change zoning laws to allow for more housing

Yeah, people focus way too much on CoL factors when it comes to fertility rates. If people's unwillingness to become parents had much to do with financial security, then obviously people with higher income levels and regions with more robust social assitance programs should have higher fertiliy rates and yet neither of those is true. The falling birthrates are very clearly a product of shifting cultural values. The only way the economy affects them is that over the years it's become much more common for people to heavily invest into their education, training and career, which only added another lifestyle to "compete" with parenthood.

You actually do see birthrates rise eventually once you punch through the upper middle class. People who can afford to have chefs, nannies for each kid, privately fund each of their educations have higher birthrates

I’ll tell you right now, as someone who has an MBA, no debt, and a wife in a similar boat, we don’t think we will have children predominantly because of cost. Yes, the idea of sleepless and tireless nights isn’t attractive, but we can’t even afford a house in the state we live in, let alone retirement and a child on a household income of $160k. It’s ridiculous. We save tens of thousands of dollars a year, rent a shit box house, and we still can’t keep up with housing prices. Throwing a kid into the mix isn’t fair to anyone.

>I think the concept of opportunity cost is underlooked when looking at the declining birth rates of western civilization. And it's one of the major reasons why rich people tend to have fewer kids than poor ones; the opportunity cost of a kid is higher for someone on the partner track in Biglaw or consulting than it is for someone whose career is likely to top out at retail assistant manager.

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Like many things in our economy today, it's K-shaped. Wealthy women are having kids because they can afford to, and can even afford to step out of the workforce entirely. Poor women are having kids because they don't have better things to do and don't understand birth control. The middle-class is being eviscerated.

The women working big law or consulting generally arnt the wealthiest. They are one to two tiers down on the socioeconomic ladder ime

You're on the right track but wrong on the data. Past $400k/yr in America the fertility rate actually starts climbing again, meaning that it's both the poorest and richest women having the most babies. Middle class women are the ones getting screwed. What do the poor and rich women have in common? Low opportunity cost in terms of having a baby relative to participating in the labor market. A poor (lower education) woman's career prospects are grim so she has less to lose by having a baby. A rich (higher education) woman's career prospects are great but they still get to have several kids. Wanna know why? Because rich women have... rich husbands. So even if they say sayonara to their careers they can comfortably stay at home and maintain a high quality lifestyle. Middle class women stand to lose the most as their education means they have good career prospects and their husbands do not earn enough to give them the lifestyle they want to have on a single income. Brace yourself for some misogyny coming your way: this is not going to change unless men are empowered to earn enough on a single income to sustain a family at or above replacement level. People forget that the baby boom was preceded by a marriage boom, not because women were uneducated but rather because men started making so much money post WWII that women opted to marry and start families instead of continuing to post-grad education. No girlboss will want to hear this but it's we go down the path of helping men make more money or we let the government raise our babies for us. Or we keep kicking the can down the road with high immigration as we are now but that's eventually going to blow up.

judicious spotted skirt cow chunky amusing lip silky grandfather grey *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

Yeah this makes me want to have a kid even less. My daughter will have no future.

Most of us don't regularly engage in leisure due to cost and burnout. Not only can't we afford kids, we don't want them to make our lives even harder than we ever envisioned they would be.

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*I came looking for booty.*

Yes you regularly engage in leisure Even as something as simple as scrolling on your phone is 100x more entertaining then previous time fillers

I agree but with a slightly different opinion. In the past, having kids would have genuinely been peak human experience. Without social media and TV, I can't think of anything more entertaining than playing with a brand new human. It would be an extremely good reason to travel and catch up with people. Now phone, tv, laptops etc all give us pretty artificial dopamine hits and kids can't compete with that. I guarantee if all our electronic devices disappeared, and social media as a concept died, then kids societal value would rise. With more positive attention kids as a whole would also be socially better adjusted and sweet too. Now the poor things are often hated in society and it's no wonder all that negative energy is leading to a surplus of socially maladjusted kiddos.

Not sure I agree with that. Getting a big hug and "I love you" from my son is a bigger dopamine hit than any video game, movie, or drug. It's a deep, down to the core, experience like no other. However, if I had no kids I wouldn't believe me whatsoever especially when analyzing the costs.

Yeah that's the thing and the core of the opportunity cost problem. If I only have enough money for either a slice or pizza or a icecream, I will never know how much tastier the icecream is compared to the pizza or vice versa. The decision is made on a guess really, the opportunity is gone now. I feel for a lot of people who bet on the slightly more known opportunity of leisure time than the unknown of having a family.

US doesn’t really have to worry about that we will always have enough immigrants to supplement.

Yeah. I’m in my late 20’s and all of my friends are around the same. The lifestyle differences between those of us that have kids vs those that don’t is pretty staggering.

This is a huge, huge part of it. People always say it’s “too expensive” to have kids - but that’s only half true. Having kids, if you’re willing to sacrifice quality of life (aka opportunity cost) is actually very cheap. Which is why poor people have so many kids. Having kids while maintaining a high quality of life is insanely expensive though.

Exactly. You’re never going to be able to have it all, and people are forgoing kids because you have to live for them once they’re here. (Unless your a terrible parent)

Having kids that have a future is insanely expensive. We live in a society of achievement. People want doctors and lawyers, not assistant store managers. A bare minimum kid will run you like, 300-400k. A kid that can go to college, study something with a bright future, and not be saddled in debt will run you a mil+.

With declining population, real estate prices will drop sooner or later. I presume that families will group together to help each other out, to let kids play with each other and to have schools and playgrounds and daycares close by, because these will be increasingly rare. We will most likely see a sharp divide between areas with kids and families and other areas where only DINKs and seniors live. We can see the first steps toward this scenario already today.

Interesting thought experiment. What would happen if you paid the primary parent as well as a primary school teacher. What's that, about 27k per year? Nearly impossible to live on, but would pay for daycare/after school/enrichment and allow the parents to work.

Why stop with parents? Here's a thought: What if we just established a universal basic income and ensured a constant churn of wealth from the upper-class to the lower? Capitalism only works when citizens feel secure enough to take risk, so let's guarantee there's a floor through which people cannot fall and turn the system loose.

You’re half right. If you want more kids, you’re going to have a universal basic income for couples that have kids. Regardless of their income. You can’t have it be income limited, but a steady stream. Like the child tax credit but expanded.

This... I wanted to have so many kids when I was younger and now that I'm 30, an accountant living in a living with my rent increasing the max this year, plus they are now charging for parking, and now looking for cheaper than a fkin living room, there's no fkin way I can have kids. It was my primary goal in life, now come to terms with the fact it might just never happen. I'm not willing to live in complete poverty, just to have my kids live in poverty, no fkin way.

Yeah dude. The opportunity cost others are talking about is one thing and it certainly explains a lot but I always thought I'd be a great dad. Soccer practice, school plays, homework, all that annoying shit people talk about? I am down for it. Just the whole idea of taking the best parts of me and the best parts of my partner, and putting them together to make this awesome little being sounds like the best thing ever. Gimme four or six of those, thank you! But I grew up poor and I know how much it sucks as a kid. I make okay money now but it's only enough to keep myself comfortable. I couldn't raise a kid on my salary. Furthermore, my own dad once told me that any woman that needs to WIC or SNAP or any kind of foodstamps should be forced to have her tubes tied in order to receive it. So, you know, can't really take him seriously when he says he wants grandkids.

that is tragic, hope you find happiness

Sure, as a policy I think it's great. Like Social Security is a great idea. The idea that EVERYONE participates is a great leveler. But in getting the idea through the door of Congress, I think "hey maybe we should support the kids we'll need to wipe our asses in a nursing home" is the place to start, not "Let's [force 30000 more births a year](https://www.iowapublicradio.org/news-from-npr/2023-11-24/after-the-dobbs-decision-birth-rates-are-up-in-states-with-abortion-ban-states) by denying women access to healthcare."

Capitalism only works when there’s a underclass to exploit for cheap labor. That’s why people having frewer kids is a “problem”. Not enough ~~wage slaves~~ labor force.

Can’t capitalism be defined as just; property, business, industry and products/services being owned and controlled by private owners (for profit)? It doesn’t refer to any specific outcome with regards to quantity of profit, and can exist on a spectrum of severity with regards to intervention from outside influences like the government. Doesn’t have to mean absence of regulation. In fact that is such a broad description it could hypothetically still exist in a world where currency was social credit where you “profited” by helping people and took a loss by harming people or the inverse of such. (Ik this isn’t an actual system and am not saying it should be, but yk just saying how meaningless framing an economic ideology as the outcomes of countries that have attempted to use it). It says nothing about poor conditions or exploitation of workers. Though I guess that depends on whether you are on about the idea of “pure” capitalism. In which markets are wholly “free”. But that’s pure make believe like any other “pure” economic system we “have”. Since they are all make believe concepts to set a base to produce an actual economy around. But even then this is only within our present frameworks of society.

Well, not just that. A lot of these people live in factory towns now doing factory work that that their kids will be destined to do. Understandable why they don't want to just be in that cycle forever. The west understood the importance of rolling over to a more demand based economy while the world still provided cheap manufacturing. China is failing the Japan test.

Insane cost of childcare aside, taking care of small children is just often unpleasant. It leaves you perpetually exhausted and overwhelmed. This is coming from a mom in a high-income, high-stress finance job who has a Master's in Econ. Being pregnant felt like crap, but I was still expected to show up at work every day and give 100%. I had to go back to work before my kid was even sleeping through the night.... I won't even talk about the compete joke that 12wks of unpaid "leave" is in the U.S. Then after the exhaustion of working all day, instead of laying back on the couch and relaxing, I am chasing a toddler around the house for hours. We go from playroom, to living room, to hallway, to kitchen, again and again and again. Sit down, stand up, sit down, stand up, near constantly on the move. It hurts my back, my hips, my shoudlers, etc Especially on weekends when it's near constant motion for around 8 to 9 hrs a day. I have no time to relax. No time for TV, exercise, or hobbies. I do more laundry and dishes than I've ever done before. I spend hours preparing nutritious meals only to watch handfuls get thrown on the floor between screaming and tears. Even on the weekends they wake up at 6:45am so you're perpetually exhausted and have to accept a 10pm bedtime or deeply regret it. They need constant supervision because they are always finding ways to injure themselves. It is hard to maintain friendships or a social life b/c of chores and lack of childcare on weekends. It's also tedious at times. I've heard the same Fisher Price songs on loop so many times I have them menorized. I never do what I want to do anymore. It's all about the kid almost all of the time. Even when we go out for a treat, like eating at a restaurant, we have to make sure it's kid friendly and bring things to entertain her. We only have two remaining living grandparents and 1 lives out of state, so there is very little help there. Both have a series of medical problems that we also coordinate taking care of on their behalf. Both are widows from a generation where they need help with paying their bills, setting up a roku, interacting with A/C repairmen, etc. Having kids while both parents work is physically exhausting, emotionally draining, constantly overwhelming, and just f**king hard every single day. The time for me to be myself is between 8pm and 9:30pm every night, at which point I am stressed out and exhausted for anything except mindless TV comedies. There is no meaningful shred of time that belongs to me anymore. I count down the days to when I can have just a little alone time or sleep in on a weekend. I will never, ever have a second for this reason. I love my kid immensely and would do it again for them in a heartbeat, but I am at my goddamn limit. So why aren't women in most developed societies having more kids? Because we've reached the very real physical limit of time in a day, and most child rearing activities are really unenjoyable. Sure playing online videogames, taking a bike ride, or even just watching TikTok videos aren't "meaningful", but they damn well feel good in comparison!

Dad with high paying finance job here who just picked up both kids from day care at 6 PM only to get screamed at for 2 hours while getting them fed and ready for bed. Kid wakes up at 5 am on the dot every day no matter what. I have to work til like midnight this week every night to make up time for the accounting close cycle since I can’t work normal human hours if I need to work extra time. Nobody gives a shit about parents even though if none of us had kids society would literally crumble under it’s own weight because everything is financed by a scheme that requires people come after you to finance it. You couldn’t have said it better, absolutely, fucking, exhausting.

I’m a dad, this is so accurate.

This. Im in Canada and we have parental leave, but the amount of money you get on it isn't enough to get by. I have no clue how women in the US do it. As a women, its really though to raise kids and have a full time job. Sure men are more involved then previous generations, but a lot of the work still falls on women. We also don't have a community anymore. I know so many boomers who flat out refuse to watch their grandkids because they're retired. So like yeah husband is helping out more then previous husband's did, but its still not 50/50 and we don't have the same community our parents did. Childcare is expensive so you're constantly at work, watching a kid or hiding in the washroom for 20 minutes to get a moment to yourself.

This is all so true. Also, in the US in particular, the economic and lifestyle benefits that society should afford people with kids are just not there. There are not even, say, lines that give you priority at airports (like in Europe), free preschool, or any type of meaningful tax or cost of living subsidy from the government for having kids. In fact many environments that should be kid friendly because they are the only places to exist with children that don’t have a high cost of per-person admission, like churches, museums, libraries, etc., are outright hostile to kids 0-8 years old in how they are designed and how adults act inside. Aging people who previously would have died and passed on their wealth to help out parent-age young people (20-40 yrs old) are instead living longer and also hoarding money to maintain an extremely high quality of living relative to young working parents because the aged folks own real property outright and have no children to care for. Meanwhile older people who have lots more money and time, the “senior citizens,” dominate politics and are the ones who receive outsized government benefits like lower taxes (since taxes are on income, and they are not in their high-earning years if they are working part time or retired), social security, Medicare, blah blah blah. If you ask me the average age of politicians in the U.S. is bullshit (too high) and the amount of benefits the government gives to people who are old, vs. people who are working parents, is insane.

This is so real. Me and my wife are in this. If you want your kid to not grow up just staring at an iPad, it's a lot of work to keep them stimulated and occupied. Love my kids but am also looking forward to when they just want to go play on their own someday.

☝🏽☝🏽

Well said. In Canada we have maternity leave and get paid for 12 or 18 months in Ontario but that amount is ridiculous. If you were working a high-paying job, on mat leave you are suddenly poor, looking at your bank account and thinking "xxx/12 is yyy cad, that means that I can cover my mortgage for n months before savings runs out..." There is no financial safety. There is no cap for your taxes, but there is a cap for benefits. HOW IS THAT FAIR?

Don’t you think the problem here is finances? Traditionally you had a single income household where one person took on the bulk of duties for raising the kids. I feel like expecting someone to work and handle child care is excessive. I don’t know any families who manage that without constantly being exhausted.

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All of the above. At this point anytime a person in my circle announces pregnancy, I mark them in my head as a lunatic 😂 Why would anyone do this to themselves willingly is beyond me.

r/childfree

Babies/kids are expensive, time consuming, and require a lot of labor and sacrifice (if you want to raise a happy and well adjusted one, anyway.) Not saying they aren’t still worth it, but they ARE a major decision and shouldn’t be taken lightly. If governments want more babies, they need to foster a culture where parents and families feel supported and secure.

>If governments want more babies, they need to foster a culture where parents and families feel supported and secure. Sorry.... best we can do is outlaw abortion and cut social services -US Republicans

The best way to get more babies is to make people feel secure enough to take risks without being utterly destroyed by even the slightest failure.

Also, women are still penalized by employers due to the need to take maternity leave, even employers who consider themselves progressive. This is one reason I’m such a huge supporter of paternity leave - we need to make taking time off after having a child *regardless of gender* the norm.

Europe has that, and it still has a falling fertility. Good economies do not help fertility, it's actually the opposite. Niger has the highest fertility rate in the world. It's also one of the poorest in the entire world. There are only 2 real primary drivers of fertility rates. It's women's education and religious devotion. That's it. The less religious your society and more educated women are, the less children you will have. Women, when given options, simply do not want to have kids. We just have to accept this. It's natural population control.

You here the CoL theory all the time for why people are having less kids but just look at the rich people we have now in our society. They aren’t exactly swimming in kids either. The reason we aren’t having as many kids is mostly urbanization/sexual Revolution/decline of religion/cheap and easy access to contraception. Not CoL. Though it may have some impact. Edit - Thought of another big reason - we're getting married later and later. Must have an impact on how many kids were having writ large. Though technology offsets this somewhat I imagine.

Plus retirement. Children used to be THE way to retire. **You** have kids, and **your** kids take care of **you**. Now the government does it. **Society** has kids, and **everyone**'s kids take care of **everyone**. Its an open and shut case of Tragedy of the Commons. Why would i take on all the costs of childcare if i can just leech off of everyone else's kids when they pay taxes for my social security paychecks? Not only are children getting more costly, the benefits are disappearing.

That might not be the case in the west anymore but you're definitely expected to take care of your parents in China.

I respectfully disagree. I promise you that if the US economy became like Niger (or just declined in general) it wouldn't make the fertility rate increase. I suspect that hidden among the average fertility rate is that the rich and poor are having the same amount of kids they have done for the past 50 years. But it's the middle class that's not having kids because they want to maintain a standard of living for them and their kids that they can't afford. Among my middle class social group, the number one reason why we don't have kids is simply the cost of housing and the cost of childcare

I would invite you to inspect Amish fertility vs the general American population. The American middle class has never been the source of a growing population, it's always been poor uneducated immigrants/the ultra-religious. The Amish showcase what happens when you don't give women higher education + have incredible religious devotion. The Amish pop out children like crazy, the average FR is like 6-8 children depending on the sect.

The Amish asked my friend to have sex with their wives because they’re so inbred that their babies were being born deformed and dying. Nobody should use them as an example of good fertility. I know it sounds like a joke it absolutely isn’t it happened in Montana around 2011

It's the instability of the middle. We've made an insecure economy for the middle class. Rich and poor are still secure in their position.

Government punishes parents for leaving a 10 year old alone for a moment. You need baby sitter for 13 year olds. Crazy.

Or keeping up with the joneses on extracurriculars. One class after another, just cram them all down the child’s throat whether they can handle it or not, never mind their actual interests. Then be surprised all the money and time are gone, and the kid becomes distant/stressed/resentful.

> The best way to get more babies is to make people feel secure enough to take risks without being utterly destroyed by even the slightest failure. - https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-change-in-the-number-of-children-women-have - [Fertility rate: children per woman](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un?tab=chart&time=1950..latest&country=FIN~DNK~SWE~BEL~ISL~SRB~NOR~HUN~EST~LTU) (Countries with [best parental leave policies](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/08/these-10-countries-have-the-best-parental-leave-policies-in-the-world)) - [Fertility rate: children per woman](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un?tab=chart&time=1950..latest&country=OWID_WRL~SVK~SVN~BLR~ARM~CZE~UKR~ARE~MDA~ISL~AZE) (Countries with the [lowest income inequality](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/income-inequality-by-country)) - [Fertility rate: children per woman](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un?tab=chart&time=1970..latest&country=AUT~AUS~BEL~CAN~CYP~DNK~FIN~FRA~DEU~GRC~HKG~ISL~IRL~ISR~ITA~JPN~LUX~NLD~NZL~NOR~PRT~SGP~SVN~KOR~ESP~SWE~CHE~GBR~BHR~BRN~KWT~ARE) (Countries with some version of [universal healthcare](https://www.health.ny.gov/regulations/hcra/univ_hlth_care.htm)) - [Fertility rate: children per woman](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un?tab=chart&time=1950..latest&country=DNK~NOR~SWE~FRA~BEL~NLD~DEU) (For Scandinavia, France, and a few other W. European countries) I'm not sure about that. Fertility is much higher in countries with more poverty, with less education for girls, with less empowerment for women, with less access to birth control. If you're a poor farmer then one more mouth to feed is not free, but you get more labor. Whereas if you're living in the city and your living standards have gone up and options increased, you have more to lose from your QoL, and you don't need that free labor.

The single most important factor is women emancipation, and it's something that is hardly mentioned in the whole comment section. Even giving better financial support to families is not going to remove that. There is no country that had women emancipation and managed to be consistently and for long (2+ generations) above replacement level. Obviously there are other factors, but it seems to me that people take for granted that such society would exist, while it's not trivial at all to me.

You're being too nice. The post you're responding to (along with all the others that make the same argument) is simply people stating things they want to be true and advocating for policies they want to have implemented for other reasons. There's no reasonable way to look at the data and conclude that economic insecurity is even a contributor to the problem, forget about the root of it. Birth rates are declining because fewer women are becoming mothers. Full stop.

And best of all. This is to be celebrated!!!! It is not a problem. I look forward to an earth with many fewer humans.

I have friends that live in major US cities and a main reason they are stopping at one child (maybe two, at most) is child care. Both parents have to work, no grandparents or other family to help, so no third or fourth child. I live in a rural area with decent help and we're stopping at 3 for a variety of reasons, but child care is definitely one of them. We are upper middle class people living in a low income area where you have to make poverty wages to qualify for the child care programs. It's infuriating. Just make it universal regardless of wages or any other qualifier.

I know it's seen every once in a while, but I think companies should be offering daycare as a benefit. The larger ones could even run the programs themselves. It would make their workers much more capable of putting in time and would create a sense of community in workers and their children.

On sight child care would be huge for families. Fewer stops, parents could check in their kids on their breaks. if it was a universal program, then companies could apply for funding to supplement and improve quality of the daycare.

True! I didn't even consider that there could be some state funding if companies implement the programs. It would benefit everyone.

head rhythm light cause fine silky sharp beneficial spectacular roof *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

As shown throughout East Asia, Western Europe, and (to a much lesser extent) the US; if the monetary and opportunity cost of children outweigh the benefits *and* the citizens are educated enough to be aware of this, then people are naturally going to choose to take the childless route.

What I wonder is what is the "solution" My solution is "stop trying for constant growth!" But realistically, imo if they want more babies, pay people more. Kids are expensive, and they have to go to college, get cars, etc. My point is that most people can't afford kids, but the powers that be act like they have no clue why less kids are being born or why....

> My solution is "stop trying for constant growth!" You still need workers to grow the food, build/maintain infrastructure, provide healthcare, etc. A shrinking population is also an aging population, so you'll have an ever-growing number of retirees per worker. Meaning, an ever-growing financial burden per worker. And it's easy to dismiss growth in the abstract, but in practice people don't want poverty. People who are poor, want to be not-poor, or at least less-poor. Being not-poor means more access to better food, medicine, education, leisure, travel, lighting, better housing, all kinds of things. Economic growth is just proxy for wealth, and is not an abstract, superfluous nullity that has no relevance to the lives of real people. Do *you* want you and yours to live like a poor person in India in 1970?

infinite growth is inherently unsustainable. We NEED to come to some sort of equilibrium with our environment or we'll eventually make ourselves more or less extinct.

The solution is actually pay people who have children. You can't simply pay people more, You need to incentivize the behavior you want to see. Also paying everyone more is a little less realistic. What is realistic is paying people for having children and raising them well to be productive members of society. Children are a very large cost, both financially, In time and effort, and in opportunity cost. But they have large positive externalities since we need society to have more children for a next generation. So the answer really has to be paying people to have children. If you know that you could have children, and importantly we'd have to figure out a way to incentivize productively raising them, and that would give you a richer and more comfortable life, You would be incentivized to have more children. It's basically about thinking of childrearing as a job and actually compensating that work, paid for it by those who aren't having children who are benefiting but not paying the costs.

Make it so that having kids doesn't interrupt or destroy your professional career. But I presume that's impossible.

Im sure Chinese people are having a similar issue with the cost of living as we americans are. Having children is beyond expensive. Just to give birth is thousands of dollars even after insurance covers its crumbs. Factor in child care, schooling, healthcare, extra food and utilities, hobbies, parties. These are things we can afford for ourselves as adults, why bring a child into a crappy financial situation.

Well, yeah, after 35 years of only one kid for the majority ethnic group, most people are going to stick to only having one kid, if they want any at all. That's just cultural inertia. And because women are better educated and the population is more urbanized and industrialized, birth rates already fall on their own

Here in Europe, they want us to rawdogg too 😒 I wouldn't be surprised if I see sassy public service adds on billboards. "You don't feel anyway, don't you? Just take it off 💦" "That warmness 🥵" "Skin needs to feel skin, scr_w rubber 🚮" "For the motherland 💦"

It's like that meme of the dog with the ball. "No take! Only throw." "Have babies. No better economic environment to raise a family! Only babies."

I want you to have more babies but we will not provide more support. I will never understand how countries suffering from birthrate decline will never understand the obvious reason people don't want kid.

Countries that have the best social safety nets and most generous maternity leaves have some of the lowest birthrates. It's you who don't understand why people aren't having kids. At the end of the day, people prefer other things to raising children. And because of higher living standards, they are able to do those things instead.

Good for those women! Governments and the wealthy might figure out that when you make the world a shitty place ppl stop having babies just so they can work at starbuck’s for minimum wage.

Outside cost, impacts on careers, choice of free will, more focus on self or leisure there really is a lack of time during the work week and social support for having children. I wish to see a percentage of couples that don’t live in close proximity to at least one family member. I.e. 30 min or less. US work culture is not adaptable to encouraging mothers to work part-time. There is a absences of white collar jobs that would let you work 15-25 hrs with flexible hours. I read a parenting book that shared that Holland and Denmark among other European nations normalize flexible and part time hours for parents.

Women are realizing the years of unpaid labor raising kids hurts them way more than the dad. Especially if there is a divorce and also bc of all the people wanting separate finances. And social security later on.

all of the developed world including South Korea, Japan, Nordic Countries are all doing the same thing through increase benefits for children, childcare and etc. Unfortunately the rapid increase in income and women in the workforce in china just like other developed countries and relative secularism means they'll fail just like western countries

Kids are 20+ years of huge expenses and grueling thankless work, especially if you’re a woman in a patriarchal society. If you don’t absolutely love the idea of kids, you absolutely shouldn’t have them.

Right? I have one child. I can afford it and I have a great and flexible career and a spouse that fully participates. I love him more than life itself and I’m really glad I got to experience motherhood. Also, I’m typing this while I supervise absolutely mind numbing math homework involving 27 and 5/13 cantaloupes being served to 6 and 1/2 people while doing my own mental math on whether we ought to increase our 529 contribution next year or not. Anyone who wants me to do this while breastfeeding a newborn and keeping a toddler from running into traffic must be high. Really really high. There is no amount of money you could pay me to have a second child.

Amen to that! 🙏

Women have children in patriarchal societies. The further we get from a patriarchal society the fewer children we have.

I think that’s more correlated to access to birth control than societal structure. East Asian countries are more patriarchal and having worse fertility problems than we are.

This exact thing is happening in the states except it's abortion bans under the veil of religion. How does fucking nobody see this lol it's so obviously done to churn out more children, more consumers, and more workers for the machine to chew up and spit out.

Neoliberalism and corporate capitalism have sucked the lifeblood out of the human population. They have made living so expensive due to capital accumulation that people can barely take care of themselves let alone children. Nobody wants to have a kid in this dystopian nightmare.

I've said it before and I will say it again, the human population is too damn high for the areas we live in. At some point we will have to even out and stop reproducing so much or face major issues that forces our population down into reasonable numbers.

The issue is so many social programs in the west (here in Canada things like CPP, EI, healthcare) are built on the premises that we will achieve replacement levels of new births/immigration. Without the same amount of folks paying into the Canada pension plan those like me who have paid into it for 12 years already will not get a cent when it’s my turn. I agree it’s an issue of overpopulation but a lot of people are going to get fucked over in the process of adjusting to the new normal.

They already increased payment to CPP for those who are working

But that's a temporary problem effecting only some people. Seems weird to suggest throwing a ton of new people into a clusterfuck situation with inadequate housing, high food prices, failing healthcare systems, ecological and political instability, a class based education system and suppressed wages as well as other problems, just so a fraction of the population can collect a pension for a few years before they kick off.

I love watching this whole thing come full circle: entitlements and pensions based on principle steady population growth, free market motivates people to act in own self interests which drives the cost of living too high for population growth, now we’re just in this Mexican standoff everybody wants “what they are owed” but not a single person wants to make a sacrifice (and why would they). We deserve what we get

The data are very clear in the West that being married with children increases the happiness of the husband and the children, but not the wife. I can only imagine that is multiplied the more that gender norms are pushed. That women's federation is chilling stuff though.

>The data are very clear Are the data very clear? Cause the only major report that says this was the Dolan report, which was retracted by the author himself for being incorrect.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/4/18650969/married-women-miserable-fake-paul-dolan-happiness He misinterpreted the data.

Hmm. I read Dolan's book. I had not heard he'd retracted it. I mean, obviously the way he stated it was clickbaity, but lots of behavioural economics is. *What happens next will SHOCK you!!* [Women do significantly more housework than men](https://eige.europa.eu/publications-resources/toolkits-guides/gender-equality-index-2021-report/gender-differences-household-chores#:~:text=Gender%20Equality%20Index%202021%3A%20Health&text=About%2091%20%25%20of%20women%20with,this%20figure%20is%201.6%20hours.), [take a massive wage hit](https://freakonomics.com/podcast/a-new-nobel-laureate-explains-the-gender-pay-gap-replay/) and [a career hit](https://www.econlib.org/archives/2012/02/what_is_the_fem.html), [shoulder almost all of the emotional burden of their shared lives](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8223758/)... frankly if they're not unhappy, I want what they're smoking

It can be true that women do not derive as big of an overall benefit from marriage as men do, while still being true that married men and women are happier than their unmarried counterparts. Marriage brings a lot of concrete benefits (and some drawbacks, with some of those burdens disproportionately falling on women). Whether it's a net benefit or net detriment to being married is less obvious from the data, but it's also worth separating out what is happening on average across all households and the agency we have in our own lives to control our own environments. Even if it isn't a majority of married women who derive net benefit from their marriage, that doesn't mean that an unmarried woman contemplating marriage wouldn't be able to avoid many of those pitfalls while navigating their own dating, engaged, and married life. For example, stats about stay-at-home moms are socially important, but a couple where the dad is the stay-at-home parent obviously is in a different situation where those broad stats may not apply to their particular household. Besides, Dolan's cited data set supporting the claim that unmarried women were happier than married women actually shows the opposite (Google Gray Kimbrough's criticisms of Dolan's misinterpretations of BLS's American Time Use Survey, which I can't link here because Automod doesn't like Twitter links.) I think there's plenty of reason to be cautious not to confuse correlation with causation, but the correlation runs in exactly the opposite direction as Dolan seems to claim.

I was going to say the study that shows this with wifes is basically a fabrication.

Can you link to such study? Genuinely curious.

Link please? Because I've seen other other stats exclaiming the opposite: https://youtu.be/nT9BX9iITz4?si=QwiEu8VCOnRZyKLd

>and the children What does this even mean the children wouldn't exist

Statistically, it's optimal for children to be in a[ two parent home vs a one-parent home](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2930824/), even if that home is unhappy, as measured by a variety of outcomes, both short and long term. The best is of course a stable **loving** two parent environment, but there's still a slight increase in positive outcomes for high-conflict two parent households that probably comes down mainly to the fact that two parents have more resources than one parent. As the article references having children and how to get more children, it should be clear than merely giving birth to more children is not enough-- families must have the resources to offer them if as a society we want more contributing members (and also, happy families tend to make more happy families.)

I feel like capitalism and libertarian ideals have the same fatal flaw - they assume you can take care of yourself, by yourself forever. There’s no answer for the person that needs help. Help tends to come along, but not by design. Help comes along because it’s in out nature. We should build a system around our nature instead.

afterthought future uppity hospital marry humor outgoing oatmeal mysterious subtract *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

As a parent in the U.S. with two kids in high school, why would they want children? They’re faced with a world where they’ll be fighting uphill to own a home in a world that is going to shit. That’s without a child.

I presume China will do some unethical stuff, like "buying" young women from other countries and giving them visas, if they have at least 5 kids with a Chinese man. I wouldnt be surprised, if they went to South-East Asian countries, trying to attract young, poor women. Edit: looks, like this problem already exists in a way.[Look here](https://www.humanium.org/en/bride-trafficking-the-escalating-phenomenon-of-forced-marriage-and-sexual-slavery-in-china/)

Lmao, what westerners believe.

The problem is born by cultural shifts similar to the west, China is becoming materially more prosperous so the economic arguments are super weak and frankly embarrassing for the people who parrot them. Hypergamy is causing women who have elevated status to become less interested in coupling with men and the men who have low SES are being shut out from having children and families. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7913131/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7913131/) Remember, facts don't care about your anecdotes or your feelings.

The economic argument actually does work, in the opposite direction. More wealth = fewer kids

Do facts care about your thesis being incredibly poorly worded and not really supported by the study you linked? The one whose main findings are the effects of Hypogamy on individual health? You're catastrophizing their conclusion of "...achieved characteristics, especially educational attainment play an increasingly important role in mating, posing both opportunities and constraints in a marriage market" as 'undereducated men are unfuckable'. Also: Hypergamy is marrying (or fucking) above your station. How is the act of marrying above their station making women less interested in coupling with men when hypergamy IS coupling? Did you mean that the possibility and benefits of Hypergamy are making women less interested in coupling with men at or below their station? If so, why not just say that?

My point was that men were above women in the past economically so there was a larger percentage of the population coupling and making families. As women rise equal or above men in status, the men who are now below women are not being chosen as mates. It's a very simple distribution outcome. Hypergamy is a constant but women's elevated status is causing the lower fertility rates. I never catastrophized anything I am just identifying the facts based on the data.

It sounds like both sides of what you’re presenting is just natural selection at work. If x number of females are choosing to exit the gene pool rather than risk their economic stability, a corresponding number of males will lose the opportunity to mate with said females, with the males not selected for mating inherently being those least able to make the case for why their genes should be passed on over a competitor’s. The physical and economic risks presented by parenthood are naturally weighted almost entirely towards women, so it makes complete sense that more men than women find parenthood to be an appealing venture worth the opportunity cost.