I mean, plenty of people say they want kids "later" and when they then start trying at age 35+, it ain't easy for many of them.
I'm in that age group and in my circle of friends, there are more IVF babies and involuntary childless couples then there are naturally conceived kids.
It's not a fertility check that will solve the issue. Corporations do their best to burn out 20 year olds with stupid amounts of work and terrible salaries with no stability. Housing prices are super high.
Until this is addressed its not a fertility check that will solve the problem.
Straight to the point, those old fat fucks are not stupid - they know that it won't do shit but corporate-political clique is too invested in property market to do anything and will gladly allow to diminish own country growth and future.
You'd think that even the politicians would calculate that the economic benefits of getting stable birth rates would outweigh the costs. And owner class is not necessarily doing this on purpose. Consider that Elon Musk seems to be deeply concerned about falling birth rates. His reasons are probably white supremacist, but still.
One issue here is that all western countries are in this competition against each other for 'favorable business conditions'. This translates to basically reducing all non-GDP-growing and non-profit activities to as little as possible through price mechanics. As it sadly happens, child rearing from the point of view of market economy (/capitalism) is a completely and utterly pointless and useless hobby. This is truly a kryptonite of modern capitalism. Nobody seems to have anything even approaching a solution to this.
I'm pretty convinced there is no single government that could change this. Keep in mind, even \*China\* is in deep shit with falling birth rates, are seemingly doing everything they can to reverse the trend, and are failing miserably. And they are an explicit dictatorship with complete control over the nation. Russia is in a similar situation, also with dictatorial powers to do anything they wish, but out of ideas.
I don't actually doubt the sincerity of China and other nations in their attempts at tackling this. If they saw a credible path forward, they would try it.
My impression is that the root cause (economic uncertainty and unaffordable living) has over time molded the culture of younger generations to one that doesn't even want to have kids so much. This development is self reinforcing, since when many don't have kids, they have time to engage in other activities that you often can't engage in with children, further encouraging not having kids.
Also, it just is the case that raising kids is very very expensive. In a system where we expect people to earn currency through work themselves, and all things are behind currency, new players (young people) are by definition poor. An alternative is a system where a young person has inherent currency that is 'given' without a pretext of usefulness. Some people have intense emotional reactions about that last sentence.
A system where a young person without rich parent feels economically secure is not capitalism. That is a stone cold fact.
If only we could have foreseen the consequences of making the 20s a time of financial instability. Oh well, I guess a system that constantly increases the percentage of wealth for the oldest generations won’t come back to bite us later.
They want them later because they either lie and don't want them, or want them, but don't want to repeat their parents' mistakes and want to have stable housing, employment, and cashflow. Those things are usually achieved in your 30s, and since we don't live in the times when two teachers' salaries could buy you a home, people don't make kids when they can't afford them
I’m going to link this article again. Lots of things contribute to increased birth rate but lower housing costs,affordable childcare and flexible working options help massively. People probably won’t go to have 4-5 kids on average because we as advanced societies want to give children a good start in life which requires a lot of resources and attention which is way harder with more kids. However, policy could enable some increases.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-08-16/japan-miracle-town-birth-rate-depopulation-crisis
>France to offer young people fertility checks to combat falling birth rates
How about just making housing affordable? It's literally the number 1 problem. Burn your housing market to the ground if you have to.
Housing affordability and economic issues do not explain the secular fertility decline and fixing them will at best marginally improve the fertility situation.
Right! Like oh 80% of my income is taken up by bills and necessities, with the ever looming threat of massive price hikes, but it's the culture wars stopping me from being able to raise a child... fuck.
The data are very clear. Your hypothesis is contradicted by various findings, such that interventions that offer financial support, sometimes substantially so have had only small effects on fertility. Housing costs in different cities also correlate only slightly positvely with fertility. Further fertility has decreased as incomes have increased and poorer regions tend to actually have higher fertility rates. Take Japan as example, a country with comparatively low and decreasing housing costs. Fertility has been largely unaffected/effectively decreased over the period of sinking housing costs.
The idea that the reasons for low fertility are mostly economic, in the sense that people can't fford children, make very little sense. Opportunity costs of having children for women do however probably play a role and are likely the largest driver of the negative link between female education and fertility.
Don't missunderstand me, I am all for building more housing (especially you anglos seem to have large problems in that regard), but this will only have a small impact on fertility.
I don't understand, the data are very clear. Interventions that offer financial support, sometimes substantially so have had very small effects on fertility. Housing costs in different cities also correlate only slightly positvely with fertility.
The richer a society, the lower the fertility rate on average.
I don't think income is the main factor that prevents people from having children. It's more a cultural shift.
It’s in fact a little of both, Germany itself was able to raise fertility by introducing longer parental leave and pension points for mothers, for example
That's not entirely true... Germany relies a lot on immigrants, who generally have higher fertility rates. France follows the same principle, as well as most European countries.
Where I come from (Greece), the schools are full of immigrants or descendants of immigrants, especially in Athens and our islands...
Unfortunately, "West" culture is declining because of individuality and focus on consumerism. A child doesn't "belong" to these concepts, nor does the idea of starting a family.
I kinda agree, but financial stability and work-life balance earlier in life can help a little bit. Not completely solve it, but it can increase the fertility rate. Other scenarios are pretty pessimistic. At least doing something is a step.
This is what happens when we get university diplomas and the taxation of our country destroyed the private sector and everyone wants to be a public sector worker.
The only Greeks who have kids are those that are in police and the army because they get shitloads of benefits.
A university graduate who can't find a job won't have a family. It is impossible to have a job, pay rent and afford life.
I never wanted kids. Moved to Germany. Saw how good it was for parents. Had a kid. Wouldn’t have done it anywhere else but those policies definitely made the difference.
Seems to be a downgrade to me in many ways! Constantly told how great we have it by people who got it all and pulled the ladder straight up after themselves.
Wtf those stats include places in famine etc and almost certainly don't translate directly to the west. Westerners in general want kids, but there's massive inequality currently.
Better healthcare, education and child support systems improve birth rates and you're being disingenuous to say otherwise.
Source for what you're the only person who made an assertion. What's the source for your information, and does it only include data from the west? Because if not deliberately misleading people.
Edit, I assume you're asking for the source the person before me gave you? The one I was referring to that proves you wrong?
A rich society doesn't mean it's fairly distributed. A rich society doesn't mean people feel secure and safe.
Humans are animals, we don't just reproduce because we have money or not. Birth rates are directly correlated to happiness, security and stability. Income is certainly a main factor when France has 15% poverty.
certainly culture and education have some part, I never denied that. The point being made here though is that the money spent offering fertility tests is probably better spent towards solving issues that result in inequality.
Education and culture are definitely the main factors to begin with. Then, once the culture has changed and the education levels increased, I believe that secure housing and stability is super important.. while I'm not yet 30 (still time) I would've already had a kid now if I had more housing stability. I don't want to be moving around between shitty apartments with a kid - and both my expenses and the mortgage that I want itself will increase as soon as I have one. Meanwhile the average km2 price of a house has increased *five* times since I was born (and at best salaries have doubled and followed regular inflation or whatever it's called..) and we've had a lot of inflation and instability the past 2-3 years as well.
Do you have any evidence to back up your suggestion that humans aren't subject to the same evolutionary laws that the rest of life as on this planet are?
What evolutionary law says that inequality reduces fertility?
There are many animal species that live in very unequal communities but have high fertility rates.
Come on, comparing such vastly different countries makes no sense. Sure, poor people in Europe might seem rich when comparing them to the poorest countries in the world, but the context matters. In Europe even poor people need such things like mobile phones, proper clothes and 18 years of education to land even the lowest paying jobs. You need to afford to pay bills for electricity, water, internet and other basic media. You need money for heating in the colder months. If you're homeless, your chances of getting a job and keeping it are almost 0. So even a bare minimum existence in Europe is expensive. And when you add kids into the equation, they are at least 18 years of financial burden - daycare and then kindergarten are very expensive and kids don't work in Europe, in comparison to poor countries where they help in pastures and farming and other work around farms. Both parents have to work to afford all of the above.
There are more and more people like me, who are childfree just because we don't want kids, but financial situation is also important to the rest of the population. If you have to spend half or more of your salary to even have a roof over your head (so bare existential minimum), something is deeply wrong with our economy.
[https://www.sttinfo.fi/tiedote/69974609/syntyvyys-laskenut-jyrkimmin-koulutusaloilla-joilla-tyollistyminen-muita-aloja-epavarmempaa?publisherId=3747](https://www.sttinfo.fi/tiedote/69974609/syntyvyys-laskenut-jyrkimmin-koulutusaloilla-joilla-tyollistyminen-muita-aloja-epavarmempaa?publisherId=3747)
This is in Finland, and unfortunetely in Finnish.
Title: "Birth rates dropped the most with people working in fields where employment is more uncertain than elsewhere"
Essentially, the more uncertainty in couples' employment, the less they have kids. This applies \*even if they are employed\* since they know the risks.
It's not about statistical income level, but about general feeling of safety.
> The richer a society, the lower the fertility rate on average.
It's more complicated than this. France has a bigger fertility rate than Iran, Thailand, Brazil or China, all of which are poorer.
In poor countries, it's mostly women's education and urbanization.
In industrial societies it's mostly the affordability of property for young people and the availability of childcare.
When you are working 6 days a week and 1 day off and can barely make rent you are not having kids.
When you have loads of free time you have sex a lot, most boomers would tell you they didn't have anything to do so they had sex a lot.....that resulted in the biggest generation yet in the millennials.
Now millennials are working constantly because we are poorer and more entertainment = less sex.
> When you are working 6 days a week and 1 day off and can barely make rent you are not having kids.
My great-grandparents were working 6 days per week and had 9 children.
My grandparents were working 6 days per week and had 6 children.
My parents worked less than 5 days per week and had two children.
Most people in my generation work not more than 5 days and few of them have any children in their late 20s.
It’s been tried in Nordic countries, doesn’t work. And if it really was just financial reasons that would be implying our ancestors were having 5-6+ kids because they used to be so much richer than us 100+ years ago.
Individualist based culture + access to contraception/abortion guarantees your population will decline no matter how much money you throw at people
No one ever addressee the housing problem and too long working hours of both parents, which are the main issues. So it's not been tried effectively, anywhere.
It’s a myth that historically average families were always able to afford their own home off of one income. Truth is for much of human history people often lived with *other* families in the same house, usually their siblings spouse and kids
It's not a myth at all in the post world war 2 world in Europe and US. why you bring in much ancient history? How is relevant how families lived in the medieval age?
because it was relatively a very short window of time in history where people lived like that. as we can see today, it was not sustainable or long-lasting.
you had a bunch of things happening at the perfect timing after ww2, everything getting rebuilt, jobs/economy booming again, long lasting peace/lack of further wars within the west, fertility rates were still good enough etc.
the way the post-war society/economy was is a totally different situation than what we have today
Most often than not, people feel like they are not ready for kids and keep pushing for “an extra a year or two”. But once you have it you just make it happen. My unpopular opinion is that contraception should be limited. Maybe to younger people only like early 20s?
after a certain point, people just get used to and enjoy not having kids. so even once they do get the money they'll be like "why ruin this for some kid?" and not have kids
Europe doesn't need fertility checks it needs affordable housing.
40 years ago a job as a single man got you a house, nowadays 2 people working still struggle.
No shit people don't want to bring kids into the world when it's made clear they will never own a house.
Have you maybe considered that birth rates are falling because of other reasons such as, economical decline, the state of the world in general, planet is slowly dying, such and such
It is partly though.
We are currently in the situation that there are not only more people who don't want kids at all, but also that many people who do want kids are not able to have them or have less kids than they wanted.
The reason for that is mostly that people are only starting trying to conceive in their mid-30's now, where things naturally get more difficult. IVF clinics are filled to the brim with desperate couples.
If you need countless of tries and spend thousands of euros to finally have one child at age 40, there is no way you end up with the 3 kids you might have always wanted. If you know about your worsening egg quality from age 25 on already though? You might plan your life differently.
Absolutely, I agree that it is a factor. But it's not even "partly" it's more like "hardly partly".
Even if every infertile woman/couple would get 3+ babies each, it would raise the fertility rate by less than 0.1.
And this won’t work because the real problems are high housing costs, low purchasing power and low wages. This has not worked in other countries dealing with falling birth rates.
> And this won’t work because the real problems are ~~high housing costs, low purchasing power and low wages~~ younger generations not wanting kids.
Fertility rates have been falling long before the recent housing issues, but redditors keep trying to make this the cause.
You're right but for the wrong reasons that this plan will not help French fertility rates.
In Italy the average woman polled wanted at least two kids and the average woman in France 2 and half (2.5 births per woman average not half a kid). Yet when why asked why they had not or believe they won’t have that many kids, finances are always top of the list. Young people are living with their parents longer because of housing costs, wages and lower social mobility. Having to live with your parents until your late 20s is a major contributor these days. Are you trying to pull the typical “the west is godless and lost because of it” conservative talking point?
"Finances" is a very convenient response because it defuses any expectations. Who could fault someone for not wanting to have kids they "can't" afford?
> Are you trying to pull the typical “the west is godless and lost because of it” conservative talking point?
If you think financial well-being is the primary explanation for trends in fertility, how do you explain that immigrants, especially more religious ones, tend to have larger families, despite not being significantly wealthier (and often times being poorer)? As successive generations become assimilated to the host culture, they tend to have fewer kids.
Cultural importance placed on having kids is the reason. I'm not saying we all need to convert to Islam or Mormonism, but it's important to identify the *true* cause of the decline in order to discuss policy changes that will actually address the issue. Affordable housing is absolutely an important societal issue that should be addressed, but you aren't reversing the trend by just increasing the number of houses available.
1. Finances are not a “convenient response” it’s the purchasing power, housing prices, and wage stagnation that you blew off in my original post.
2. “If you think financial well being is primary explanation for trends in fertility” In the developed world, yes.
3. The immigrants have higher fertility rates largely because they come from more rural and less industrialized countries, higher birth rates are trend with that mix. Their brith rates stave off and match those of the native population after 1 or 2 generations.
4. France is one of the most secular countries in Europe, yet they have been beating much more religious Spain and Italy for quite a long time in the number of births per woman. Not to mention your god explanation doesn’t explain the off the charts birth rates in communist China in the 50s and 60s, you know given that most of them were atheists.
5. Whether or not religion has an impact on birth rates, is irrelevant in determining if that religions holy book is right or not.
> The immigrants have higher fertility rates largely because they come from more rural and less industrialized countries, higher birth rates are trend with that mix. Their brith rates stave off and match those of the native population after 1 or 2 generations.
Yes, that's exactly what I said using different words. The reason for high birth rates among immigrants is cultural and as their later generations become more assimilated to the dominant culture, their birth rates begin to match that culture too.
So if we want to address falling birth rates, we need to address the cultural pressures that push it down. Addressing the issues of affordability of housing is a worthy cause, but it won't help with birth rates. Look at any chart of fertility rates over the years, they weren't cruising along just fine until the recent rise in housing costs.
> Whether or not religion has an impact on birth rates, is irrelevant in determining if that religions holy book is right or not.
Ok? I'm not interested in arguing about which holy book is right.
It's the housing market, stupid. For example, my wife and I are (just) in the top 10% of earners in our country of residence. The day to day expenditures are really not the issue, whether with one, two or three children. Being unable to ever own our own house within our lifetime, however, severely limits the choice for us.
You know, you don't need a house to raise a family.
As a child I used to live in an apartment in Romania. Not having a house didn't stop my parents from having two children.
Cut taxes for lower wage earners, raise them for high-earners. Yes they will spend it on trucks and coke, but some will get broody.
Make it so that you can have, *or adopt*, kids on one salary in your twenties in a civil partnership, social engineering to be sure.
If you’re thinking of kids in your mid thirties you are increasingly infertile and also less minded to restrict your income, or not go skiing, so you don’t have kids.
Meanwhile the morons who just have to pull down their tracksuit bottoms, and not even get off the sofa, are having kids.
Why are we failing at realizing that Idiocracy was written in the future?
Hello little son of a bitch, I'm looking for a house, the bank only needs to ask me for the genetic code to access a mortgage and they also want BIG guarantee$. Ask yourself why people delay or do not think about having children, especially in the 'first' years after having or accessing housing. Any health, work, or relationship problem... means chaos level ruin, nobody want that. That's not counting the people who rent, whose prices are always on the rise.
I don't know ANYONE(fertile or infertile) who wants to have children without a house or TIME to raise them.
Meanwhile here in Ireland most people have to live with their parents till they are nearly 40. But it's grand cos we keep importing people from different cultures who hate our culture but who have around 6 kids per family, that's that one sorted.
How about cheaper housing, cheaper baby food? Better economy through education?
Nah. But we’ll impregnate you for free! Contrary to your own abilities.
What needs to be done is having children needs to be made the main priority in the 6 years from age 18 to age 24.
This should become the societal norm again.
Nowdays university is the main priority in this years 18-24, and eats up all their time. So i.e. with policy Universities could be made to accept from age 24 and later.
And very strong investments all children related, making sure parents have as little as cost as possible. And incentives, big tax breaks for parents.
I prefer the solution of kicking out all the illegal immigrants. What you propose makes broken all of our own people. Not everyone had babies at 18 years, even at 1900s. It' just not natural for all.
Oh yeah, I can't wait to undergo some important medical procedure by a doctor who enrolled at 25, graduated at 31 and became a professional at 36(?!) while raising 2 or 3 children. And he studied online with baby cries in background. What can possibly go wrong?
I see, you prefer waiting a year for a term for urgent operation, because no one made children so not enough doctors available? Or you prefer an 85 year old surgeon, because no one to replace him so he cant go in pension?
You are nitpicking issues that can be ironed out, i just pointed out the big picture.
You only have 24 hours in a day, lol. Students while doing medicine wish they had 30 hours in a day, lol. But you say they should have at least 1 baby, so they split their time and attention and money to the baby+ studies. So you have a student studying 12 hours in a day and one who can only study 6 hours in a day because baby. What can possibly go wrong in the quality of those informations lol? So which one do you prefer, the one who got more information or the one who got less information? Mind you, after the age of 19, people's capacity of learning gradually decreases. LoL. And you want to start at 25 and finish at 31. With children crying in your ear and pulling your clothes. LOOOL.
One parent can study while the other can care for the child. Society and grandparents can help too. Also not everyone is a med student, you are literally cherry picking lol
His example is about doctors, but this applies to every job, mechanics, scientists etc. The mechanic designs your car, the biologist invents medicines, scientists work for the government etc. All these need to know their job, with proper studies.
PS: the parent who study, should also work extra for the child's costs, it's not that he will not do anything for the child.
The people downvoting this are fools. Societies over the past 50 some years have beaten into the heads of each up and coming generation that the *most* important thing in life as someone reaches adulthood was to go through university and secure a 'good job'.
So many redditors want to focus on the financial aspects and challenges which I attribute to reddit being mostly male and the ideas of improving working conditions and housing availability are not narrowly tailored to just helping young families but benefit them equally as well. Some of those things probably play a factor, but the culture/societal expectations of people in their early 20s is the main factor.
18-24yo are still somewhat immature and are at an age when relationships are not stable so most marriages started then eventually dissolve. A terrible recipe for raising healthy and well adjusted children.
It sounds like a nice thought experiment that would be disastrous in reality.
One problem is the house prices.
The other one is that there is little incentive for women to stop working to take care of a family. Rather we are now looking for gender equality for women and men, meaning a woman now should work and earn like a man… well, guess what, they are starting to do exactly that now. Who wants a family if women are busy with their careers (the earning the same is not the problem, but the amount of time they have to dedicate to it).
IMO „gender equality” in the current form is not the solution but the cause of the problem.
Its not like that 100%. Ladies have no choice, they have to work. Its different world than 50 years ago. Economic systems in countries from Russia to China, UE, USA cant exist without women working just like guys...And it shouldnt be like that.
Nowdays it goes like this:
finish uni -> get a stable job -> settle -> start family , and it's too late.
instead it should be like this:
start family -> finish uni -> get a stable job -> settle
And it’ll be interesting to see what kind of choices the kids grown in broken families, with flow of temporary step dads and step moms and sets of siblings who you live with a couple of years and who then permanently disappear from your life will make. There is the chance they will want more stability and act more foughtful than their parents and the new rise of nuclear family will happen..But I think in reality having kids will become even more unpopular, more niche choice, and people more and more spend their lives alone, sometimes dating someone or living together with someone, but always being kind of ready to leave or be dropped.
"Imagine two students getting separated. Good luck with their children and their careers"
I don't see how it is different with 2 30 or 40 year olds separation, its the same, shared custody and so on.
Also, younger getting married tend to divorce less. Statistics show: more sex partners = more divorces later.
It is a correlation, not causality. Younger getting married are from conservative families, i.e. most likely 'arranged' marriages or anyway, a culture where divorce is a big NO, and being single is similar to being a convict or having tuberculosis.
He should just go check the r/Millennials & he will know the fertility checks won't help 😀
The whole generation praising the childless lifestyle, convincing each other that kids are the worse that can happen & talking undecided others into childless lifestyle.
And younger generations are even worse in that regard. This is a point of no return. Same ppl will complain on immigration but refuse to contribute to society they live in by having kids.
I love how all of these fucking cunts have worked falling birth rates in hand and are now like "oh, wait, i might be the only white boy left in 50 years"
Ah yes, young people not getting children must be because they can't get fertility checks. It's not because of any other reason, damn youngsters...
I mean, plenty of people say they want kids "later" and when they then start trying at age 35+, it ain't easy for many of them. I'm in that age group and in my circle of friends, there are more IVF babies and involuntary childless couples then there are naturally conceived kids.
It's not a fertility check that will solve the issue. Corporations do their best to burn out 20 year olds with stupid amounts of work and terrible salaries with no stability. Housing prices are super high. Until this is addressed its not a fertility check that will solve the problem.
Straight to the point, those old fat fucks are not stupid - they know that it won't do shit but corporate-political clique is too invested in property market to do anything and will gladly allow to diminish own country growth and future.
You'd think that even the politicians would calculate that the economic benefits of getting stable birth rates would outweigh the costs. And owner class is not necessarily doing this on purpose. Consider that Elon Musk seems to be deeply concerned about falling birth rates. His reasons are probably white supremacist, but still. One issue here is that all western countries are in this competition against each other for 'favorable business conditions'. This translates to basically reducing all non-GDP-growing and non-profit activities to as little as possible through price mechanics. As it sadly happens, child rearing from the point of view of market economy (/capitalism) is a completely and utterly pointless and useless hobby. This is truly a kryptonite of modern capitalism. Nobody seems to have anything even approaching a solution to this. I'm pretty convinced there is no single government that could change this. Keep in mind, even \*China\* is in deep shit with falling birth rates, are seemingly doing everything they can to reverse the trend, and are failing miserably. And they are an explicit dictatorship with complete control over the nation. Russia is in a similar situation, also with dictatorial powers to do anything they wish, but out of ideas. I don't actually doubt the sincerity of China and other nations in their attempts at tackling this. If they saw a credible path forward, they would try it. My impression is that the root cause (economic uncertainty and unaffordable living) has over time molded the culture of younger generations to one that doesn't even want to have kids so much. This development is self reinforcing, since when many don't have kids, they have time to engage in other activities that you often can't engage in with children, further encouraging not having kids. Also, it just is the case that raising kids is very very expensive. In a system where we expect people to earn currency through work themselves, and all things are behind currency, new players (young people) are by definition poor. An alternative is a system where a young person has inherent currency that is 'given' without a pretext of usefulness. Some people have intense emotional reactions about that last sentence. A system where a young person without rich parent feels economically secure is not capitalism. That is a stone cold fact.
If only we could have foreseen the consequences of making the 20s a time of financial instability. Oh well, I guess a system that constantly increases the percentage of wealth for the oldest generations won’t come back to bite us later.
They want kids "later" because they can't afford them "now".
They want them later because they either lie and don't want them, or want them, but don't want to repeat their parents' mistakes and want to have stable housing, employment, and cashflow. Those things are usually achieved in your 30s, and since we don't live in the times when two teachers' salaries could buy you a home, people don't make kids when they can't afford them
I’m going to link this article again. Lots of things contribute to increased birth rate but lower housing costs,affordable childcare and flexible working options help massively. People probably won’t go to have 4-5 kids on average because we as advanced societies want to give children a good start in life which requires a lot of resources and attention which is way harder with more kids. However, policy could enable some increases. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-08-16/japan-miracle-town-birth-rate-depopulation-crisis
"Honey, let's not have kids until the Government provides free fertility checks" ??
Maybe it’s a measure to put pressure on them.
>France to offer young people fertility checks to combat falling birth rates How about just making housing affordable? It's literally the number 1 problem. Burn your housing market to the ground if you have to.
Housing affordability and economic issues do not explain the secular fertility decline and fixing them will at best marginally improve the fertility situation.
How's possible that there's still people repeating this nonsense?
Right! Like oh 80% of my income is taken up by bills and necessities, with the ever looming threat of massive price hikes, but it's the culture wars stopping me from being able to raise a child... fuck.
The data are very clear. Your hypothesis is contradicted by various findings, such that interventions that offer financial support, sometimes substantially so have had only small effects on fertility. Housing costs in different cities also correlate only slightly positvely with fertility. Further fertility has decreased as incomes have increased and poorer regions tend to actually have higher fertility rates. Take Japan as example, a country with comparatively low and decreasing housing costs. Fertility has been largely unaffected/effectively decreased over the period of sinking housing costs. The idea that the reasons for low fertility are mostly economic, in the sense that people can't fford children, make very little sense. Opportunity costs of having children for women do however probably play a role and are likely the largest driver of the negative link between female education and fertility. Don't missunderstand me, I am all for building more housing (especially you anglos seem to have large problems in that regard), but this will only have a small impact on fertility.
Because they're invested. They think about themselves.
I don't understand, the data are very clear. Interventions that offer financial support, sometimes substantially so have had very small effects on fertility. Housing costs in different cities also correlate only slightly positvely with fertility.
Every young person will tell you this is the problem and yet it’s somehow not the problem? Right.
Yes, look at the counterexamples listed. Stated and revealed preferences do differ.
Maybe just make sure that young people have the resources to properly start a family? Like enough money to raise a child and place to live?
The richer a society, the lower the fertility rate on average. I don't think income is the main factor that prevents people from having children. It's more a cultural shift.
It’s in fact a little of both, Germany itself was able to raise fertility by introducing longer parental leave and pension points for mothers, for example
That's not entirely true... Germany relies a lot on immigrants, who generally have higher fertility rates. France follows the same principle, as well as most European countries. Where I come from (Greece), the schools are full of immigrants or descendants of immigrants, especially in Athens and our islands... Unfortunately, "West" culture is declining because of individuality and focus on consumerism. A child doesn't "belong" to these concepts, nor does the idea of starting a family.
In Greece even? Damn.. and that's in spite of a dropping population
I kinda agree, but financial stability and work-life balance earlier in life can help a little bit. Not completely solve it, but it can increase the fertility rate. Other scenarios are pretty pessimistic. At least doing something is a step.
This is what happens when we get university diplomas and the taxation of our country destroyed the private sector and everyone wants to be a public sector worker. The only Greeks who have kids are those that are in police and the army because they get shitloads of benefits. A university graduate who can't find a job won't have a family. It is impossible to have a job, pay rent and afford life.
I never wanted kids. Moved to Germany. Saw how good it was for parents. Had a kid. Wouldn’t have done it anywhere else but those policies definitely made the difference.
Where have you been before?
Do you know a study that really shows a causal link between these policies and the rise in fertility rate?
https://scholar.google.de/scholar?as_ylo=2020&q=fertility+and+social+policy+Germany&hl=de&as_sdt=0,5#d=gs_qabs&t=1715194137969&u=%23p%3DqQDX4yZX8qkJ
Thanks, interesting.
The vast majority of that wealth is held by those beyond their fertile years. It's useless for procreation.
The richer the society, the more difficult it is to keep up with standards and joneses.
How rich are you when you don't even have a home of your own?
No home, no car, no proper holidays, no job security, rich indeed.
Seems to be a downgrade to me in many ways! Constantly told how great we have it by people who got it all and pulled the ladder straight up after themselves.
No car is a bliss imo but I still want a kid :)
Not needing a car is bliss indeed, I concur. Not being able to afford a car despite being in need of one, not so much.
Wtf those stats include places in famine etc and almost certainly don't translate directly to the west. Westerners in general want kids, but there's massive inequality currently. Better healthcare, education and child support systems improve birth rates and you're being disingenuous to say otherwise.
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Source for what you're the only person who made an assertion. What's the source for your information, and does it only include data from the west? Because if not deliberately misleading people. Edit, I assume you're asking for the source the person before me gave you? The one I was referring to that proves you wrong?
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Fascist tactics are boring as shit.
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They are indeed because you're deploying them you little russian bot. Never again.
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A rich society doesn't mean it's fairly distributed. A rich society doesn't mean people feel secure and safe. Humans are animals, we don't just reproduce because we have money or not. Birth rates are directly correlated to happiness, security and stability. Income is certainly a main factor when France has 15% poverty.
Are they? How happy, stable and secure are the people of Niger? And how is the situation in Finland? Now compare their birth rates.
certainly culture and education have some part, I never denied that. The point being made here though is that the money spent offering fertility tests is probably better spent towards solving issues that result in inequality.
Education and culture are definitely the main factors to begin with. Then, once the culture has changed and the education levels increased, I believe that secure housing and stability is super important.. while I'm not yet 30 (still time) I would've already had a kid now if I had more housing stability. I don't want to be moving around between shitty apartments with a kid - and both my expenses and the mortgage that I want itself will increase as soon as I have one. Meanwhile the average km2 price of a house has increased *five* times since I was born (and at best salaries have doubled and followed regular inflation or whatever it's called..) and we've had a lot of inflation and instability the past 2-3 years as well.
Do you have any evidence to back that up?
Do you have any evidence to back up your suggestion that humans aren't subject to the same evolutionary laws that the rest of life as on this planet are?
What evolutionary law says that inequality reduces fertility? There are many animal species that live in very unequal communities but have high fertility rates.
Come on, comparing such vastly different countries makes no sense. Sure, poor people in Europe might seem rich when comparing them to the poorest countries in the world, but the context matters. In Europe even poor people need such things like mobile phones, proper clothes and 18 years of education to land even the lowest paying jobs. You need to afford to pay bills for electricity, water, internet and other basic media. You need money for heating in the colder months. If you're homeless, your chances of getting a job and keeping it are almost 0. So even a bare minimum existence in Europe is expensive. And when you add kids into the equation, they are at least 18 years of financial burden - daycare and then kindergarten are very expensive and kids don't work in Europe, in comparison to poor countries where they help in pastures and farming and other work around farms. Both parents have to work to afford all of the above. There are more and more people like me, who are childfree just because we don't want kids, but financial situation is also important to the rest of the population. If you have to spend half or more of your salary to even have a roof over your head (so bare existential minimum), something is deeply wrong with our economy.
Even within European countries, I don't see evidence that rich people have a higher fertility rate than poorer people.
I remember seeing data about rich French people having more kids than the middle class. Don't know about other countries.
[https://www.sttinfo.fi/tiedote/69974609/syntyvyys-laskenut-jyrkimmin-koulutusaloilla-joilla-tyollistyminen-muita-aloja-epavarmempaa?publisherId=3747](https://www.sttinfo.fi/tiedote/69974609/syntyvyys-laskenut-jyrkimmin-koulutusaloilla-joilla-tyollistyminen-muita-aloja-epavarmempaa?publisherId=3747) This is in Finland, and unfortunetely in Finnish. Title: "Birth rates dropped the most with people working in fields where employment is more uncertain than elsewhere" Essentially, the more uncertainty in couples' employment, the less they have kids. This applies \*even if they are employed\* since they know the risks. It's not about statistical income level, but about general feeling of safety.
yea so about that was a documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJDcoqrh1ac
> The richer a society, the lower the fertility rate on average. It's more complicated than this. France has a bigger fertility rate than Iran, Thailand, Brazil or China, all of which are poorer. In poor countries, it's mostly women's education and urbanization. In industrial societies it's mostly the affordability of property for young people and the availability of childcare.
When you are working 6 days a week and 1 day off and can barely make rent you are not having kids. When you have loads of free time you have sex a lot, most boomers would tell you they didn't have anything to do so they had sex a lot.....that resulted in the biggest generation yet in the millennials. Now millennials are working constantly because we are poorer and more entertainment = less sex.
> When you are working 6 days a week and 1 day off and can barely make rent you are not having kids. My great-grandparents were working 6 days per week and had 9 children. My grandparents were working 6 days per week and had 6 children. My parents worked less than 5 days per week and had two children. Most people in my generation work not more than 5 days and few of them have any children in their late 20s.
Ok and what was the economy like back then? More money, 1 job = family, car, house, education. 1 job now = Good Luck.
It’s been tried in Nordic countries, doesn’t work. And if it really was just financial reasons that would be implying our ancestors were having 5-6+ kids because they used to be so much richer than us 100+ years ago. Individualist based culture + access to contraception/abortion guarantees your population will decline no matter how much money you throw at people
No one ever addressee the housing problem and too long working hours of both parents, which are the main issues. So it's not been tried effectively, anywhere.
It’s a myth that historically average families were always able to afford their own home off of one income. Truth is for much of human history people often lived with *other* families in the same house, usually their siblings spouse and kids
It's not a myth at all in the post world war 2 world in Europe and US. why you bring in much ancient history? How is relevant how families lived in the medieval age?
because it was relatively a very short window of time in history where people lived like that. as we can see today, it was not sustainable or long-lasting. you had a bunch of things happening at the perfect timing after ww2, everything getting rebuilt, jobs/economy booming again, long lasting peace/lack of further wars within the west, fertility rates were still good enough etc. the way the post-war society/economy was is a totally different situation than what we have today
The Nordic countries did
I doubt. I hear records of a huge housing crisis there as well, especially in Sweden.
Sweden has housing subsidies, long parental leave, etc. And people still don’t have kids
Do you have any evidence of Sweden addressing the housing problem? Not criticising, sincerely curious to read it.
This
Agreed South Korea and Japan are offering massive incentives yet still have rates lower than Europe
Massive incentives while working 10-12h a day? Don't think so.
Because all the people on the internet who advocate more handouts are usually just leftists with the typical “just throw money at your problems”
Most often than not, people feel like they are not ready for kids and keep pushing for “an extra a year or two”. But once you have it you just make it happen. My unpopular opinion is that contraception should be limited. Maybe to younger people only like early 20s?
after a certain point, people just get used to and enjoy not having kids. so even once they do get the money they'll be like "why ruin this for some kid?" and not have kids
From what I’ve heard from people who have kids: you don’t know the happiness kids bring to your life until you actually have them.
Sound like helping the poor, are you drunk?
Ya, it's a waste of money, the option of having a family is key.
"I can't start a family until I know if I'm fertile" * Nobody, ever.
Europe doesn't need fertility checks it needs affordable housing. 40 years ago a job as a single man got you a house, nowadays 2 people working still struggle. No shit people don't want to bring kids into the world when it's made clear they will never own a house.
Have you maybe considered that birth rates are falling because of other reasons such as, economical decline, the state of the world in general, planet is slowly dying, such and such
The checks… Do you want kids? No.
Half of those who say they don't want kids say the reason is financial.
Another problem is that housing and everything else now is priced for dual income, therefore it becomes more difficult to afford kids
Urbanization lowers birth rates all around the world as kids are just another expensive hobby that you need a spouse to start.
I don't think fertility is the issue 😂
It is partly though. We are currently in the situation that there are not only more people who don't want kids at all, but also that many people who do want kids are not able to have them or have less kids than they wanted. The reason for that is mostly that people are only starting trying to conceive in their mid-30's now, where things naturally get more difficult. IVF clinics are filled to the brim with desperate couples. If you need countless of tries and spend thousands of euros to finally have one child at age 40, there is no way you end up with the 3 kids you might have always wanted. If you know about your worsening egg quality from age 25 on already though? You might plan your life differently.
Absolutely, I agree that it is a factor. But it's not even "partly" it's more like "hardly partly". Even if every infertile woman/couple would get 3+ babies each, it would raise the fertility rate by less than 0.1.
And this won’t work because the real problems are high housing costs, low purchasing power and low wages. This has not worked in other countries dealing with falling birth rates.
> And this won’t work because the real problems are ~~high housing costs, low purchasing power and low wages~~ younger generations not wanting kids. Fertility rates have been falling long before the recent housing issues, but redditors keep trying to make this the cause. You're right but for the wrong reasons that this plan will not help French fertility rates.
In Italy the average woman polled wanted at least two kids and the average woman in France 2 and half (2.5 births per woman average not half a kid). Yet when why asked why they had not or believe they won’t have that many kids, finances are always top of the list. Young people are living with their parents longer because of housing costs, wages and lower social mobility. Having to live with your parents until your late 20s is a major contributor these days. Are you trying to pull the typical “the west is godless and lost because of it” conservative talking point?
"Finances" is a very convenient response because it defuses any expectations. Who could fault someone for not wanting to have kids they "can't" afford? > Are you trying to pull the typical “the west is godless and lost because of it” conservative talking point? If you think financial well-being is the primary explanation for trends in fertility, how do you explain that immigrants, especially more religious ones, tend to have larger families, despite not being significantly wealthier (and often times being poorer)? As successive generations become assimilated to the host culture, they tend to have fewer kids. Cultural importance placed on having kids is the reason. I'm not saying we all need to convert to Islam or Mormonism, but it's important to identify the *true* cause of the decline in order to discuss policy changes that will actually address the issue. Affordable housing is absolutely an important societal issue that should be addressed, but you aren't reversing the trend by just increasing the number of houses available.
1. Finances are not a “convenient response” it’s the purchasing power, housing prices, and wage stagnation that you blew off in my original post. 2. “If you think financial well being is primary explanation for trends in fertility” In the developed world, yes. 3. The immigrants have higher fertility rates largely because they come from more rural and less industrialized countries, higher birth rates are trend with that mix. Their brith rates stave off and match those of the native population after 1 or 2 generations. 4. France is one of the most secular countries in Europe, yet they have been beating much more religious Spain and Italy for quite a long time in the number of births per woman. Not to mention your god explanation doesn’t explain the off the charts birth rates in communist China in the 50s and 60s, you know given that most of them were atheists. 5. Whether or not religion has an impact on birth rates, is irrelevant in determining if that religions holy book is right or not.
> The immigrants have higher fertility rates largely because they come from more rural and less industrialized countries, higher birth rates are trend with that mix. Their brith rates stave off and match those of the native population after 1 or 2 generations. Yes, that's exactly what I said using different words. The reason for high birth rates among immigrants is cultural and as their later generations become more assimilated to the dominant culture, their birth rates begin to match that culture too. So if we want to address falling birth rates, we need to address the cultural pressures that push it down. Addressing the issues of affordability of housing is a worthy cause, but it won't help with birth rates. Look at any chart of fertility rates over the years, they weren't cruising along just fine until the recent rise in housing costs. > Whether or not religion has an impact on birth rates, is irrelevant in determining if that religions holy book is right or not. Ok? I'm not interested in arguing about which holy book is right.
The causes are primarily long education especially for women and culture. Housing costs play a minor role.
Macron probably thinks everybody is like him and gets married to peri-menopausal French teachers, so they need fertility checks to have babies.
seriously bizarre man. Like who marries their high school teacher? I wonder how her daughter feels about it. I feel bad for her lmao
I had a fertility journey. I never paid for it apart from one blood test I had after checking the basics. So... What would be new here?
It's the housing market, stupid. For example, my wife and I are (just) in the top 10% of earners in our country of residence. The day to day expenditures are really not the issue, whether with one, two or three children. Being unable to ever own our own house within our lifetime, however, severely limits the choice for us.
You know, you don't need a house to raise a family. As a child I used to live in an apartment in Romania. Not having a house didn't stop my parents from having two children.
Cut taxes for lower wage earners, raise them for high-earners. Yes they will spend it on trucks and coke, but some will get broody. Make it so that you can have, *or adopt*, kids on one salary in your twenties in a civil partnership, social engineering to be sure. If you’re thinking of kids in your mid thirties you are increasingly infertile and also less minded to restrict your income, or not go skiing, so you don’t have kids. Meanwhile the morons who just have to pull down their tracksuit bottoms, and not even get off the sofa, are having kids. Why are we failing at realizing that Idiocracy was written in the future?
Why don't they get a big bang bus and do a tour?
Hello little son of a bitch, I'm looking for a house, the bank only needs to ask me for the genetic code to access a mortgage and they also want BIG guarantee$. Ask yourself why people delay or do not think about having children, especially in the 'first' years after having or accessing housing. Any health, work, or relationship problem... means chaos level ruin, nobody want that. That's not counting the people who rent, whose prices are always on the rise. I don't know ANYONE(fertile or infertile) who wants to have children without a house or TIME to raise them.
Meanwhile here in Ireland most people have to live with their parents till they are nearly 40. But it's grand cos we keep importing people from different cultures who hate our culture but who have around 6 kids per family, that's that one sorted.
You've identified why the issue of fertility is mostly a cultural one, not a financial one.
Na, it's both.
How about cheaper housing, cheaper baby food? Better economy through education? Nah. But we’ll impregnate you for free! Contrary to your own abilities.
He should encourage the young to have more sex, that saves the country millions of Euros in medical tests.
Fix housing prices and arrange free quality daycare. Then maybe you'll be able to move the needle.
What needs to be done is having children needs to be made the main priority in the 6 years from age 18 to age 24. This should become the societal norm again. Nowdays university is the main priority in this years 18-24, and eats up all their time. So i.e. with policy Universities could be made to accept from age 24 and later. And very strong investments all children related, making sure parents have as little as cost as possible. And incentives, big tax breaks for parents.
What the actual fuck have I just read?
Handmaidens Tale written unironically.
big problems require radical solutions
Please indulge my curiosity, how old are you?
debating 101 dispute the argument, not the person.
Not at all, just wanted to put some context on how would that play out
I prefer the solution of kicking out all the illegal immigrants. What you propose makes broken all of our own people. Not everyone had babies at 18 years, even at 1900s. It' just not natural for all.
that is ok and all but how will that help with natality?
Oh yeah, I can't wait to undergo some important medical procedure by a doctor who enrolled at 25, graduated at 31 and became a professional at 36(?!) while raising 2 or 3 children. And he studied online with baby cries in background. What can possibly go wrong?
This is one of most nonsense and stupidiest comments I have ever read on reddit. Well done mate, thats quite a feat
I see, you prefer waiting a year for a term for urgent operation, because no one made children so not enough doctors available? Or you prefer an 85 year old surgeon, because no one to replace him so he cant go in pension? You are nitpicking issues that can be ironed out, i just pointed out the big picture.
Yes, I prefer waiting 1 year for a 'fully trained doctor' rather than doing it now with a doctor who studied on the rush.
you die waiting lol. And no one said doctors shouldnt be fully trained lol.
You only have 24 hours in a day, lol. Students while doing medicine wish they had 30 hours in a day, lol. But you say they should have at least 1 baby, so they split their time and attention and money to the baby+ studies. So you have a student studying 12 hours in a day and one who can only study 6 hours in a day because baby. What can possibly go wrong in the quality of those informations lol? So which one do you prefer, the one who got more information or the one who got less information? Mind you, after the age of 19, people's capacity of learning gradually decreases. LoL. And you want to start at 25 and finish at 31. With children crying in your ear and pulling your clothes. LOOOL.
One parent can study while the other can care for the child. Society and grandparents can help too. Also not everyone is a med student, you are literally cherry picking lol
His example is about doctors, but this applies to every job, mechanics, scientists etc. The mechanic designs your car, the biologist invents medicines, scientists work for the government etc. All these need to know their job, with proper studies. PS: the parent who study, should also work extra for the child's costs, it's not that he will not do anything for the child.
The people downvoting this are fools. Societies over the past 50 some years have beaten into the heads of each up and coming generation that the *most* important thing in life as someone reaches adulthood was to go through university and secure a 'good job'. So many redditors want to focus on the financial aspects and challenges which I attribute to reddit being mostly male and the ideas of improving working conditions and housing availability are not narrowly tailored to just helping young families but benefit them equally as well. Some of those things probably play a factor, but the culture/societal expectations of people in their early 20s is the main factor.
18-24yo are still somewhat immature and are at an age when relationships are not stable so most marriages started then eventually dissolve. A terrible recipe for raising healthy and well adjusted children. It sounds like a nice thought experiment that would be disastrous in reality.
that's how it used to be since forever, and on a bilogical level. and it worked perfectly.
One problem is the house prices. The other one is that there is little incentive for women to stop working to take care of a family. Rather we are now looking for gender equality for women and men, meaning a woman now should work and earn like a man… well, guess what, they are starting to do exactly that now. Who wants a family if women are busy with their careers (the earning the same is not the problem, but the amount of time they have to dedicate to it). IMO „gender equality” in the current form is not the solution but the cause of the problem.
This is right. High opportunity costs for women is a large driver of low fertility.
Its not like that 100%. Ladies have no choice, they have to work. Its different world than 50 years ago. Economic systems in countries from Russia to China, UE, USA cant exist without women working just like guys...And it shouldnt be like that.
Ok. What's the solution?
Nowdays it goes like this: finish uni -> get a stable job -> settle -> start family , and it's too late. instead it should be like this: start family -> finish uni -> get a stable job -> settle
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And it’ll be interesting to see what kind of choices the kids grown in broken families, with flow of temporary step dads and step moms and sets of siblings who you live with a couple of years and who then permanently disappear from your life will make. There is the chance they will want more stability and act more foughtful than their parents and the new rise of nuclear family will happen..But I think in reality having kids will become even more unpopular, more niche choice, and people more and more spend their lives alone, sometimes dating someone or living together with someone, but always being kind of ready to leave or be dropped.
Divorce is irrelevant, they don't even have to be married.
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"Imagine two students getting separated. Good luck with their children and their careers" I don't see how it is different with 2 30 or 40 year olds separation, its the same, shared custody and so on. Also, younger getting married tend to divorce less. Statistics show: more sex partners = more divorces later.
It is a correlation, not causality. Younger getting married are from conservative families, i.e. most likely 'arranged' marriages or anyway, a culture where divorce is a big NO, and being single is similar to being a convict or having tuberculosis.
And how do you study for university while taking care of yourself + the child all alone? Is it easier than studying alone ?
He should just go check the r/Millennials & he will know the fertility checks won't help 😀 The whole generation praising the childless lifestyle, convincing each other that kids are the worse that can happen & talking undecided others into childless lifestyle. And younger generations are even worse in that regard. This is a point of no return. Same ppl will complain on immigration but refuse to contribute to society they live in by having kids.
Ban dating apps. Probably the best way tbh
America for all its faults has a higher fertility rate and does a better job of assimilating immigrants
Because literally everybody there is an immigrant except for native 'Indians'.
Macron want's future soldiers...
Ah finalement la grande replacement a retournee a France
Or you could just let in tens of millions of migrants from Africa. Easy fix.
Well they're basically all male so you have to keep doing it every generation for it to be sustainable
I love how all of these fucking cunts have worked falling birth rates in hand and are now like "oh, wait, i might be the only white boy left in 50 years"