3 ms·
Children used to be a source of labor and providing generational wealth. Now children are a source of financial cost, not benefit, and thus it doesn't make sen
by wvenable 8y ago
Children used to be a source of labor and providing generational wealth. Now children are a source of financial cost, not benefit, and thus it doesn't make sense for poor people to have them.
- orangecat 8y agoit doesn't make sense for poor people to have them I would speculate that the disincentive is larger for wealthier people. A lot of child-related expenses are for positional goods (house in a good school district, saving for college) where the price is basically "all your spare income". So if you're rich having kids means giving up awesome vacations and the option of retiring before 50; if you're poor those things were never on the table.
- wvenable 8y agoHaving a child is literally one more mouth to feed, I hardly think the disincentive is larger for wealthy people. That's just a bizarre piece of logic.
- freeflight 8y ago> Now children are a source of financial cost, not benefit, and thus it doesn't make sense for poor people to have them. Yet it's low-income households who have the highest birth rates [0] afaik this isn't unique to the US, in Germany the situation looks similar. It's extremely interesting how this relation between income&fertility doesn't just hold true on a country vs country scale, but also on a domestic level inside these countries, there must be something very fundamental at work here. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...