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Seems like much of the pressure for having fewer / no kids comes from financial stresses. It's very difficult to have a single income family with kids. It's v
by claytongulick 3y ago
Seems like much of the pressure for having fewer / no kids comes from financial stresses.
It's very difficult to have a single income family with kids.
It's very difficult to raise kids with both parents working.
- version_five 3y agoPoor people have more kids. Look at developing countries especially. Low fertility is a problem of the affluent. That's part of why I say I think it's cultural, it's seen as such a negative (including as a financial burden) instead of as a positive thing to be aspired to, at least that's what's pushed on younger people.
- salamiboy 3y agoThat's no longer seem to be the case in the US, especially as out of wedlock births decreased and poor people are less likely to get married https://ifstudies.org/blog/no-ring-no-baby https://ifstudies.org/blog/no-ring-no-baby
- sneed_chucker 3y agoI don't buy this argument. Historically, people in the countries that now have low fertility rates were much poorer and yet were having far more children. In fact, the countries with the highest fertility rates globally are very poor.
- Timon3 3y agoHistorically, poor people's children started being "profitable" (as in doing more work than they take) much more quickly - they were raised communally (spreading the required work evenly), and they started working and helping earlier. This made having many children a legitimate strategy to deal with poverty. This has completely turned around - community is almost non-existent, and children will really only be "profitable" once they are adults. The situations are simply too different for your argument to make sense.
- sneed_chucker 3y agoFair point, but I think you also overestimate how many people make decisions using actual cost-benefit analysis.