I think part of the problem is that in many of these countries you basically have to be “rich” to get by, and you need a lot of money to raise kids according to

I think part of the problem is that in many of these countries you basically have to be “rich” to get by, and you need a lot of money to raise kids according to the standards in these countries. The reason it used to be easier to have kids is that the whole society was based around having/raising kids being the mothers full time job. The living expenses in richer countries are generally so high that this is no longer viable. Even in Norway, which is very rich and where there’s a ridiculous amount of financial support for having children, if a woman decides to make it her life’s job to just have lots of kids, and the father just has a normal job, you’re going to have a pretty hard time and a terrible pension. In a poorer time, or a poorer country, you didn’t need to own expensive stuff to have kids. In many rich countries it’s basically impossible to have a family without a car, and since laws in some of them require huge booster seats for kids, you need a huge car. When my mom was a kid you could just throw the kids in the backseat without even a seatbelt. To be clear, I think we’re moving in the right direction in most ways. Requiring booster seats is good. Most women having a career outside of having kids is very good. It’s just that we don’t have all the pieces in place. Even Northern European countries have maybe 50% of the financial and practical support needed to motivate people to having more kids in a modern rich society. My benchmark is that if a woman wants to have like 10 kids, she should end up with a decent salary and decent pension in the end. Doing that is almost a full life’s work, and it should pay fairly to choose to do it (it is a job that needs to be done for society to survive after all, especially if most women only have time/resources for 1-2 kids, if any, if the want a decent career)