I was born around a decade before my country's fertility rate went below replacement and the social change this shift brought is staggering. As a child I assum

I was born around a decade before my country's fertility rate went below replacement and the social change this shift brought is staggering. As a child I assumed most of my peers would go the usual route, so eventually start a family. Being in my mid 30s now I'm the only one out of three siblings who is a parent and in my immediate social circle there are just two others - that's three out of at least twelve people. The rest are either single, divorced or just childless, with no plan for starting a family in the foreseeable future(or ever) with maybe one exception, but if you asked me two years ago about that person's prospects I would have to say the were looking bleak. I don't go around asking people why aren't they having children, but those who did tell me cite either finances or unwillingness to give up their current lives - sometimes both.