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> away from large support networks This. Here's my thoughts based on personal experience that backs just that. Copy pasted from an earlier comment: People kee

> away from large support networks This. Here's my thoughts based on personal experience that backs just that. Copy pasted from an earlier comment: People keep trying to find a purely economic reason for why folks are having less kids. I think I'm satisfied with the very simple reason that raising kids is hard work. Most people feel like 1 kid already gets their hands full. That's really it IMO. Whenever it was that joint families split up into disparate nuclear families, obviously the load of raising say 5 kids that was being shared among 20 people, suddenly fell on just 2 people. In the places with high fertility rate, you will almost surely observe joint families. I'm from India where we have such demographic variety that you can see adjacent areas with completely different fertility rates. In one, you will see old-style large houses with courtyards and 15+ people in them living as a joint family. Invariably these people have more kids. But in the next town with more nuclear families and modernish apartments, you will be lucky to see 2 kids per family. [1] This is what births the secondary economic incentives which are mentioned a lot in popular discourse. For example, if you're already living in a house with 15 people your financial realities will require a similar number of people in the next generation to continue the same lifestyle. [1] Wealth is not a confounding factor here. The specific two areas I have in mind are both more or less equally wealthy, one has folks running a coconut business primarily and the other is a small town with the usual assortment of office jobs.

SoftTalker 1y ago
I also think it's the extended "adolescence" that permeates many modern western countries. I know young people who are approaching 30, barely out of their parents' house, own nothing, and still have not really engaged with being the owner of their lives. The idea of having kids is nowhere on their radar; it's just something they see as totally daunting in the amount of work they imagine it would require. I think the time to have kids is when you are young and full of energy and still have youthful fearlessness about the future. Fertility for women starts dropping at around age 25 and certainly by 30. Then you're dealing with seeing doctors trying to get pregnant, the stress of careers, approaching middle age, and declining energy levels.
palmotea 1y ago
> I think I'm satisfied with the very simple reason that raising kids is hard work. Most people feel like 1 kid already gets their hands full. That's really it IMO. Whenever it was that joint families split up into disparate nuclear families, obviously the load of raising say 5 kids that was being shared among 20 people, suddenly fell on just 2 people. I think you're falsely assuming that, over history, it has taken a constant amount of effort to raise a child. I recently read an aside in some recent article about birthrates that current-day American working mothers spend as much time on their kids as 1970s-era stay-at-home mothers. For that to be true, parents/society must be making child-rearing much more work than it was 50 years ago. So I agree with the GP, it's a modernity problem (or rather, a modern culture problem).
- porridgeraisin 1y ago
  That strengthens my point actually. If raising a kid has become much harder today in some cases, then it's even more impractical to have many kids without having a joint family to support you.
  - palmotea 1y ago
    > If raising a kid has become much harder today in some cases, then it's even more impractical to have many kids without having a joint family to support you. My point is raising a kid isn't actually harder. Also the intense effort can backfire, resulting is worse off kids (e.g. the anxiety and lack of resilience that results from helicopter parenting). My other point is the joint family thing seems like a wash: yes they can support you, but you also have to support them in equal measure.
    - porridgeraisin 1y ago
      > you also have to support them in equal measure On aggregate over the course of your life, yes, but that's not a useful thing to state is it. It is certainly not true for an individual day/week, you get a lot of extra help when you're raising kids. It becomes more true once the kids reach a certain age where they are amenable to listening to anyone in the house, freeing up the parents for what you mentioned. The difference is simply night and day, having seen both first hand.

SoftTalker 1y ago

I also think it's the extended "adolescence" that permeates many modern western countries. I know young people who are approaching 30, barely out of their parents' house, own nothing, and still have not really engaged with being the owner of their lives. The idea of having kids is nowhere on their radar; it's just something they see as totally daunting in the amount of work they imagine it would require. I think the time to have kids is when you are young and full of energy and still have youthful fearlessness about the future. Fertility for women starts dropping at around age 25 and certainly by 30. Then you're dealing with seeing doctors trying to get pregnant, the stress of careers, approaching middle age, and declining energy levels.

palmotea 1y ago

> I think I'm satisfied with the very simple reason that raising kids is hard work. Most people feel like 1 kid already gets their hands full. That's really it IMO. Whenever it was that joint families split up into disparate nuclear families, obviously the load of raising say 5 kids that was being shared among 20 people, suddenly fell on just 2 people. I think you're falsely assuming that, over history, it has taken a constant amount of effort to raise a child. I recently read an aside in some recent article about birthrates that current-day American working mothers spend as much time on their kids as 1970s-era stay-at-home mothers. For that to be true, parents/society must be making child-rearing much more work than it was 50 years ago. So I agree with the GP, it's a modernity problem (or rather, a modern culture problem).

porridgeraisin 1y ago
That strengthens my point actually. If raising a kid has become much harder today in some cases, then it's even more impractical to have many kids without having a joint family to support you.
- palmotea 1y ago
  > If raising a kid has become much harder today in some cases, then it's even more impractical to have many kids without having a joint family to support you. My point is raising a kid isn't actually harder. Also the intense effort can backfire, resulting is worse off kids (e.g. the anxiety and lack of resilience that results from helicopter parenting). My other point is the joint family thing seems like a wash: yes they can support you, but you also have to support them in equal measure.
  - porridgeraisin 1y ago
    > you also have to support them in equal measure On aggregate over the course of your life, yes, but that's not a useful thing to state is it. It is certainly not true for an individual day/week, you get a lot of extra help when you're raising kids. It becomes more true once the kids reach a certain age where they are amenable to listening to anyone in the house, freeing up the parents for what you mentioned. The difference is simply night and day, having seen both first hand.