No Babies? Blame Capitalism

wewewedxfgdf

It irrelevant - babies are not needed for population growth - there's plenty of countries that are overpopulated all that is required is redistribution of the people we have rather than making more. If we look at these issues globally rather than on a per country basis it looks easier to resolve/different.

faangguyindia

funny thing is india, it's not about money. I know tech bros here who make really good income, have good residential properties and cars, they aren't complaining about not having enough money to marry, they just don't find any woman who is willing to marry them. Most people who are having kids in india are lower income people. so i just don't understand when people say it's because of money issue, when people with comfy jobs fail to have babies, it's not about money.

pclowes

Honestly we are doing articles from Jacobin on the front page now? Whats next Newsmax and OANN? Some flat-earther blog?

sbuttgereit

Unless you are seeing the population decline issues in China... then blame socialism and it's long time one child policy. A system predicated on the socialists in power having a sort of "paternalistic wisdom" that it can enforce on society regardless of the individual interests of any set potential parents in having a larger family than their socialist masters wish.

andsoitis

> an economic system predicated on individual autonomy and naked self-interest whose incentives run counter to child-rearing. It's not just rich places that are becoming less fertile. "Demographers have long shown that what really counts is girls’ education. Schooling means that girls gain more autonomy and a greater say in life’s decisions." - https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/06/04/indias-surprise...

colechristensen

Ugh, it's considerably simpler. Blame capitalism, but the real estate part. Real estate: there's not enough of it, new construction targets young unmarried people and successively makes smaller units while gradually raising the price per unit. Young people without families optimize for themselves and continually are willing to compromise for less space for the same money but minimum_space(single) << minimum_space(family+kids) So new construction, particularly large apartment building have few to no units that anyone could actually raise a family in and trend towards "studio" concrete cylinders. Places with more space are zoned for exclusive residential and are thus tremendously boring. Mixed use places are full of vacant commercial space because lowering the rent would trigger property revaluation and the places that aren't vacant are tremendously expensive because of the large amount that has to go to paying the rent ... or paying their low-to-middle income employees who spent half their income on rent. All of this money is getting sucked out of the economy into A) people who want real estate income without working and B) the financial system giving them loans. Nobody wants kids because they have to chose between expensive housing where it's boring and extremely expensive housing where it's not. Just furthering the generation on generation the young paying for the previous generations real estate "investment" growth.

jemmyw

People who want to have kids have kids. There have been worse economic conditions, and far worse living conditions for folks in the not very distant past and they still had large families. There has been a slow burn change to social pressure and autonomy. It seems like women don't want to have a large family, or some a family at all, if the choice is there. The rationale about why they put it off are unlikely to be worth much. I think every economic remedy will fail. But it'll probably pick up again because I imagine social pressure will turn. All this noise people are making about it right now is the start. Personally I see that as a negative, we should be celebrating a downward population trend. We had so many years of warning about the effects of an ever larger population and now get hand wringing the moment that looks wrong.

saltyoldman

Yeah, sorry. This narrative is over now that the fraud has been exposed.

lousclues

I would not say it’s capitalism but rather industrialization. Children are assets when they can help with farm work but become an expense when work moves to a factory/office setting.

fittingopposite

Or size of cars? https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/731812