Why people don't want to have children any more

robtherobber

For some reason not even archive.li type of tools appear to show this page.

zappb

People who have no hope for the future don’t bother having kids. Those who think things could still improve tend to have children. When you live in abject poverty, the future still looks better than the present.

jqpabc123

They lack confidence in the future for their kids.

dingaling911

Most kids were born because there was no birth control. There is birth control. So...

bottle_roket

The percentage of American women who have a child in their lifetime is at 85%, about than same as in the 1950s. The issue is that many more people are choosing to have fewer children. This to me indicates it’s a cost issue, not some sense of impending doom about the future. You’ve already given over to the lifestyle change, the opportunity cost, and commitment to the future of earth with 1 or 2 kids - I bet not having more is strongly financially driven.

angmarsbane

I asked recently in the new mom's forum at my office what prevented them from having more children. Many women expressed that they would have loved to have 3-4 children instead of 1-2 but that the limiting factor was time. To have 3-4 children they would have needed to start in mid-late 20s but they and their partners could not get financially, professionally established in order to start a family at that age. Others said that the time-related logistics of multiple kids with two working parents aren't manageable beyond two. Daycare, school, extra-curriculars none of those schedules align well with working hours.

Sohcahtoa82

For me, the answer was simple: I just didn't want them. I've never felt the biological drive to reproduce. The drive to have sex, absolutely. Definitely a decent libido going on. But to raise children? Nah. Too much time, money, and stress. My vasectomy will be the best $800 I ever spent.

TacticalCoder

People, especially women, have been hammered with the notion that men were evil and unnecessary and that the very concept of the nuclear family was some dark patriarchal scheme. And now the same people who explained men were optional are wondering why, in the west, women have less kids? You cannot spit in the air and expect it won't come back in your face.

bentt

Society just doesn’t expect it of people any longer. I know many young people who just don’t want kids, and they are empowered to make that decision. At some level, the beauty of having a family has ceased to be communicated.

boredatoms

If I had a house at 22 i would have had 6 kids. A house at 35 means much less kids.

Apocryphon

The U.S. birth rate fell around 20% after the Great Recession and has never risen since. Seems like this is a pretty significant angle to focus on! https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/data-snapshot-ten-years-a... https://econofact.org/the-mystery-of-the-declining-u-s-birth...

snovymgodym

It's societal and not economic. Look at a global map of total fertility rate by country and that much is abundantly clear.

incahoots

I prefer this question : How much trauma/abuse does a mammal species need to endure before it ceases to procreate? We’re finding out collectively this answer.

onlypassingthru

It takes a village to raise a child and if you don't have that expanded support structure, just having one can be overwhelming.

bradlys

Don't want is different from don't have. A lot of people are focusing on don't have than don't want. Personally, I want kids but I haven't been able to find anyone to have them with. Due to this, I am perusing surrogacy but it's a very challenging process in itself (single straight men are subject to a lot of scrutiny) and I have to have quite a few things done before they're born because I simply won't ever have the time again after the kids are born. There are a lot of things you can do when you have two people parenting but there's not a lot when you're parenting completely alone. I doubt my situation is common but it is something.