We all talk about the expense of kids, but the other thing that plays into this under capitalism is that having kids in the context of atomized capitalist society just sucks.

I love my kids more than anything and they are a tremendous source of joy. But they are WORK. And I don't mean like emotional work or whatever, they are that too, but honest-to-goodness labor. They need cooking, cleaning, looking after, education, and enrichment. And in misogynistic capitalist societies it is expected that most/all of this work falls on women. But of course capitalist predation has made it necessary for them to also work full time jobs to stay afloat. So having kids is like 2 full time jobs.

It's no wonder that with wide availability of birth control women are opting out of having children. It's a good thing people have the ability to choose.

If countries were serious about solving this population crisis, what they could start with is some fucking state run services to help carry this load. state run creches which are open late, cheap worker canteens with takeaway options, universal preschool, etc.

Of course these are fascists we are talking about so they would rather take away birth control and force everyone into parenthood.