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this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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It might be an unpopular view here but I don't think it really has anything to do with finances. Fertility rate goes up the poorer people are.
I think it's more to do with the general sense of no future worth continuing that people have, and a cultural attitude of hating kids that seems to have built up in western countries. People didn't hate children 30 years ago the same way they hate children today. Children were a part of everyday life outdoors on every street, you really didn't do well in the world if you got mad about kids every time you saw them because outside of school hours they were omnipresent outdoors.
Oh yeah, one thing about fertility rates going down is because Teen pregnancies are way down
That doesn't explain the general trend because they've always been a relatively low proportion of births.
Coupled with sex education, there would be less chances of occuring teenage pregnancy.
I think it's more that families that have been poor for generations know how to raise kids on a budget but people who grew up middle class don't want to have kids unless they can offer them roughly the same quality of life they had, which is increasingly inaccessible.
I feel like all life advice in "the middle class" is like... Don't have kids until you have an established career, mortgage, and can afford a babysitter/daycare.
That's not to say the modern situation is entirely caused by that. One thing I thought of is if you're a peasant, kids might not actually be that helpful in the field but you can keep an eye on your kids fucking about while you plow fields or whatever. Once urbanisation and bosses happen, you can't just bring your kid into the office while you make sales calls (unless your child is also losing fingers in the textile factory). Modern farms are also different to older farms; you don't really want your kids to be around heavy machinery too much, though farmers kids I know spent a decent amount of time hanging out with their parents in the combine harvester etc (unlike literally every urban worker I know).
The survey answer of global hopelessness feels a bit post-hoc to me. I know its a popular narrative, but many doomed societies that have felt doomed have had very high birthrates.
Individualism is also another one.
The survey posted is literally showing that it is the primary reason. And it didn't ignore your concerns:
The idea that the world is so hopeless it would be wrong to bring kids into it is real, but it is absolutely not the primary reason. Unless you have a source that says otherwise.
Yeah, while finances are an issue i agree its more that sense that the future will be worse. Blaming finances is easier, not just to communicate but also for people to wrap their minds around without having to confront the dread of the future if things continue the way they are.
Part of me feels the hatred of children and antinatalism in general is a reaction to people not being able to afford kids/feeling there's no future for children of their own. The way antinatalists speak, there has to be something more there
Agreed. I’ve been a teacher before and I don’t hate kids. So I think the problem is that “I hate kids” is more of a lie we tell ourselves because we cannot in good conscience have kids.
There’s also the fact that the onus is always on women, so we know this is a proxy for something else. If more kids was that much of a priority the bourgeoisie would make some concessions in order to get it. They’d allow more building in “prime real estate” walkable cities and introduce the idea of “community” to America. They’d take a hit on their rent prices and let young people move to the walkable cities they yearn for so they can actually meet people, and you know, get laid to have kids.
But no, their idea is that they want to mandate that women reproduce or be tossed in jail, and further hammer in the idea for men that if they don’t get laid by age 30 they’re a hopeless loser.
They are making about as much concession as for mitigating climate change, so they are consistent.
hey, that's me. already 34 in fact.
They don't want to change diapers, I think
People are poorer now than 10 years ago, but fertility rate hasn't gone up.
And it's declined the most among Black and Native Americans and least among Asian Americans
The Global South has a higher birth rate than the imperial core. I don't think it has anything to do with finances at all. Are Congolese artisanal miners and Bangladeshi sweatshop workers somehow more financially secure than some software developer living in the West?
The conditions of child rearing are so socially and economically different in the impoverished global south versus the imperial core that there's no way to isolate those variables.
And as I've said elsewhere, the headline isn't conjecture. It's the answer people gave to a survey. When asked why they aren't having kids, young Americans say finances are the primary reason.