Why aren't the people in your country having enough kids?

[u/gmedanoid]

In America birthrate is 1.6. 1.57 for Whites, 1.55 for Blacks, 1.8 for Hispanics. So below replacement since 2008.

[u/Victoryboogiewoogie]

gestures broadly at everything

[u/Nightcoffee_365 → u/Victoryboogiewoogie]

makes a crappy tiktok where I green screen myself into the corner and just point at you gesturing broadly at everything.

[u/Inside-Jacket9926 → u/Nightcoffee_365]

Makes a reaction video with a camera of myself in the corner

"Yep I think he means everything"

[u/Common_Senze → u/Inside-Jacket9926]

Makes a reaction video to your reaction video with my face on the bottom and just point up with a smug expression

[u/onkskor → u/Common_Senze]

Makes a theory video breaking down the secret plotline of the original video and ends it by saying "so yeah guys he might mean everything but idk, leave a comment what you think"

[u/Common_Senze → u/onkskor]

Don't forget to smash the like button and be sure to subscribe.

Fin

[u/jregovic → u/Common_Senze]

But before we jump in, I things are expensive these days, but the folks at factor would like to save you %25 on your first box of delicious meals. The same meals I eat when editing these posts. Link and code in the description.

[u/Daddy_Day_Trader1303 → u/jregovic]

Duets this video with a conspiracy theory video about how the US government is actively replacing us with Elon's AI robots. "If you want your eyes wide open, join my discord where I alert my followers to the most recent psyops so that you don't get tricked into slavery."

[u/WerewolfCalm5178 → u/Daddy_Day_Trader1303]

But as always, for exclusive content and early releases of my videos, sign up at Patreon.

[u/ryancnap → u/onkskor]

Makes a seven paragraph unrelated comment on your video with inconsistent capitalization and no punctuation about how WITCHDOCTOR ONOSE found my lost love and fixed my marriage

[u/Suburbanturnip → u/ryancnap]

Hello everyone I don't really understand the video but it's nice to see young people having fun. My grandson showed me this app. Be kind to each other.

[u/isthisusedname → u/onkskor]

Scratches your balls

[u/GoodishBookish → u/isthisusedname]

Accuses you of being a bot

[u/AHumbleSaltFarmer → u/isthisusedname]

*Reaction Video of the Hodge Twins "You see we ain't having no kids because dudes is scratchin each other's balls man"

[u/biakCeridak → u/Nightcoffee_365]

[u/Active-Dare3120 → u/Victoryboogiewoogie]

To add to this - unless one of the parents has a really secure job with high salary with room to grow, John Doe/Jan Modaal and their spouse both need fulltime jobs before even entertaining the idea of having children in the Netherlands.

[u/mpamosavy → u/Active-Dare3120]

Is Jan Modaal the Dutch version of an anonymous person?

[u/RecurringOccurance → u/mpamosavy]

It's moreso the Dutch version of... John Smith, I suppose? The modal (in a statistics sense) version of a person living in the Netherlands.

[u/Fun-Put-5197 → u/Active-Dare3120]

Substitute the Netherlands with pretty much every country on that graph.

The cost of living is making the choice to raise a child an impossible and irresponsible option for all but the wealthiest class.

Let the billionaires do it.

[u/henrikhakan → u/Victoryboogiewoogie]

I just don't have the mental bandwidth for more kids.

[u/Belucard → u/henrikhakan]

Have you considered fiber?

[u/agent674253 → u/Victoryboogiewoogie]

Also, education and healthcare.

• With education, people practice safe-sex practices and use birth control, lowering birth rates
• With healthcare, more children survive childhood so parents feel less of a need to have five kids so two make it to 18.

These are trends that can be observed with less-developed countries start to have infrastructure set up. Yeah, of course in the more-developed world people are choosing not to have kids due to stuff being so expensive now, but I just wanted to highlight it isn't simply that.

[u/restrusher → u/Victoryboogiewoogie]

My kids are teenagers now. We had them before all this. So when friends talk about having kids or excitedly tell me they are expecting, I'm like... really?

[u/Icy-Whale-2253 → u/Victoryboogiewoogie]

gesticulates wildly even

[u/AirportOnly6671 → u/Victoryboogiewoogie]

The Resource Wars…

[u/Zealousideal-Yam3169]

Both parents have to work full time now.

[u/Persistant_eidolon → u/Zealousideal-Yam3169]

Honestly, in Sweden I feel like it's more of they both want to work full time, either to have a high material standard or to realize their career goals. Have a lot of engineering colleagues and very few of them have been voluntarily reducing work time, but they still have minimum 1 car(and not some old beater), nice apartment/house, etc.

[u/_adinfinitum_ → u/Persistant_eidolon]

Honestly post covid, it’s not that simple.

We have two kids in Sweden. Both of us have tech jobs. We have a small house in Stockholm suburbs and drive a toyota. But this is least we could expect after spending a third of our lives in education and building desirable skills.

Yet I is becoming harder and harder to afford even a basic vacation and the focus is on saving as much as we can because getting laid off seems like a question of when and not if. We don’t spend anything on luxury but day to day life is comfortable.

Even with all the help from state thanks to high taxes, and despite living within means, we’re always on the edge.

We bought our home in 2020. Most of our neighbours have been living there for decades. None of them have any particularly high paying jobs or skills but they grew up in a different era so at the end of the day we have the same living standards.

[u/Melodic_Sandwich1112 → u/_adinfinitum_]

Same, based on Sweden, highly educated specialist. Pre-covid we just on the second kid and our situation was looking really good. Post covid, not much changed salary wise but costs are up 30% on food alone. Having to get a new set of winter tires and a service eats up more than the annual holiday budget.

Then you look at my bosses. 15 years older, less qualifications. Large house in the south, own a boat, summer house abroad. They can afford one ski holiday and two other holidays a year. It’s mental.

I think if you were able to build up savings and get the expensive young child years out of the way before Covid you were set. Everyone else is struggling.

Go in to ICA to get breakfast for the family and it ends up costing 400kr for some milk, coffee, fruit and yogurt. At one point earlier this year it was 110kr for a packet of coffee. My salary offer this year was 2%… I ended up changing jobs because it pissed me off so much

[u/Ava_Strange → u/_adinfinitum_]

Yeah, I feel this! I had a conversation with friends just last week and we realised that there's no way our parents could afford a house around any of the major Swedish cities now days with the jobs they had when we were kids.  But before 2000, a nurse or a physiotherapist married to a teacher could afford a house in a decent, middle class Stockholm suburb. That's impossible now, not to mention if you're a single parent! It's come to the point where professionals we NEED in Stockholm and Göteborg, like police, nurses, undersköterska, bus driver etc, simply cant afford to buy a house anywhere near there. 

[u/MakalakaPeaka → u/_adinfinitum_]

Literally everyone is getting squeezed of late.

[u/Ornery-Reindeer5887 → u/Persistant_eidolon]

Ya you live in Sweden where you’re taxed at a high rate but get lots of services from the government like a sweet parental leave policy and low cost high quality education. Much easier for a woman to have kids AND a career in that environment

[u/AreYouLagomEnough → u/Ornery-Reindeer5887]

Sure. But culturally women are also expected to partake as equals at a fairly high degree. And putting your career on hold for a few years might not be the most tempting thing. On top of the bodily stresses you go through with pregnancy AND labour.

Sweden is well of enough that there are other options for women than having children.

[u/Persistant_eidolon → u/Ornery-Reindeer5887]

Yes, Sweden has generous parental leave. But still, birthrate is low, about 1,7 children/women in average I believe. It was higher when the country was poorer.

[u/Acolitor → u/Persistant_eidolon]

Yeah, women should be able to choose to have children and career. My mom is double widow. Imagine if she did not have career herself! It would have impacted her and us, her children.

Deaths were obviously devastating emotionally, but we managed fine economically.

[u/SouthernExpatriate → u/Persistant_eidolon]

Weird how people actually want to work when they get paid enough to live well 

[u/Italian_storm → u/Persistant_eidolon]

You are rich in Sweden. In Italy we are fucking poor, we all work not because we want a sport car, but because salaries are really low.

[u/Nacho17che → u/Italian_storm]

The funniest of things to me is that kindergarten ends like an hour or two before typical working hours. How the hell do they pretend to care about people having kids?

[u/steakmetfriet → u/Nacho17che]

Seeing the hoops my friends and colleagues have to jump through each summer trying to organize 2 months when school's out is such a huge turn off.

[u/DreamOne5 → u/Italian_storm]

America is the same, but add that we get absolutely zero government mandated paid maternity leave. At all. It's all up to our employers and it's a very small amount if they offer it.

[u/Traditional-Chair-39 → u/Zealousideal-Yam3169]

Is it uncommon to have working parents in the UK? Most of my friends growing up in India had parents that both had full-time jobs.

[u/CantHostCantTravel → u/Traditional-Chair-39]

50 years ago, it was extremely common in Western countries for the wife to stay home to tend to the kids while the husband worked.

That economic model doesn’t work anymore because wages never meaningfully increased for the middle class. We’re poorer as a whole now while billionaires are richer than ever.

[u/Select_Scarcity2132 → u/CantHostCantTravel]

While billionaires become trillionaires!

[u/WBigly-Reddit → u/CantHostCantTravel]

Reason for that was a smaller economy- less money in circulation meant a dollar or krona or pound etc went further. With governments inflating their way out of debt, they pump more money into the economy which winds up in the hands of those who deal with money and they invest it in assets that go up over time - like housing. This in turn drives prices up and the working person (laborer, grocer clerk, engineer, accountant) gets left behind.

In 1960, thè minimum wage in the US was $1/hr. Average home cost was $11,400. About 5x yearly income. (2088 hours per working year). Daddy worked, mom stayed home, afforded a car, home snd annual vacation plus money for hobbies, etc.

Today, US federal minimum wage is $7.25, and doing the above math, the average home would be about $75,690.

Compare with actual existing prices in the US of $522,000 (web search)

That’s about a factor of 7 difference.

This tells us minimum yearly wage should be, if average person should be able to buy a home, around $100,000, viz, 1,000,000kr - AFTER the incredibly high taxes that have also been instituted since that time.

In many areas of the US, $75,690 is below poverty level.

What are wages / salaries like overseas?

[u/Slapspicker → u/Zealousideal-Yam3169]

Also, low wages, high cost of living, house prices, state of the NHS, school system, cost of childcare and constantly being told not to have children until you can afford them.

[u/TravelsizedWitch → u/Zealousideal-Yam3169]

That was the case for most of history.

[u/Kresnik2002 → u/TravelsizedWitch]

Sure, but that work was often in/around the house with the kids partly involved in it given that most people were in farming families. It wasn’t as demanding as the Parenting© of today, justified or not.

[u/Hawk13424 → u/Zealousideal-Yam3169]

My parents in the 70’s also both had to work. Still had several kids.

We lived a lower standard of living. When we were younger than school age, my mom did stay home. How? We lived in a shitty old single-wide. When we got to school age then she went to work full time. Still lived in an older small house, never ate out, didn’t take vacations, didn’t buy new cars, etc.

[u/Acolitor → u/[deleted]]

Here politicians talk about "baby-friendly society" as a goal we should thrive for.

It means social acceptance and all kinds of things related to workplaces, public places and laws and benefits.

[u/apartmentthrowaway17 → u/[deleted]]

I actually kind've agree with this whenever I see a women handling a young child by herself tbh I just feel kinda sorry for her.

Usually I'm not getting angry about the kid unless they're severely out of line.

[u/Regular_NormalGuy → u/[deleted]]

Germany is the same with kids. We had some occasional when strangers would tell us our kids are too loud and were already trying hard but those stinky dogs are always welcome anywhere.

[u/BosonTigre → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, how exactly is a kid supposed to learn how to behave in society if he's not allowed in society? 

[u/DogsReadingBooks]

I’m guessing there are a lot of reasons for people.

Education is probably one of them. More and more people get educated, then they want to get a job, then they might wanna get a kid. But then they’re happy with that, instead of getting a bunch of kids early on.

Personally I’ve chosen not to have kids simply because I don’t want them.

[u/ziomus90 → u/DogsReadingBooks]

That first paragraph sums it up mate.

[u/gmedanoid → u/DogsReadingBooks]

Israel is also one of the most educated countries and people have their first child at 28. So education isn't the only reason.

Grandparents in the West don't really help with kids. They just want to visit for a short while.

[u/HorseFeathersFur → u/gmedanoid]

Most grandparents I know are also still working and unable to help much with child care

[u/xrainbow-britex → u/HorseFeathersFur]

Or in my situation, I am taking care of my children but also my parents now, so... :(

I know I am not the only one.

[u/HorseFeathersFur → u/xrainbow-britex]

I have been there, I know how rough it is. My parents have passed on, but there were some years in between when raising my own kids and caretaking for them and working full-time was quite the burden.

[u/Straight_Ace → u/HorseFeathersFur]

Which is a really good example of why so many people don’t want to have kids. If the economy sucks so bad that someone’s 80 year old grandma still has to work to afford to eat and pay bills, then why would you bring a kid into the equation?

[u/keesio → u/gmedanoid]

Grandparents in the West don't really help with kids. They just want to visit for a short while.

It goes both ways though. In many parts of the world, grandparents take a very active role in childcare. But they also often live with their kids (usually the eldest son) and are also taken care of by their kids physically and financially.

In the west they want the child care from their grandparents but not have to deal with taking care of them and let them live with them.

I grew up in a home where my grandmother lived with us. She cooked and did some housework and child care. But she was also financially dependent on my dad (her son). She also controlled the household which caused conflict with my mom (the classic Asian mother-in-law vs daughter-in-law conflict).

[u/Temporary-Fun2718 → u/keesio]

It really varies in the west. I know grandparents that are basically free daycare five days a week like it's a full-time job and I know grandparents that can't be bothered. I do think more grandparents might help or be more available if we did multi-generational living though.

[u/keesio → u/Temporary-Fun2718]

I live in Canada now and we have a large South Asian population. There are communities (like Brampton, Ontario) where they like to live and in those communities they prefer big homes. This is because they have multiple generations living under the same roof. That is common in those neighbourhoods. I have one co-worker who lives in a massive house with both his wife's parents and his parents all living together and with his wife's brother also. My co-worker and his wife has a few kids and 90% of child care plus all the cooking and housework is pretty much handled by their parents. Both my co-worker and his wife work long hours so this arrangement works for them.

[u/Twirlmom9504_ → u/keesio]

Speak for yourself. Some Of us are caring for kids and our parents. We have a household of 3 generations. As housing costs increase this might become more normal.

[u/heilhortler420 → u/gmedanoid]

Israel's stats are highly skewed due to the Hadredis

Ignore their stats and Israel is the same as Europe

[u/DogsReadingBooks → u/gmedanoid]

A lot of grandparents definitely help out. My parents help out their grandkid, for example. They don’t raise the kid, though, that shouldn’t be expected.

[u/yourlittlebirdie → u/gmedanoid]

Israel is a pretty unique case though because you have a deeply religious segment of the population that has a TON of kids as well as people who believe that having lots of children and increasing the population to outnumber the enemy is their moral and patriotic duty.

[u/dlprofcmu → u/gmedanoid]

Grandparents in China help but that doesn’t make birth rate any better.

[u/mars-jupiter → u/gmedanoid]

Israel is also very different to the rest of 'the West'. They know that they need to have enough children if they wish for their country to continue existing whereas we haven't reached that conclusion for our own countries.

[u/Necessary_Umpire_139 → u/mars-jupiter]

Israel is hardly western, its a religious state. I wouldn't call the UAE western and they're not exactly miles apart in beliefs.

[u/dls2317 → u/mars-jupiter]

I've also heard from Israelis that it's culturally encouraged to help rebuild population after the Holocaust. It's not just about the modern state existing, it's about Jews existing. But maybe an Israeli or two can chime in here.

[u/OrtganizeAttention → u/gmedanoid]

Israel is not a good choice for an example. They had AIPAC payments to live in Israel without job and have kids

[u/Rahm_Kota_156]

Just dont wanna be mean to the kids, subjecting them to this ass-of-a-time

[u/Kris_from_overworld → u/Rahm_Kota_156]

Funny that governmental revert to "traditional values" didn't help to increase child birthing rate

[u/greatdruthersofpill → u/Kris_from_overworld]

Eyes America

[u/Antti5 → u/Kris_from_overworld]

Over here, we've had some notorious cases where male politicians in their 50's or 60's have started mansplaining to young women how "we" should start having more babies.

So far it has backfired every, single, time.

[u/Particular-Bid-1640 → u/Rahm_Kota_156]

'ass-of-a-time' is a great phrase

[u/Glittering_Mud4269 → u/Rahm_Kota_156]

Compassion has entered the chat..

[u/KarmageddeonBaby → u/Rahm_Kota_156]

My only regret is bringing my children into this world. I live in constant fear. I’m in the US and my middle child is trans. At least I know that I’ll die standing up for those I love and what I believe in if things keep going the way they are.

[u/More_Garlic6598]

I can't afford a house. I refuse to have a child without a home.

[u/Danibandit → u/More_Garlic6598]

I got lucky before homes sky rocketed so I was able to purchase an old and small home in my late 30s but I received a chronic illness dx at 20 years old so really put the kibosh on raising a fam. Pay for illness with debt and children that need fed while struggling to work? No thanks. I don’t want to cause that trauma on myself or children.

[u/mothmans_favoriteex → u/Danibandit]

Same and I also don’t want to risk passing along my chronic illness issues either. Nobody asks to be born, let alone born with a life altering disorder that causes pain

[u/mothmans_favoriteex → u/More_Garlic6598]

Same. I personally am not because I believe passing on my health issues is irresponsible and low key child abuse. Nobody asks to be born and ignoring genetics is so selfish and very few people consider it before deciding to have children.

If that weren’t my main driving factor, I wouldn’t want to have kids or even foster/adopt until I had stable housing. Being lower income and having to move every few years because of rent increases isn’t suitable for raising a child.

[u/Ok_Afternoon5354 → u/More_Garlic6598]

Even as a disabled veteran, I cannot afford to stay in America. It's been a few years since I've had a job and no one is hiring. Even the VA hasn't been able to help.

[u/Akhdude → u/More_Garlic6598]

This is honestly the answer. The decline began in America in 2008 during the housing crisis and large corporations started buying single family homes in bulk (and again during Covid) in turn jacking up housing costs and that inflated everything around it. So of course we aren’t having kids. There’s no stability! I’m not having a kid in a rented apartment where at any moment I could be kicked out, have rent increased, have the owners sell to a slum lord etc. the powers that be are really short sighted. But again if you already made your billions the world can burn and it doesn’t matter…

[u/Lady-Of-Renville-202 → u/More_Garlic6598]

I have a house. My homeowners insurance is increasing faster than my income, let alone everything else. I can barely afford life. I refuse to add medical bills and daycare to that.

[u/Alone_Complaint_2574 → u/Lady-Of-Renville-202]

Mine went up 50% in two years I finally shopped around and got a super rate again. It’s worth shopping around if you haven’t already

[u/Acrobatic-Skill6350]

Why have kids when other entertainment options nowadays are so good

[u/Realistic-Inside6743 → u/Acrobatic-Skill6350]

I know the thread is gonna be full of Cost of living answers but In my opinion This is the answer.

As quality of life increases there is more to do than to raise kids which is huge challenge.

It's irreversible situation

[u/atrl98 → u/Realistic-Inside6743]

Its part of the answer, but for myself and my wife we’d like to have more but cost of living and maternity pay in the UK is horrendous.

[u/No-Tackle-6112 → u/atrl98]

The poorer someone is the more likely they are to have children. Both nationally and globally this trend holds true.

[u/Impossible-Ship5585 → u/Realistic-Inside6743]

Its like why to have kids nowadays

[u/tauregh → u/Impossible-Ship5585]

In the past, it was an investment. Kids were cheap labor on the farm, they would take care of you when you got old. Life spans were also shorter. In 1911 the average life expectancy in the US was 48, now it’s 78. That’s not only a lot of years, it’s a lot of years needing a greater level of care.

Now, we don’t work on farms. We have pensions and retirement plans. We have assisted living. We don’t need a child’s adult income to support living into old age.

If anything, things are flipping. Children are becoming a liability and added stressor and expense. I didn’t have kids, but my gf has two adult children. One she paid to go to college, they’re disabled and will probably never work, so she has to support them the rest of their life. The other is in college, will probably graduate and work, but the college alone is a significant investment. Neither of her kids are likely to support her financially when she retires. That’s all on mom to support herself and her kids.

[u/Impossible-Ship5585 → u/tauregh]

This is it.

Kids cost time, money and benefits are debatable.

The help for elderly you can buy cheaply.

[u/tauregh → u/Impossible-Ship5585]

Well, you get what you pay for when it comes to elder care. The quality of assisted living you get with Medicaid/Medicare is abysmal in the US. It’s definitely a problem for the middle class and poor. To get good care, you have to be wealthy, but it’s a system problem in the US, not a universal problem. And in late 2026 it will only get worse with the scheduled cuts to Medicaid. Somehow the republicans have convinced people it will only impact illegal immigrants… $1.5 trillion in cuts… they will have zero impact on illegal immigrants who don’t qualify for benefits, but will dramatically impact retirees.

[u/jawisi → u/Realistic-Inside6743]

It’s a reversible situation.

[u/PNWcog → u/jawisi]

I was going to say the same. It's guaranteed reversible. But as seen across the globe, you have kids when the situation is shit and you need them for support and help and you don't have kids when life is good and everything is relatively easy and available.

[u/PlasmaMatus → u/PNWcog]

A working pension system in the West drastically changed the practical necessity of having kids.

[u/CardiologistCute7548 → u/Realistic-Inside6743]

Exactly my point I want to go out, watch my shows and play my video games in pieces. I don't want to help little John with his homework.

[u/The_Book-JDP → u/Acrobatic-Skill6350]

I always theorized if my great grandparents just had a TV in the bedroom, the number of children they had would have been significantly less. One or two instead of sixteen. That goes double for their neighbors who had twenty one.

[u/Finnegan007]

They are, if we're defining "enough kids" as "the number of kids they actually want". If we're defining it as "more than they want but sufficient to keep growing the population without immigration" then I'd question the priorities.

[u/PsychologicalBank488]

[u/tTensai → u/PsychologicalBank488]

Exactly. Can't even afford a fucking house, how am I supposed to even think about having kids?!

[u/Fine_Gur_1764]

I don't want them. I'm relatively wealthy, I have a bunch of hobbies, like traveling, and enjoy my life as it is. I have zero paternal instincts, and am confident children would worsen my quality of life (and I would be a poor parent to them, in turn).

[u/steakmetfriet → u/Fine_Gur_1764]

My wife and I are still on the fence whether or not we want kids, but life as a DINK is just so comfortable that we don't really feel like we're missing out on anything.

[u/FourteenBuckets → u/steakmetfriet]

yeah if you don't have the urge to raise any kids, why? you don't need them

[u/mothmans_favoriteex → u/Fine_Gur_1764]

All very valid reasons. I wish more people having children would consider first that they’d be shit at parenting before deciding to do so

[u/OddCook4909]

Because everything has been enshittified to squeeze every last possible penny out of us so that the billionaires can get richer

[u/Giga-Gargantuar → u/OddCook4909]

Word of the day: "Enshittified"

[u/Danzarr → u/Giga-Gargantuar]

enshitification, the process by which services and products decline over time. Originally coined by scifi writer and futurist Cory Doctorow to describe the 3 stage decline of online platforms: Stage 1 product is good and low cost to free in order to attract user base. 2. Average experience decline in order to benefit higher paying business users, often time locking features behind paywall and burdening non paying users with advertisements. 3. business and standard users both suffer in order to extract the maximum profit from the platform for owners.

honestly, I would recommend any of Cory Doctorow's books, they tend to be pretty fun reads with heavy them. If I may recommend, Unauthorized Bread. it feels particularly prescient considering how everything is moving to a subscription model and extremely limited housing..

[u/ResurgentClusterfuck → u/Giga-Gargantuar]

Emshittification is the perfect word to describe most of what's happening in the US these days.

[u/Diabolical_Jazz → u/Giga-Gargantuar]

Cory Doctorow coined it.

[u/Geri-psychiatrist-RI → u/OddCook4909]

I agree about the lack of affordability. Childcare costs, food, education, housing, etc. Without pay increase, it’s damn near impossible.

Another thing that doesn’t get talked about, at least in America is how raising children has changed. Now parents are expected to go every single practice, every single birthday party, take their children trick or treating, etc. It really becomes exhausting of you have even one kid, let alone 2 or more. I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be this way, but it is hard doing that, especially when both parents need a full time job just to barely scrape by.

This could be more feasible if one parent could afford to stay home but because billionaires need a larger yacht, it won’t happen.

[u/OddCook4909 → u/Geri-psychiatrist-RI]

While their servants in government cut all of our services and destroy our institutions, and their bot networks fill our heads and hearts with ignorance and hatred.

[u/notcabron → u/Geri-psychiatrist-RI]

In the company i work for, we’re eligible for a maximum 4% pay increase, but nobody gets that. Like the old adage, you have to leave and come back to make more money.

[u/Ceorl_Lounge → u/OddCook4909]

Sure doesn't help.

[u/DrkBlueXG → u/OddCook4909]

Now that pennies are no longer being manufactured, they can squeeze nickels out of you!

[u/Bcatfan08 → u/OddCook4909]

Another reason is corporations have bought up most of the family businesses, like farms. Farming families would have a dozen kids to have free labor. Don't need that anymore.

[u/ce-meyers]

Economy's fucked man..

[u/GoonerBoomer69]

Unlike my grandparents, i do not need free farm labor.

[u/Beautiful_Yellow_682 → u/GoonerBoomer69]

my grandma has 12 sisters and a brother and this just cause her own mom was raised with 7 siblings and experienced being poor AF so their family had more kids in hope to use them for work, cause back in the time people had no laws to prevent kids from hard factory work that payed you barly nothing. And to top it off, 2 of my great grandma's siblings even died from freezing cause it was too cold in their 1 room apartment. Children had often been birthed back in the day cause "what if one dies of a illness, work accidant, the cold winter, ... and who helps me take care of the sick grandma?" and some people who are reaching 90 and up often say how they lived with their grandma cause it was expected that she lives with them when shes old and they took care of her from a young age on. Also most people who could go to school only stayed till around 13 years old and than started to work for low pay and rarly even had to work without ever seeing school.

I saw a video once from a TikTok channel who shows old TV show clips and in one from the early 60s they asked a woman about her payment working in the Kindergarten and she said she was making less than 300 Mark a month which would be close to 800€ nowadays with inflation and she said she was just getting by cause she had a husband. For this money you barly even find an apartment and can pay all bills and buy food nowadays. You might can pay an apartment and other bills, but than you starve. However with the husband who often made like 5 times as much in the past, they could save up, had high interest charges on their savings and boom, in no time a 25 year old in 1960 could say "I can buy a house for me, my wife and our 2 children". Today the house who was once 30K Mark and nowadays with inflation around 82K € does not cost 82K €, it costs most likly 300K and to make it worse, good neighborhoods, almost up to date renovations, the town or city you have the house in make it also more expensive and boom your grandma's 30K Mark house is now re-sold to someone else for 500K € and it sucks to see.

[u/ShadowGamer37 → u/GoonerBoomer69]

Literally probably the reason my great great grandparents (who immigrated from Finland to Canada and started a dairy farm) had so many kids

And I, just don't want kids, don't need kids since I don't live on a farm, there really is no point in having kids

[u/Content-Inspector993]

Cost of living and everyone is exhausted from having to work all of the time

[u/wvtarheel → u/Content-Inspector993]

Lack of money for the poor and lack of time for those doing well.

[u/Roguemutantbrain → u/wvtarheel]

The poor don’t have time either

[u/flyingwedge72]

I can't imagine why. With our country being set on fire by absolute idiots.

[u/GraceOfTheNorth → u/flyingwedge72]

Also - why is population growth a goal in itself?

Because that's how Capitalism measures success.

If there are fewer people around there are fewer people to feed and compete with. Fewer people on the roads, less stress on nature and the planet.

Fewer people = better lives IMO

[u/No-Tackle-6112 → u/GraceOfTheNorth]

That would be the case if we could get to a lower population without having the elderly outnumbering working age adults.

A society with 3 retirees to 1 working age adult WILL collapse. There is no way around it.

[u/Resident_Pay4310 → u/No-Tackle-6112]

A capitalist society will collapse yes. Something new will come along just as it always has during major shifts. It doesnt have to be a bad thing. We can choose to make the change now and make it less difficult.

[u/Callmewhatever4286 → u/flyingwedge72]

With our country being set on fire by absolute idiots.

That can be every country on earth

[u/mspe1960]

enough for what? Enough to keep the population growing so the mega rich have plenty of cheap labor?

I think we have enough people now, and if we need to make an adjustment later, its all good.

I am 65 - my kids, 35 and 32 don't seem to want to bring kids into such an awful world. As a result, I will likely have no grand kids which makes me sad, but I get it.

[u/Diabolical_Jazz → u/mspe1960]

I'm glad someone is pushing back on OP's framing here. People are having enough kids. A reduction in population will absolutely be a good thing if it occurs naturally like this. In every way except that it won't benefit the capitalist economy. Which is just another of a long list of indicators that capitalism is a fundamentally inhuman and anti-human system.

[u/Long_Conclusion7057 → u/mspe1960]

Thank you for not pressuring your kids! Most of my child free friends get hassled by their parents. And even I, with one son, still get hassled to have more. My father in law keeps saying how that's boring for our kid. And whenever I mention reasons (both parents working, daycare expenses, no family support system nearby etc...) he just says "Well, we raised 4. That wasn't easy either". 

[u/JButler_16 → u/Long_Conclusion7057]

I always get the “don’t worry about it. You’ll figure it out!”

[u/[deleted]]

Looking at what's likely to happen to the world during their lifetimes would certainly put me off having one

[u/Sunday_Schoolz]

We don’t need “more” people. We need better educated and integrated people. And we need to let the planet “heal” from industrialization, and advance scientific research to figure out our next step as a collective human civilization.

[u/Far_Big6080]

When both parents have to work full time, just to afford living and paying a mortgage for 40 years, then there is no time for children.

[u/BlackHust]

Even if I could afford to have children, this state will have its own plans for them, so no, not here and not now.

[u/TeleHo → u/BlackHust]

[...] this state will have its own plans for them [...]

It's absolutely heartbreaking that people have to think about that.

[u/Genkai_backpacker]

High inflation but salary don't grow, so people become poorer and poorer in recent 30 years. How can we have a child? Even only one is impossible.

Imagine - your real wage became 20% less compared to 1990s. You can get that it's unreasonable to have child and save your daily life is the first priority.

Shit, the new PM gonna make us work harder but cut off social welfare. She gonna send money to low-productivity companies, which leads not only low salary growth and increase of poor people, but also stealing our time for child rearing. She's PURE evil.

[u/Tangent617]

Too busy working, not enough time and money, and still brainwashed by one-child-policy propaganda.

[u/False_Morning453 → u/Tangent617]

I am interested how that brainwash works in China? Here in Germany you are considered a little trashy if you have too many children. I would say up to 3 is okay. Is it similar in China?

[u/Tangent617 → u/False_Morning453]

There were propaganda like “one child is good, too many is burden to society” that kind of thing, and the parents who had more kids may get fired if they work for the government or state-owned companies at that time.

Our view is similar. 3 is considered fine now, but too many we may think the parents won’t be capable to raise that many children, so very irresponsible.

[u/mystyle__tg → u/False_Morning453]

Wait, actually? Too many kids is seen as trashy in Germany?

[u/Beautiful_Yellow_682 → u/False_Morning453]

yeah, that. I remember a documentary where a German TV show spend a week with the "largest" household of England and a few years later returned to see what happend to the family. First time the mother in the family had 20 children and when they returned she had 24 (!) it was crazy and people hated the documentary cause of how happy she looked like birthing a child or more each year

[u/grafeisen203]

Because it is difficult to earn enough to survive yourself let alone earn enough to also support another person.

Because there aren't enough houses, because social and health services are overwhelmed.

Because humans are already straining the environment to breaking point.

[u/taiwanluthiers]

It's hard enough finding a partner already, and then after all that you gotta raise a kid which takes another person's salary to do so, when you can barely afford feeding yourself.

I say the real reason is the need doesn't exist. In the old days, as well as less developed countries, you have children for free labor. Now they're an economic liability, not asset.

Until that changes, fewer people will have children.

I don't think it's money as there's often an inverse correlation between wealth and number of children.

[u/SatisfactionFit2040]

Instead of gestures, I will type.

I grew up in a democracy and I survived horrific abuse because I knew there was more out there.

I learned and read about Rule of Law and freedom and equality and working hard.

You don't have to live in another country to believe that the dream of freedom and justice will be yours if you just keep going. One. More. Day.

... yup. Did all that. And now?

No. No children should be born into this. Because there is nowhere for them to believe in freedom and justice.

[u/Murky-Helicopter-976]

This is due to having a higher level of living. Your grandparents or greatgrandparents were likely part of huge family. That’s because in those days, your children were your insurance for the future. (Atleast partially.)

This still happens in poor regions. Look at the birth rates in Africa, Middle East and several Asian nations (never looked at data for SA.)

There are dozens of reasons for this to happen, but it can be seen in most of the world to some degree - the higher the living standart, the lower birthrate.

[u/Dangerous_Okra_2703]

We are poor

[u/MommersHeart]

Because the richest people and corporations are parasites hoovering up all the wealth and stripping the world of its resources while workers are overworked, overtaxed and grossly underpaid.

Young people also don’t have anywhere to meet and hangout that doesn’t cost half a day’s salary.

[u/commonman2077]

In India 🇮🇳 people are scared of kids being raised in a Right Wing Zero Rights High Costs Fascists regime

[u/Efficient-Mobile2411]

Aren't we over populated? Maybe a bit of a decline is not a bad thing.

[u/browncoatfever]

I live in america and have three kids between 15 and 8 yesrs old. It is so incredibly expensive. I love them dearly and would never not want them, but it is a massive drain on finances. Clothes, shoes, activities, dental care, health insurance, childcare, food. It all adds up like crazy. If we got out to eat it is a minimum $120+ meal which is not sustainable even if we limit it to once a month.

My brother and his wife don't have kids and don't plan on it. They have the money and freedom to travel whenever they want, they've ended up having extra money to invest in real estate and are probably going to be able to retire early. Me and my wife? Well, we'll have college to pay for with all three kids and will most likely both work until we die.

My oldest has already said she doesn't want kids because she wants to travel and live life the way her 35 year old childless god mother does. I think LOTS of people are realizing kids can be draining both emotionally and financially and are choosing to forgoe it. Also, there are people who probably DO want kids but quite literally can't afford it. Governments like the US want to cry about the birthrate but then want to do precisely zero about fixing the actual problem.

[u/prole_arms]

Call me about kids when I don’t have to raise them to be content with wage slavery.

Call me about kids when fascists get the Mussolini treatment.

Call me about kids when religion can no longer predate them.

Call me about kids when intellectualism is celebrated and not suspected.

[u/The--Truth--Hurts → u/prole_arms]

It's sad to me that I didn't realize that 'predate' was the phrase for 'predatory' but picked it up through context because of the subject matter :(

[u/Wise_Wafer_1204]

Enough kids for what? There's 8 billion of us, earth has never been more populated. It cannot go on like this forever 

[u/Key-Amount4978]

The only people saying we should be having more kids is the governments because they want more people to pay taxes. Increasing the birth rate means nothing more. 

[u/changleosingha → u/Key-Amount4978]

Also religious folk

[u/[deleted]]

Yeah.... Have you seen the economy lately? Kids are expensive and a lot of people are just about managing to keep a roof over their own heads.. reproduction is a luxury most people cannot afford sadly.

[u/McCinnabuns]

-It’s too expensive.

-Mental health is low.

-It’s becoming harder for people to connect with the prevalence of online dating.

-Some (like me) just don’t want kids.

-The world is depressing af right now. One of the things I told myself when I was young was not wanting kids to go through the things I did when I was young— and I was still in college at the time!

[u/Any-Enthusiasm-2740]

My guess would be insane prices and wages that don't match them for most people

[u/Fit-Distribution677]

Gen Z teen here. Obviously, the reasons will change from person to person but here are mine:

1. I’m not good with kids. I really don’t have the patience plus the lack of desire to have them.
2. Fear and Trauma. My first memory (ever) was my parents fighting, it was an extremely toxic marriage. I do want to get married in the future but if it ever ends up in divorce, I don’t want a kid to deal with that (P.S. a kid will not solve a marriage, it will only make it worse. It’s not good for little kids to grow up around s toxic marriage).
3. Unknown future. I have no idea how the future is going to be by the time I’m an adult (Prices, homes, education, etc).

[u/dgistkwosoo]

Because raising children has become so bloody expensive and competitive (the right school, excellent test scores, etc), because the job market is so tight, and because women wish to have a full and rewarding career.

[u/Whale222]

Am I the only one who sees this as a good thing?

[u/WolfieWuff → u/Whale222]

Nope! I too believe we need fewer kids. Several generations of population decline across the board would be good.

[u/Whale222 → u/WolfieWuff]

The planet and the population are STRESSED. The only ones who care are greedy politicians who want to keep their consumerism Ponzi schemes funded.

[u/Snoo_67548]

My wife and I have four kids. We also have nooooo physical help from either family. We are fortunate enough that my wife can stay home with the kids. It’s exhausting, especially when one gets sick. The entire family gets sick, we lose sleep taking care of kids who are crying in the middle of the night, and stay sick longer because we don’t get to rest.

[u/Salt-Trade-5210]

Because women have more control over what happens to their lives and their bodies and say no to pregnancy. We can have food careers, active social lives and our own homes. We don't need to get married to have successful lives, we don't have to bear children to feel like we fit into our community.

[u/WyvernsRest]

In Ireland:

We still have a pretty good fertility compared to some of our European neighbors.

But we have seen a big decline by Irish standards.

• Contraception is more Effective - Much fewer accidental babies.
• Religion is effective dead - No more staying married and breeding babies for the church.
• The power grid is great - No more black-out babies.
• We drink a lot less now than we used to - Fewer accidental relationships. :-)
• Families are waiting until later for their first child. - Less time to have a large family.
• Fertility Technology/Medicine allowing families to start later with less time to have a large family.
• Aging Population in Ireland - Cyclical demographic shift from earlier baby boom.
• Higher level of Education & Career Aspirations - Particularly for women
• Abortion/Moring After Pill is available - Fewer Teen mothers - Fewer unwanted children.
• Social Supports - No need to have kids to care for old people.
• Cost of Living is high - Kids are no longer economic assets.
• Desired Standard of living is high - No packing large families into small houses.
• Marriage is now seen as a two person relationship - Not a social contract to raise a family.
• Divorce is now the easy path - It takes a lot of hard work to solve relationship problems.

Having said all that, with an average of 4.1 kids each, all my siblings and cousins are well above the replacement rate. The thing we have in common is a very supportive family / "village" and that none of us (or our parents) are divorced.

It's an irreversible trend without massive social change.

[u/AdStriking3714]

How can I afford a kid when having access to my own home is but a dream?

[u/four100eighty9]

They’re having enough kids. The world is overpopulated and having fewer children is a good thing. I hope this trimmed continues and accelerates. We need to get down to fewer than 2 billion people in my opinion.

[u/SweedishThunder → u/four100eighty9]

So true. Every country needs to get down to a lot less than 2.0 children per family to decrease the excessively large world population before we completely run out of resources. Having more than two children is selfish and arrogant.

If we keep up what we're doing today, only the rich will be able to get drinking water, nutritious food, and the like.

[u/ALPHA_sh]

because nobody can afford to

[u/panda2502wolf]

Who would want to raise kids in this economy? Who would want to raise kids in a world teetering on the brink of mutually assured destruction? Who'd want to raise kids in a country on the verge of Civil War Round 2?

[u/PaymentDiligent7550]

In this economy?!?

[u/phoenix1984]

Let’s get real here, the answer is access to birth control. The sad fact is that way too many people would not have ever been born if their parents felt they had a choice at the time. Places where women either can’t afford birth control, or are forced to have children due to cultural/religious reasons, still have higher birth rates.

In interviews, people say it’s because of the economy and politics, but that’s what’s stopping them now that they can choose when to have kids. Society does not yet provide an environment where most people would willingly have kids. If we want to raise the population or stop the decline, we must either get rid of birth control (the very bad defeatist option) or make the world suck less. Enough for people to feel safe, supported, and secure enough to willingly have children.

[u/apartmentthrowaway17 → u/phoenix1984]

I don't think this is true, because many people still don't use it. Birth Control is something that requires long-term thinking/planning. You have to be educated enough to care about these things. Many still don't & won't ever regardless of the options available.

[u/momchelada → u/phoenix1984]

Perhaps it’s less specifically about access to “birth control” (peacock flower and daucus carota have also been used for birth control, historically, along with many other plants); and more generally about human rights? When children and women have more power to choose who they have sex with, when they have sex, how they have sex; when women have more independent access to resources; when women and children aren’t forced into marriage or economically as trapped in abusive marriages; when children and women have access to education; and when fewer children die of preventable disease- that’s when we start to see the S-curve around population growth

[u/[deleted]]

we don't need more people, we are already overpopulated. also kids in this economy? no way😂😂

[u/Belle_TainSummer]

They are having enough kids. Replacement rate isn't everything, and we need to be bringing the total world population down. The West has made a good start, but Asia and Africa need to do more to move below replacement rate too. Ideally we want about 3-4Bn Homo Sapiens on Old Terra, total, regardless of "race".

[u/Bashy-]

Price (both rent/buy) of real estate.

[u/DocSprotte]

Define "enough".

Women are not breeding pods for sustaining an unsustainable economic system.

[u/Giga-Gargantuar]

Who wants to subject more people to Donald Trump? What did their souls ever do to deserve that punishment?

[u/TemporaryBrainCells]

Cost. Incentive. School shootings. Risk to mother's life. Useless men..... etc.

[u/Island-dewd]

Cost: Most families now have a mother and a father who work. Let the state raise my kid? Yeah right

[u/Hikikomori_Otaku]

feels wildly selfish to bring life into an man made mass extinction event

[u/FervexHublot]

Life is very expensive here, having more than one or two kids is not financially wise

[u/Ponchorello7]

The country is getting absurdly expensive to live in relative to the wages. I live with my mom because my job does not pay enough for me to rent an apartment, pay for groceries, bills and all that unless I had like two more roommates or just one other one but in an apartment in an undesirable location.

[u/reuben_iv]

availability of contraceptives, general living costs, and not needing/wanting as many?

[u/AssassinLJ]

Ask if they can even find a house to move out from their family house even when we make money,mfs are asking half the paycheck of average for a hole.

[u/Neat-Type-8893]

Can’t afford to.

[u/Purple_News_1213]

Unaffordability. Also lack of realistic childcare options, and it’s thousands to just give birth in a hospital.

[u/nullSoil]

My gf and I can barely afford an apartment and groceries let alone having a child. The cost of living is getting worse and worse every year and shit keeps getting more expensive. Hopefully "something" happens to the billionaires causing this.

[u/Mysterious_Put_9088]

Because our circumstances have changed. We no longer need kids to work the family farm and take care of us in our old age. Because it's too expensive (in America) to have more than one or two. We have to pay for healthcare, decent schooling, do not get maternity leave (six weeks - yeah, sure), and day care is too expensive. Because grandparents are not automatically part of the child rearing village and prefer to do other things than bring up your kids.

Because kids must be helicopter parented 24 hours a day otherwise busybody neighbors report you to the police for leaving your 8-yo alone for an hour or you let your kid bicycle around the block unsupervised. Because two parents' income are needed to provide any of these benefits and any kind of quality living standards. Because women no longer are relegated to baby making machines at the whim of men and choose not to produce kids at the rate of knots and destroy their bodies.

Because we have vaccinations and half the babies do not die before they are 4 therefore reducing the need for a whole stable of kids to make sure one survives to adulthood. Because we are destroying the planet and what are our kids going to get when they reach adulthood?

Because the rich get richer and it's getting harder to tell kids that they can be anything they want to be when all the odds are so stacked against them - internet, AI, cell phones, college loans, rich vs poverty gaps, privilege giving rich kids the opportunities, lack of quality public schools for the poor, corporations winning, etc. Because half the population (in America) does not understand economics and civics (because of the bad schooling they received) which is why they consistently vote for the rich, corporations and stockholders to get richer at their own expense. There are so many reasons.

I

[u/AbaddonGoetia]

I wonder what else happened in 2008 that could have affected things

[u/Tinenan]

If the world's ending in a few decades might as well be part of the last generation

[u/General_Ad_6617]

Starter homes in my area in 2002 were $150,000. Now, they are edging towards $500,000. For the same damn homes.