Asians with the highest income level have lowest birth rate.
Given that it is mostly whites who have been leading in STEM there is a high chance that US will lose its competitive advantage in these fields.
I desperately want to have kids and my girlfriend is on board, but she makes next to nothing and I make quite a lot of money. I tried an online calculator and if things go awry between us, I'll be paying her roughly a quarter of my post-tax income for the next two decades here in California.
That's just too big a gamble for me. So even though I desperately want children and I can afford them and everything would probably work out fine -- here I am, aging and childless while my girlfriend nears infertility because I can't justify the math to myself.
Also, you'd be insane not to get married before having kids. It's a legal contract between you and your partner that kinda comes in handy if you get disabled, die, etc...
I've been together with my wife for almost 20 years now and I still make decisions where I consider "what would happen if my partner would die/leave me/etc". And one good thing of being in a long relationship with someone is that these things can be discussed transparently among ourselves, otherwise you wouldn't be able to discuss simple issues like life insurance.
And yes, getting married gives implicit legal protections and a lot of those legal protections are all about "what would happen if" scenarios...
Yes, not having kids means missing out on certain (important) human life experiences. But so is if you DO have kids, it automatically means you will miss out on things that can't be done now because you don't have the money/time/etc that goes into having those kids. And in terms of "when you're gone away" I'm not seeing how having kids changes that, you still die and stop existing afterward, it's your kids that keep on living. You may feel good/proud about having them live after you die, just as an artist may feel good about their work living for many years in the minds of people. Personally I've decided to focus on one thing "make sure I don't regret too many things when I'm n my death bed". That means planning and doing things that I think I would regret not having done otherwise but of course, there will always be some regrets, simply because we always tend to regret/miss the things we haven't done if by no other reason.
We may prefer having kids over other things or vice versa but I disagree with a general state of the form "not having kids is a clear loss", there are pros and cons.
Apart from the examples in the article, I am also judging from my own experience and I personally reached the point where the money simply does not matter compared to the possibility of being a parent.
0 - https://www.self.com/story/the-cost-of-infertility
Edit: Also agree with others about potential relationship problems you guys may be experiencing
Since you say you can afford it anyway, as you make "quite a lot of money", and millions of people with much less raise children, it seems as trough you don't want desperately want to have kids, but perhaps you like the idea but don't want to spend money on other people in your family.
I have no intention of getting married, so: No I won't.
No offense, but that is a silly attitude. Marriage isn't about love, it's a legal contract two parties agree to. It entitles you to rights like power of attorney, ability to make health decisions for each-other, inheritance, etc. In addition, it also has non-trivial tax benefits, especially if one of you isn't working.
Honestly, having kids without getting married is pretty irresponsible in my opinion, simply because of the very important legal benefits that come from marriage.
But whatever, this isn't /r/relationships....
And you're right: This isn't the place for relationship advice, nor was I asking for any.
Once you have them and have fallen in love with them, you'll find that their happiness is worth working things out with their mother, rather than breaking up. If you can't man up enough to put up with her shit (assuming there is any) and you do break up, the money will be going to your kids, who you'll love, and giving that money won't be as objectionable as you imagine.
For me, I used to break up with women over silly arguments that embarrass me now to think about. Now, when such emotions surface, it always leads to me thinking about my kids and what a break-up would do to them. When you have kids, you're in a relationship with their mother and with them also. When you're mad at her, you're still having fun with them, and that lets you work through your issues with her, as their happiness includes her presence. The same applies to her, if you're being an asshole for awhile. So breaking up after kids is not as likely as you fear.
No, that money certainly won't be going to my kids. It's utterly ridiculous to pay that amount of money for child support for one child.
This is essentially incentivizing my partner to break up with me: "Hey <GF>, if you dump him, you get a $60k check for the rest of your life for sitting on your ass." Incidentally, this is far more than she has ever made.
There has been a meme for a couple decades now, that kids are so expensive and will cost millions of dollars to raise, etc. This meme is doubtless responsible for much of the reduced birthrate.
You can spend as much or as little as you desire on kids. I grew up shopping at Goodwill, but now I buy $40 shoes that my kids will wear for 6 months before outgrowing. That's my choice, as there are cheaper new shoes and much cheaper used shoes. Somebody else might buy their kids $120 shoes and complain to their friends how expensive their kids are. It's a shame that people like to promote this myth of the expense of kids.
If you can get over your trust issue with your GF, her not needing to give up a high paying job and being able to be home with the kids is a win. She won't feel like she's missing out on something and your kids get a much better childhood.
It seemed necessary for me to qualify my encouragement for you to not abandon the idea of kids, on the condition that you could make yourself feel safe in the relationship, since it seemed like you did not.
It just makes me sad to see successful people deciding not to have kids, given the subject of this thread and given the very few number of my friends, my wife's friends, my family, and my wife's family that had kids.
If this is the attitude you have toward your partner then I stand by my other comment. You've got bigger problems with your relationship than just having kids.
> Incidentally, this is far more than she has ever made.
What the fuck does it matter what your partner makes? Your money is her money and her money is yours. You share everything--good and bad. That is what good partnerships are about. You are a team...
But again, I digress. This isn't /r/relationships, but yes, you've got a bad attitude w.r.t. relationships. Best of luck in all your future endeavors...
That's really the crux of the problem. Then add to that the fact that people who do have children young are put in a comparative disadvantage to their peers.
You're technically correct, but minorities are only slightly higher (birth rate wise) than whites.
"It’s official: Minority babies are the majority among the nation’s infants, but only just"
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/23/its-official...
I would argue, based on historical data, that if wealth inequality was reduced in conjunction with higher education levels of minority women, their birth rates would dip again (higher income levels and higher education obtained by women are prime drivers of lower birth rates). This discounts cultural drivers, but my hunch is those decline with each passing generation (ie catholicism and its disdain for contraception/family planning).
I'd bet the ones that have closer incomes to the black/hispanic population have closer birthrates
Programs that apparently target wealth inequality such as subsidising fathering bastard children have actually hurt minority women as they tend to have more and more fatherless children who eventually end up in the world of abuse, drugs and crime.
Many middle class white and asian families are putting off children because of the cost of living. Just to make a decent 2-earner income, you need both to have at least a college degree. After graduating college and landing a job you're still making historically low wages relative to the cost of living.
Take those historically low wages and try and buy a house. Home ownership (a staple milestone for young families) is still wildly unaffordable in most healthy economic zones. When home ownership is pushed later, and later in life, couples don't feel "settled" and ready to build a family.
How would the color of someone's skin affect their skills in these fields?