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blagie

I'm not sure it's quite universal, and I'm not quite sure it's related to women being educated.

From where I sit, the relative cost of kids goes up. In major cities:

- Kids are expected to have their own bedrooms

- The cost of a 3-bedroom apartment is beyond the means of most families of child-bearing age

- For most people, life is debt-driven. Mortgage. Credit card. College. Etc.

- Work is out-of-the-house, so kids need child care, which is a major expense. With schools, kids still need child care after school. This is different from kids hanging out on a farm.

I'd like a big family, but I can't afford a big family. Ironically, my (poor) ancestors could.

A lot of this has to do with issues like zoning and building codes as well. Homes are /expensive/ to build in the US.

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Child care 0-5 is like a second mortgage. I paid more for one kid than I did for mortgage- in Seattle of all places. If you have 2 it’s like having 3 houses. That’s not affordable or sustainable in Major cities

Same here. My nanny makes more than I did at my first job out of college as an electrical engineer (wasn't long enough ago for inflation to have that large of an impact either). Childcare is our highest monthly expense, more so than housing (mortgage). I consider myself fairly fortunate, I don't know how other people do it. Once the kids are both in full time school, that same monthly budget will have to be diverted to college savings too, so it's not like it's even a temporary thing (if you want your children to get an education and not be saddled with lifelong debt, that is).

2 kids in an urban pre-school was way more than my mortgage.

It’s worth pointing out that in a lot of countries, there’s also an inverse relationship between household income and fertility rate. Often those positioned to afford more kids choose not too. Similarly, even countries with extremely generous maternal benefits don’t see significant boosts in their fertility.

> A lot of this has to do with issues like zoning and building codes as well.

The general trend of richer countries having fewer babies holds even in countries with wildly different zoning laws and expectations around living conditions. Japan’s fertility rate fell below replacement a long time ago, and even countries like India and Mexico are now at or below replacement levels.

For any given material explanation one can point to, there are clear counterexamples of countries without that material problem which still has a low fertility rate.

I'm not so sure. I think it's a mistake to look at this on a country-wide basis:

- The cost-of-living in India in Bangalore or Mumbai -- at a standard to afford a family -- is astronomical for relatively educated individuals making $10k/year. That's where affluent people live. It's not until you get into the real elites making $100k/year that it's easy again. That's the same worldwide. Even very poor countries have areas where these dynamics kick in.

- Where many poor people live, for example, on rural farms, it's possible to have lots of kids.

"Generous maternal benefits" don't come anywhere close to filling this gap.

> "Generous maternal benefits" don't come anywhere close to filling this gap.

You would expect some effect though, yet Northern Europe and Japan continue to have extremely low birth rates despite the efforts of their governments.

Also, many European countries saw fertility rates drop a long time ago, often back when housing was much, much cheaper. IIRC countries like Sweden and Norway dropped below replacement levels in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

I don't know Sweden and Norway well enough to comment. From my experience in other parts of Europe, the situation was more complex.

In countries I've been in, that period coincided with a move from farms, where land was ample, to cities, which were cramped. Big family housing wasn't really available; those cities had apartments which simply didn't really support larger families. Cost wasn't so much an issue for having a cramped 2 or 3 bedroom in the sixties, but beyond that, you moved into ultra-wealthy territory.

So I guess my question is whether you could write a little bit more about the Scandinavian countries. That's my own ignorance speaking.

Japanese cities are super-cramped. I would not want a big family in Tokyo.

Up to a few adjustment factors, you'd expect the average nanny to cost the same as the average woman's salary, unless nannies have large economies of scale.

Those adjustment factors would be things like -- what percentage of women have children, how many children do they have, how many children does the average nanny care for...

We could work through the various supply and demand factors, but, basically, whether compensated formally or not, if you hold the fertility rate fixed, then you also hold the amount-of-childcare fixed. There's some kind of conservation rule at work.

You can make the model a little bigger by including all the raising-of-children in those countries that are net exporters of people. Which there will be fewer and fewer of.

> I'd like a big family, but I can't afford a big family. Ironically, my (poor) ancestors could.

It's still doable but you have to sacrifice your standards of living, a tough trade-off to make.

One parent has to give up on having a job that’s the only way for most people.

I hear you. It will be interesting to compare birth rate in countries with different cost-of-living, stronger welfare state etc.

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