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Look at our recent ancestors. There was a baby boom after WWII when times were good, but before then in the 1930s, people still had a net positive birthrate. This was true throughout our history except in the very worst of times. People simply prioritized having children. Children were the luxury. People were willing to have leaner times in order to have children. They were not considered a burden or a drain. They were a gift, for which a temporary sacrifice of small luxuries was considered worth it.
One could argue that the increased availability of contraception was a big part of the cause, and that people wanted less children but couldn't achieve that. But really contraception was available long before birthrates started declining, and what changed most of all was cultural attitudes towards contraception.
We don't even need to speculate. Ask married couples in the US who are eager to start a family what they are waiting for, and better financial security will be #1 on the list.
I understand this. My point was, almost every previous generation lived with objectively less financial security and a lower standard of living, and they still chose to have more children. We can't say people are more financially insecure than before. It just isn't true, on the whole. So, logically speaking, it must be true that those same concerns would often not have stopped this hypothetical couple's grandparents or great grandparents... Because they didn't. And I don't think you can say in good faith that they all had more children for monetary reasons like labor.
Look at first generation immigrants from third world countries. They tend to have a ton more kids than the existing populace, while at the same time being much poorer than average. Then, by the 2nd (or 3rd) generation, that birthrate difference disappears completely. I bet if you were to ask this group why, they would talk about financial insecurity. But that didn't stop their parents (or grandparents), despite being much more financially insecure.
So besides being more well off, what else changes between 1st and 3rd generation immigrants? Integration into the Western culture.
Ergo: A poorer society has more children. A richer society has fewer children.
It's a phenomenon that continues to flabbergast me.
Logic would seem to indicate that a more plentiful environment (a richer society) would lead to more children due to a surplus of life's necessities. But the reality is the exact opposite.
I don't know why this is the case, but it's flabbergasting. It almost seems like evolution strives to eliminate those that find too much success.
Based on seeing my wife’s experience of pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding, without any complications, I would not agree the above statement.
Based on speaking to my women members of my family, friends, and the data, it is evident that childbirth/child rearing is a costly undertaking, not measurable in any “normal” amount of money.
So logically, I would expect women to have a couple kids (due to wanting to be mothers, or whatever), but each additional kid is at a very high marginal cost (on their body).
I would posit poorer regions have higher birthrates simply because women lack the knowledge and power to obtain and use contraception. Even in poorer regions, giving women freedom (economic freedom and security such that they are deciding when to get pregnant), and access to contraception will make the birthrate drop.
Poor people can't afford hobbies, vacations, or VR headsets. So they spend what leisure time they have doing a highly-rewarding activity that is free: fucking. Do that enough times, and eventually people stop pulling out.....and boom population growth.
Also wealthier people with hobbies perhaps become inherently a bit anti-social (maybe I'm projecting...)? The value proposition of dopamine-delivering activities exceeds the perceived value of childrearing?
Just my 2 Yen...
Is the surplus actually enough to feed, house, cloth, entertain etc. the children? Maybe poorer have cheaper costs thus their surplus can better afford this as the quality desired is lower?
The data below indicates otherwise.
I assume it is because contraception is far more available.
See figure 3, showing foreign born vs native born statistics for US. Both show big drops in fertility rate between 1990 and 2019:
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/04/fertility-rat...
This website has graphs showing steep declines in birthrates for immigrants:
https://cis.org/Report/Fertility-Among-Immigrants-and-Native...
>In 2019, immigrant fertility dropped below 2.1 children on average, which is the level necessary to replace the existing population.
After families are established and have financial security, they no longer need to rely on their children in their old age - at which point it becomes a choice.
The important statistic would be birthrates after women gained access to convenient and obtainable (cheap or subsidized) contraception.
Did women really have access to effective contraception before the sharp drop in this graph? Or were they having kids because they did not have control over it?
An attorney could be 26 and hundreds of thousands in debt and effectively earning $30 per hour working 60 hour weeks earning $100k per year, while a plumber/hvac/welder/electrician/etc could be earning $100k per year with no debt by the time they are 25.
2) Citation needed for housing vs wages for the "last few decades". Price-to-income ratios have increased only a little bit before 2020 compared to either 1950 or 2000, as far as I remember.
3) If you take a given region (e.g. Europe, or East Asia) birth rates have fallen more in more affluent countries.
Note how the GP says "worldwide", not "in Palo Alto" ;)
Immigration is a huge confound here: for many years the U.S. had a younger population for that reason but since the rise of nativism that’s been changing.
Europe is also far from a monolith. I’d have to search for an article I read a few months back but they found that while healthcare is important the main differentiating factors were basically support for families with very young children and helping mothers go back to work. IIRC, France was doing pretty well because they had things like gap childcare so it’s not a question of, say, someone having to only consider jobs which allow them to be available to pick a 5 year old up every day at 3:30.
That goes back to the rational actor explanation: if women are marginally employed, as was often the case historically when many jobs excluded them outright, the tradeoff for having another child was lower. If women can have full careers, the desire to have more children is forced into conflict with the professional and financial rewards for alternatives (especially if it’s hard to later re-enter the workforce).
They laden people, in particular women, with debt. Women have more student loan and other debt than men. This makes them feel obligated to work for corporations that don't care about them in mediocre jobs. Some degrees are necessary but many I think are completely superfluous.
You go into higher education when your life goals require it, eg: you get a medical degree because you need one to become a doctor.
The way most people go about higher education today is bass ackwards, going to college/university and then figuring out what you want to do. That more than likely isn't going to amount to anything besides useless debt and precious time wasted.
My conspiracy theory is that kids used to inject a lot more novelty into the lives of adults, but now that hunger for novelty is now much more readily filled by books / videos / interesting work.
But of course the real thing is that people get polled on this and economic reasons are the big point (along with, in Japan, the semi-economic “can’t take care of more kids because of work environment”)
During the recession in the 90s, firms stopped hiring. However, they only hired graduating university students, to train in their methods and for lifetime employment. When the economy recovered, instead of hiring from the pool of the unemployed, they resumed hiring straight from college. The entire cohort that graduated during the recession was frozen out, never having started careers nor families.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ranking/fertility-rate
This is fertility rate, not birth rate, but fertility rate seems like a better statistic in this context.
The largest factor encouraging people not to have children (preventatively or abortively) is money. Taking time off work is akin to dropping down below poverty level and childcare sometimes makes working a net negative financially. Housing, healthcare, schooling... it all traces back to money. Legally you're supposed to have your position at work protected but in most states you have to burn your vacation time and in practice you're penalized for being out (enforcement requires you sue your employer which is not easy and makes finding future employment difficult as the lawsuit shows up on "background" checks marking you as a "problem".)
Free universal childcare, free universal child healthcare, legally-mandated accommodations with government enforcement for childbirth (including both work and schooling) would massively change the equation for many people who currently choose not to have kids. This must be accompanied by programs to train people to operate daycare centers, graduate more pediatricians, and so on.
I also need to clarify: I don't mean "means-tested" programs like Medicaid where taking a job disqualifies you from the program or a childcare program where means-testing excludes most people. Or "welfare" programs that require you file 12 TPS forms every 2 months or they kick you out. I mean low-hassle automatic "proof of citizenship or legal residency = automatically approved, no questions asked".
And by "legal accommodations" I mean any student wanting to give birth gets an automatic 5 year sabbatical with no penalties from high school, university, grants, post-doc programs, residency programs, etc. The government must handle the reporting, auditing, and enforcement so it doesn't become a "legally yeah but in practice no" like we have today.
If those solutions seem complicated the simpler route is a large increase in wages plus import controls/taxes or other measures to penalize offshoring to avoid pro-family wages. Most people don't make enough that even a 100% refundable tax credit would make up the gap but it might help.
In any case these are all large interventions with costs. People are often reluctant to pay those costs (in taxes or higher prices for goods).
I'll admit using government to restrict personal freedom (banning contraceptives/abortion, banning proper sex education, etc) is definitely cheaper, though I find that morally objectionable. In practice it isn't all that effective either.
edit: having a developed economy is technically the primary driver of lower birth rates but only up to a point (5-8 down to 2-3). When people feel financially secure and secure in their career they tend to average out to replacement rate (give or take). The calculus for a subsistence farmer is quite different from anyone likely reading HN.
Scandinavia has very strong social programs for new parents (as well as "abortion on demand"), but only slightly higher fertility rates than Russia (which has less generous parental benefits, but fewer abortions than Scandinavia). And indeed, the fertility rate in the USA are in the same ballpark, despite the US having no parental benefits.
(Scandinavian fertility is 1.8-1.9, Russian fertility is 1.7-1.8, USA fertility is 1.8-1.9, all in 2021 numbers from Gapminder)
(Scandinavian abortion rates are generally above 15%, Russia is ~12%, and USA is ~11%)
Edit: Data caveats there are some sources claiming russia's abortion rate is >50%, but they seem to be confusing the abortion rate with the abortion ratio. Also, the abortion rate in Russia has evidently undergone a precipitous decline since the 90s, so the abortion rate can look much different if you get/use a source that is even a few years old.
Norway and Finland have all of that and yet their birth rates are 1.48 and 1.37. Germany, Belgium and Netherlands too have those goodies and yet have a birthrate around 1.55. So your premise seems faulty.
For example "Strong Towns" (which I like to call "Strong Towns weak Country") pushes this view, ones of their goals is less rural living and fewer interstates.
This type of thinking will devastate the world, people don't realize how the hard working rural people make/grown/build/mine everything people in the high paying cities need in order to survive.
Their movement would kill rural just as much as suburbs, and this would greatly harm the country.
The suburbs are next to the city, not "many hours" from it. It makes no difference to rural communities if they are there are not, they just go to the city instead, at minimal extra travel time.
My impression was that Strong Towns and similar movements do have an opinion on people that chose to live outside of cities (suburbs) and are encouraging them to move to dense cities.
Also suburbs aren't inherently bad, they used to be good but currently their design today is car centric. This contributes to sprawl, devouring land in an economically unsustainable way.