I know people seem to see social factors in declining birth rate, but I mainly see economic causes. As population reduces, housing and employment become more available, meaning more people can afford to have children. A century ago more children meant more income, but now it means less. Reduce the marginal cost of children and demand will increase.

I agree.

The more I read history, the more I realize most of the problems we have today are not new problems.

For example, in 1778, it was expected that you had to have 4 children to have one live to 18 (with medical science being what it was). We saw a 40% increase in all deaths in actuarial data during the pandemic which could align with degradation of services during that time.

In 1778, wages could never be lower than what it cost to feed and raise yourself and your children.

With the introduction of personal household debt and fiat currency, the guardrails were removed.

Business stopped having an incentive to pay fair wages when they were allowed to concentrate, and make more money through influential connections and shoddy financial engineering backed by a printing press.