These reasons are a lie. The parents of boomers had less disposable income than we do, they were living in a generation devastated by war(s) and they had very much longer working hours that we do now.
We have just decided that we don't want to have children, it's not because of external factors.
The current generation of youth and working young adults feels abandoned and unecessary, why put more abandoned and unecessary people on this planet? The shrinking population is only a problem for old people, who themselves benefit from a shrinking population right now.
Graduating into the GR and being unable to find decent work for 10 years sure did this to me. I did find a job around year 4.5, and was treated like absolute garbage at best and outright targeted and bullied at worst. Then there’s that 4.5 year period after the GR where homes were empty and homeless everywhere.
Yeah, not hard for me to imagine why people aren’t having kids.
Short story, don’t bail out banks and push people onto the streets.
Edit-way I see it, I’d need a market valuation on my personally held assets of $3 million that I knew would grow at least 5% per annum before I’d think about a kid. Or a stable lifestyle with similarity to that.
In the 60s most women stayed home with kids for many years, whereas now very few do that. 6 weeks maternity leave is a complete joke.