Let me guess, it's because it's too expensive to have them.
Yet only about half of the increase is due to rising prices for the same quality and quantity of care. (Child care prices are up 180% overall since the mid-90s, according to BLS data.)
The remaining half is coming from parents choosing more personalized or accredited care for a given 3- to 5-year-old, or paying for more hours, Winship says."
It's gotten more expensive. We're also parenting harder, though it's unclear to what degree there is a selection effect in play.
Dual-income households were less prevalent in 2017 (54.4%) than 1998 (56.5%) [1]. Looking at just families, it went up from 2022 to 2023, but I don't see data for 1995 [2].
[1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/comparing-characte...
* not enough daycare even if you do have money;
* not enough space at home;
* cities that are not made for parents and small kids;
* atomized communities with very little help;
Feels like most people are raising their kids by themselves.
I can only wonder what it will be like in another 20 years, when my children are grown up.
I don't need to have kids for them to be my labor, that's not how this works anymore.
- They had latchkey children - no daycare required!
- "Free range" children was a thing and nobody got arrested for it!
- There were such things as "Block Parents", people in the neighborhood who looked out for all the kids. Obviously this was before "stranger danger."
- Everybody looked after everybody else's kids, even in tenement buildings.
- People lived close to where the grew up and generally had relatives nearby to help out when all of the above failed.
Nowadays, most of this is gone. In short, in just a mere 40 to 50 years, the cost of having children has skyrocketed. Add in the cost-of-living expenses have skyrocketed for younger people and you get the result that fewer people are having children and those who are having children are having them much later.
My sister has kids, and she's a total helicopter parent. I've asked her why, considering how we were raised. She simply said, "That's just how it is now. That's how everyone parents." So yeah, there is certainly a cultural element to this. But I wonder if that cultural change has been created or amplified by cost. In other words, the dumb-ass kid that jumped off a bridge into a shallow creek (it was on a bet, naturally), would his parents have to file for bankruptcy these days because of the high medical costs?
Last week, I let my 7 year old go by herself to a Dollar Tree store by herself while I was with her siblings at another store in the same shopping center. A bit later, I went in to the Dollar Tree after her, and got a real talking to from the cashier about how unsafe it was for me to let her go to the store by herself. She said the world isn't safe any more and I'm putting her at risk. The cashier was an elderly woman! I would think she was raised in a time where kids were allowed to leave the house on their own.
I try to teach my kiddos independence. I send them out on their in ways that I think are safe. But the amount of judgment I get is just crazy. And I fear that one day I'll have child protective services knocking on my door.
The short answer is cultural fragmentation and soft paternalism.
I would be miles away from home doing whatever and nobody would know. Now parents freak out if their kids leave their sight for more than a few seconds.
One thing that is really interesting is that many of the "free range" children don't follow that same parenting technique even though things are as safe or safer than when I was a child. I think this is mostly from the media putting fear into them that their children are going to be abducted.
I really feel for kids now in the US. How they grow up I would not really consider a childhood. It's just preparation to sit in an office all day until they die of old age.
Again, I think almost everything can be reduced to "it just is too expensive".
* Don't care - children are not a priority (often "I am the priority")
* Get wealthy - children oppose money gaining
* Get famous - children correlate poorly with rapid fame rise
* Get sex - children correlate poorly with being a player
* Work less - children take work (if not already wealthy)
* America - https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/americans-fe...
* Sinking ship - enshitification everywhere, murder stats on all news, why have kids in a latrine?
* Success correlation - wealth and success correlated with starting wealth. why have kids?
* Negative wage slave experiences - hey kids, here's your collar, just like mine.
* Abortion access - americans would fight to the death other over abortion access. wait, they already do. "a gift to Jesus on his birthday."
* Health care (not specifically kids) - 10x all other locations.
* Food - pointlessly expensive. so much land it's nonsense humans starve. they fight to squander it all.
Don't forget climate change! The latrine is also on fire.
If a couple has 20k+ to spend a year on child care, that means they have enough free money that they can do a lot of other enjoyable things instead.
Airplane fares keep decreasing, destination vacations are becoming more and more affordable, and "everyday luxuries" keep being pushed down into becoming more affordable.
Or to put it another way, having a kid means a serious drop in QoL compared to being a DINK.
60 years ago this didn't matter, even the upper middle class wasn't jetting off around on a regular basis. Also it wasn't as socially acceptable, all your friends were having kids and if you didn't have kids you were missing out. Compared to now when there are basically two parallel societies, families with kids and families without kids, and one can choose which group to be a part of.
> The remaining half is coming from parents choosing more personalized or accredited care for a given 3- to 5-year-old, or paying for more hours, Winship says.
Basically parents are unwilling to have kids unless they can give them an ideal and heavily invested in life as well as in many cases buy their way out of many of the hassles.
Reminds me of England in the Middle Ages. Someone told me most people in England (and maybe W Europe) has a ancestor that was a King or Queen.
If true, seems we may be heading in this direction with our "Aristocracy". Seems only the very wealthy can afford more than 1 child.
I do remember Musk is trying to get rich people to have many Children. He had a WEB site about it but I cannot find it. The site has a picture of Blond Blue-eyed parents and their children. But a search did come up with this:
https://people.com/elon-musk-wants-smart-people-to-have-kids...
Not wanting to be poor, or more likely, trading the yearly trip to $insertPlaceHere, eating out on the weekends, or the daily Starbucks, for a new kid, isn't a bad, but 'too expensive' doesn't really describe that situation accurately.
Agreed, a lot of Nordic countries provide more support to families with children yet they have very similar numbers to countries with worse support. The monetary aspect obviously plays a factor but it cannot explain everything. If you want to change the trend you will have to look at other additional factors as well. Not all factors have the same weight but they all feed into the same trend.
The different narratives around "why would you bring children into this horrible world?" also have an effect. It does not matter that they live better lives than people did in the 13th century. Their reality tunnel will latch onto anything negative to justify why they cannot have kids until things get better. And because they always focus on the negative they will never notice if things improved at all. Things will always look too bleak for them.
It sadly also remains a reality that if a woman gets kids her career will take a hit. This pushes women who care about their careers to delay having children sometimes too long.
The economical factor has easier answers I guess than the other more intangible aspects.
You need space for kids, meaning your 1 bed apartment isn’t gonna cut it. Look at the cost of housing these days.
You will need to pay for childcare. This could easily be $1000 per month for the first 5 years.
Transportation. You may need to get a larger vehicle. Plus food, clothing, healthcare.
Oh and then there’s tuition costs.
To summarize, this country has done approximately nothing to make childcare more accessible lately and is wondering why kids don’t magically appear.
> There are plenty of poor countries having children
You’ve hit the nail on the head. In an advanced economy, making a worker costs more. We have offloaded this cost onto parents, and wonder why parents aren’t doing it as much.
Like having kids and making sure they are able to survive adulthood come with two separate sticker prices. And if you’re not going to do the second, might as well not do the first.
Does having children impact their earning potential? The US offers a relatively high earning potential, and having children really directly interferes with that. If you don't have high earning potential, having kids may not have an appreciable impact.
Childcare alone can easily cost over $1k/mo. Daily Starbucks and eating out is nothing compared to having kids.
it certainly did in my case. Holding a newborn and realizing an actual life depends on you is good motivation to do what it takes to get better as a whole, earn more, and climb the ladder. It wasn't easy but i'm in a much better financial position with kids than i would be without. I know myself pretty well and i'm sure i'd be in the same apartment doing the same thing day after day year after year like my childless friends. No knock on them but i've grown my income way more than they have and I credit family obligations for forcing my hand.
I won't have kids if I cannot pay for their post-secondary education. That is clearly not a requirement in poorer countries.
If the cost of having and raising a kid was equal to one Starbucks drink a day we wouldn't have this problem. What we have right now in the US is record amounts of household debt (hint: it's not because people have been going on "yearly trip to $insertPlaceHere" and charging it to their VISA), record number of utility shutoffs due to non-pay, record numbers of people who can't afford rent, and skyrocketing child poverty rates.
'too expensive' seems to sum up the situation pretty damn well
Actually, worldwide population trends suggest that childbirth rates are dropping across the board. Poverty does have a direct correlation with how many kids you have because access to healthcare, education and financial stability all contribute to you having fewer kids. But as globally those things change for the better, child birth rates will continue to drop.
If someone was trying to get me to buy a boat I'd tell them I can't afford it. It's a shortcut to, Why would I spend money on something for "the economy"
What is kind of baffling to me is a lot of people are still not having kids, but anthropomortising their pets, paying 10s of thousands a year in health insurance and bills for their pets, taking them to day care, and not traveling when they can't find sitters, etc.
> Because people have no problem spending tons of money on other things
It's like saying I'm spending my money on Starbucks, and that's why I can't afford kids. The reality is that childcare is astronomically expensive. Me and my wife both work in tech, and we've had the conversation where it made more financial sense if one of us quit our jobs to raise the kids. Unfortunately we can't do that because covering mortgage would become a problem. The solution: don't have more kids.
I work in tech too, and I'm probably about median TC in tech. With my income alone I could support children and a wife, so if you are both working and can't afford it: you bought way to much house.
Let me guess, you bought a house before 2021 and are locked in on 3% or less mortgage.
> you bought a house you couldn't afford
I bought a 3 bed not so big house. Are you going to tell me that’s too big for a family with 2 kids? Or are you going to tell me I should’ve been born earlier to buy the same house for cheaper and lock in those rates?
yes, and I want to buy a new home but these prices are unreasonable, so I am not. unfortunately, I also rent because I had to move for work; however,
who said you need to buy? I am not saying you are wrong for doing so, that's what you wanted to do and good on you for that.
but you made a conscious choice to choose buying a home over having kids. you could have rented, or like me you could just wait.
my friend and her husband both work with a combined income of 250,000. They live in Brooklyn, NYC and have THREE kids, and still travel, etc. I'm guessing you and your wife is making more then that. if you can't support 3 kids at your combined income: You are over spending.
> Or are you going to tell me I should’ve been born earlier to buy the same house for cheaper and lock in those rates?
now you are just being rediculous / toxic, so will ignore that.
That being said, our cat is still family and I would do anything in my power to ensure her well-being and would be absolutely devastated and grieving when she passes.
We have record numbers of Americans who can't afford their rent, record numbers of utility disconnections for non-pay, household debt is at all time highs and people are struggling with the rising costs of food.
In whatever bubble you live your life in, people might seem like people "have no problems spending tons of money" but looking at the state of things in general it's very clear that Americans are struggling.
They didnt need to buy that house, rent is very cheap compared to the cost of homes right now.
That's heavily skewed by the wealthy. Most Americans can't afford to take a vacation at all. (https://www.newsweek.com/americans-ca-no-longer-afford-vacat...), online purchases are at record highs every year (since 2009) and the overall trend is that online purchases have increased since the early/mid 2000s and that's not expected to change any time soon.
> People are buying homes that have gone up by over 2x in the last 4 years
Very rich people and investors (including foreign investors) have been buying homes. Foreign investment is slowing down because of the high prices. Current transactions are at "recessionary lows" and "The average home is still unaffordable for most potential buyers" (https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/25/home-price-growth-slows-what...).
Mostly people just aren't buying houses. In 2023 homes sales were at their lowest since the mid 90s (https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/home-sales-likely-fell-t... or here (no paywall issues) : https://www.housingwire.com/articles/just-4-09-million-exist...)
A prime example is housing. People seem to think if they have a kid, they NEED a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom house with a yard, or you simply can't have a kid at all, game over if you don't own that.
Meanwhile my 1920s home was more than enough for families back then, it was a 2 bedroom 1 bath.
As far as pet care, people are spending 40,000$ on operations on their pets, and thousands a month on pet health insurance. People are spending 20/hour for dog walkers, the average Seattle dog owner spends up to 9,000$ / year on their dog (source wagwalking.com).
No one says you have to pay nannys and private schooling. thats on you.
that's about on par with a child, and someone pointed out a dog only lives 20 years, that just means your 'investment' is less well spent and support my claim pets are expensive. Also noting: you dont owe your kid anything after 18, they should be grown adults capable of making their own money and decisions after that point.
Eh, for people in my area at least, childcare for one new baby could is easily $20k-$45k/year, whereas I don't know of anyone personally who spends anywhere near that much a year on non-necessity material possessions. Plus all the other costs of a baby. Just another 1 room in an apartment could also be another $500-$1000 a month. Plus all the other baby-related costs. You could easily be talking about an order of magnitude difference in child-cost vs. typical spending on non-necessity material possessions per year.
people are over spending on a lot of things that quickly add up, since we aren't talking about a 'specific person' its hard to say what. For example, people buy phones every year (1,000$ a pop), eating out can cost many thousands, etc.
Its also not uncommon for people to buy 20,000$ watches or hand bags.
Your example was spending ~$10k/yr on vet bills. Press (X) to doubt, but if you really think babies cost less than this, you are wildly misinformed.