[Alex3917]

I'm 33 and my spouse is 31, we just had our first child. Of our 20 or so closest white friends, there are exactly two couples with babies. Most aren't even married yet.

This is in NYC so I expect that we're outliers, but given that fertility starts declining significantly around 35, I've got to imagine our friend group won't even be close to the replacement rate. So unless we're not just outliers but extreme outliers, I've got to imagine that fertility will decline even more over the next five years or so. We're just now getting to the point where it's time for the folks who graduated during the great recession and/or who work in the gig economy to start having kids, so to whatever extent economics play a role I don't think we've hit the bottom of the trough yet.

[dd36]

Agree. Student loan debt, lack of geographic distribution well-paying jobs, high cost of living by rentier capitalists in the places where those jobs exist means a crash in family creation. It takes comfort to start a family.

[candiodari]

The article does report this. The problem seems to be much more a lack of ability to have children (or a perceived lack of ability), more so than a lack of will.

[himom]

Yeah, it seems like more and more people are delaying kids until it’s “now or never” scenario. Not good. Have kids as early as possible because of the work and energy involved.

It’s not just fertility that declines, but IQ and a rise in birth defects.

[ap3]

>Have kids as early as possible

Why?