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by vidarh
1260 days ago
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It may be huge factors in the decisions of individuals, but on a population basis if this was a major factor you'd expect to see a big difference between countries based on daycare costs and the like. Yet e.g. Norway's fertility rate has been under replacement, and currently around 1.7, despite measures like long fully paid parental leave, near full daycare coverage and low caps on daycare costs (at a fraction of e.g. what I paid for my son in the UK) as well as a monthly support payment per child (ca $105/month for kids over 6 and ~$168/month for kids under 6) until they turn 18, coupled with no college tuition (you pay living costs if not living with parents, and pay for books etc.) and stipends for students. Looking at graphs of fertility rates in Norway, they cratered when Norway started getting wealthy, and none of the subsequent expansions of welfare and support for parents appears to have been able to counter it. |
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For example, I 'want' a farm. When I think about owning a farm, I'm filled with happy thoughts of a pastoral life surrounded by nature, animals, etc. When people ask, I tell them 'yes, I would love to own a farm'. Of course, a few months ago, I had an opportunity to purchase one, and you know what I thought? Well, when I thought about the details... owning animals, caring for animals day in and day out, leaving my current home in the city, etc, I realized what I said I want and what I actually want are completely different things.
Similarly, it's quite useless to ask people what they want. Most people have no idea. In particular, children are considered the default and there's plenty of marketing to show happy pictures of families with kids that make people biased to say they 'want' this, but for many, it's similar to my own idealistic view of what that desire actually entails. Many chicken out when it comes down to it. There's no way to measure this by self reports. If our ancestors were more desirous of children in reality than us or not, this study's methodology is unable to bear this out. Both generations may have said / may say they 'want' children, but there's many meanings of 'want.'