> Two recent studies in the United States show, that in some circumstances, families whose income has increased will have more children.
There's a massive gulch between "too poor to have ubiquitous access to birth control and healthcare" and "rich enough to provide the upbringing I desire for my child". Most Americans exist in that gulch.
> But something happened to the American family over the last three decades: that downward slope became a U-turn. Women in families in the top half of the income spectrum are having more kids than their similar-earning counterparts did 20 years ago. Women from the very richest households are now having more children than those less-well off.
>>Give people enough resources and they'll have more kids.
Not sure I buy that - I know plenty of couples, each of them with good 6 figure salaries, who have no interest in having kids, ever - if they had 7 figure salaries, I don't think it would change their mind one bit.
> More and more American couples are choosing not to have children or choosing to have them later in life, according to Census data. As of 2022, 43% of U.S. households were childless, a 7% increase from 2012. The idea has become so common that the term “DINK” — double income, no kids — has emerged, often in regards to marketing and sales.
> And it turns out that going childfree is paying off: Couples with no children have the highest net worth out of all other types of family structures. The median net worth of a couple with no children is around $399,000 — over $100,000 more than it was in 2019, according to the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances.
> Meanwhile, couples with children — who have the second highest net worth out of all types of family structures — have a net worth of $250,600, per the Survey of Consumer Finances.
> Some 44% of non-parents ages 18 to 49 say it is not too or not at all likely that they will have children someday, an increase of 7 percentage points from the 37% who said the same in a 2018 survey. Meanwhile, 74% of adults younger than 50 who are already parents say they are unlikely to have more kids, virtually unchanged since 2018.
> Among parents and non-parents alike, men and women are equally likely to say they will probably not have kids (or more kids) in the future. Perhaps not surprisingly, adults in their 40s are far more likely than younger ones to say they are unlikely to have children or to have more children in the future. Some 85% of non-parents 40 to 49 say this, compared with 37% of those younger than 40. And while 91% of older parents say they probably won’t have more kids, 60% of younger parents say the same.
> A majority (56%) of non-parents younger than 50 who say it’s unlikely they will have children someday say they just don’t want to have kids. Childless adults younger than 40 are more likely to say this than those ages 40 to 49 (60% vs. 46%, respectively). There are no differences by gender.
Right, low income causes kids, so what we need are more poors! We don't enact regressive policies because we want money, we only do it because we love you!
It couldn't possibly be that the causal arrow points in the other direction, that kids are an economic burden, cause hardship in an already economically strained population, and those who escape do so in part because they choose not to have kids. Nah, couldn't be.
Being economically strained is relative. Middle class people clutch their pearls at the thought of having children before they have completed their master's degree, have their 4 bedroom house in a safe neighborhood with good schools, maxed out retirement accounts, and a membership to Whole Foods. Broke people have a different idea of what necessities are so they have no problem pumping out kids.
This is not totally correct. One reason it appears that fertility is inversely correlated with income is hidden confounding variables. Among comparable populations (within the same country, as a starting point) income is positively related to income.
Wealthy nations have easier access to contraceptives and low child mortality, and women joined the workforce. It's not so cut and dry as a mere question of income. Even your source has a section for contrary findings and fertility j-curve when using HDI rather than GDP.
There's a massive gulch between "too poor to have ubiquitous access to birth control and healthcare" and "rich enough to provide the upbringing I desire for my child". Most Americans exist in that gulch.
> But something happened to the American family over the last three decades: that downward slope became a U-turn. Women in families in the top half of the income spectrum are having more kids than their similar-earning counterparts did 20 years ago. Women from the very richest households are now having more children than those less-well off.
https://qz.com/1125805/the-reason-the-richest-women-in-the-u...
Give people enough resources and they'll have more kids. But it takes a lot of resources, and an increasing amount year by year, to hit that mark.