[silverquiet]

I think the economics trump the social factors mostly. It seems to take ever more education in order to grasp at an ever more ephemeral stability, and children need a decade or two of stability when growing up. I can’t imagine anyone will be encouraging their 16 year old daughters to have children any time soon.

[randomdata]

It is true that once you are rich enough you no longer need children to help support the family unit as was an imperative historically (and still in the poor parts of the world), so we cannot discount the economics. That is no doubt why it became the fashion. It was a demonstration of how rich we've become. A display of human progress and achievement.

But I see some change in sentiment around questioning what good is being rich if you can't enjoy it with your children. It is not happening overnight by any stretch of the imagination, but I think the tides are slowly starting to turn.

[silverquiet]

I look back at Leo Tolstoy's "A Confession" and I think that it's a bit more complicated than that. He summed up my own thoughts quite well more than a century before I was even born.

> No matter how often I may be told, "You cannot understand the meaning of life so do not think about it, but live," I can no longer do it: I have already done it too long. I cannot now help seeing day and night going round and bringing me to death. That is all I see, for that alone is true. All else is false. The two drops of honey which diverted my eyes from the cruel truth longer than the rest: my love of family, and of writing -- art as I called it -- were no longer sweet to me. "Family"... said I to myself. But my family -- wife and children -- are also human. They are placed just as I am: they must either live in a lie or see the terrible truth. Why should they live? Why should I love them, guard them, bring them up, or watch them? That they may come to the despair that I feel, or else be stupid? Loving them, I cannot hide the truth from them: each step in knowledge leads them to the truth. And the truth is death.”

[randomdata]

> Why should I love them, guard them, bring them up, or watch them?

Once upon a time there was no choice if you wanted to survive yourself. The world was too much for the feeble man without their help. Indeed, the rich now have the luxury of relying on "corporations" to stand in for where children were once necessary. But then you're ultimately back to square one: Why should you love, guard, bring up, and watch the corporations?

There is no free lunch. You are going to put in the effort either way, but at least children might also provide some happiness along the way. The "corporations" seem to just draw ire. We didn't recognize that for a long time, but I do see a shift starting to take place.

[silverquiet]

I think we are just all different - I can't imagine children bringing me any happiness; I felt the way Tolstoy did already when I was a young child. Interestingly, my grandmother once told me she only had children because of social expectations, and I can say that her children were absolutely aware of that. For me, the philosophical reasons were enough; the monetary savings are in a sense a bonus, but for others economics may be the main force preventing them from having children which is indeed sad in its own way I suppose.

[randomdata]

> but for others economics may be the main force preventing them from having children

Economics never prevents having children. As before, only the rich even get the luxury of choosing to not have children. But the rich could have children too if they so choose. Their fear of children making them look poor under the whims of today's fashion is an entirely self-imposed limitation.

Good for them if that's what they want to do. No judgment on anyone's personal life choices. But I maintain that an increasing number of people are starting to question if that is what is right for them. I agree that what is right for an individual is not universal. Some people will truly not want children, but many more feel pressured to not have children due to the prevailing fashion trends. I see change afoot among the latter group. Having children is slowly starting to become "cool" again.

[silverquiet]

Fundamentally I just disagree with you I think; I'm not seeing any signs that trends in fertility are turning around, and I think if anything it was social pressure that was holding the numbers up to begin with. I'm certainly willing to admit that I could be wrong on that though; the millennials, a large echo generation from the boomers (myself among them) are hitting the age where it becomes a sort of "now or never" proposition and anecdotally, I do see some people considering it. But I also think that religion is one of the big drivers of social pressure for fertility, especially in the US, and you can see it continue to collapse which I think is a sign of the way things are going.

[kiba]

The problem is the lack of stability not wealth, though wealth should contribute to stability.

Housing and transportation continue to dominate American household budget.

Now, I did read that somebody suggesting that it's not cost but density that reduces population fertility. I would wonder if that just means we need to provide more spaces for families within cities.

[randomdata]

> The problem is the lack of stability not wealth

Children are resilient. Hell, we've raised children through terrible wars and famines. Being born into a relatively peaceful era and the wealthiest time in history is about as stable as it gets.

You may have a point that potential parents are putting pressure on themselves to be the perfect soccer mom and dads, carting their kids around in their Escalades, and then returning home to sleep in their mansions, and if they end up anywhere short of that they are not worthy of having children. But that's just part of the fashion du jour. Children don't need or even care for any of that.

> I did read that somebody suggesting that it's not cost but density that reduces population fertility.

I don't think anyone would seriously suggest that cost is a factor. Sure, there is that study that suggests it costs ~$10,000-20,000+ per year to raise a child, but when you look closely the cost is for things like buying a bigger house. You don't need a bigger house to raise children. Look at what American settlers raised children in: Tiny, single room log cabins. And they had, on average, eight children living in them!

The density suggestion is interesting, although I'm not sure it tracks. For example, the least dense US states, Maine and Vermont with only ~35% urbanization, have lower fertility than New York and California with ~90% urbanization. I expect what was noticed is merely correlationary as urbanization and the general ability to opt to not have children are both not realistic until a society reaches a certain level of wealth. In other words, the societies that are rich enough to opt to have few children are also more likely to be urbanized.

But humans are social creatures. And it hasn't been socially acceptable to have children in the modern age, at least not until you are into your 30s, at which point go ahead, society gives the green light (It will even start to cry: "Why haven't you had children yet???") – but by then, good luck having more than approximately one child before biology puts an end to the party.

[jwells89]

I believe that the stability being spoken of here is in the micro-environment of the household, and primarily concerns two things: first, the parents’ ability to provide for the children and keep a roof over their heads, and second, the parents’ emotional stability.

The latter is often closely tied to the former. When things get rough, things can get ugly. Tensions build and emotions run hot which at best makes for a less-than-stellar environment for kids to grow up in and at worst can lead to violence or divorce. Many young adults experienced this first hand in their childhood and want to avoid inflicting these situations on any potential children of their own.

As such, a lot of people who’d otherwise be parents have held out because they fear these scenarios playing out. For most, the goal probably isn’t to be perfect or raise their children in the lap of luxury, but simply to wait until they’re reasonably confident that they’ve precluded financial disaster for the most part and that hardship and struggle won’t be commonplace.

I don’t think that’s bad or wrong, and in fact I feel is thoughtful and responsible. With all this in mind, if an individual or group wants to look at turning around birth rate numbers, they would do well to address the issues that prevent young adults from feeling financially secure in this way.

[randomdata]

> they would do well to address the issues that prevent young adults from feeling financially secure in this way.

To be fair, that does appear to be happening, if slowly. The largest financial drain on young people, college, has shown decline over the past several years. There is still a lot of social entrenchment to overcome, though; like trying to convince marriage hopefuls that they don't need to buy an expensive diamond.