[ltadeut]

I have no idea what they can even do at this point. I have young Japanese friends (early 20s) and they all tell me the same thing: the cost of raising a child is too high in Japan (considering the wages).

When I talk to people it seems that they all have this concern, I doubt it's something that can be changed drastically in the short term.

But this is basically the same story everywhere. Living costs are really high. Add children to the mix and how do you manage?

If I put my pessimist hat on, it's just a matter of time till the same happens in Europe/US.

Heck, I already see friends in Ireland and UK struggling with that and they are all high earners.

[freddie_mercury]

The cost of raising a child is basically the socially acceptable (but untrue) excuse that people get to use.

It is pretty easy to look at millionaires and billionaires and see that money isn't what is holding down birthrates.

Just look at the millionaire CEO of your own company. Do they have 6 kids? They probably don't even have 4 kids.

And there have been studies (though I don't have any at hand) that sudden exogenous wealth (e.g. winning the lottery) doesn't really lead to people having more kids like they claim they wanted to.

Or do cross-country comparisons. The US birthrate is (very roughly) the same as countries that have (even adjusted for purchasing power parity) dramatically lower incomes.

Or look at low engagement levels of grandparents nowadays despite being dramatically richer than in previous generations.

It isn't (mainly) about money. It is just that it is okay to complain about money but not as okay to complain "I'd honestly rather do my hobbies than have another kid".

[trhway]

>It is just that it is okay to complain about money but not as okay to complain "I'd honestly rather do my hobbies than have another kid".

I'm a loser and don't want to condemn my kids by virtue of creating them to be losers to. Money of course a part of being a loser. I say that here anonymously. In real life i of course say something general like everybody else about money, time, etc.

[zihotki]

Cost of raising is not only about the money. It's also about your personal time, energy, and commitment. For some people having kids is rewarding, for others it's not.

[xeonmc]

It takes a village to raise a child, and modern society is not conducive to such an environment.

[AnimalMuppet]

I never quite bought that "it takes a village" rhetoric.

But, at least, if you don't have a village and so it's all on you, that's a lot more work...

[ryanjshaw]

It's possible people aren't lying and instead that there are multiple issues where finance is just the immediate issue for many people.

[mmillin]

>Just look at the millionaire CEO of your own company. Do they have 6 kids? They probably don't even have 4 kids.

Couldn’t this also be evidence that money is the issue? i.e. you can’t get to that millionaire CEO spot if you have a lot of kids you need to pay for. Instead the successful are those having fewer kids.

[koakuma-chan]

Another kid? What justification is there to have kids in the first place?

[rich_sasha]

I often wonder about this.

Cost of having children is definitely very high. But I wonder if this is in part due to shifts in global culture.

Was the cost lower in the past? Perhaps state schools and nurseries were better and more available. But also less money went into things we grew accustomed to as consumers - fancier cars, new phones, holidays. Also non-consumerist things - perhaps people worry more about quality education for their potential kids. When children were more of a necessity, families found the money somehow.

Housing is expensive. But it is more so in booming megacities where the good jobs are. Were people more content in the past to plod along in their small town buying their affordable house?

This isn't a "drink less lattes" takedown, I have kids too and feel the pinch - and above all I might just be looking at it all wrong. But I'm having a hard time reconciling this observation with the fact that we are so much richer as a society than we were in say 1970. Presumably even the poorer people are, in absolute terms, wealthier than they were then.

[AnimalMuppet]

In the 1800s, you had fewer closets, because people didn't have enough clothes to need more than a chest.

In the 19... well, at least the 1950s, maybe even the 1970s, kids didn't each need their own bedroom, and bedrooms were smaller. (I mean, if you've got neurodivergent kids, it's really helpful for them to have their own space.) It didn't have that much of a yard; you didn't need a power mower for it. Our standards have changed.

In the 1970s, you probably drove a car that didn't have air conditioning, unless you lived in Arizona or something. Your house may not have had it, either.

It's not just lattes. It's housing and cars. The houses people lived in in the 1970s are now in the "less desirable" parts of town. The cars people drove... well, they may have been top-of-the-line cars in those days, but the equal functionality now is a very low-end car.

You can maybe survive as a family the way a family did in the 1950s - one breadwinner working a factory job, one car, small house, no cell phone plan, no cable TV, books from the library. But it's not the 1950s anymore and nobody wants to live that way.

[ryandrake]

> But I'm having a hard time reconciling this observation with the fact that we are so much richer as a society than we were in say 1970. Presumably even the poorer people are, in absolute terms, wealthier than they were then.

Is this really true though? Yes, in 1970, we did not have computers in our pockets, fine. But, in 1970, my parents owned their own home in their 20s just from the tiny salary of a single school teacher. They financed their educations without loans. They had easy and cheap access to health care. Their day-to-day costs still allowed them to save money. They had a strong safety net and a local community that cared.

We don't have any of that today, but we do have billionaires skewing the "average" higher and higher. I wouldn't say that anyone but them are in real terms wealthier today than in 1970.

[nullbyte808]

I hate the cost excuse. People in Africa have kids with no money. You would think a country with historic low birth rates would have a good welfare system for moms.

[trhway]

>I hate the cost excuse. People in Africa have kids with no money.

In 2022, the infant mortality rate in Sub-Saharan Africa was 49 deaths per 1,000 live births, while the infant mortality rate in the United States was 5.6 deaths per 1,000 live births. Cost isn't excuse. Cost is what for example decreases infant mortality. And that is just the start what the cost does, all the way to the better education and beyond.

[Gibbon1]

You look at birthrates in Africa and they're also falling fairly rapidly. The better run places are the larger the drop.

[spacebanana7]

It's a tarpit because it's so intuitive and tends to resonate with our personal experience - but it absolutely fails to explain the data.