[Fricken]

French Aristocrats had difficulty affording children as well.

My theory is that as a society becomes wealthier, the acceptable minimum standard for child rearing grows at an even faster rate, until it becomes unattainable for a growing number of people.

Raising kids is cheap. People who live in mud huts who have never heard of money can afford to raise kids. Avoiding negative social stigma is what people can't afford.

[pjc50]

> Avoiding negative social stigma is what people can't afford.

This is a very important factor. The West has successfully more or less eliminated teenage pregnancy thanks to very heavy stigma plus enabling choice and information. People are simply deferring having children until conditions are perfect - as they were told to do.

[odyssey7]

I would say they don’t need to be perfect, but mere stability seems to be a thing of the past.

The millennial generation has seen repeated waves of economic crises and layoffs and the invention of a gig economy.

Mere stability is lacking. At least the people in mud huts know they can afford their mud hut next year.

Maybe people don’t want to be economically corralled into a large city a thousand miles from home and then to have their children in that city where they moved for career advancement, particularly as the social contract between employees and employers grows increasingly vacuous.

[moduspol]

Indeed. Likewise, there has never been a time where wide swaths of potential parents feel like they can "afford" having children. Before birth control, it was less of a choice.

This narrative that "people aren't having children because the future is bleak and they're expensive," is wildly overblown. Yes, it's what people say when you ask them. That's not the same as it being the actual reason.