[freehorse]

I think treating it as a rational process and looking at the reasons behind makes sense, as opposed to "attitudes", in the sense that attitudes and culture are shaped through some processes.

I think that in modern societies children are a bad investment, but not only for this reason. If anything, I think that fertility rates were going down even before uncertainty for the future was up. Another commenter talked about urbanisation, and that in an agricultural society children were an investment, while in an urban one a liability. Some efforts focus on reducing the cost of having children, via social benefits etc, but the core reasons behind making having children actually costly is rarely addressed.