"The phone killed babies" tracks with my intuition about this. Data correlates.
Finances aren't keeping me from having kids. The internet is. Smartphones are. Weird as that sounds. I can unpack more and expand this into a conversation.
This is completely ignoring the most common reason for not having children that I've heard amongst friends and family: "I can't afford a house, I'll never be able to afford kids."
Parents for all of human civilization and history have lived in worse.
The fastest growing populations have less money and safety nets than middle class folks.
It's the dopamine and time suck.
Men and women aren't bored and looking to fill the void and boredom with children. (Kids also can't work as free labor on the farm anymore, either, but that just adds to this argument.)
Kids keep you from nights out with the friends, dating, concerts, fortnite, girl gossip, phone time, etc.
People are choosing "I don't have time for kids (now)" and continuing with their dopamine filled lives. House purchase planning is orthogonal.
Now that I'm googling for more deliberate correlations, I see other people are talking about this:
https://roytriggs.medium.com/internet-use-and-birth-rates-an...
https://fortune.com/well/2025/03/28/phones-declining-birth-r...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/opinion/dating-marriage-c...
"The phone killed babies" tracks with my intuition about this. Data correlates.
Finances aren't keeping me from having kids. The internet is. Smartphones are. Weird as that sounds. I can unpack more and expand this into a conversation.