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by matchbok3 23 days ago
It's the cost, but also the higher expectations of living nowadays. Social media, phones, computers, trips, etc.

The actual monetary cost of a child is high, for sure. But many people put that number higher due to lifestyle choices, not need. Social media certainly doesn't help.
1 comments
turtlesdown11 23 days ago
right, its the phones and computers driving the high cost of raising a human being for 18 years + /s
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matchbok3 23 days ago
It... literally is? How much money did families spend on computers and phones in 1980?

The snarky nonsense is not helpful, or appropriate, for this forum. Do better.

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turtlesdown11 23 days ago
> It... literally is?

It.... literally isn't? the cost of computers are lower today (in today's dollars) than they were in the 1980s and 1990s?

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2021/09/20/cost-of-a-computer...

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matchbok3 22 days ago
Cellphones. Broadband. Airpods. TVs. Smartwatches.

Obviously it's not about just computers. The point is we spend more on this stuff than we did in 1980. That is a fact.

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turtlesdown11 21 days ago
Again, it's not a fact at all. Spend a few minutes doing basic research. All of this tech is cheaper today than it was in the 80s or 90s, cell phones in the 80s and 90s were thousands of dollars, internet was expensive, as were other electronics.

Items like smartphones are dramatically cheaper than the tech people bought in the 1990s. It replaced your home phone, video camera, answering machine, alarm clock, clock, etc. You are not correct at all, the things that have gone up in price are housing, education, health expenses, etc. Not electronics.

The point is that people are choosing to have fewer children, and it's absolutely not because of the cost of computers or cell phones.

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pibaker 23 days ago
The median family did not have a computer in the 1980s. I can't find good data but the ones a quick google search returned suggests by 1990 computer ownership was around 20%.

Computers also became ridiculously cheap in real dollars over the years, in the meanwhile education, healthcare, housing all shot up faster than overall inflation.

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