[em-bee]

having kids is a blast

true, but you didn't know until you had them, and society keeps telling us otherwise. we need to change the message and educate youth about becoming parents. but also create a culture where having children is welcome.

in the west we complain about kids running around, making noise, being not under control. and most importantly we blame the parents. in china every child is treated like a treasure. sometimes even to a fault. but at least parents are not being blamed for having children, or for bringing them along when they have noone else to care for them. for example children hanging out at their parents workplace after school is normal. in the west that's ground for getting fired.

[sltkr]

Despite that, China has a fertility rate of 0.93, which is among the lowest in the world, and certainly much lower than the US (1.6).

So it doesn't seem that that cultural difference boosts the fertility rate all that much.

[em-bee]

china destroyed its fertility rate with the one-child policy. so that is not comparable.

[sltkr]

That's an easy answer, but it doesn't explain why nearby/culturally related countries like South Korea and Taiwan have similar or even lower fertility rates, despite never having a one child policy.

And of course China's fertility rate now is even lower than it was at any point when the one child policy was in effect.

[VirusNewbie]

>in china every child is treated like a treasure. sometimes even to a fault. but at least parents are not being blamed for having children,

huh, I didn't know this. Thank you for sharing about your culture :)

[em-bee]

i am not chinese, it's just an observation from living there.