Why are fertility rates falling in the West? NEWS FLASH: It's not the economy stupid! Thoughts?

[DrPepper12]

When men help out at home, fertility rates rise. Where women spend several hours more than men on child rearing and chores, the fertility rates plummet

"The author says there’s “too much nervousness” about low fertility rates, but if U. S. lawmakers really wanted to do something, her advice is to provide government-subsidized child care, as Sweden, France, Britain and Canada now do."

Correct

Not correct.

It's more. Lemme explain

[Gwendoline]

Many reasons. For starters women are waiting longer until at least 30 so that's going to mean they only have 1 or 2 kids at most. Then there is a whole host of possible fertility problems.

More women have careers so it can be difficult to have kids and maintain a career. Every kid you have might be a year off work for maternity.

The economy. It costs maybe $20,000 per year per child and maybe $200,000 -400,000 per child to raise a child to adulthood. That is very expensive. There are a lot of couples that just don't make enough to start a family when you take into account earnings, taxes, house prices, rent, food, education etc.

Cost of childcare. Many working couples need to hire babysitters, nannies, daycare and so on so they can work but then they are basically working to pay another person the equivalent of a weekly wage.

Again with childcare. Many couples are lucky if they can manage childcare with retired grandparents but because women are waiting until their 30s to have kids and maybe their own mother did the same grandparents are now in their 70s possibly 80s-90s and too old to be looking after their grandkids and helping their own children avoid blowing $20,000 per year per child on childcare.

A drop in living standards. There's no doubt that for most couples having more than one kid will mean a major drop in living standards.

Obesity. Obesity lowers fertility rates. Obese people will struggle to look after one child let alone multiple. The us has a major Obesity problem.

Contraception. Long term use may of birth control by women may drastically reduce female fertility. Like if a woman's been on it maybe from when she was 15 to 30. I know many women I know who have gone off birth control trying to get pregnant well it took them a whole year to even be fertile. I know myself when I was on birth control I thickened out and grew a giant butt, something to do with hormones maybe.

Waiting too long. Many women are simply waiting too long to get married and start a family. They are running out the clock. They've come up with this life plan where theh meet this guy that checks all the right boxes b4 they turn 30, have a kid or two and continue with their career but they keep pushing it back to concentrate on their career and before they know it they are 40. Yes a woman can have kids in her 40s and with IVF and fertility treatments into her 50s but the likelihood of getting pregnant for a woman after 30 of getting pregnant starts to decrease drastically with every year. So yes a woman may have kids in her 40s but maybe you won't be able to.

[Gwendoline]

Also abortion is a factor as well. If you consider that there are 600,000 in the US annually and one in five pregnancies in the US end in abortion.

[monorprise]

@gwendoline I am curious It never costed 20k per child per year before in this country, and clearly doesn't cost that much in any any country still having children. Countries where people generally don't even make that much a year yet still have 5+ children..

Where are theses costs coming from? How can they be regarded as 'needs' rather than simply an apparently unaffordable expectations?

[Gwendoline]

@monorprise well if you look at those countries they are spending much less on education, pay less tax, pay less for homes/rent, pay less for clothes, less for healthcare, less for food, less for childcare etc.
Think about it in some 3rd world country where the kid has no shoes, hand me down clothes, barely goes to school, starts work in a nike sweat shop at 12, lives in a shack, can't afford braces for their crooked teeth. The west you can't leave a 13 year old home alone after school.
In truth I think governments and corporations are very greedy, low wages vs high taxes.

[DrPepper12]

$20K annual per child? Not since 1977 here in NYC!

[Gwendoline]

That'd new York, a meal in a restaurant costs as much as a car.

[monorprise]

@gwendoline
Basically what your saying is we have soo raised the bar of child-rearing as to prohibit most people from the critical to life endeavor...

Thus ending it all together forcing us to replace the families we have so killed off with others invariably from regions that don't have such standards until such time that they too are killed off by the same. Thus is the plague of the city.

If politicians are responsible for this life ending situation it is because they have mandated that unaffordable standard.

If businesses are responsible it is because they have lied about the cost of living of the place of work, and thus true compensation package. A lie their employees nonetheless never figured out before it ending their families.

As insulting as it may sound, By that standard would you not say a single woman living in New York paying such absurd prices at such a wage is not in reality more impoverished than the poor woman in Africa actually surviving with less?

We might debate which of them which of them had a better life but not which of them had failed to pass it on.

[petitedollbabee]

That is one part of it, correct, but thats not the whole picture. The cost of living is constantly rising faster than wage increases can keep up with, it’s hard enough to get by without extra mouths to feed, the economy is going to shit, political changes are making the world harder for future generations, making adults not want to bring kids into that mess, and last but not least, places like the US are screwing reproductive rights and access to reproductive services, and it’s putting more and more women off of reproducing due to the dangers it could bring to their own lives.

[DrPepper12]

Excellent points!!

[Anonymous]

The primary issue is expected standards are far beyond what is achievable at the age when women must start having children.
This is an economic problem, one made a lot worse by how we preferentially educate women over men, Thus requiring women to earn the money as well as do the mothering biology requires of them, while making the men seem ever more useless to them.

This was an insane policy by people who wanted to destroy our civilization.

But even then the standards of living we are expecting really are still absurdly out of touch with what is achievable at the age where women must start having children.

So women have 3 choices:
1: Accept low standards and a harder life than what is sold to them by our cultural leaders marrying young.
2: Marry a much older guy who is established and accept what that means.
3: Forgo children until later and fewer and instead invest that non-replaceable time in working for someone else.

Our cultural leaders have encouraged women to go with option #3 mostly out of a greed for their labor and a genuine dislike for the enterprise fueled by ideological hate of our civilization or jealousy given it is the choice they made without realizing its cost.


So in Summery the problem is primary women's choices and standards. If we wanted a healthy civilization most women would have to do #1. The 2nd best option is #2, #3 is what we have instead.

[Ladsin2]

Way incorrect. To the point of absurdity. Is the argument that men help out more with child rearing in Niger, Angola, Mali, Uganda, Chad, Congo?

I know you prefaced it with the West, but clearly paternal work in the home is not positively correlated with fertility. Is it that paternal investment is inversely correlated between all of the world and the West? If so why? The issue then, presumably, is not the paternal work in the home, but some other correlate. Plus how much would you want to bet that most of those countries birth rates are heavily influenced by new migrants that don't split the labor in the same manner as the native populations.

[Gwendoline]

I'd be willing to bet in houses were men help out less with childcare and housework that the man works longer hours or is the sole bread winner.

[monorprise]

@Gwendoline that is how it works in my house

[Anonymous]

Such nonsense. It's impressive how you feminists (yes, we know you're a woman) twist data to paint whatever picture will best support your social agenda.

But of course, you leave out all the other details like the fact than men work longer hours than their female partners, men work more dangerous and demanding jobs, contribute significantly more financially, and do more of the other tasks around the home and yard that don't get classified as the "woman's work" you feminists include in your "studies".

But hey, thanks for the chuckle.

[Beckybooboo]

I'm confused. Are you talking "fertility" rates or "birth" rates? Your link says fertility rates but I question that study and would like to know where it came from. Also, you said, "it's not the economy stupid"! Then went on to talk about "government-subsidized child care"? That actually means it's related to the economy.

[Astarlessnightsky]

As the graph clearly shows, there is not much of a correlation going on, the amount of children is all over the place. and not a steady increase with the decrease of chores.

But yeah making the world better for kids and parents would definetely help, but there is more to it than just how the domestic chores are split.

[AnonAndrew]

It's a combination of different factors.

Trying to pin it down to one particular factor is a bit naive.

[exitseven]

It is all the crap that is in our food. The chemicals are making us all infertile.

[seeyounexttuesday]

Obesity, toxic food, microplastics in your balls, and a certain something that was hoisted on the public 4 years ago.

[Anonymous]

If anyone still had any doubt about the fact that you're a woman pretending to be a man on GAG, you just removed all of that remaining doubt.

[beefcakebradybatson]

Here in Canada, it costs almost $300,000 to raise a child from birth to age 18.

[NathanDavis]

I have no idea if I am fertile or not...

[Anonymous]

These charts are doctored. No pun intended.

[Dongie]

I like it!

[Dongie]

Lemme splain, it's the economy stoooopid!!

[Dongie]

Just kiddin' stu- teacher.

[MrTaboo]

destruction of family.