Anecdotally, the problem is much worse among those that contribute more in taxes than consume in public benefits. This is the real problem. Low-skill high-fertility immigration will not solve it. Child tax credits will not solve it. Welfare programs will not solve it. These problems all exacerbate the problem by growing the population below the net-income line. You may say that these people are more necessary or useful than those above, but that is a different debate.<p>Net-income-positive Americans are choosing not to be parents because the law is openly hostile to it. Some examples:<p>Child support: The <i>minimum</i> guideline is 33% of income for a single child, non-deductible. US/CA taxes take ~55%, so that leaves 12%. If you have a great tech salary of $150k, that leaves you with a living budget of $1500/mo. The only way to survive here on that is in your car. (I have done this. Not a career enhancer.) Meanwhile, nobody needs $4000/mo extra to raise a child, unless they are paying somebody else to do it. This is why women have a hard time finding mates. The only men that are willing to take that risk of relationship breakup are those with nothing to lose. It’s horribly dysgenic, and frankly awful for the kids it is trying to protect, because now they end up with a working mother and a deadbeat father, by design. And by the way, this is not a gendered issue. The first I became aware of it was by a woman that was forced to both give up her kids and pay her ex.<p>Child care: The licensing, certification, and insurance requirements have turned this into a human farming business. When I was growing up, kids just sort of roamed, and then the police started notifying parents that they had to send them to certified daycare, so my mom got the certification until some professional daycare moved in and started calling the inspectors any time we went outside to play in the woods. Now it’s much worse; daycare costs more than most jobs pay, and those with nothing to lose just ignore the law anyway.<p>The only way it makes legal sense to have children is if both parents are either on welfare, or part of an immigrant community that operates outside of the rules. My recommendation to my children will be to move out of the country immediately after graduation to a place that is more financially and legally family-friendly, then start finding a partner and having children right away. The opportunities for this decline much faster than any goals other than professional athletics.
The world is expected to have ~11B people by the year 2100. There are plenty of people even if some countries have declining birth rates. [1] Better immigration policies solve any problems that nations with declining birth rates might have but that requires having politicians that are willing to put aside xenophobic concerns to implement sensible immigration policies.<p>1: <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth</a>
Finally one of these surveys that even allows for the answer that people just aren't interested.<p>It is always hilarious how this sociology field only attracts people that think children are the most fulfilling thing they ever did and <i>everyone</i> else must want that so there must therefore be some <i>other</i> problem like economics.<p>Turns out the onion satire article was spot on<p><a href="https://www.theonion.com/study-finds-american-women-delaying-motherhood-because-1847112786" rel="nofollow">https://www.theonion.com/study-finds-american-women-delaying...</a>
The New York Times recently published this which I feel explains why a lot of my peers don’t want to have children.<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/20/style/breed-children-climate-change.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/20/style/breed-children-clim...</a>
I'm not having kids because kids suck and I'm doing my part to prevent climate change. I can look beyond the preprogrammed brain chemistry that tells you having kids was "the best thing that has happened to you in your life" as you lose 10 years off of your life in stress and all of your friends.
I’m surprised to see so few responses of the state of the world and climate change. huh.<p>Also, whats up with Pew’s sample? ~9,700 people 18+ in the sample and only ~3,900 are 18-49. Surely that should be the bulk based on demographics… or at least more than 40%?