Americans shrug over falling birthrate

We don’t need more slaves to capitalism.

And that is exactly what they're concerned about.
- And yet, not concerned enough to make the quality of life any better where people want to have children. Its like the greed is getting in the way of their ability to be more greedy in the future.
And a falling human birth rate is good for the environment
- Yeah as long as that loss in workforce isn’t replaced by massive AI computing. Corporations are far worse for the environment than people.
Ah, just noticed which instance this post was on.

A man working an average job used to earn enough to buy an average house and comfortably support his wife and kids.

Now you need two people in full-time work just to pay rent to the landlord.

The problem is inequality of wealth and the solution is make work pay.

No no, you're wrong. The problem is taxes are too high and the people on the absolute top don't get enough money. If we just make them a bit richer, the wealth will finally start trickling down on us.
Wait! I think I feel it trickling down right now!
Nope. Just piss. Again.
- And too many immigrants. Surely if we keep them out, all those low wage manual labor jobs will still get done, and our population will increase
- The problem is that we aren't sending enough money to the wealthy ... we need to send them more money because they haven't been able to trickle some back to us.
  /s sarcasm, this is sarcasm if anyone is wondering
- Urine luck!
Executives: AI is the answer. We'll replace people and won't have to listen to them whining about how hungry they are.

I keep hearing stories about falling birth rates, USA, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and on and on.
The articles often pose many questions about why younger generations dont seem to care about having kids, but very few articles actually say the real reasons:

Being able to afford a house or stable long term rent without either option competing for money to buy food or other essentials
Further to this the cost of a child once you can get by with enough money for the above
Climate change & future conditions for their children anxiety

The first one is the main reason we could afford to have kids.
We were able to buy our first house because of three things. First the housing market crash in 2008-9. My wife's car was totaled by a rich bitch in a Mercedes. Our rented duplex was robbed and we had renters insurance. The combination of insurance payments and cheaper prices allowed us to purchase our first home.
My house payment hasn't changed since 2009. It made up 36% of our take-home income then. Today it makes up less than 11%. I pay less per month than it costs to rent a 1 bedroom apartment in my area.
The older I get the more I see that landlords are a parasite on society. They extract huge amounts of wealth from the suffering of others.
- I bought an old home in ~2016, I'm 100% conditionally with the VA so was looking at fitting expenses to my budget. After recently upping my payment to pay it off for my 50th bday (36 now) its only $600/mo. $632 or something right now cause insurance sucks at the moment.
  Ive watched as people have gone from happy for me, to jokingly jealous, to jealous, to cranky jealous, to "I'm going to off you and steal your identity." 🤣
  This market sucks and we HAVE to get institutional investors out of housing. We HAVE to start building. In order to do that, we HAVE to stop this cultural bullshit of housing being the prime investment/retirement vehicle for Americans.
- Totally jealous, but I'm happy for you. I'm glad you get to own a home.
A big one is that pregnancy and child birth SUUUUUCK. Women finally have the ability to avoid it entirely, and I don't blame them.
- Honestly I don't think that's the biggest factor. I think a lot more people would be willing to go through the process of having kids, if they felt financially stable enough to properly care for them afterwards.
im not sure I would call the last point anxiety. As existential threats go its not like nuclear war. Which might or might not happen based on our actions. Its something that is definately happening and extreme good action by us might mitigate it but we by and large have been taking worse actions or at best our beneficial vs non beneficial actions cancel each other out. Heck even without climate change pollution alone has the same ending.
- "apprehensive uneasiness or nervousness usually over an impending or anticipated ill : a state of being anxious" -Merriam Webster
  Nothing about the word 'anxiety' implies that it's an unrealistic or irrational feeling. You might be thinking of phobias.
The real reason is more educated people worry to much, and less educated people just go for it.
- A lot of women I meet dating think there is no point to having a kid unless you can you are a 8 figure millionaire. it's absurd to me, since i grew up on a family income of like 30K.
- Too much? 🤣
education and healthcare costs too
Also, wouldn't increasing the population cause more inflation. Like if you look at Japans decline in Japanese born citizens it overlaps with the "lost years" of economic growth, which was a surprisingly stable period where depreciation ruled the economy... Prices for every day items were stable for decades on end.

Lol. How much does it cost to have a child in the hospital in the USA again? Oh, $18,865 you say? Huh. What if they need an ambulance to get there? Oh, $500 to $3000 depending on distance you say? And you say also that US Bureau of Labor and Statistics is letting us know that in four short years our grocery prices have risen 22.04% and are expected to rise another 5.11% per year indefinitely? Meanwhile corporate profits increase every single year and minimum wage has been stagnant for decades? Someone should get them quick!!! I think I figured out why no one wants to have babies anymore! I would like to also comment on how obscenely expensive daycare is and how fucked up it is we have to put children in school 40 hours a week just so we can keep working more than half our lives away but I feel like anyone reading this gets the idea. They will be begging your ass to have babies in the next 100 to 200 years if we make it that long and I'll bet you all those obscene expenses will be an even greater cost to income ratio then, too. I mean if birthrates are a problem you have to ask yourself are they just fucking stupid or just fucking greedy?

The future is bleak. The least I can do is not create another person to inflict it on.
While the cost of children, lack of support and stagnant wages are definately a factor, birth rates have declined even in countries where income inequality is lower and support for parents is higher.
It is not going to be an easy problem to solve.
- Its not a problem. A consistent population is much easier to plan for financially and socially.
For us and everyone we know it was under $200. I'm not saying that everyone is going to have our levels of insurance but you are greatly exaggerating.
The biggest cost by far is childcare hands down.
Edit: I know I know, a $2500 median out of pocket expense hurts everyone's head cannon.
- is this written into the law as covered before deductible and maximum out of pocket?

Hey GOP assholes, taking away bodily autonomy doesn't get you more babies.

you want more kids make houses affordable and give people time off from work.

If you want to further subjugate women so rich people can get away with more creepy sex crimes then you do what the GOP is currently doing.

Hey, falling birth rate means lots of empty houses. House prices will go down. Problem solved!
- Bullshit, we have lots of empty houses now because they are owned by corporations to pad out their balance sheets.

The capitalist class only cares about birthrate for productivity. Don't blame us for not caring about reduced productivity when most of us get a tiny fraction of the benefits of productivity. Also, what happened to all the shrieking about overpopulation? It's all just fearmongering to drive people to act in ways to benefit the capitalist class. I'm tired, leave me alone.

It's also dumb legacy thinking.
We're in the process of creating a labor force that threatens to put the majority of people already existing out of work such that we need to figure out how to restructure society in a post-labor era.
What the fuck do we need a high birthrate for?

I'd love to have kids. I think it would be wonderful to be able to be a foster parent as another option.

I can't afford it. Its impossible. We can barely afford living as it is. How the fuck am I supposed to raise a kid?

I'm shrugging at falling birth rates not out of indifference, but out of a lack of ability to do anything about it.

Hope? Things could improve, or at least hope that the next generation will be able to improve things. At the very least I see movement to try to do something about housing and college expenses. Maybe they’ll succeed. Renewable energy and electrification seem to be coming, regardless of active resistance. Too slow and too late, but maybe they’ll succeed. We’re in the middle of a wave of enthusiasm about high speed rail. Maybe they’ll succeed

Wealthy employers shrug over falling standard of living and lack of affordable housing and food

I can't understand why anyone would expect most people to want to have kids. I can hardly afford to take care of myself, things look like they're only likely to get worse, and all indicators are that if I did have kids, they would be facing an even worse future when they hit adulthood. Why would I do that to them?

I have kids. I love my kids, and being a parent is the best decision I ever made for myself.
I can't say I would recommend it, though.
- I am also a parent who dearly loves my daughter (it's her 14th birthday tomorrow!) but I don't want anyone to have kids who isn't willing to take the time and the effort and spend the money.
  No child should be unloved or neglected.

If young Americans had financial stability, better mental health, hope for the future, etc. I'm sure that birth rate would go back up.

It's not like people don't enjoy fucking anymore. It's just that they're more careful than ever not to reproduce, because they can't afford parenthood.

My kids don't want kids. I'm cool with that. It's not my decision and I'm definitely not interested in playing grandma daycare.

Neither me nor my sister really want kids, but my parents want to be grandparents. Makes for some awkward family dinners
- Lots of single parents out there with no support.
  Maybe we need a big brother/sister program, but for grandparents.
- The decision is much too big to let anyone pressure you one way or another. It's totally okay for you to want what you want, and it's okay for that to change throughout your life.
- Same, but they only want grandchildren as facebook sex trophies. No interest in babysitting or being supportive in any other meaningful way.
  They were able to raise children on a single salary without leaning on family for childcare, so why can't we? Surely nothing has changed over the last 30-40 years.

If politicians want people to have more children, maybe they could do something to make having kids less ruinously-expensive.

Even if I could afford to have kids (which I can't) or believed in forcing anyone to have to be alive without consent (which is impossible), there's no way I could ethically justify making somebody have to live in what is probably The last century ever of human civilization.

I'm very happy that I don't have kids. I still have no idea what compels people to have kids these days. They must not know the things I know.

Every now and then I see a parent having a tender moment with their child and I smile. I then reflect on whether my vasectomy/shirk of parenthood was the right choice.
I always come to the conclusion that it was. Perhaps when I'm older I will feel differently but I just can't imagine that in my life for a long time.
- having a tender moment with their child and I smile
  Worst case scenario for me is I go "kidnap" my niece and nephew for a weekend and get it out of my system.
Completely agree.
Look at an ocean temperature graph if you are even entertaining the idea of bringing new life into the world.

Fewer people means increased wages. Fuck em.

The only reason economists say immigration can offset falling birthrate. Is because the system is designed for low wages to keep the system running

I heard on NPR that every day, like 30,000 30 something's come into parenthood. Just imagine that number not getting a job, but having a single baby each.
- The problem with capitalism is you run out of other people's labour

As a species we have the tools, technology, education, knowledge, cognition, and intelligence to override an animal instinct to reproduce willy nilly. We're more than that now. People should know what it means to choose to have children and weigh the benefits vs the costs to their lives.

Have children when you want to and when it makes sense. If it doesn't make sense, then don't do it. Humanity will survive thinning down to many billions fewer humans sitting around consuming resources. A person who never existed in the first place because healthy adults decided to put their time and resources into something else shouldn't be lamented, but a choice respected.

My family has a long history of not having many children. Our family tree is one of marrying in people and then just not growing larger generation to generation. We have plenty of childless couples in the tree and they make the coolest aunts and uncles a kid can have.

Clearly your family has a long history of enough children since you’re here to talk about it.
I feel like the opposite. My grandfather was one of 13, my mom was one of six, I was one of four, but the next generation only has my two. So far the odds of one more generation are not looking good.
Sure, the world is overpopulated but that’s a short term problem. Every estimate has a peak within 50 years, then a drop. It would be better for us all if that drop were a slow decline to something more sustainable rather than steep, chaotic, disruptive, if the slow drop were uniform, rather than much steeper for some

Now let's see 2022 and 2023.
Edit. Oh wait! It's back down.
https://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/
The FAO Food Price Index* (FFPI) stood at 119.1 points in April 2024, up 0.3 points (0.3 percent) from its revised March level, as an increase in the price index for meat and smaller upturns of vegetable oil and cereal indices slightly more than offset decreases in those for sugar and dairy products. Although it registered a second monthly uptick in April following a seven-month long declining trend, the FFPI was down 9.6 points (7.4 percent) from its corresponding value one year ago.
- It's not back down to 2019 prices
  https://www.fao.org/images/worldfoodsituationlibraries/default-album/home_graph_3_may24.jpg?Status=Master&sfvrsn=ba07d6c5_113

Uh yeah, that'll happen when we are financially ruined for life and facing an ever worsening climate disaster because of greedy pieces of shit. If we can't reliably support ourselves, how can we support children?

Just what the fuck are we supposed to do with that???

There's over 300 million people in the US, I'm not at all concerned about falling birth rates.

Theme to lean into: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement

Get all your right wing nutcase friends to have more babies “for the cause”, then get all your left wing nutcase friends to have more babies because “oh noes, Project 2025”. Pretty soon your social security will be funded and you can retire in peace, far from either

Or instead of overpopulating we can increase immigration to fund social security without having to wait multiple decades.
Ha! I thought the plan was to kill off the workforce before they could reach social security.

That's fewer kids on my damn lawn! (shakes fist)

And more fucking! I wish I had done more fucking.

Don't play the game if it's rigged

You don't want to pay ever increasing prices on one of the most expensive undertakings a person (or couple) can do... An undertaking which may also act to increase inflation its self!?

Wonder how nice it would be not to put 0‐20% of your income into a 401k. Or the money I need to put into a HSA in case I get destroyed in medical bills. Or crippling student debt. Maybe that money could go into housing or children.

Definately not me. Im cheering it.

🤷‍♀️🤷‍♂️

Shrug©®™

Yours for only fordy-naaan low low payments of nanteen nandy-naaaan

We have an endless supply of illegal emigrants we don’t need to have kids.

It’s not endless. Birth rate is declining everywhere and standards of living are generally rising, meaning fewer people with incentive to uproot their lives for another place they’ll be treated as criminals. That flow could easily stop and any interruption switches us instantly from growth to serious shrinkage
Believe it or not, Earth's population is not ∞ and most of the people who live in places other than the U.S. don't plan to come to the U.S.
- It is endless enough for us. We literally need to put up walls and barbed wire to keep people out.
plastic is stored in the balls, my dude