It’s probably not selfishness, experts say. Even young adults who want children see an increasing number of obstacles.

For years, some conservatives have framed the declining fertility rate of the United States as an example of eroding family values, a moral catastrophe in slow motion.

JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, recently came under fire for saying in 2021 that the nation was run by “childless cat ladies” who “hate normal Americans for choosing family over these ridiculous D.C. and New York status games.”

Last year, Ashley St. Clair, a Fox News commentator, described childless Americans this way: “They just want to pursue pleasure and drinking all night and going to Beyoncé concerts. It’s this pursuit of self-pleasure in replace of fulfillment and having a family.”

Researchers who study trends in reproductive health see a more nuanced picture. The decision to forgo having children is most likely not a sign that Americans are becoming more hedonistic, they say. For one thing, fertility rates are declining throughout the developed world.

Rather, it indicates that larger societal factors — such as rising child care costs, increasingly expensive housing and slipping optimism about the future — have made it feel more untenable to raise children in the United States.

Non-paywall link

  • Dojan@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    141
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    3 months ago

    It’s probably not selfishness, experts say. Even young adults who want children see an increasing number of obstacles.

    Well, of course it’s not selfishness. Having children is a purely selfish act, because who else are you reproducing for? You can’t do something for someone that doesn’t exist, and bringing existence to someone who hasn’t asked for it, knowing what the world looks like, doesn’t strike me as a kindness. So who else is benefiting? The capitalist machine?

  • YaksDC@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    82
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    What about “I just don’t want one.” is that not a legitimate line of thought? That was what I based my decision on. I have never understood why the default state was marriage and then have a family. I can tell you that me and my childless wife are family.

    • nehal3m@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      53
      ·
      3 months ago

      I agree. The opening line is an insult to me. Why would choosing not to have children be selfish? Forcing someone to live a whole ass life because you want a family is the selfish thing to do, not the other way around.

    • blattrules@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      23
      ·
      3 months ago

      Agreed, I don’t know why people don’t understand that “I don’t want one” is a completely legitimate reason to not have one by itself. Add to that any level of depth you’d like to choose from financial, climate or political reasons to there just being too many people in the world already and it further legitimizes it, but “I just don’t want one” is and should be completely valid on its own.

    • noseatbelt@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      3 months ago

      Many people simply don’t understand the idea of not wanting one. I moved to a more conservative area shortly before I got married, and after I got married I got all the usual questions about kids to which I replied “lol no”. Then I was asked why I even got married. Bro, if I wanted kids, I’d have them and I don’t need to get married to do it.

    • bostonbananarama@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      The main question seems to be why is the birth rate declining. Presumably people not wanting kids have existed during all times. But even if we assume that there are more people per capita who don’t want kids, the question persists, why is that the case, and how much of the decline is attributable to it.

      • ampersandrew@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        3 months ago

        When women were almost always home makers, children were how they’d find fulfillment. Now they can have fulfillment from working careers. At least, this is one of the main reasons I’ve heard about long standing trends in birth rate decline. They predict that the human population on earth will peak between 11 and 12 billion and kind of just stay there.

      • YaksDC@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        29
        ·
        3 months ago

        I find that the people who spout so much about passing on their genes, or passing on their legacy or keeping the bloodline going. Are the people who you would least like to see pass on their genes. I find it to be the height of narcissism.

  • ccunning@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    74
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    I bet if the billionaires shared just a bit more we could afford to have more kids and they wouldn’t be looking at their labor force drying up…

      • Hule@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        3 months ago

        There’s the option of importing cheap workforce. It has been tried before… /s

        • kurikai@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          15
          ·
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          You forgot to add… While that imported labour is scared they will get deported so they don’t complain they are underpaid or taken advantage of. Just how the corporation’s want it

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    52
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    weird how all those tax cuts for rich people lead to them going on real estate purchasing sprees, making housing unaffordable

  • Jeena@piefed.jeena.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    52
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    I just downloaded the raw data from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.CBRT.IN and ploted it in this graph for the countries I was interested in:

    The USA is - according to the data - nothing special in this regard. It’s even positioned best of all the countries with the flattest downwards curve. Just look at South Korea :D

    • simple@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      3 months ago

      Wow, what happened to South Korea? I heard it was bad but I never realized they were worse than Japan.

      • Jeena@piefed.jeena.net
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        29
        ·
        3 months ago

        It’s a combination of many factors. It’s so extremely expensive to have children here because of how the society is structured and how competitive everything is. If you can’t afford to pay for after school for them to go to every day to and learn additional things they need but don’t get tought at public school, they have no chance to get into a reasonable University and end up with a shitty life.

        Another thing is the huge divide between men and women which is getting worse by the day. Men are bitching that women don’t want to date and marry them while not helping with the children or house work at all. So women don’t want to deal with all this shit alone and either get married to very rich guys who can provide a easy life for them or don’t at all and concentrate on their career instead.

        The government has poured in unbelievable amounts of money to try to fix it, but nothing is working so far.

        • samus12345@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          3 months ago

          I remember seeing a YouTube video that said South Korea’s culture combines the worst parts of East and West. The impossibly high standards of perfection of the East and the crass consumerism of the West, where you must have the most expensive things and look like a movie star or you’re looked down on. I don’t know how true it actually is, though.

          • Jeena@piefed.jeena.net
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            3 months ago

            When it comes to dating it is certainly quite true. One of the ways to get away from it is for men to find someone from a poorer Asian country and for women to also look even more west.

      • Hawke@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        3 months ago

        They’re not. Higher birth rates are not better when population levels are as high as they are.

    • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      3 months ago

      South Korea is also an interesting one because, IIRC, it’s currently in the middle of a social upheaval over the treatment of women and there is a movement to avoid dating/relationships in general amongst younger women.

  • Drusas@kbin.run
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    49
    ·
    3 months ago

    Because children are expensive, a ton of work, and the world is dying.

    Pick one or all.

  • Dorkyd68@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    44
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    Bruh I can’t afford to support myself let alone more mouths to feed. Children lol

  • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    38
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    Who are these articles for?

    Because it’s been the same reasons for a decade and the idiots who keep asking still aren’t reading them.

      • poVoq@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        17
        ·
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        Looking at some families around me, I would say it’s Boomers that are estranged from their own children and hope grandchildren will somehow fix that. And they are not completely wrong, as having children is such a bad economic proposition that it basically forces people to come back and beg their parents for support, but it’s all very one sided… typical Boomer mindset.

  • dhork@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    40
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    3 months ago

    I see two issues here. One is how expensive shit is. Having their own kids is the least of my kids’ concerns for their future. They are concentrating on being able to afford to leave the house after college, and start their own lives. When it is so hard for young people to start out, they’re not going to be motivated to have kids unless it’s forced upon them…

    … which brings me to my second point:

    “I want a baby boom!” [Trump] told a crowd of supporters. “You men are so lucky out there.”

    Men these days are super cringey. Half the country views Trump as the Alpha Male, a serial sexual predator. Politicians (who are predominately white and male) are all up in women’s business about their fertility. Is it any wonder why so many young women identify as non-straight these days? And why the traditional gender roles hold no appeal for them? Women have been getting the short end of the stick for millenia, and it’s only recently where they have had enough agency to not participate if they are not being treated well.

    You want women to have more babies? Stop treating them like shit, and manage the costs of everything so that having kids isn’t an economic death sentence.

    • Skua@kbin.earth
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      41
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      Is it any wonder why so many young women identify as non-straight these days?

      Doesn’t this imply they would be straight if men acted differently? I’m not sure a mass version of the “oh she’s not really a lesbian, she just hasn’t met the right man” thing is really the answer here

      I don’t think that you meant to imply this and the rest of your comment seems reasonable to me. That bit just stuck out

      • dhork@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        25
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        3 months ago

        You’re right, I’m looking for the right phrasing here.

        It’s not that these kids who identify as queer are temporarily embarrassed straight people who haven’t found their soul mates. But if you are a young woman these days, and all the men you encounter are incel brats, it’s quite easy to decide you want nothing to do with them. Women can do just fine on their own now, they don’t need a man for validation. Some of them might discover that, for them, sexuality is a spectrum, and they’ll be fine either way, but if all the men they encounter don’t respect them then that leads them in the other direction. Does that mean they would be 100% straight if they found a man who was compatible? They may not feel that way, but very few external observers would describe a woman who is with a man as anything other than “straight”.

        What I’m trying to do is point out that all of these self-described “Alpha Males” who complain about the fertility rate are themselves the problem, because they are so insufferable that women would rather be with anyone else than with them.

    • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      You want women to have more babies? Stop treating them like shit

      Nope. They want to treat women like shit and still force them to have babies. Once their female children are 12/13, they also want to marry them.

      I am quite sure that a Trump presidency would empower the Supreme Court to allow child marriage.

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    32
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    3 months ago

    Half of all Americans have less than $500

    4 out of 5 Americans have less than $5000.

    Cheap diapers are 50c each and you need a minimum of 5 a day, more often 10, so half of all Americans cannot afford one month of basic child care(diapers, food, checkups)

    1 out of 5 Americans have enough money to pay for the bare essentials so a baby can survive for more than a couple months.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/24/how-much-money-americans-have-in-savings.html

  • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    29
    ·
    3 months ago

    I love how the Republicans are blaming societal causes when in reality it’s because of fucked up a economy due to businesses price gouging the fuck out of everyone while also not paying employees a living wage, not giving raises to keep up with inflation, and more economic certainty. They don’t realize that not everyone is rich like they are. lmao

  • ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    29
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    remember when the 40hrs week made sense? gradpa could feed a family, have the life depicted in The Simpsons. that time is long gone and everybody too scared to change anything.

  • ZeroTwo@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    3 months ago

    Can’t afford one. Jobs don’t pay enough to afford one. They’re annoying. They’re shit machines. I prefer to have fun in life and do what I like more than take care of a kid.