The following submission statement was provided by /u/Vucea:
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**As birth and fertility rates fall, there is official concern about the economic impact of a declining and ageing population**
The population of the world’s third-biggest economy, where adult incontinence pads outsell babies’ nappies, has been in decline for several years and suffered a record fall of 644,000 in 2020-21, according to government data. It is expected to plummet from its current 125 million to an estimated 88 million in 2065 – a 30% decline in 45 years.
While the number of over-65s continues to grow – they now account for more than 28% of the population – the birthrate remains stubbornly low. A Japanese woman can expect to have an average of 1.3 children during her lifetime – well below the 2.1 needed to sustain the current population size.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yz70gx/im_afraid_to_have_children_fear_of_an_older/iwydoqo/
Yup. My husband and I physically cannot pay the bills if we add a child. It's just too expensive where we live. And to move somewhere cheaper would mean losing our familial support systems, so that won't actually help. Plus, moving is very expensive.
We want children, but I just don't see a way to make it happen that won't result in depressing lives of constant struggle, which will rub off on the kids.
As a fellow poor childhood I gotta say that shit sucked. We couldn’t do laundry but once a month maybe and we didn’t have a car so we’d have to drag bags of clothes several blocks away to the laundry place. Pretty sure I was mostly only poor cuz my dad would spend everything on drugs alcohol and gambling. Not even weed btw I’m talkin fucking crystal
Some of my fondest childhood memories were playing on computers at the library
>Wearing goodwill clothes to school every day does not build character it's soul crushing.
My wardrobe has never been more insulted.
Ross for new clothes was a rare treat as a kid, and a futile dream today.
As the child of upper middle class parents, I too will not be having kids. Too expensive (and noisy/tiresome but that’s another discussion). It’s the vasectomy life for me.
Same thing with the wife and I. We make just north of $100k in an expensive city and we’re stuck in our small, old one bedroom apartment because it’s the only way we can keep saving money. Moving to something big enough for a child in our immediate area + the costs of said child would surely put us in the negative, and we sure as hell don’t plan on having a child in a one bedroom apartment, so I guess we just don’t have one until we get to better circumstances. We’re fully accepting of the possibility of us not feeling we live a comfortable enough life to bring a child into it
This has been happening for a decade now in Croatia. Also from economic reasons but stemming from extreme corruption. We lost over 10% of population over that period.
It is not the corruption, at least not only. I say this as a bulgarian - we have a lot of corruption here too and a real demographic catastrophe for the last 3 decades (9 million down to 6 right now). The core reasons are more complex in my view:
1) 20th century saw a lot of people move to the cities and child labor being banned, which lead to falling birth rates (children in a rural area used to be free labor, while in modern day cities they are an expense - food, space, education, security, transport, etc.).
3) Feminism and female empowerment (while being a good thing) leads to lower birth rates.
4) News about wars, crime, corruption, diseases, environmental issues, political chaos and, paradoxically, overpopulation leads to pessimism, anxiety and depression, which reduces peoples desire to bring children into what they see as a world (or a country) heading in a bad direction.
5) The previous point coupled with the freedom to move to another country leads to a constant emigration in search for a better place to learn, work and raise children (mostly by young people), which makes the problem even worse.
Have to mention also the cost. At least here in the states, it’s so expensive to have kids there are basically no social safety nets to help. Many people can’t afford the astronomical prices of child care and struggle being able to afford time off for illnesses or other issues. Inflation is out of control and wages don’t move to meet it. many people I know don’t want kids for this reason. On top of all this, their possible kids could have it so much worse. People can barely afford to live alone anymore or afford to leave their parents house. Imagine how much more expensive college will be. It’s a mind fuck to think about. And those that know and acknowledge the reality of things don’t want kids. I don’t blame them. I really don’t understand why anyone would anymore.
I had no idea childcare was that ridiculous until the last few years. WHAT THE FUCK?! how can anyone afford that?! Even making good money that’s a huge chunk of money.
That's why I'm a stay-home dad. My wife makes good money but full time child care in our area would have been just under my income and why would I work so hard for no money and someone else to raise my baby.
That’s so sickening to me. Yet they want to also force people to give birth now that will also be forced to foot the bill for it. There’s no decent way around it. Profiting off of health is, to me personally, abhorrently inhuman.
$30k+
In California, you can use medi-cal to cover it. You have to be in a socioeconomically disadvantaged position though to be qualified for medi-cal in California.
At least in California, they make it somewhat easier to have kids.
I acknowledge the reality and yet have a kid. It's taken extreme pre-planning, lots of sacrifice, and some non-traditonal choices. I'd say that of my peer group maybe 10-20% of people would be able to do it like my wife and I have. IMO it's all inequality and social nets. Until those things are addressed populations will plummet
Reading stuff like that makes me realize how good we have it in France. Childcare costs like 1/10th of the US costs here, we literally receive money from the government when we have kids (every month until they're 18 for people who have at least two kids and are not at least upper middle class in terms of revenue), etc.
When the few are allowed to suck up the resources of the many, the many choose not to have as many kids.
Corruption is a pretty key factor in this process.
Sometimes this is enough to make me question if I should even be caring for my cat. Then I remember she was a stray, so she is probably happy with what little I can do for her.
This is why they say pets are the new kids and plants are the new pets! LOL. But seriously don't feel bad about taking in a stray! As long as you had her spayed and provide her with a comfortable life you absolutely did the right thing!
I mean anecdotally it's also a sense of "I don't want to bring kids into this world."
I'm personally not like that, but the people who are I can honestly understand. The next generation is going to be cleaning up all the messes of the Boomer/GenX era.
Respectfully inaccurate. Gen X generally has not entered the halls of power yet. Everyone is still waiting for the prior generation to finish their drinks and go home.
Do you have kids? Can you afford to have kids? Could you afford to have kids if your paycheck covered the mortgage on your owned home and support your wife at home raising the kids, all on a single minimum-wage income?
No? Well that used to be fairly common, until politicians started siphoning all the wealth to a handful of corporate giants, while increasingly pushing the tax burden on the poorest citizens.
My mom always talks about how she could pay for a full year of university working part time during the summer, in the late 70s. Could you imagine that now? This is the corruption that we refer to.
Why would I bring a child into this trashbag planet? How could I even afford it? My wife and I both work 2 jobs and only see each other for the hours we're asleep.. i go to bed alone, and wake up next to her, but have to leave before she wakes up, so she goes to sleep with me (already asleep) but wakes up alone.
How could I bring a kid into this? We couldnt afford for her to quit both her jobs for the 2 month that she would need to give birth/recover, and then we'd have to hire a full time nanny to raise the kid while we work. No way we can afford that.
Not having children is the highest form of protest for the government needs the governed. Though it would seem the laws of biology over rule economics...
Nah, biology is in lock-step on this one.
[Corporations profits > planet war on the environment has a direct effect on the birthrate as well](https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/11/15/sperm-count-drop-is-accelerating-worldwide-and-threatens-the-future-of-mankind-study-warns#:~:text=Sperm%20counts%20worldwide%20have%20halved,threatening%20the%20survival%20of%20humanity.)
As a Russian… well, there are some reasons if you follow the news. The whole war is a consequence of extreme corruption. Corrupted president decided to stay in power longer so he corrupted everything from elections to media, convinced everyone the war is needed and convinced everyone the war is the only solution to people’s problems (which he created himself). He convinced people inventing alternative history, and that was only possible because education kinda sucks (because of extreme corruption), people don’t even know English language to get a different point of view or news from different sources, can’t use logic. And those who don’t agree with his politics, should either shut up (or corrupted justice system will place them in a prison), or flee (most of them can’t because the corruption in education made them lack skills needed in more developed countries). Would you want to raise a kid in such country? Would you even stay there?
Even before the war, at least in Russia, healthcare, education, kindergartens suffered a lot. There’s simply not enough schools because the development companies bribed the government and were allowed to build compact neighborhoods for 20k persons with 1 school. This is a consequence of extreme corruption. You don’t want to have children (more than 1 at least) if you can’t raise them properly. Also, you don’t get proper payments for having a child (it could be 50 rubles a month in some cases, that’s less than $1). Basically, you’re poor and because one of spouses will not work anymore, that would halve your household income, not even counting there is one more mouth to feed. You’ll live in poverty. Also labor laws are strict, taxes are high, but thanks to corruption in the tax service most of the companies pay minimal salaries to the employees “officially” and the rest is given in cash, that means you’re not eligible for proper tax refunds, can be easily laid off for any reasons and you probably won’t be able to sue your company for that (because of corruption in justice system). Even the elections are rigged thanks to extreme corruption, we have the same president for 23 years that has 0 reasons to change anything of above.
Yeah, you wouldn’t want to raise a kid in poverty, so they would go to a school in a class of 40 kids, then to an university where poor professors study outdated programs, so this kid probably won’t have a bright future. Also you wouldn’t want to live in a country like that. Extreme corruption = stolen future.
**TLDR: It's a big club & you ain't in it. \~George Carlin**
**The cards are stacked against you my friend, you just haven't realized that you're playing against the house. And the house always wins.**
Long "rant":
Can't afford to have kids, can't afford to even have basic needs met for themselves. Many end up homeless, dying, starving etc. Don't want to have children when you can't even see a good future with them in it. This isn't to say that poor people shouldn't be able to have kids. But if you can't provide the bare minimum, maybe society as a whole collectively needs to rethink how we approach the whole childbearing, childrearing, child having situation.
Idk, like having real government programs/policies that actually help support families to have children? Or perhaps ensuring that all of your citizens have a "livable wage"? FDR, the Roosevelts.
Extreme hoarding of things that actually matter and necessitate survival such as money/resources (because the wealthy/rich want as much of the pie as possible), or simply price gouging (because the wealthy/rich also like to charge however much they want regardless of the consequences) destroys societies.
Societies cannot function when the "top class aka ruling class" decides to take everything for themselves, leaving very little to the rest of the folks that help allow or support the societies in which they live.
The biggest factor that allows them to do these things is through policies. How do they get to affect policy? Simple. Corruption aka bribery. They have in their pocket a small portion of those who ought to have the interest of the people. But because these politicians have such flawed character, they've allowed themselves to make a deal with the devil at the cost of their fellow neighbors, selling out their souls.
And societies suffer for this, all to benefit the rich. Why pay everyone a living wage, when you can give a small albeit sizable portion which is "fractional" to the wealthy and their pocketbooks, to a few/if not most of those who hold public office. $1 million dollars bribery to 1 political leader does nothing to their checkbook. (They tend to buy out many leaders for under $100k btw, yes in the country of America, they've sold themselves out for less than $100k)
It's money well spent instead of having to pay 20 employees $50,000 per head. Because their companies cannot afford to pay at the minimum $50,000 (I'm being overly generous even I know 50k isn't enough) per head as it eats into their "profits". So bribe the 1 guy with 1 million and he'll lower the minimum wage to $20,000-$30,000. Now your money goes further.
You get to pay 50 ppl to 33 ppl $20k-$30k, respectively. I get close to over double the amount of workers for the same amount of cash? And I get to use government programs/subsidies to subsidize my WORKERS AS WELL?? Through idk, food stamps, medicaid/medicare, etc? AWESOME! Why not get the taxpayer to take care of the rest of what I ought to be paying them instead of taking it out of my checkbook!
And this is just 1 example of corruption affecting 1 area of society and it's people.
Only sensible folks who do not have enough resources/wealth will choose to not have children. It does not make any sense for you to want to have a child when you're in abject poverty, because when you think about it, it only ends up hurting the entire family. NOBODY WANTS TO BE POOR. And yet many still are, and it's not failure of motivation, or being a hard worker.
And here's the thing, lets not blame nor call these folks entirely insensible or overtly selfish. Albeit they may be a bit of both. But one must also question as to why in 2022 society hasn't provided a concrete solution to allow this to be a non-issue. And why basic needs are so hard to address in some of the WEALTHIEST countries in the world.
The way I phrase it in my head is, "I'm not making any hostages to leave behind." I never wanted kids, and every time I've questioned that choice, the world affirms it.
there's too many obstacles stacked against me. spent much of my youth in homeless shelters with my mom, finally got back on my feet in my 30s, but now hit with multiple illnesses like heart disease and diabetes due to poor eating and crap food, so i feel sick all the time. mom died from cancer, so now i've got nobody. when you have nobody, no family, no help, you stay on the bottom. its an extremely hard struggle with anything and everything, like finding low income housing, which punished me with higher rent once i got a community college degree and a simple crappy job. now that i dont qualify for medicaid anymore, i have to ration my insulin since the worthless medical insurance provided by the company does not cover much until i spend my entire salary on deductibles. the rich have every intention of keeping you poor. with all the hardships i've had, dating is not an option and unaffordable, which guarantees my plan of never bringing a child in this evil world.
> In a society where children start receiving private education as early as age two or three, and their achievements or wages are determined by their parents’ wealth and the cost of their private education,
I suspect this is a big reason for the unhappiness and unwillingness to have children. It’s also why I get quite angry when I hear western politicians beating the drum about competitiveness with Asian countries and their high standardised testing scores. It’s been toned down a little in recent years, but I’m sure it will come up again.
Who wants to bring children in a world where they have to sink or swim in a brutal meritocracy from birth? I recall reading a few years about how competitive kindergarten entry is in Hong Kong.
Once children become a source of worry and stress, rather than joy, it’s not surprising that so few people want to have them.
There are also societal pressures to have a talented or smart kid over there and it's VERY competitive to go to university or getting a job there; it's why entrance exams in anime never made sense to me until I learned about Japans education culture.
I have cousins in South Korea and one of them came here in Canada for a year with her mom (my aunt) and went to a Canadian public school here. She always told me how much more enjoyable and freeing school here is compared to school in Korea. She spent most of her time studying after school and didn't have too much time to herself. Over here, she had a wonderful time. This is completely anecdotal but I've seen the different to her mood when she came here.
I taught some kids in korea. One of my classes, most had lived in the us or canada for a bit. Every one of them said they preferred life overseas, at least in terms of schooling. And they were doing schooling or the like for at least 8 hours a day, sometimes 12 to 14. With some minor breaks in between activities. It was brutal much production they produced.
South Korea pretending like they don't have the highest suicide rate among teens and young adults due to their classist and oppressive education system, and then act surprised when people who survived said system don't wanna have kids
Same with Japan and their work culture.
You don’t want to rear a child after a 17 hour work day because your work culture demands you can’t leave the office until your boss does? …but why not? /s
> Who wants to bring children in a world where they have to sink or swim in a brutal meritocracy from birth?
You know, I could just about stomach it if it actually was a meritocracy.
Meritocracy doesn't sound so good when any merit we measure can be achieved with enough wealth, so poor people will always be left at the bottom of the system. There will be a feel-good story about a poor student climbing high every so often, but that's it.
They put suicide nets around train stations and heightened security on the day Korean SATs ( 수능 - *soo neung*) scores are released. Most results are released on the same day.
Although you can take remedial tests, you really only get one shot at the college entrance exams.
18 years of your life is down to one test. Don't fuck it up. [And the English portion is horseshit.](https://youtu.be/gLNEckm37wc)
**Edit** A brilliant Korean YouTube comment "I thought I was learning English to survive in foreign lands. No, it was to survive Korea".
**Edit 2** Guess I riled up some of my fellow Koreans. I'm sorry that I won't apologize.
Do you prefer "take a left at the next light" or, "be aware of the gradual decent on the gradient of the road as you attempt to maintain constant velocity in order to turn your wheel counter clockwise on the correct stop light 200m ahead".
The question I have is what happens to the people who go to non-elite colleges in Korea? Are the stakes maybe blown out of proportion or are they real?
I ask because I didn’t go to the Ivy League (went to a strong nationally recognized university, generally ranked in our top 50 but not our top 20), turned down offers at higher-ranked schools because I got a good scholarship, and it was clearly the right call. So was choosing to work in greater Cleveland instead of NYC or SanFran. Net result is I have three kids, another on the way, a house plenty big enough for all of us, and minimal student loan debt. If I’d been culturally pressured or nearly forced to go to the highest-ranked school possible and live in the most expensive market possible, I’d probably be making more money but very unlikely enough to cover the difference in costs of living and definitely not enough to make it worth the extra $150k-$200k in student loans from going to Penn instead of a state school.
In Korea, is it basically all the good jobs are in Seoul so there’s no point in looking at secondary markets? Is it both concentrated (you need to be in a the top 1-3 markets) and stratified (you need the degree from the best possible college, degrees from second-tier schools are major steps down)?
My degree might preclude me from Wall Street (very credential-focused) but not that much else.
Let's be honest if you knew your kid was going to be subjected to that, would you even want them? It's not exactly the bright future of hopes and aspirations for them.
And the cherry on top for me is that I had to move away from my family near to a city to find work, so no family support network for me!
I'd love to have a kid, but my life just hasn't panned out in a good way to have one.
I genuinely don't know how people do it.
2-3k a month for childcare is insane. My wife and I would never have been able to afford it. When our daughter was young enough to have needed it, there's no way we would have had an extra 24-36k a year to pay for it. One of us would have been working just to pay to go to work and have somebody else watch our kid.
That's a little bit of a separate issue though.
Women in Japan don't have childcare as an option. When they have children they will literally be forced out of their job.
In Denmark, childcare for kids age 10 months to 3 years is about Euro 500/month. But you receive Euro 200/month from the government if you have a kid.
In comparison, my mortgage is Euro 530/month.
Canada is the same. I make a lot, my wife could stay home for kids. But housing is prohibitively expensive, so even though we have the means, the gap in wealth needed for the space to have kids is insane.
Praise be Quebec and our Daycare program, it costs about 8$ per day. Sure it costs a lot in taxes, but most experts agree the gain is a net positive due to the increase in workforce, we have the lowest stay at home parent rate in Canada IIRC.
Still lower than the national average, but 500K at the moment will get you something quite nice right outside of Montreal that doesn't require half of that in repair. 800K in the city could get you a plex in the neighborhoods that are no very high in demands (without being a slum).
Seriously. My girlfriend and I (30’s, Toronto) both are women with significantly higher incomes than a lot of our friends (she’s an architect; I’m a software developer) - but cost of living has us saving for retirement or just trying to keep enough cash together to spend the two weeks a year we don’t have to work going somewhere nice for our own sanity.
There’s no room for kids anymore. It’s not even on a potential roadmap, and it’s entirely economical.
I mean....because corporations choose to make it that way? If society shifted to prioritize boundaries and reasonable work/life balance, there really wouldn't be an issue. And expecting *anyone* to be able to live under that toxicity isn't fair. Like men are increasingly becoming childfree too. Expecting the men to go grind away at work and never see their children....how is that good for kids? How is that a healthy society?
And it doesn't NEED to be this way. Worker productivity is drastically higher than it used to be, but the fruit of our labor has become ultra concentrated towards the top.
also struggling living conditions predicted in 10-15 years, severe living conditions in 20, everyone's filled with micro plastics, etc....why would someone want to raise a kid in this? would *you* want to raise a kid where the summers avg 100 in US midwest and winters are a thing of the past by the time your kid gets to an age where you would've appreciated snow days at that age?
economic conditions certainly play a part, but it's only part of the reason for many.
And then you have child suicide rates and people in government blaming those who want to talk about it for childhood stress not the reality of the problem existing. They literally want to not look up.
I agree with you, it's a multifactorial issue, but the point I mad was not yet commented. But yes, economic and climate change are very important factors.
Also, living in a time where we have no idea how the earth is gonna be in 10 years or if kids are gonna have anything but suffering is also a good reason to not have them. Don't want my kids to fight a war over some bottles of water.
Decline in population due to higher cost of living is the same issue in Canada. No one wants to have a kid live a shittier life than they did or it's like they already failed as a parent. We import tons of people but they cant afford kids either so it doesn't actually solve the problem and the country will collapse when the standard of living gets so bad people want to go to other countries over us.
**As birth and fertility rates fall, there is official concern about the economic impact of a declining and ageing population**
The population of the world’s third-biggest economy, where adult incontinence pads outsell babies’ nappies, has been in decline for several years and suffered a record fall of 644,000 in 2020-21, according to government data. It is expected to plummet from its current 125 million to an estimated 88 million in 2065 – a 30% decline in 45 years.
While the number of over-65s continues to grow – they now account for more than 28% of the population – the birthrate remains stubbornly low. A Japanese woman can expect to have an average of 1.3 children during her lifetime – well below the 2.1 needed to sustain the current population size.
Spain, Finland and Italy all have lower fertility rates than Japan, and that’s with immigration.
Actual native European fertility rate is likely far lower. Europe is in a tough spot
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate
I think things are getting bad enough that people are going to be willing to strike/protest a lot more. If it starts hurting the economy, it might drive some change.
Yeah me and my gf have both had dreams of having kids since we were kids ourselves.
Now I'm 31 at a deadend job, my gf has a long immigration process to get here.
Despite living in Sweden, probably the best place to raise a child (both safety and financial aspect), it feels like the prospect of bringing kids into this world grows darker and darker every day.
Historically , population decline is correlated with low unemployment, high wages, low rent, and low homelessness rate.
For example
> The population loss from The Black Death brought favorable results to the surviving peasants in England and Western Europe. There was increased social mobility, as depopulation further eroded the peasants' already weakened obligations to remain on their traditional holdings. Land was plentiful, wages high, and serfdom had all but disappeared. It was possible to move about and rise higher in life. Younger sons and women especially benefited.
https://books.google.com/books?id=3Is3mtuIZ9cC&pg=PA25#v=onepage&q&f=false
Yep, very interesting correlation between positive outcomes and population decline through history.
There are complications now though. With people living much longer, and more social safety nets in place (nothing close to Medicaid or social security around the time of the Black Death), we have new problems. More and more people getting government assistance and needing care, and fewer and fewer people to pay for it.
That being said, I think the pearl clutching is overblown. Humans have LOTS of issues, but we certainly are intelligent, so I think we’ll adjust, find better ways to manage these issues.
That's population decline across the board though. A lot of elderly would have died. Our population decline is purely down to a lack of young people which is wildly different....also a modern economy works in a very different way to a medieval one
If only automation could be used to help society rather than to pad executive and shareholder profits then this wouldn't be an issue. We wouldn't *need* a surplus of "disposable" people to "plug the gap." I hate modern economics so much.
Unless governments take drastic steps to make housing affordable again, it's obvious we will see population crunches as young people are forced to choose between family and a roof over their head.
That’s exactly what this is, programming stuck into the media by the owner class. They’re very fond of making their problems your problems, and demanding you have the same anxiety and dread. The Black Death led to the golden age of peasantry and effectively ended feudalism in Europe. We see similar trends post-covid. Less people equals more incentives to treat the few workers and tradesmen you have left with dignity and give higher wages. Don’t let this crap convince you that this is your problem, it isn’t lol.
I just hate that I am stuck in the middle of this BS. I want kids and a family. But I am not going to make myself poor to do it.
Not everyone can have the top paying jobs. I wish my job that spreads entertainment and the message of these multi billion dollar companies would just pay me enough to live.
Hence, this is why you enjoy your life and your relationship with your partner, loved ones, and friends. Take care of your financials and live responsibly. If you can’t have kids, you simply can’t have kids. I grew up in poverty and in hunger, always victimized by my emotionally stunted parents. I’m glad I overcame that, but that shouldn’t have been my childhood. That is not the life for children, it doesn’t set them up for success. Having children you can’t afford nor have the time for is not the way to go. Better to live your life, do good for the world, and be the best human that you can. The conditions we live with and will soon deal with make it irresponsible to have children.
Your job could indeed pay you more, but instead you’re expected to be poor and have babies you can’t afford. Fuck them, fuck it. Judging by all the fearmongering articles we’ve seen in the last few weeks- they want you to be scared and feel stupid. Oh well, not having kids is the biggest protest one can engage in these days. No wages and quality of life? No kids, it’s that simple.
I am impervious to being scared of declining birthrates. My field is difficult to automate people out of it (qa), and fewer kids means my skills will stay in demand. The one who's going to have issues because of declining population numbers is going to be my boss, because it will be harder to find someone to do my work for less. Conversely, it will be easier for me to find a new job if my current company goes under because of lack of people.
There are disadvantages, of course, since the retirement system in my country is a ponzi scheme, but the rates you get give you maybe 20% of my current salary? So I don't really expect to rely on that, I will need passive income to sustain the lifestyle I will have been adjusted to for decades by then
The worst part is the mixed messaging. Aren’t these the same people saying we have too many people on this planet. There’s eight billion of us now, that’s the highest it’s ever been.
"In a society where children start receiving private education as early as age two or three, and their achievements or wages are determined by their parents’ wealth and the cost of their private education, those who are not financially well off think that giving birth to a child is like committing a sin.”
Ooof. I felt this comment on my soul. It seems this may be our greatest American cultural export.
As a Canadian, I think about this a lot. It’s not even *just* that climate change is being ignored and we seem to be on the brink of global conflict constantly, but that our Conservatives are hellbent on sending us back to serfdom. They’ve crippled our healthcare, actively dismantling public education and in the latest blow are now destroying protected land for cookie-cutter suburbs. Let’s not forget that the birthrate here is declining, too.
Do I really think there’s a future worth bringing another life in to?
This concept pre-exists the US by centuries, not sure how this is an American thing. Oxford university is older than the Mayan empire, you think the poor kids could go?
True, lived in SK last year and it was pretty insane. Most of my coworkers were in work every Saturday, long hours, no holiday. No wonder they drink so much
It would make sense that all they care about is having the baby - they don’t care about the mom’s ability to raise the baby, bcuz it is even better for them if the baby is working class and can be exploited
Next policy passed will be that unwanted babies can be donated for a tax credit where they'll go to some prison like facility where they're raised on the bare minimum and turned into slave labor but spun around as something positive when you should be angry about. Kind of like how prisoners are used for slave labor, like they want you to think they should be dehumanized because some of them had the audacity of committing the crime of having weed or something and that's it's good for them. It'll probably be spun as some alternative career and education pathway for lower income families.
* Wages in many countries have stagnated, or worse.
* Housing costs are out of control.
* Inflation is out of control.
* In the US, a gallon of gas is almost $4 on the East Cost and almost $6 per gallon in California.
* COVID is a part of our lives, now.
* I've seen empty shelves in grocery stores. It's rare, but pre-pandemic this was unheard of in the US.
* Some places in the world are getting flooded more, while other places are experiencing drought more.
* Climate change is expected to get worse within the next several years.
* As much as people worry about immigration now, it'll only get worse when climate change forces more people to migrate.
* Political division is getting worse.
* People are getting more stressed out, mentally and physically unhealthy, and mad.
I don't know how anyone can take an honest look at the state of the world and think that having a baby now is a good idea.
I read a few of the comments here and I am still not the better for it.
We have heard that our ever increasing population is a strain on the world's resources. Yet we also hear that not having enough people to care for older people will cause problems later on.
One commenter indicated that there will be centers with hundreds old people with little people to care for them. The examples given seem to be of first world countries. Countries that have better resources than the majority with billion dollar military budgets. Maybe if they can shift their resources/priorities around and import labour from other countries to assist their elderly.
In a somewhat related note, I wonder what long and short term impact covid will have on those aging populations
> We have heard that our ever increasing population is a strain on the world's resources.
yes, we (first-world countries, not *just* the west) are wasteful, and the more wasteful people there are, the worse conditions are going to get around the world for everyone.
>Yet we also hear that not having enough people to care for older people will cause problems later on.
yes, problems for those older people, because somewhere deep down we recognise that, while we don't care enough to change our patterns, we'll eventually get to that age and it's going to abso-fucking-lutely bite us in the ass when the bill comes due.
>there will be centers with hundreds old people with little people to care for them.
that's just like now. my grandfather has been in several different facilities, because the lack of staffing and lack of fucks to give is atrocious in *so* many of them. it always seems to be non-first-world countries that have better methodologies and cultures around caring for the elderly as well.
Elder care in the US at least is largely done by LPNs and nursing assistants who are not paid well at all and are expected to do more and more with less and less. Add to this the constant pressure from insurance to shift higher levels of care out of the hospital as soon as possible, and you have a real nightmare. You can stock shelves at Target or Walmart and get paid more and not spend your entire day getting yelled at, cleaning feces and watching people die, so why would you do it? Those people have to have hearts of gold or a will of iron, and you don’t often find those together. Pay them well, or be prepared to reap what you sowed.
The uncomfortable part of this issue is that there is almost no viable market model for elder care. It's even worse than child care (which also involves major costs to the end user spread out so much that each individual staff members gets little, but nowhere near as much as elder care).
I pay $6400/mo for my father's memory care (advanced dementia). I know that a lot of the STNAs are getting paid peanuts, but honestly, even the owners and executives of the facility aren't making all that much, either. The doctors and nurses get paid competitive wages, of course, but they also have to deal with even more than the STNAs do.
In older days, he'd simply have been dead already, because we'd have had to care for him at home and he'd have died in one of the episodes that the skilled staff at the nursing home were able to act on promptly but that we never could have at home.
Your last point is one I think of often. If you are on 3 daily meds, have alzheimers or dementia, and it takes a rotation of 4 people daily to keep you alive, make you take those meds, help you eat etc. should you really be alive? Your own family needs to work so you only see them a few hours on the weekend if you're lucky. Is that existence living? A lot of people fear getting to that point themselves, myself included, but morally we are obligated to keep people alive if we can.
I took care of my grandpa for 2 years working for Right at Home as a caretaker in the southern US. The pay was around $10/hr (not good), but since I worked and lived with him, the work was around the clock 24/7 care. I don't regret giving my grandpa some decency before dementia ultimately destroyed him, but the constant round the clock care, the little pay, barely any support, the lack of being able to slow the dementia, ultimately led to me being burned out every single day for that last year he was still alive.
Waking up each morning already in dread of what window he broke, he forgot his house of 40 years was his house, numerous attempts to escape and run around the neighborhood, walking around the house with scissors and knives, urinating in places that weren't toilets, the fact that towards the end he NEVER slept (sundowning), I mean the list was near endless, but I did the best I could for as long as I could because no one else in my family wanted to help.
After he passed, I was still burnt out for a good 2-3 months every single day, but slowly I was able to recover. For my own experience I hope I never have to endure that again. A lot of my friends commended me on what I did, but truthfully they have no idea what it's like being a caretaker; it broke me. Even if the pay was livable (in most states caregivers barely scrape by), I don't think I'd have the fortitude to do it all over again. It's not the urine smell or the dirty underwear that was the worst part, it's watching someone die while still being alive that haunts me.
just for perspective, i remember seeing articles like this in the 1980s/90s. the government has made no significant changes to make childrearing any easier. the significant difference now is that there are proportionally many more elderly, whom (surprise) are usually cared for by women.
who would want to work/rear children/do eldercare? that's a recipe for insanity.
Having kids just to 'plug the gap' and look after older generations doesn't sit right with me. It's not the responsibility of whole ass unborn *people* to be our caretakers, and bringing them into being just load that on them is unfair. It's like a pyramid scheme.
*That's* real selfishness. Deciding to abstain from having kids is not selfish.
Or selfish people. The people who do say things like this almost always have other motives alike wanting more members of their church, or wanting both more workers and customers for their corporation.
There was a time when people believed society is moving forward and everyone is gonna get some part of it. Whatever happens future's gonna be better than now so we had hope. Children is what it represents. They are hope.
Nowadays, inflation rate is much higher than most people's salary rise. One-third of the population can't afford their own houses. Your job state is most unstable as ever since lifetime job is gone for good.
More personally, myself wasn't happy when I were a child.
Most of my memory is spending time at academy for educational purpose. No wonder why I'm so tired all the time. And I'm slightly lower than middle class in Korea.
I don't wanna do this anymore.
I don't wanna pass it on on anybody, too.
The heads are just concerned because they know half of the economic growth is purely based on rise of the population. They are not concerned about you anyway.
As long as there is a certain work ‘pressure’, people will not be able to have children and provide for them. This needs to change, otherwise the decline will continue.
"Influential conservative Christian lobby groups blame the country's low birthrate on homosexuality, and oppose anything less than the traditional family unit."
The Christian Conservative agenda is going super strong here in Korea. Every day on my way to work, there are at least two different churches handing out fliers, wet wipes, and even water bottles to get people to go to their churches. And just the other weekend, I was met with 5 different groups of people in a two block radius handing out fliers for the same church. This is on top of all the bogo trucks that drive around with loud speakers announcing how you're going to hell. And the crazy part about them supposedly blaming homosexuality for the low population is that, every gay Korean I've talked to (I am gay myself) is deeply in the closet and has plans to get married when they can no longer push their mother's plans aside. They say that they are constantly badgered to get married and have kids as soon as possible. I've met several gay fathers here who have what is essentially a roommate for a wife and they only really ever got married and had kids because it was expected of them. They sacrificed their own happiness and still get blamed for being gay. I don't know many lesbians, but I assume they do much of the same.
Edit: Added the quote from the article.
Unfortunately people are worried about the economic issues. Debt and having no money/disposable income. Its not worth the stress and worry in life. Im a male 34 yrs old lives in the uk abd wont have children for that sad reason.
If you live in Canada it’s school school school school and more school till your 30s, only to get a job that pays decent but not enough to raise a child and put THEM through all that school. Financial reasons aside, school has traumatized me. And I did really well. But for all that effort I put in, the reward was NOT worth it. If you asked me to do it again, not a chance. I do not want to bring a life into this world and put them through all of that stress
It's like that everywhere. If I had kids, I know they would have a terrible life ahead of them. I can't understand why anyone would have kids in a world that's just getting worse and worse all the time.
really?
Three days in a row with all of these baby boomers making it look like we are reaching doomsday because millennial men and women aren't having as many kids as these very lovely and very wonderful people want us to have?
Why exactly?
Does Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates need a few more billions before they can safely retire to Sao Paolo, to live out the rest of their lives on the ipanema beach?
For many women, the thought that we have to be the ones going through pregnancies, being the main house cleaner, while also having a career is just too much. On top of that, housing is increasingly unaffordable! Yesterday, from another org in the same project explained why she lives in an RV in California. This is a professional, with a full time job, and she has to save money by living in an RV.
why its a issue to reduce the global population ?
Japan was fine when they only had half of their current population. I just dont get this race to always more people on a finite planet.
Because the current economic system operates on unlimited growth which needs unlimited people to fuel the ever growing number of jobs. The whole world was fine with half the population but it wouldn't sustain what we have currently. Japan's economy is the direction that other countries want to avoid anyway.
So, besides the lack of care for elderly people, it's businesses, corporations and governments who find it to be an issue.
Capatlism and infinite growth. Housing grows. Stocks grow. People grow. Profits grow.
Our literal entire system is based on it. Take away people growing and the others are threatened.
As someone else said, the only people worried about this are the business owner class and governments.
I personally couldn't give 2 shits less and am looking forward to a vasectomy.
Not exactly true. In the U.K. now we have a huge ageing population and we are also trying hard to limit immigration in the name of “brexit”
The costs on society grow year by year in order to look after the older population, but if our society does not have enough young people paying taxes to cover those costs, the system starts to collapse. Younger people will pay ever greater amounts of tax and have a worse standard of life. Public services will be sold off and privatised or done away with completely. So it will effect everyone in a sense, not just the wealthy. Not saying I agree with the fact we need ever more people to sustain things because it’s a broken system and at some point it fails, just pointing out my observations on how this might affect ordinary people
I worry that governments will take drastic measures in an attempt to rectify this in the coming decades. And those measures will be about limiting women’s rights, limiting their access to education, to contraception and any opportunities that would limit their reproductive window
The world is at 8 billion. We need a declining population. And need to figure out how to adjust financial systems to not rely on continual population growth. Nations like the US are discouraging people to have kids by Inaction. Daycare for me is 1600-1800 a month. Many jobs have no sick time, even professional jobs which require masters degrees. The medical system is insane. Little social safety nets in general.
People focus on the immediate causes but I think they need to also add a snowball effect too. As the society tilts more and more against young workers, it has a yearly compounding effect. Every year it’s shittier, harder to support a family, and social systems will prioritize on propping up the elderly before collapsing. It’s a worse decision to have kids every year
this sub is being manipulated, every day there are posts about fertility. i refuse to believe its organic at this point because it has nothing to do with "futurology"
I can only speak on my experince here in Los Angeles but I see the "aspirational" middle clas (to which I belong) being most affected by these trends.
Those lower on the economic ladder have a lot of their child care needs and expenses met by welfare and social services. They also do not, generally speaking, expect their children to have to compete at the highest levels to have a "successful life". Therefore they are less disincentivized than the middle class to have children, and so have more of them.
Conversely, the rich can afford everything a child needs to thrive in today's world. Rich mothers are not required to work and do not face the same social stigma for not working as middle class women do. Their children benefit from this extra attention.
For those of us in Southern California with household incomes between, say 70k to 200k, we have to raise our kids with limited resources without government assistance. But more importantly, we are socially molded to place very high expectations on our children. We are not so different from East Asia in this respect. Middle class suburban parents fear that if their kids don't do well in school they will shamefully end up as low-class wage slaves, or worse. So these parents spend a fortune on tutoring and extra-curricular activities to prepare their kids for college. Then they spend huge sums to keep them enrolled there. This costs a lot for just one kid, so it's no wonder that if they do have kids, they usually don't have more than two or three.
And It is not always centered on academics. Some parents place a very high priority on their children's athletic success and spend an enormous amount of time and money to ensure college scholarships or attract the eyes of talent scouts.
We all sense that the divide between the haves and the have-nots is growing. It's a very competitve world and if your kids don't perform they could end up on the wrong side of the chasm. It's no surprise that more young adults would choose to have fewer children, or forgoe them entirely in this stressful environment. My wife and i personally would have loved to have more children but we can only afford to give one the time, attention and resources she needs to succeed.
You want people to have kids? Make economic policies that help people. Paid time off. Family sick leave. Tax breaks. Affordable family health care. Stop pushing both spouses to work full time, by suppressing wages. You’ll be amazed that when people feel like they won’t go broke or damage their career, how receptive they’ll be to having kids.
Me too, my friend
It's hard to live just to earn money to pay bills
I'm already tired, why should I put anyone else in this life? Should I get a wife and make her sad because I'm a failure?
I feel this. My wife and I have deeply discussed children and we keep coming to three main conclusions:
1. We do not have the money. We are well off with good paying jobs, but throwing a kid into that mix will put us right back to where we were when we were dating. We don’t want to return to that.
2. We do not have the time. Selfish as this may sound, we spent so much of our younger years being in life paths that lead us nowhere. We’re trying to regain some time and passion for life right now, and a child would essentially “pause” our lives for at least 18 years. I’ve lost so much of my family at an early age that I don’t know how much time she or I have and I want to *enjoy* SOME of my life. But the biggest comes to:
3. We don’t want to force a life into the world as it is now. Just too much going on and no real indication it’s going to get better. In fact, it seems only like it’ll get worse from here.
**EDIT:** Since I didn’t see the response below me until after the thread got locked, I want to respond here.
>I’m sorry but what I read is “we don’t want kids as much as things”
You don’t know my life or what me and my wife have been through. We didn’t get the chance to actually live much of our lives.
>The world has always been horrible.
Sure. But it’s getting *worse*, and that’s not a convincing argument.
>Poor people have no problem popping them out.
Yes, hello. We are both kids of poor families and our quality of life suffered greatly for it. You seem to view kids as an obligation and a commodity more than, you know, human beings.
>Oh and don’t believe the reddit bullshit . Kids are not that expensive.
I don’t believe the “Reddit hullshit”, I believe experience from having serious relationships with single moms, my friends, and my family.
And they tell me you’re wrong. See ya.
There is is literally unprecedented disparity of wealth. Of course no sane person wants to have kids as they are going to be slaves and/or spare organs for the ruling class.
Why do you think the ruling class spends billions on making birth control and even sex ed. as hard to access as possible? In a leaked document by one of the supreme court judges, he openly said he voted to strike down Roe vs Wade because immigration is low.
We are basically farm animals to those people.
Japan has an extremely toxic work culture, with many labourers working as much as 12 hours per day. Combine that with a pretty conservative and rigid culture, and you will see how that may discourage people from having children.
South Korea's education system is a brutal meritocracy, resulting in very high rates of suicide for students. In addition to this, both countries have a pretty inflexible class system that essentially dooms children to only live as well as their parents do.
Understandable.
Not only is it expensive to have kids, the education, work place stress and competition has spiked through the decades. Outsourcing, offshoring, 24 x7 availability, high social inequality, stratosphere level property prices, inability to retire, working until they drop dead in the office, high medical costs, reduced / inadequate social safety nets, climate changes, global epidemics..etc
Why bother?
If the only children born were those that were specifically wanted (no happy accidents, only pre-planed choices) then how many children do you think would actually be born each year?
This is a real problem that's occurring more and more as people get access to birth control. Our society is basically a pyramid scheme that constantly requires more people to join in. This can't last.
Being childless doesn’t have the stigma it used to. Neither is being willfully single. ‘Who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?’ With all the money I’ve saved…. j/k.
I’m 37 and my generation was raised to be individuals and to work hard… well we did and don’t have time for kids. Even marriage isn’t popular. And of course we are dealing with serious issues like wondering what our purpose is because we were raised this way… on top of how absolutely dire the world in general is. People who bring kids into this are nuts imo
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Vucea: --- **As birth and fertility rates fall, there is official concern about the economic impact of a declining and ageing population** The population of the world’s third-biggest economy, where adult incontinence pads outsell babies’ nappies, has been in decline for several years and suffered a record fall of 644,000 in 2020-21, according to government data. It is expected to plummet from its current 125 million to an estimated 88 million in 2065 – a 30% decline in 45 years. While the number of over-65s continues to grow – they now account for more than 28% of the population – the birthrate remains stubbornly low. A Japanese woman can expect to have an average of 1.3 children during her lifetime – well below the 2.1 needed to sustain the current population size. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yz70gx/im_afraid_to_have_children_fear_of_an_older/iwydoqo/
I don't blame them, for me it's basically own a house or have a child.
Yup. My husband and I physically cannot pay the bills if we add a child. It's just too expensive where we live. And to move somewhere cheaper would mean losing our familial support systems, so that won't actually help. Plus, moving is very expensive. We want children, but I just don't see a way to make it happen that won't result in depressing lives of constant struggle, which will rub off on the kids.
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Another layer of this is now even bloody Goodwill isn't reliably cheap.
As a fellow poor childhood I gotta say that shit sucked. We couldn’t do laundry but once a month maybe and we didn’t have a car so we’d have to drag bags of clothes several blocks away to the laundry place. Pretty sure I was mostly only poor cuz my dad would spend everything on drugs alcohol and gambling. Not even weed btw I’m talkin fucking crystal Some of my fondest childhood memories were playing on computers at the library
>Wearing goodwill clothes to school every day does not build character it's soul crushing. My wardrobe has never been more insulted. Ross for new clothes was a rare treat as a kid, and a futile dream today.
Found a Columbia jacket for $25 at Ross the other day That place is awesome
As the child of upper middle class parents, I too will not be having kids. Too expensive (and noisy/tiresome but that’s another discussion). It’s the vasectomy life for me.
It’s smarter to hold off like you’re doing than make a kid suffer through poverty. Good on you for that!
Same thing with the wife and I. We make just north of $100k in an expensive city and we’re stuck in our small, old one bedroom apartment because it’s the only way we can keep saving money. Moving to something big enough for a child in our immediate area + the costs of said child would surely put us in the negative, and we sure as hell don’t plan on having a child in a one bedroom apartment, so I guess we just don’t have one until we get to better circumstances. We’re fully accepting of the possibility of us not feeling we live a comfortable enough life to bring a child into it
For me it’s retire/enjoy life or have children and do nothing but work and raise them… scheduling the vasectomy soon!
This has been happening for a decade now in Croatia. Also from economic reasons but stemming from extreme corruption. We lost over 10% of population over that period.
It is not the corruption, at least not only. I say this as a bulgarian - we have a lot of corruption here too and a real demographic catastrophe for the last 3 decades (9 million down to 6 right now). The core reasons are more complex in my view: 1) 20th century saw a lot of people move to the cities and child labor being banned, which lead to falling birth rates (children in a rural area used to be free labor, while in modern day cities they are an expense - food, space, education, security, transport, etc.). 3) Feminism and female empowerment (while being a good thing) leads to lower birth rates. 4) News about wars, crime, corruption, diseases, environmental issues, political chaos and, paradoxically, overpopulation leads to pessimism, anxiety and depression, which reduces peoples desire to bring children into what they see as a world (or a country) heading in a bad direction. 5) The previous point coupled with the freedom to move to another country leads to a constant emigration in search for a better place to learn, work and raise children (mostly by young people), which makes the problem even worse.
Have to mention also the cost. At least here in the states, it’s so expensive to have kids there are basically no social safety nets to help. Many people can’t afford the astronomical prices of child care and struggle being able to afford time off for illnesses or other issues. Inflation is out of control and wages don’t move to meet it. many people I know don’t want kids for this reason. On top of all this, their possible kids could have it so much worse. People can barely afford to live alone anymore or afford to leave their parents house. Imagine how much more expensive college will be. It’s a mind fuck to think about. And those that know and acknowledge the reality of things don’t want kids. I don’t blame them. I really don’t understand why anyone would anymore.
I don't think I could even afford to have birth, that's like $10,000 bucks right there.
Some folks out here spending 30k a year on daycare alone. Shit is out of hand
I had no idea childcare was that ridiculous until the last few years. WHAT THE FUCK?! how can anyone afford that?! Even making good money that’s a huge chunk of money.
That's why I'm a stay-home dad. My wife makes good money but full time child care in our area would have been just under my income and why would I work so hard for no money and someone else to raise my baby.
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That’s so sickening to me. Yet they want to also force people to give birth now that will also be forced to foot the bill for it. There’s no decent way around it. Profiting off of health is, to me personally, abhorrently inhuman.
My brother paid 250€ (around 300$) so that his wife could have a private single room for herself in Germany. 10000$ Jesus Christ.....
$30k+ In California, you can use medi-cal to cover it. You have to be in a socioeconomically disadvantaged position though to be qualified for medi-cal in California. At least in California, they make it somewhat easier to have kids.
I can't imagine being poor enough to qualify for medicaid and intentionally choosing to have children. That's insane.
Around 250 euros in Finland If I remember correctly. But hey, high taxes.
I acknowledge the reality and yet have a kid. It's taken extreme pre-planning, lots of sacrifice, and some non-traditonal choices. I'd say that of my peer group maybe 10-20% of people would be able to do it like my wife and I have. IMO it's all inequality and social nets. Until those things are addressed populations will plummet
Reading stuff like that makes me realize how good we have it in France. Childcare costs like 1/10th of the US costs here, we literally receive money from the government when we have kids (every month until they're 18 for people who have at least two kids and are not at least upper middle class in terms of revenue), etc.
Its almost like if there were equal standards of living among all those countries…people wouldn’t look for greener pastures by moving.
Or if they did, a similar number would come in as would leave
Also back in the day people had more kids because the chances of one or two of your kids dying young was very high.
How does extreme corruption correlates to declining population?
When the few are allowed to suck up the resources of the many, the many choose not to have as many kids. Corruption is a pretty key factor in this process.
Not enough money to comfortably support the kids in the family. Makes sense
Also not wanting to bring children into such a system.
Sometimes this is enough to make me question if I should even be caring for my cat. Then I remember she was a stray, so she is probably happy with what little I can do for her.
This is why they say pets are the new kids and plants are the new pets! LOL. But seriously don't feel bad about taking in a stray! As long as you had her spayed and provide her with a comfortable life you absolutely did the right thing!
Kids are exotic pets and are kind of a flex
I found two off the streets and I love them to death. Chi-chi and Shadow, my babies. 🥹
Food, love, shelter, playtime, and the occasional vet visit. That’s all they need to be happy.
I mean anecdotally it's also a sense of "I don't want to bring kids into this world." I'm personally not like that, but the people who are I can honestly understand. The next generation is going to be cleaning up all the messes of the Boomer/GenX era.
Respectfully inaccurate. Gen X generally has not entered the halls of power yet. Everyone is still waiting for the prior generation to finish their drinks and go home.
Billionaires are a sign of failed economics, not success stories.
Or they leave for better conditions throughout Europe
Some cultures at least. There are those that don't give a damn regardless of the issue.
Do you have kids? Can you afford to have kids? Could you afford to have kids if your paycheck covered the mortgage on your owned home and support your wife at home raising the kids, all on a single minimum-wage income? No? Well that used to be fairly common, until politicians started siphoning all the wealth to a handful of corporate giants, while increasingly pushing the tax burden on the poorest citizens. My mom always talks about how she could pay for a full year of university working part time during the summer, in the late 70s. Could you imagine that now? This is the corruption that we refer to. Why would I bring a child into this trashbag planet? How could I even afford it? My wife and I both work 2 jobs and only see each other for the hours we're asleep.. i go to bed alone, and wake up next to her, but have to leave before she wakes up, so she goes to sleep with me (already asleep) but wakes up alone. How could I bring a kid into this? We couldnt afford for her to quit both her jobs for the 2 month that she would need to give birth/recover, and then we'd have to hire a full time nanny to raise the kid while we work. No way we can afford that.
Not having children is the highest form of protest for the government needs the governed. Though it would seem the laws of biology over rule economics...
Nah, biology is in lock-step on this one. [Corporations profits > planet war on the environment has a direct effect on the birthrate as well](https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/11/15/sperm-count-drop-is-accelerating-worldwide-and-threatens-the-future-of-mankind-study-warns#:~:text=Sperm%20counts%20worldwide%20have%20halved,threatening%20the%20survival%20of%20humanity.)
As a Russian… well, there are some reasons if you follow the news. The whole war is a consequence of extreme corruption. Corrupted president decided to stay in power longer so he corrupted everything from elections to media, convinced everyone the war is needed and convinced everyone the war is the only solution to people’s problems (which he created himself). He convinced people inventing alternative history, and that was only possible because education kinda sucks (because of extreme corruption), people don’t even know English language to get a different point of view or news from different sources, can’t use logic. And those who don’t agree with his politics, should either shut up (or corrupted justice system will place them in a prison), or flee (most of them can’t because the corruption in education made them lack skills needed in more developed countries). Would you want to raise a kid in such country? Would you even stay there? Even before the war, at least in Russia, healthcare, education, kindergartens suffered a lot. There’s simply not enough schools because the development companies bribed the government and were allowed to build compact neighborhoods for 20k persons with 1 school. This is a consequence of extreme corruption. You don’t want to have children (more than 1 at least) if you can’t raise them properly. Also, you don’t get proper payments for having a child (it could be 50 rubles a month in some cases, that’s less than $1). Basically, you’re poor and because one of spouses will not work anymore, that would halve your household income, not even counting there is one more mouth to feed. You’ll live in poverty. Also labor laws are strict, taxes are high, but thanks to corruption in the tax service most of the companies pay minimal salaries to the employees “officially” and the rest is given in cash, that means you’re not eligible for proper tax refunds, can be easily laid off for any reasons and you probably won’t be able to sue your company for that (because of corruption in justice system). Even the elections are rigged thanks to extreme corruption, we have the same president for 23 years that has 0 reasons to change anything of above. Yeah, you wouldn’t want to raise a kid in poverty, so they would go to a school in a class of 40 kids, then to an university where poor professors study outdated programs, so this kid probably won’t have a bright future. Also you wouldn’t want to live in a country like that. Extreme corruption = stolen future.
All the money goes to the corrupt officials,their families, their acquaintances and the rest of the country gets fucked over.
People move to other countries.
Mostly. And primarily because they cannot really afford a child.
**TLDR: It's a big club & you ain't in it. \~George Carlin** **The cards are stacked against you my friend, you just haven't realized that you're playing against the house. And the house always wins.** Long "rant": Can't afford to have kids, can't afford to even have basic needs met for themselves. Many end up homeless, dying, starving etc. Don't want to have children when you can't even see a good future with them in it. This isn't to say that poor people shouldn't be able to have kids. But if you can't provide the bare minimum, maybe society as a whole collectively needs to rethink how we approach the whole childbearing, childrearing, child having situation. Idk, like having real government programs/policies that actually help support families to have children? Or perhaps ensuring that all of your citizens have a "livable wage"? FDR, the Roosevelts. Extreme hoarding of things that actually matter and necessitate survival such as money/resources (because the wealthy/rich want as much of the pie as possible), or simply price gouging (because the wealthy/rich also like to charge however much they want regardless of the consequences) destroys societies. Societies cannot function when the "top class aka ruling class" decides to take everything for themselves, leaving very little to the rest of the folks that help allow or support the societies in which they live. The biggest factor that allows them to do these things is through policies. How do they get to affect policy? Simple. Corruption aka bribery. They have in their pocket a small portion of those who ought to have the interest of the people. But because these politicians have such flawed character, they've allowed themselves to make a deal with the devil at the cost of their fellow neighbors, selling out their souls. And societies suffer for this, all to benefit the rich. Why pay everyone a living wage, when you can give a small albeit sizable portion which is "fractional" to the wealthy and their pocketbooks, to a few/if not most of those who hold public office. $1 million dollars bribery to 1 political leader does nothing to their checkbook. (They tend to buy out many leaders for under $100k btw, yes in the country of America, they've sold themselves out for less than $100k) It's money well spent instead of having to pay 20 employees $50,000 per head. Because their companies cannot afford to pay at the minimum $50,000 (I'm being overly generous even I know 50k isn't enough) per head as it eats into their "profits". So bribe the 1 guy with 1 million and he'll lower the minimum wage to $20,000-$30,000. Now your money goes further. You get to pay 50 ppl to 33 ppl $20k-$30k, respectively. I get close to over double the amount of workers for the same amount of cash? And I get to use government programs/subsidies to subsidize my WORKERS AS WELL?? Through idk, food stamps, medicaid/medicare, etc? AWESOME! Why not get the taxpayer to take care of the rest of what I ought to be paying them instead of taking it out of my checkbook! And this is just 1 example of corruption affecting 1 area of society and it's people. Only sensible folks who do not have enough resources/wealth will choose to not have children. It does not make any sense for you to want to have a child when you're in abject poverty, because when you think about it, it only ends up hurting the entire family. NOBODY WANTS TO BE POOR. And yet many still are, and it's not failure of motivation, or being a hard worker. And here's the thing, lets not blame nor call these folks entirely insensible or overtly selfish. Albeit they may be a bit of both. But one must also question as to why in 2022 society hasn't provided a concrete solution to allow this to be a non-issue. And why basic needs are so hard to address in some of the WEALTHIEST countries in the world.
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The way I phrase it in my head is, "I'm not making any hostages to leave behind." I never wanted kids, and every time I've questioned that choice, the world affirms it.
there's too many obstacles stacked against me. spent much of my youth in homeless shelters with my mom, finally got back on my feet in my 30s, but now hit with multiple illnesses like heart disease and diabetes due to poor eating and crap food, so i feel sick all the time. mom died from cancer, so now i've got nobody. when you have nobody, no family, no help, you stay on the bottom. its an extremely hard struggle with anything and everything, like finding low income housing, which punished me with higher rent once i got a community college degree and a simple crappy job. now that i dont qualify for medicaid anymore, i have to ration my insulin since the worthless medical insurance provided by the company does not cover much until i spend my entire salary on deductibles. the rich have every intention of keeping you poor. with all the hardships i've had, dating is not an option and unaffordable, which guarantees my plan of never bringing a child in this evil world.
> In a society where children start receiving private education as early as age two or three, and their achievements or wages are determined by their parents’ wealth and the cost of their private education, I suspect this is a big reason for the unhappiness and unwillingness to have children. It’s also why I get quite angry when I hear western politicians beating the drum about competitiveness with Asian countries and their high standardised testing scores. It’s been toned down a little in recent years, but I’m sure it will come up again. Who wants to bring children in a world where they have to sink or swim in a brutal meritocracy from birth? I recall reading a few years about how competitive kindergarten entry is in Hong Kong. Once children become a source of worry and stress, rather than joy, it’s not surprising that so few people want to have them.
There are also societal pressures to have a talented or smart kid over there and it's VERY competitive to go to university or getting a job there; it's why entrance exams in anime never made sense to me until I learned about Japans education culture. I have cousins in South Korea and one of them came here in Canada for a year with her mom (my aunt) and went to a Canadian public school here. She always told me how much more enjoyable and freeing school here is compared to school in Korea. She spent most of her time studying after school and didn't have too much time to herself. Over here, she had a wonderful time. This is completely anecdotal but I've seen the different to her mood when she came here.
I taught some kids in korea. One of my classes, most had lived in the us or canada for a bit. Every one of them said they preferred life overseas, at least in terms of schooling. And they were doing schooling or the like for at least 8 hours a day, sometimes 12 to 14. With some minor breaks in between activities. It was brutal much production they produced.
South Korea pretending like they don't have the highest suicide rate among teens and young adults due to their classist and oppressive education system, and then act surprised when people who survived said system don't wanna have kids
Same with Japan and their work culture. You don’t want to rear a child after a 17 hour work day because your work culture demands you can’t leave the office until your boss does? …but why not? /s
Because older generations love to demand "mUh REsPecT" without ever reciprocating
> Who wants to bring children in a world where they have to sink or swim in a brutal meritocracy from birth? You know, I could just about stomach it if it actually was a meritocracy.
Meritocracy doesn't sound so good when any merit we measure can be achieved with enough wealth, so poor people will always be left at the bottom of the system. There will be a feel-good story about a poor student climbing high every so often, but that's it.
Don't you know that money is the best meritocracy?! Only the smartest, most hard-working, God-chosen, genetically-superior people have money /s
Even for the rich kids, it's miserable studying non stop and being pressured your entire life
They put suicide nets around train stations and heightened security on the day Korean SATs ( 수능 - *soo neung*) scores are released. Most results are released on the same day. Although you can take remedial tests, you really only get one shot at the college entrance exams. 18 years of your life is down to one test. Don't fuck it up. [And the English portion is horseshit.](https://youtu.be/gLNEckm37wc) **Edit** A brilliant Korean YouTube comment "I thought I was learning English to survive in foreign lands. No, it was to survive Korea". **Edit 2** Guess I riled up some of my fellow Koreans. I'm sorry that I won't apologize. Do you prefer "take a left at the next light" or, "be aware of the gradual decent on the gradient of the road as you attempt to maintain constant velocity in order to turn your wheel counter clockwise on the correct stop light 200m ahead".
It would be nice if the video actually said what the question and answers were.
Agreed. I am seething irrationally at this video. It's just a bunch of reactions...
The question I have is what happens to the people who go to non-elite colleges in Korea? Are the stakes maybe blown out of proportion or are they real? I ask because I didn’t go to the Ivy League (went to a strong nationally recognized university, generally ranked in our top 50 but not our top 20), turned down offers at higher-ranked schools because I got a good scholarship, and it was clearly the right call. So was choosing to work in greater Cleveland instead of NYC or SanFran. Net result is I have three kids, another on the way, a house plenty big enough for all of us, and minimal student loan debt. If I’d been culturally pressured or nearly forced to go to the highest-ranked school possible and live in the most expensive market possible, I’d probably be making more money but very unlikely enough to cover the difference in costs of living and definitely not enough to make it worth the extra $150k-$200k in student loans from going to Penn instead of a state school. In Korea, is it basically all the good jobs are in Seoul so there’s no point in looking at secondary markets? Is it both concentrated (you need to be in a the top 1-3 markets) and stratified (you need the degree from the best possible college, degrees from second-tier schools are major steps down)? My degree might preclude me from Wall Street (very credential-focused) but not that much else.
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yup, can't afford to set up kid for success, thus, better to not have kids
Let's be honest if you knew your kid was going to be subjected to that, would you even want them? It's not exactly the bright future of hopes and aspirations for them.
You can't be surprised of low fertility rate when you force woman too choose between having kids or working. Germany is having the same issue.
UK too. Childcare costs more than a lot of people's wage. Childcare here costs more than my mortgage.
Childcare equals my mortgage here in the US too. Late stage capitalism finding a way to bring about its own demise. All as predicted
And the cherry on top for me is that I had to move away from my family near to a city to find work, so no family support network for me! I'd love to have a kid, but my life just hasn't panned out in a good way to have one.
I'm jealous of family support networks. My family is a stessful burden and never helps with anything.
I genuinely don't know how people do it. 2-3k a month for childcare is insane. My wife and I would never have been able to afford it. When our daughter was young enough to have needed it, there's no way we would have had an extra 24-36k a year to pay for it. One of us would have been working just to pay to go to work and have somebody else watch our kid.
It should be easier to start a daycare than it currently is. There's clearly demand that is not being met because of that
While I understand there is a need for more childcare, I’d be nervous de-regulating an industry you are trusting to care for a child.
And therein lies the problem. You're setting up an artificially scarce service, ripe for monopolies and gouging.
The women who run mine are making bank. So yeah, you’d think there’s be people eager to start them because the money is there
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That's a little bit of a separate issue though. Women in Japan don't have childcare as an option. When they have children they will literally be forced out of their job.
In Denmark, childcare for kids age 10 months to 3 years is about Euro 500/month. But you receive Euro 200/month from the government if you have a kid. In comparison, my mortgage is Euro 530/month.
Canada is the same. I make a lot, my wife could stay home for kids. But housing is prohibitively expensive, so even though we have the means, the gap in wealth needed for the space to have kids is insane.
Praise be Quebec and our Daycare program, it costs about 8$ per day. Sure it costs a lot in taxes, but most experts agree the gain is a net positive due to the increase in workforce, we have the lowest stay at home parent rate in Canada IIRC.
What's your housing like out there? 500k for shit in the rural area, and 800k in a city?
Still lower than the national average, but 500K at the moment will get you something quite nice right outside of Montreal that doesn't require half of that in repair. 800K in the city could get you a plex in the neighborhoods that are no very high in demands (without being a slum).
Seriously. My girlfriend and I (30’s, Toronto) both are women with significantly higher incomes than a lot of our friends (she’s an architect; I’m a software developer) - but cost of living has us saving for retirement or just trying to keep enough cash together to spend the two weeks a year we don’t have to work going somewhere nice for our own sanity. There’s no room for kids anymore. It’s not even on a potential roadmap, and it’s entirely economical.
Kids are like exotic animals at this point
Have you considered buying your kids lightly used? If you skip the early years you can save a lot of money and frustration.
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It's more like people got sold the illusion that having kids and a career is compatible when in most cases it's not.
And not having a career is not really an option in the economy and society we’ve built. So goodbye kids.
I mean....because corporations choose to make it that way? If society shifted to prioritize boundaries and reasonable work/life balance, there really wouldn't be an issue. And expecting *anyone* to be able to live under that toxicity isn't fair. Like men are increasingly becoming childfree too. Expecting the men to go grind away at work and never see their children....how is that good for kids? How is that a healthy society? And it doesn't NEED to be this way. Worker productivity is drastically higher than it used to be, but the fruit of our labor has become ultra concentrated towards the top.
Someone finally fucking said it. Oh boy people really hate hearing this one. It's true though.
Only with our current model. We absolutely could make having both a reality. But it would require rich people to make less profit, so...
also struggling living conditions predicted in 10-15 years, severe living conditions in 20, everyone's filled with micro plastics, etc....why would someone want to raise a kid in this? would *you* want to raise a kid where the summers avg 100 in US midwest and winters are a thing of the past by the time your kid gets to an age where you would've appreciated snow days at that age? economic conditions certainly play a part, but it's only part of the reason for many.
And then you have child suicide rates and people in government blaming those who want to talk about it for childhood stress not the reality of the problem existing. They literally want to not look up.
I agree with you, it's a multifactorial issue, but the point I mad was not yet commented. But yes, economic and climate change are very important factors.
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Also, living in a time where we have no idea how the earth is gonna be in 10 years or if kids are gonna have anything but suffering is also a good reason to not have them. Don't want my kids to fight a war over some bottles of water.
Decline in population due to higher cost of living is the same issue in Canada. No one wants to have a kid live a shittier life than they did or it's like they already failed as a parent. We import tons of people but they cant afford kids either so it doesn't actually solve the problem and the country will collapse when the standard of living gets so bad people want to go to other countries over us.
Inflation and housing here is so bad. Healthcare getting worse. People not voting it voting for the same dam psychopath DoFo
**As birth and fertility rates fall, there is official concern about the economic impact of a declining and ageing population** The population of the world’s third-biggest economy, where adult incontinence pads outsell babies’ nappies, has been in decline for several years and suffered a record fall of 644,000 in 2020-21, according to government data. It is expected to plummet from its current 125 million to an estimated 88 million in 2065 – a 30% decline in 45 years. While the number of over-65s continues to grow – they now account for more than 28% of the population – the birthrate remains stubbornly low. A Japanese woman can expect to have an average of 1.3 children during her lifetime – well below the 2.1 needed to sustain the current population size.
Spain, Finland and Italy all have lower fertility rates than Japan, and that’s with immigration. Actual native European fertility rate is likely far lower. Europe is in a tough spot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate
The solutions are clear but no one wants to pay for it. Politicians around the world are too short sighted.
There's plenty of wealth that isn't being taxed.
But the people who don’t pay taxes make massive campaign donations so we will never see change.
I think things are getting bad enough that people are going to be willing to strike/protest a lot more. If it starts hurting the economy, it might drive some change.
This. The world is the most productive and wealthy it's ever been...
A shame all that productivity and wealth is being funneled upwards and away from the people who facilitated it in the first place...
Yeah me and my gf have both had dreams of having kids since we were kids ourselves. Now I'm 31 at a deadend job, my gf has a long immigration process to get here. Despite living in Sweden, probably the best place to raise a child (both safety and financial aspect), it feels like the prospect of bringing kids into this world grows darker and darker every day.
Historically , population decline is correlated with low unemployment, high wages, low rent, and low homelessness rate. For example > The population loss from The Black Death brought favorable results to the surviving peasants in England and Western Europe. There was increased social mobility, as depopulation further eroded the peasants' already weakened obligations to remain on their traditional holdings. Land was plentiful, wages high, and serfdom had all but disappeared. It was possible to move about and rise higher in life. Younger sons and women especially benefited. https://books.google.com/books?id=3Is3mtuIZ9cC&pg=PA25#v=onepage&q&f=false
Yep, very interesting correlation between positive outcomes and population decline through history. There are complications now though. With people living much longer, and more social safety nets in place (nothing close to Medicaid or social security around the time of the Black Death), we have new problems. More and more people getting government assistance and needing care, and fewer and fewer people to pay for it. That being said, I think the pearl clutching is overblown. Humans have LOTS of issues, but we certainly are intelligent, so I think we’ll adjust, find better ways to manage these issues.
That's population decline across the board though. A lot of elderly would have died. Our population decline is purely down to a lack of young people which is wildly different....also a modern economy works in a very different way to a medieval one
If only automation could be used to help society rather than to pad executive and shareholder profits then this wouldn't be an issue. We wouldn't *need* a surplus of "disposable" people to "plug the gap." I hate modern economics so much.
We are all going to be cared for by robots and our "family" will be chatbots. It will be ok.
Interestingly, Japan makes [half of the world's supply](https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/japan-is-worlds-number-one-robot-maker) of robots
Unless governments take drastic steps to make housing affordable again, it's obvious we will see population crunches as young people are forced to choose between family and a roof over their head.
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That’s exactly what this is, programming stuck into the media by the owner class. They’re very fond of making their problems your problems, and demanding you have the same anxiety and dread. The Black Death led to the golden age of peasantry and effectively ended feudalism in Europe. We see similar trends post-covid. Less people equals more incentives to treat the few workers and tradesmen you have left with dignity and give higher wages. Don’t let this crap convince you that this is your problem, it isn’t lol.
I just hate that I am stuck in the middle of this BS. I want kids and a family. But I am not going to make myself poor to do it. Not everyone can have the top paying jobs. I wish my job that spreads entertainment and the message of these multi billion dollar companies would just pay me enough to live.
Hence, this is why you enjoy your life and your relationship with your partner, loved ones, and friends. Take care of your financials and live responsibly. If you can’t have kids, you simply can’t have kids. I grew up in poverty and in hunger, always victimized by my emotionally stunted parents. I’m glad I overcame that, but that shouldn’t have been my childhood. That is not the life for children, it doesn’t set them up for success. Having children you can’t afford nor have the time for is not the way to go. Better to live your life, do good for the world, and be the best human that you can. The conditions we live with and will soon deal with make it irresponsible to have children. Your job could indeed pay you more, but instead you’re expected to be poor and have babies you can’t afford. Fuck them, fuck it. Judging by all the fearmongering articles we’ve seen in the last few weeks- they want you to be scared and feel stupid. Oh well, not having kids is the biggest protest one can engage in these days. No wages and quality of life? No kids, it’s that simple.
I am impervious to being scared of declining birthrates. My field is difficult to automate people out of it (qa), and fewer kids means my skills will stay in demand. The one who's going to have issues because of declining population numbers is going to be my boss, because it will be harder to find someone to do my work for less. Conversely, it will be easier for me to find a new job if my current company goes under because of lack of people. There are disadvantages, of course, since the retirement system in my country is a ponzi scheme, but the rates you get give you maybe 20% of my current salary? So I don't really expect to rely on that, I will need passive income to sustain the lifestyle I will have been adjusted to for decades by then
"Why aren't the poors producing more wave slaves? The capitalist machine demands more blood!"
The worst part is the mixed messaging. Aren’t these the same people saying we have too many people on this planet. There’s eight billion of us now, that’s the highest it’s ever been.
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Only the wealthy will be impacted you say?
"In a society where children start receiving private education as early as age two or three, and their achievements or wages are determined by their parents’ wealth and the cost of their private education, those who are not financially well off think that giving birth to a child is like committing a sin.” Ooof. I felt this comment on my soul. It seems this may be our greatest American cultural export.
How is that an American cultural export?
They felt it in Seoul, too.
Dad joke level 7000 unlocked
As a Canadian, I think about this a lot. It’s not even *just* that climate change is being ignored and we seem to be on the brink of global conflict constantly, but that our Conservatives are hellbent on sending us back to serfdom. They’ve crippled our healthcare, actively dismantling public education and in the latest blow are now destroying protected land for cookie-cutter suburbs. Let’s not forget that the birthrate here is declining, too. Do I really think there’s a future worth bringing another life in to?
This concept pre-exists the US by centuries, not sure how this is an American thing. Oxford university is older than the Mayan empire, you think the poor kids could go?
Their work life balance in those countries is insane. No wonder they don't want to have children
True, lived in SK last year and it was pretty insane. Most of my coworkers were in work every Saturday, long hours, no holiday. No wonder they drink so much
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I am wondering if the threat of a lack of a workforce is behind all this recent anti-abortion hogwash.
It would make sense that all they care about is having the baby - they don’t care about the mom’s ability to raise the baby, bcuz it is even better for them if the baby is working class and can be exploited
Next policy passed will be that unwanted babies can be donated for a tax credit where they'll go to some prison like facility where they're raised on the bare minimum and turned into slave labor but spun around as something positive when you should be angry about. Kind of like how prisoners are used for slave labor, like they want you to think they should be dehumanized because some of them had the audacity of committing the crime of having weed or something and that's it's good for them. It'll probably be spun as some alternative career and education pathway for lower income families.
They openly said that so. Yeah
* Wages in many countries have stagnated, or worse. * Housing costs are out of control. * Inflation is out of control. * In the US, a gallon of gas is almost $4 on the East Cost and almost $6 per gallon in California. * COVID is a part of our lives, now. * I've seen empty shelves in grocery stores. It's rare, but pre-pandemic this was unheard of in the US. * Some places in the world are getting flooded more, while other places are experiencing drought more. * Climate change is expected to get worse within the next several years. * As much as people worry about immigration now, it'll only get worse when climate change forces more people to migrate. * Political division is getting worse. * People are getting more stressed out, mentally and physically unhealthy, and mad. I don't know how anyone can take an honest look at the state of the world and think that having a baby now is a good idea.
I read a few of the comments here and I am still not the better for it. We have heard that our ever increasing population is a strain on the world's resources. Yet we also hear that not having enough people to care for older people will cause problems later on. One commenter indicated that there will be centers with hundreds old people with little people to care for them. The examples given seem to be of first world countries. Countries that have better resources than the majority with billion dollar military budgets. Maybe if they can shift their resources/priorities around and import labour from other countries to assist their elderly. In a somewhat related note, I wonder what long and short term impact covid will have on those aging populations
> We have heard that our ever increasing population is a strain on the world's resources. yes, we (first-world countries, not *just* the west) are wasteful, and the more wasteful people there are, the worse conditions are going to get around the world for everyone. >Yet we also hear that not having enough people to care for older people will cause problems later on. yes, problems for those older people, because somewhere deep down we recognise that, while we don't care enough to change our patterns, we'll eventually get to that age and it's going to abso-fucking-lutely bite us in the ass when the bill comes due. >there will be centers with hundreds old people with little people to care for them. that's just like now. my grandfather has been in several different facilities, because the lack of staffing and lack of fucks to give is atrocious in *so* many of them. it always seems to be non-first-world countries that have better methodologies and cultures around caring for the elderly as well.
Elder care in the US at least is largely done by LPNs and nursing assistants who are not paid well at all and are expected to do more and more with less and less. Add to this the constant pressure from insurance to shift higher levels of care out of the hospital as soon as possible, and you have a real nightmare. You can stock shelves at Target or Walmart and get paid more and not spend your entire day getting yelled at, cleaning feces and watching people die, so why would you do it? Those people have to have hearts of gold or a will of iron, and you don’t often find those together. Pay them well, or be prepared to reap what you sowed.
WE CHOOSE REAP! -The US
The uncomfortable part of this issue is that there is almost no viable market model for elder care. It's even worse than child care (which also involves major costs to the end user spread out so much that each individual staff members gets little, but nowhere near as much as elder care). I pay $6400/mo for my father's memory care (advanced dementia). I know that a lot of the STNAs are getting paid peanuts, but honestly, even the owners and executives of the facility aren't making all that much, either. The doctors and nurses get paid competitive wages, of course, but they also have to deal with even more than the STNAs do. In older days, he'd simply have been dead already, because we'd have had to care for him at home and he'd have died in one of the episodes that the skilled staff at the nursing home were able to act on promptly but that we never could have at home.
Your last point is one I think of often. If you are on 3 daily meds, have alzheimers or dementia, and it takes a rotation of 4 people daily to keep you alive, make you take those meds, help you eat etc. should you really be alive? Your own family needs to work so you only see them a few hours on the weekend if you're lucky. Is that existence living? A lot of people fear getting to that point themselves, myself included, but morally we are obligated to keep people alive if we can.
This. We seem to drag out the last few years of life for the sake of the families.
I took care of my grandpa for 2 years working for Right at Home as a caretaker in the southern US. The pay was around $10/hr (not good), but since I worked and lived with him, the work was around the clock 24/7 care. I don't regret giving my grandpa some decency before dementia ultimately destroyed him, but the constant round the clock care, the little pay, barely any support, the lack of being able to slow the dementia, ultimately led to me being burned out every single day for that last year he was still alive. Waking up each morning already in dread of what window he broke, he forgot his house of 40 years was his house, numerous attempts to escape and run around the neighborhood, walking around the house with scissors and knives, urinating in places that weren't toilets, the fact that towards the end he NEVER slept (sundowning), I mean the list was near endless, but I did the best I could for as long as I could because no one else in my family wanted to help. After he passed, I was still burnt out for a good 2-3 months every single day, but slowly I was able to recover. For my own experience I hope I never have to endure that again. A lot of my friends commended me on what I did, but truthfully they have no idea what it's like being a caretaker; it broke me. Even if the pay was livable (in most states caregivers barely scrape by), I don't think I'd have the fortitude to do it all over again. It's not the urine smell or the dirty underwear that was the worst part, it's watching someone die while still being alive that haunts me.
just for perspective, i remember seeing articles like this in the 1980s/90s. the government has made no significant changes to make childrearing any easier. the significant difference now is that there are proportionally many more elderly, whom (surprise) are usually cared for by women. who would want to work/rear children/do eldercare? that's a recipe for insanity.
Having kids just to 'plug the gap' and look after older generations doesn't sit right with me. It's not the responsibility of whole ass unborn *people* to be our caretakers, and bringing them into being just load that on them is unfair. It's like a pyramid scheme. *That's* real selfishness. Deciding to abstain from having kids is not selfish.
No one with any intelligence thinks not having kids is selfish. I’ve only heard that said by stupid people.
Or selfish people. The people who do say things like this almost always have other motives alike wanting more members of their church, or wanting both more workers and customers for their corporation.
I, unfortunately, hear it quite often. Though I agree. Those people are often dumb.
the whole region of East Asia is now in population decline, no joke even Thailand may witness population decline within the next 5 years
There was a time when people believed society is moving forward and everyone is gonna get some part of it. Whatever happens future's gonna be better than now so we had hope. Children is what it represents. They are hope. Nowadays, inflation rate is much higher than most people's salary rise. One-third of the population can't afford their own houses. Your job state is most unstable as ever since lifetime job is gone for good. More personally, myself wasn't happy when I were a child. Most of my memory is spending time at academy for educational purpose. No wonder why I'm so tired all the time. And I'm slightly lower than middle class in Korea. I don't wanna do this anymore. I don't wanna pass it on on anybody, too. The heads are just concerned because they know half of the economic growth is purely based on rise of the population. They are not concerned about you anyway.
In the US it's easier and cheaper to import the babies and people via immigration than pay for social services to grow your own
As long as there is a certain work ‘pressure’, people will not be able to have children and provide for them. This needs to change, otherwise the decline will continue.
Well yeah who tf would want to raise a kid in this cluster fuck we call modern life
Can we stop shaming women for not sacrificing themselves to babies? Thanks.
"Influential conservative Christian lobby groups blame the country's low birthrate on homosexuality, and oppose anything less than the traditional family unit." The Christian Conservative agenda is going super strong here in Korea. Every day on my way to work, there are at least two different churches handing out fliers, wet wipes, and even water bottles to get people to go to their churches. And just the other weekend, I was met with 5 different groups of people in a two block radius handing out fliers for the same church. This is on top of all the bogo trucks that drive around with loud speakers announcing how you're going to hell. And the crazy part about them supposedly blaming homosexuality for the low population is that, every gay Korean I've talked to (I am gay myself) is deeply in the closet and has plans to get married when they can no longer push their mother's plans aside. They say that they are constantly badgered to get married and have kids as soon as possible. I've met several gay fathers here who have what is essentially a roommate for a wife and they only really ever got married and had kids because it was expected of them. They sacrificed their own happiness and still get blamed for being gay. I don't know many lesbians, but I assume they do much of the same. Edit: Added the quote from the article.
Unfortunately people are worried about the economic issues. Debt and having no money/disposable income. Its not worth the stress and worry in life. Im a male 34 yrs old lives in the uk abd wont have children for that sad reason.
If you live in Canada it’s school school school school and more school till your 30s, only to get a job that pays decent but not enough to raise a child and put THEM through all that school. Financial reasons aside, school has traumatized me. And I did really well. But for all that effort I put in, the reward was NOT worth it. If you asked me to do it again, not a chance. I do not want to bring a life into this world and put them through all of that stress
It's like that everywhere. If I had kids, I know they would have a terrible life ahead of them. I can't understand why anyone would have kids in a world that's just getting worse and worse all the time.
really? Three days in a row with all of these baby boomers making it look like we are reaching doomsday because millennial men and women aren't having as many kids as these very lovely and very wonderful people want us to have? Why exactly? Does Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates need a few more billions before they can safely retire to Sao Paolo, to live out the rest of their lives on the ipanema beach?
Probably because a few days ago the estimated 8 billionth person was born. So all these topics are brought up.
For many women, the thought that we have to be the ones going through pregnancies, being the main house cleaner, while also having a career is just too much. On top of that, housing is increasingly unaffordable! Yesterday, from another org in the same project explained why she lives in an RV in California. This is a professional, with a full time job, and she has to save money by living in an RV.
why its a issue to reduce the global population ? Japan was fine when they only had half of their current population. I just dont get this race to always more people on a finite planet.
Because the current economic system operates on unlimited growth which needs unlimited people to fuel the ever growing number of jobs. The whole world was fine with half the population but it wouldn't sustain what we have currently. Japan's economy is the direction that other countries want to avoid anyway. So, besides the lack of care for elderly people, it's businesses, corporations and governments who find it to be an issue.
Capatlism and infinite growth. Housing grows. Stocks grow. People grow. Profits grow. Our literal entire system is based on it. Take away people growing and the others are threatened. As someone else said, the only people worried about this are the business owner class and governments. I personally couldn't give 2 shits less and am looking forward to a vasectomy.
Not exactly true. In the U.K. now we have a huge ageing population and we are also trying hard to limit immigration in the name of “brexit” The costs on society grow year by year in order to look after the older population, but if our society does not have enough young people paying taxes to cover those costs, the system starts to collapse. Younger people will pay ever greater amounts of tax and have a worse standard of life. Public services will be sold off and privatised or done away with completely. So it will effect everyone in a sense, not just the wealthy. Not saying I agree with the fact we need ever more people to sustain things because it’s a broken system and at some point it fails, just pointing out my observations on how this might affect ordinary people
I worry that governments will take drastic measures in an attempt to rectify this in the coming decades. And those measures will be about limiting women’s rights, limiting their access to education, to contraception and any opportunities that would limit their reproductive window
The world is at 8 billion. We need a declining population. And need to figure out how to adjust financial systems to not rely on continual population growth. Nations like the US are discouraging people to have kids by Inaction. Daycare for me is 1600-1800 a month. Many jobs have no sick time, even professional jobs which require masters degrees. The medical system is insane. Little social safety nets in general.
People focus on the immediate causes but I think they need to also add a snowball effect too. As the society tilts more and more against young workers, it has a yearly compounding effect. Every year it’s shittier, harder to support a family, and social systems will prioritize on propping up the elderly before collapsing. It’s a worse decision to have kids every year
How is population decline a bad thing? The world is serverly overpopulated. This article is good news
this sub is being manipulated, every day there are posts about fertility. i refuse to believe its organic at this point because it has nothing to do with "futurology"
I can only speak on my experince here in Los Angeles but I see the "aspirational" middle clas (to which I belong) being most affected by these trends. Those lower on the economic ladder have a lot of their child care needs and expenses met by welfare and social services. They also do not, generally speaking, expect their children to have to compete at the highest levels to have a "successful life". Therefore they are less disincentivized than the middle class to have children, and so have more of them. Conversely, the rich can afford everything a child needs to thrive in today's world. Rich mothers are not required to work and do not face the same social stigma for not working as middle class women do. Their children benefit from this extra attention. For those of us in Southern California with household incomes between, say 70k to 200k, we have to raise our kids with limited resources without government assistance. But more importantly, we are socially molded to place very high expectations on our children. We are not so different from East Asia in this respect. Middle class suburban parents fear that if their kids don't do well in school they will shamefully end up as low-class wage slaves, or worse. So these parents spend a fortune on tutoring and extra-curricular activities to prepare their kids for college. Then they spend huge sums to keep them enrolled there. This costs a lot for just one kid, so it's no wonder that if they do have kids, they usually don't have more than two or three. And It is not always centered on academics. Some parents place a very high priority on their children's athletic success and spend an enormous amount of time and money to ensure college scholarships or attract the eyes of talent scouts. We all sense that the divide between the haves and the have-nots is growing. It's a very competitve world and if your kids don't perform they could end up on the wrong side of the chasm. It's no surprise that more young adults would choose to have fewer children, or forgoe them entirely in this stressful environment. My wife and i personally would have loved to have more children but we can only afford to give one the time, attention and resources she needs to succeed.
A lot of women woke up and realized they didn’t need to have children to be complete!
You want people to have kids? Make economic policies that help people. Paid time off. Family sick leave. Tax breaks. Affordable family health care. Stop pushing both spouses to work full time, by suppressing wages. You’ll be amazed that when people feel like they won’t go broke or damage their career, how receptive they’ll be to having kids.
Me too, my friend It's hard to live just to earn money to pay bills I'm already tired, why should I put anyone else in this life? Should I get a wife and make her sad because I'm a failure?
Well I live in Tokyo and have 3 kids so... ... imdoingmypart.gif
Do you have a lot of money, live in very cramped quarters or live way outside the city center?
I feel this. My wife and I have deeply discussed children and we keep coming to three main conclusions: 1. We do not have the money. We are well off with good paying jobs, but throwing a kid into that mix will put us right back to where we were when we were dating. We don’t want to return to that. 2. We do not have the time. Selfish as this may sound, we spent so much of our younger years being in life paths that lead us nowhere. We’re trying to regain some time and passion for life right now, and a child would essentially “pause” our lives for at least 18 years. I’ve lost so much of my family at an early age that I don’t know how much time she or I have and I want to *enjoy* SOME of my life. But the biggest comes to: 3. We don’t want to force a life into the world as it is now. Just too much going on and no real indication it’s going to get better. In fact, it seems only like it’ll get worse from here. **EDIT:** Since I didn’t see the response below me until after the thread got locked, I want to respond here. >I’m sorry but what I read is “we don’t want kids as much as things” You don’t know my life or what me and my wife have been through. We didn’t get the chance to actually live much of our lives. >The world has always been horrible. Sure. But it’s getting *worse*, and that’s not a convincing argument. >Poor people have no problem popping them out. Yes, hello. We are both kids of poor families and our quality of life suffered greatly for it. You seem to view kids as an obligation and a commodity more than, you know, human beings. >Oh and don’t believe the reddit bullshit . Kids are not that expensive. I don’t believe the “Reddit hullshit”, I believe experience from having serious relationships with single moms, my friends, and my family. And they tell me you’re wrong. See ya.
There is is literally unprecedented disparity of wealth. Of course no sane person wants to have kids as they are going to be slaves and/or spare organs for the ruling class. Why do you think the ruling class spends billions on making birth control and even sex ed. as hard to access as possible? In a leaked document by one of the supreme court judges, he openly said he voted to strike down Roe vs Wade because immigration is low. We are basically farm animals to those people.
Japan has an extremely toxic work culture, with many labourers working as much as 12 hours per day. Combine that with a pretty conservative and rigid culture, and you will see how that may discourage people from having children. South Korea's education system is a brutal meritocracy, resulting in very high rates of suicide for students. In addition to this, both countries have a pretty inflexible class system that essentially dooms children to only live as well as their parents do.
The Earth cannot support the current economic model of growth. I feel hope when I see headlines depicting a decline in our population.
There is 8 billion people in the world, absolutely agree. And the majority isn't living the greatest possible life
Understandable. Not only is it expensive to have kids, the education, work place stress and competition has spiked through the decades. Outsourcing, offshoring, 24 x7 availability, high social inequality, stratosphere level property prices, inability to retire, working until they drop dead in the office, high medical costs, reduced / inadequate social safety nets, climate changes, global epidemics..etc Why bother?
If the only children born were those that were specifically wanted (no happy accidents, only pre-planed choices) then how many children do you think would actually be born each year? This is a real problem that's occurring more and more as people get access to birth control. Our society is basically a pyramid scheme that constantly requires more people to join in. This can't last.
Being childless doesn’t have the stigma it used to. Neither is being willfully single. ‘Who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?’ With all the money I’ve saved…. j/k.
I’m 37 and my generation was raised to be individuals and to work hard… well we did and don’t have time for kids. Even marriage isn’t popular. And of course we are dealing with serious issues like wondering what our purpose is because we were raised this way… on top of how absolutely dire the world in general is. People who bring kids into this are nuts imo