Why aren’t millennials and Gen Z having kids? It’s the economy, stupid

14 comments

1. Nah. Dumb title. Article even says as much.

   But if it was an economic issue you wouldn’t have massively higher birthrates in poorer countries vs well off ones. Germany and Japan had great economies yet both have had some of the lowest birthrates in the world for a couple decades now.

2. Low wage jobs no longer buy basic necessities. When I was growing up even the cooks at the school owned a house, that is no longer the case. The economy doesn’t work for the majority of people anymore. We need No Waste Laws, single payer health insurance, and strong labor rights.

3. a republican’s opinion.

   Democrats including Harris are “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. How does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?” -JD Vance

4. No one has time or money for kids, everyone is working 2-3 jobs or a job that’s like 2-3 jobs and entire industries are succumbing to monopolization or losing their profitability.

   Raising a child is a full time job on top of your full time job. If both parents are working to survive, there’s not much time for 1) having the child and 2) raising the child. This is a nationwide and international phenomena: work must pay more for workers to work less for child birth rates to rise.

5. Could it be perhaps a combination of reasons, rather than simply the economy?

   Maybe people want to enjoy their lives more and travel without the burden of kids. Maybe people realized they don’t need to have children to feel complete or whole. Maybe they don’t want to bring children into the world as we know it because things in general just seem to be getting worse. Maybe the idea of a traditional family, relationship status is an outdated concept and they want a more fulfilling existence. Maybe an increase in mental heath awareness has made people afraid if they have kids, they’ll mess them up like their parents did them.

   Low birth rate is not a problem that is unique to the USA. It’s happening in several developed countries. It’s probably time to look at the bigger picture.

6. Why do we need kids? To grow the economy? There’s already too many people as it is, look at the cost of living and the breakdown in society.

7. because they don’t have some religion telling them to be fruitful and multiply

8. the freedom too, kids are very, very time-consuming if you are a good parent and the village rarely shows up

9. Right it’s an absolutely enormous expense that almost no GenZ folks will ever be able to afford… and they know it.

   Also, who would want to bring kids into a burning planet during a climate crisis?

10. Gen z getting too old to have more kids dummy

11. Yeah, it’s a confluence of so many factors: economic uncertainty, environmental uncertainty, microplastics stunting fertility, student debt, unattainable housing, no long term career stability, expensive healthcare, expensive childcare, a loneliness epidemic, no real incentives or assistance *and so on*.

    So many factors that have been *sustained* since 2008 at the very least. Millennials have grown up in a post-9/11 world and got gut-shot by the 2008 crisis as they came of age.

    It’s no wonder that a generational reticence to risk and collective trauma is being carried forward culturally to younger generations who are taking the lesson to wait for the right time to start a family and never being presented even the *possibility*.

    It’s the economy and *so much more*, stupid.

12. Because having kids incurs a really high opportunity cost. Having kids costs a lot of money and time. As urbanization has occurred, medical care has improved, lifespans increased, infant mortality rates have declined, and living standards have increased; there is no longer a need to have large families as evidenced by the declining birthrate over the last 100 years.

    Now people are less likely to want to take the hit on quality of life in order to have kids. It means less freedom to do what one wants, less money is spent on themselves, and therefore certain experiences and lifestyle choices do not mesh well with having a family. It’s only natural for people to want to enjoy these higher standards of living.

13. There’s not enough resources for everyone as is. People already fighting for water.

14. People want to be able to offer their kids the same standard of living or better than what they grew up with and that is economically infeasible for many.

    For example my parents raised me in a relatively working class town, my dad worked a trade and my mother was mostly stay-at-home. They bought their first home at age 25. They moved to their second home at 30.

    That second home is now worth 750K. The average home price in their town and the surrounding towns is above 600K.

    My wife and I both have college degrees and work full time. We’d have to spend over 50% of our income to afford a home near where they live. They are our only chance of getting help with child care, and I wouldn’t expect it from them full time while we are working. We don’t think we can feasible afford a mortgage and pay for child care.

    We could move over an hour away and more easily afford a home and kids. Our commutes would be brutal and we’d be far from our family. We aren’t willing to do it. Maybe we’re just selfish.

    If homes had not skyrocketed 40% in value over the past 4 years, it would still be feasibly affordable. That was our plan, at least, until the pandemic and unbelievable home price inflation. We put in a ton of bids on homes before rates skyrocketed. Some of those bids were 100k over list price. But no luck. So we’re stuck.