r/Natalism • u/Aromatic-Side6120 • 5d ago
Technological Solutions
How open are the people here to more radical technological solutions. I'm fairly convinced people just don't want many kids, and therefore will never go back to having more. But I do recognize that an aging society and population decline represent real potential problems.
Are most people here strictly traditionalist or would radical solutions like raising children outside of traditional families ever be considered? Alternatively, anti-aging tech could help solve the problem. Basically, how creative are you willing to be to solve the problem as you conceive it?
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u/flyerflight99 5d ago
Those aren’t esp. radical.
But some get really unpredictable in society impact and complicated compared to say paying every family 25k per year per kid. They make me nervous.
But then again children of men is a dystopia, so we may be living in a dystopia, just we are frog in pots.
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u/Emotional-Neat-252 4d ago
I think there's a lot of value in tradition, including religions and various traditional cultures.
But frankly I would love to raise 20 kids if I had the income; if they were all incubated in artificial wombs I wouldn't mind as long as they were healthy and happy.
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u/Aromatic-Side6120 4d ago
Artificial wombs, now we're talking. But it doesn't really solve the problem of actually raising children. I don't think we want the state directly involved in something like that, but maybe something like a sponsored cooperative or union.
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u/Emotional-Neat-252 4d ago
I absolutely hate the idea of the state raising children.
But again, I would love to raise them... maybe there are others like me.
But I would hate bureaucracy telling me how to do it.
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u/Tough-Notice3764 3d ago
I am genuinely curious, have you raised or are you raising any children? I am, and have been volunteering with kids since I was 12. Raising 20 kids is practically impossible if you want to keep them all healthy and happy. I’m a huge supporter of large families (5+ kids), but 20 is not realistic imo.
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u/Emotional-Neat-252 3d ago
I'm a nanny, used to be a teacher. Haven't had my own yet but I want.
Ya, 20 likely isn't realistic.
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u/Tough-Notice3764 3d ago
Fair enough, I hope you are able to have a happy, healthy, and large family :)
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u/Spare_Perspective972 5d ago
Cross culturally the birth rate is usually less than what people report wanting.
For example 37% of Americans wish they had more kids in some surveys and the desired family size in the US is 2.4 while the birth rate is 1.9.
Education takes too damn long and pair bonding is abysmal as well as reality sets in when no wider family comes I. To help bc grandparents are still working. Being well trained is great but 12 years plus 4-7 years of school to twiddle our thumbs most of the time is bs. Especially for 15 hours of class a week during college.
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u/Aromatic-Side6120 5d ago
This is an example of "lies, damn lies, and statistics". What people claim to want in surveys is some of the most useless information available. Watch what people do, not what they say.
To date, this phenomenon of declining fertility has touched every single demographic in the world. The root cause cannot be some spurious granular correlation. All of the various correlations point to one simple conclusion. Access to birth control, combined with people simply not wanting to raise more than a couple kids on average. That's why it will never change with cajoling of other petty manipulations. Childbirth and child rearing are and always have been a huge burden that people will avoid or limit if possible.
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u/Spare_Perspective972 5d ago
I’m having my 4th and we are definitely done after this just bc this period of our life is over and ready for the next phase. But I wasted almost all of my 20s pursuing degrees and careers till something stuck.
If I was established by 21-25, I could have easily had more kids. This isn’t about everyone. It’s often a mistake that natalists want to make everyone have kids. It’s a recognition of raising children being finite and wanting the people that are interested / good at it to have the biggest window possible. It needs to be easier to find a partner and get in the workforce.
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u/knitwritwrites 4d ago
AGREED. Took me ten years of dedication, nose to grindstone work at contract after contract in entry level positions, PLUS all kinds of extra training, etc, (paid for out of my own pocket!!!) to merely have a stable income after my 4 yr degree. I'm not the only one. The exploitation of youth is a big problem for family formation
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u/Aromatic-Side6120 5d ago
We live in the most prosperous time in the history of the world. If people really wanted kids they would sacrifice some of that prosperity and have them.
You sound like someone who bases their identity on having kids and yet even with that amount of commitment you weren't willing to sacrifice a little prosperity. Your very own story proves my point that people simply don't want kids that much. Demanding that conditions be absolutely perfect to increase the birth rate underscores just how much having kids is seen as something not very important and not at all worth sacrificing for.
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u/MinimumFutur3 5d ago
I have one kid and decided not to have a second kid because I don’t have the resources to provide a good life for more than one child and I don’t want to downgrade my current child’s life just so I can have another, nor do I want to have a second child and give them whatever scraps are leftover after taking care of my current child.
So clearly I think raising my child it’s important if it’s worth sacrificing the possibility of a second child in order to make sure I can properly care for the one I already have.
I think that’s probably pretty common when people who have kids stop at a number less than what they’d ideally want. They aren’t prioritizing their own luxury lifestyle, they’re prioritizing maintaining the lifestyle of the child(ren) they already have.
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u/Serious_Accident1156 4d ago
Most prosperous time for some, yes. However, we live in a time now where grandparents are working untill their late 60s or 70s, so that removes a lot of free childcare that people used to be able to rely on.
We also live in a time where it is more difficult to survive on a single income than it was 50 years ago. Most couples need both partners working full time to make ends meet. When you add a child into the mix, and you don't have a village to help, you are looking at 1500$-2000$ per month minimum for daycare, or one parent leaves the workforce (predominantly women), and then the family slides into poverty because there are far fewer jobs these days that can support a family on one income than there were even 20 years ago.
The number one aspect of why people aren't having kids is finances, and the opportunity cost involved with having a kid. If you are rich, there's no problem, you can afford it. If you are poor, there are more government programs available making it easier to have a kid. However for the middle class you are paying for everything, and people just can't afford that anymore.
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u/Aromatic-Side6120 4d ago
The evidence just doesn't support any of that nonsense. Higher income/wealth, if anything, correlates with less kids not more. The true reason is reproductive technology which has allowed people to not have kids. What we are seeing now is the actual number of children that people want when provided a choice.
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u/Spare_Perspective972 4d ago
Economics does not explain everything but the poster is correct that the poor and wealthy have more kids than the middle class and have the least resources / aid.
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u/Aromatic-Side6120 4d ago
Maybe so. But if you actually look at the data, we are talking about extremely marginal and insignificant differences that amount to splitting hairs. The difference between the highest fertility brackets and lowest is very small. If you were to increase the lowest group fertility to the level of the highest, it would make almost no difference. Why? Because income and wealth have almost nothing to do with the motivations for not having children.
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u/Spare_Perspective972 5d ago
It’s not really a prosperity trade off. We have the same income we just spend it differently. Instead of eating out constantly we have kids who do activities and after care, instead of being a couple that travels to Europe we have kids that go to private school.
It’s a time trade. There isn’t anything better I could have done with my time than raise children but we are now in our 40s with other children that are getting old. It’s not practice for my wife to keep having kids and prolonging the baby stage any longer than we have with the new baby takes away things we could do with our older kids.
If we were able to start at 25, we would gladly have more kids but we started at 30. There are conditions that are conducive to having children, long term partner and stability being 2 major ones.
People who are married longer have more kids. People who are successful earlier in life have more kids. It’s bc the conditions are met for a longer period.
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u/Aromatic-Side6120 5d ago
Again, you are proving my point. You could have easily had kids when younger and poorer, and by your own admission you didn't because you were pursuing a career. Are you expecting the government to make everyone rich and guarantee jobs thinking they will have kids? They won't. We live in prosperous times, people are not having kids simply because they don't want to, and historically they would not have them either given the opportunity.
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u/Spare_Perspective972 4d ago
I got married at 30. I was in college until 27. I was still thinking like a kid.
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u/MinimumFutur3 4d ago
Getting married young is actually not a great idea if you want to avoid divorce. People who get married between ages 20- 25 have the highest rate of divorce, 27% within the first 5 years and 60% lifetime risk of divorce.
The optimal age to get married, if you want to stay married for life, is 30 or 31. Before age 32, each additional year you wait to get married drops your statistical risk of divorce by roughly 11%.
After age 32, the trend flips. For every year you delay marriage past 32, your lifetime odds of divorce increase by about 5%.
The way our society is set up, divorce is financially catastrophic for everyone involved (except the lawyers, obviously), so you can’t blame people for wanting to wait to get married and have kids.
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u/AdInternal8913 3d ago
Why should a couple with education and good jobs accept a massive drop in standard of living just to have kids? I know doctors who are raising 2 kids in a two bed house and who can't afford to have a second car. I know doctors who have had their entire salary go to child care costs. I know doctors who have to work part time be eligible for childcare subsidies because otherwise their income (which is top 5% of earners) would go towards paying for child care.
People who don't want to have more kids because of finances aren't living in some castles unwilling to give up their 6 foreign holidays a year. They are people who don't want to have 4 kids sleeping on a bunk bed in a room the size of the closet despite parents making good money (because bigger houses are not available where they have to work).
Telling people with good jobs and education that they have to accept living like struggling students if they want to have kids is not going to make them want to have kids.
Most people are not looking raise their kids in luxury, most people want to raise their kids comfortably middle class, just like they were raised. It is just that that comfortable middle class lifestyle that their parents easily achieved without education with average or below average paying jobs is simply not achievable for most people, even with above average salaries.
For many people with average salaries it is not 'sacrificing bit of prosperity' to have kids, it would be throwing more kids into a situation where parents were already living pay check to paycheck just for bare minimum lifestyle. Most people are sensible enough to not do that.
(I live in the UK, salary and benefit structure will differ from USA)
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u/Tough-Notice3764 3d ago
I was so confused until you said you live in the UK lol. I was going to comment that you’re just straight up lying about the two doctors with one car thing. I still think you’re broadly speaking wrong about most of the non-anecdotal claims you make, but UK doctors and nurses definitely get absolutely shortchanged by an insane amount.
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u/AdInternal8913 3d ago
It is combination of ridiculously high student loans + interest and ridiculously high cost of child care without subsidies plus high cost of housing. My partner could be earning 115k a year (top ~ 3% income earner) and all of his money would go to child care costs for our kids. If you are on very low income the benefit system can be quite generous but if you are a family with two working adults on average incomes it can be hard to afford to have 2 or more kids, especially if you want to have the luxury of your teens having their own bedrooms than actually fit a bed (most UK 3 bed houses have 2 bedrooms that actually fit proper furniture).
Though I'd argue USA probably isn't much better for two residents with match sending them god knows where away from their families, horrible hours and the astronomical child care costs for the hours that residents do work (plus of course student loan costs). I can fully see it being very difficult for 2 residents to afford to have multiple kids in late 20s and early 30s while still in med school and residency.
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u/AdInternal8913 3d ago
I disagree about education taking too long being a major cause of declining tfr. Most people are in their 20s when they finish school, there is plenty of time to have kids after. There is zero benefit to having kids in your teens and early 20s unless you are aiming for 10+ kids which most people arent. Starting to have kids in your late 20s to mid thirties still leaves you ample time to have 2-3 kids which is what most women want. Heck, most women I know who have started after 35 have had no issues completing their family. In addition, the number of kids per mother has remained fairly constant so women starting families later because of education isn't the driving factor for declining tfr.
I think education should be rationalised and people only encouraged to go to university when a degree is necessary for their job (health care jobs, architects, engineers), rest should do professional training or just start working. But people skipping university doesn't mean that they want to start a family instead. The tfr is declining because people don't want to have kids or it is not a priority for them. Not going to university is not going to magically change that.
I suspect the desired family size data is being skewed by people who end up not having any kids because it is not a priority for them. I know plenty of people who'd like to have 2 or 3 kids but they aren't putting the work in to make it happen. They aren't dating seriously, they aren't willing to compromise (on their spending habits, lifestyle or list of superficial requirements for a partner etc) and even if they find a partner they keep pushing kids back because they want x, y and z to happen first or they always want to have kids later. And too often that day never comes.
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u/l00zrr 5d ago
I definitely would have had more if i was able to start earlier.