alt Hacker NewsShare your data and what's "worse". Again, we've polled people and they're literally telling us it's too expensive.
The cost of raising a child is enormous. It's dramatically higher than it was 30 years ago, and astronomically more than a century ago. I've known multiple households with dual 6 figure incomes where one quit their job to be a stay at home parent because the cost of childcare was comparable to the reduction in income.
The cost in time is just as bad - no more "go outside and don't come back until dinner", now if you let your kids walk down the street to school/the park your neighbors will call CPS on you, so you have to pay attention all the time.
Rent/mortgages are way up. The cost of food is way up. The cost of education is way up.
Replies
A big factor is that I believe the the extended family help a lot less with child care nowadays compared to some generation or two ago.
Asking people why they don’t have kids is not that useful - stated vs revealed preferences differ a lot here. If you look around the world you will see that economic solutions do not really work (because that’s not a real cause of why people don’t have children, it’s just something people say).
> The cost of raising a child is enormous.
Honestly, the primary problem is still the mindset behind most times this line is written.
The cost of raising a child is enormous only if you consider the return a nuisance at best, which many seem to do. If you consider it very rewarding thing you want for your life, working for that a little doesn't seem all that preposterous anymore.
The same peope typically have no problem spending money on frivolous hobbies, toys, travel etc. they technically get no economic return for either.
There may be people who are economically barred from affording children, but most people set the bar at "I want kids with no strings attached".
The real reasons are that we've created a society in which many people no longer consider a rewarding experience they actually want, and those who don't want it no longer have it externally thrust upon them by cultural expectations or pressures as much. I think the latter is good, but the former may be a pervasive failure of character.