1/3 of women < 44 have no children and the trend is rising. What is causing it?

https://twitter.com/MichaelAArouet/status/1809941867011719389

by lopkeny12ko • 2 years ago

22 66 2 years ago

Finnucane2• 2 years ago

Rise of fascism? Housing crisis? Looming environmental disasters? Unaffordable health care, education, while wealthy people shoot themselves into space?

polski-g• 2 years ago

Are any of these conditions present in North Korea and Iran?

clipsy5• 2 years ago

Do women have a choice in North Korea or Iran?

skhunted• 2 years ago

Yes. There is food scarcity in North Korea and the political and economic environment there is not conducive to pursuing happiness. Probably people in rural North Korea want children for labor purposes but feeding them might be a burden. In Iran there are water shortages, drought, high inflation, and a regime that is despised by a large majority of the people.

Finnucane2• 2 years ago

Misogynistic authoritarian rule, and environmental degradation, for sure.

nataliste• 2 years ago

Which is another way to say "People spend too much time online doomscrolling."

JojoFatsani• 2 years ago

Interesting that all the replies to the tweet are from men

PlunderBunny2• 2 years ago

Yeah. If only there was some way to talk to woman and ask them.

silverquiet3• 2 years ago

I could make all kinds of jokes about dating (mostly at my expense) with this, but to be a bit serious, I wonder if people know why they do things. Ultimately, what are children for?

tuatoru2• 2 years ago

Some people are actually undertaking this radically novel and risky procedure.

It appears that women say they can't find a suitable partner.

The reason for that, in turn, is that men are now in the minority in university, and young women (23 - 33) have higher yearly incomes on average than young men.

The few men whom women do find suitable are deluged with offers from women, and see no reason to commit to any one woman.

1. Chris Williamson's Youtube channel has many videos digging away at the problem, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAmQ7Tcrh6A

2. Random NYT opinion piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/opinion/marriage-women-me...

thealchemistdev• 2 years ago

https://data.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/choosing-childfree

rossdavidh• 2 years ago

It seems like, if you actually want to investigate this question, you would want to add data on: - how does this vary by country - how does this vary by income (relative to median for that country) - how does this vary by religion

Probably other things, but at least those. This graph doesn't even say what country (or group of countries) it is about, as far as I can tell?

g8oz2• 2 years ago

> how does this vary by religion

Also interesting is how does it vary within a religion. i.e compare the birth rate of Turkey and Iran to that of Mali.

My view is that income and median education dominate other factors.

vinyl72• 2 years ago

Career over family

clipsy5• 2 years ago

There's plenty of propaganda on both sides; you can't swing a cat without hitting someone who outspokenly believes that having children is the only path to true happiness/meaning/fulfillment.

__m• 2 years ago

They clearly never had a cat

BrainInAJar• 2 years ago

other than to ensure a cheap exploitable workforce, who cares? Why is it a bad thing?

bigyikes• 2 years ago

The economy is predicated on future growth, so if growth slows due to lack of workforce, bad things may happen. Social programs become insolvent. It becomes difficult to take care of an aging population.

(Not sure what makes you say “cheap and exploitable”, are future generations somehow more exploitable than current or past generations?)

knighthack• 2 years ago

Which goes back to the argument on constant growth. Why is there such a need for that?

defrost4• 2 years ago

Poor predicate in the long term. If earth based human population continues to grow bad things happen.

Basing success on always being able to find a fresh mark perhaps isn't sustainable.

thefz• 2 years ago

The economy is predicated on future growth

Then change the economy to a more sustainable version of itself instead of predicating that people must multiply themselves to make another rich asshole even richer. Problem solved.

timeon• 2 years ago

economy is predicated on future growth

But this is the problem. We already know with climate, that there is limit to the growth anyway.

piva007• 2 years ago

The economical system we live under is predicated on future growth. The economy can have different forms, it's the exploitative way of economy that demands future growth, perhaps we should be looking into a different way to organise the economy that caters for the inevitable future where we won't have constant population growth to support the system.

gettodachoppa• 2 years ago

If it was done as a desired choice rather than it being driven by economic fears, you're right, we shouldn't care. But for most people, they aren't having kids because they don't have a house, they don't have a stable partner (tangentially tied to economic needs), they just don't have money to raise kids.

With supply and demand, you'd expect a decline in workers would mean higher wages down the line. But the ruling class will always make sure there is endless immigration and free trade agreements to keep the average citizen broke and miserable.

clipsy5• 2 years ago

If it was done as a desired choice rather than it being driven by economic fears, you're right, we shouldn't care. But for most people, they aren't having kids because they don't have a house, they don't have a stable partner (tangentially tied to economic needs), they just don't have money to raise kids.

Do you have data to back up this assertion? My understanding is that the poor still have the highest birth rate in the US.

tuatoru2• 2 years ago

This is a reasonable question[1] and does not deserve to be downvoted. Upvoted to compensate.

1. Assuming you didn't study economics or anthropology or sociology.

spectra722• 2 years ago

Turns out, actually having to give birth is kind of a drag, even in the best of conditions, and women who realize they have a choice in the matter are more and more likely to nope right out of it.

Or at least nope out at levels less than the current 2.1 children needed for replacement levels.

clipsy5• 2 years ago

Don't forget if you have life-threatening complications in certain states the local populace might try to sacrifice you to their god.

spectra722• 2 years ago

Even in highly liberal/socialistic countries with low levels of religion women are opting out.

It all boils down to choice. And women are choosing "No thanks" in high numbers even in countries where you'd think most of the barriers are quite low.

silverquiet3• 2 years ago

Passing a head through an opening too small for the task doesn't look appealing at all - I remember an account from Annie Lowery about a doctor cutting open her perineum as part of her delivery.

The sense of being eviscerated, the room going Technicolor. I did not know I could feel so much pain.
The extra anesthesia kicked in, so I keeled over in the bed as the doctor explained that he’d performed an episiotomy while wresting the baby out. I was insufficiently anesthetized at the time. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. [0]

And the alternative is getting gutted and sown back up.

But I can't help but suspect that it's the time pressure that really makes it infeasible. We can only juggle so much and it takes a lot of time to keep up with the demands of modern life.

Lack of religion/purpose is also probably huge. With all the reasons not to have kids, you probably need a good reason to, but maybe there isn't one.

[0]https://archive.is/ZsHIH#selection-1173.59-1173.281

jemmyw• 2 years ago

Not sure why you've been downvoted. This seems like as good as any explanation. All the economic hypotheses are weak given historical data, and rely on "just rich enough". Several things happened in a reasonably short period of time that support choice being the reason: medicine, equality, and social change (ie a large, but not total, reduction in pressure to have kids by society and family).

invalidname3• 2 years ago

No idea why this is downvoted. It's pushing a bowling ball through a narrow opening, it's REALLY painful. You sh*t yourself, bleed for ages, risk your life, seriously harm your body, you become a milk supplier... Then you need to become a mommy. If a woman isn't 100% with her children then there's constant judgement towards her as a "bad mother".

The reward is motherhood which is a 24x7 thankless job filled with dread about your kids. I'm obviously exaggerating and am happy with my kids, but I 100% get the people who choose not to have any. It isn't a bad choice.

Up until recently, many women felt they have no choice and the clock is ticking. The "you'll regret it when you're older" stuff, can be partially solved by freezing eggs (I know a lot of older mothers and we only started at 32).

Furthermore, in recent years there are many inspirational childless women who show it's perfectly acceptable to not go through that.

returnInfinity• 2 years ago

Agreed, Its a big risk giving birth to a child. Modern medicine has greatly reduced this though. But why put yourself in a situation where you may bleed profusely because of a tear or having to go through c-section.

wuschel• 2 years ago

Well, yes. Then again, it can also be the most rewarding, purposeful thing in the life of a female (and male) human, an experience of pain but sheer beauty.

tennisflyi• 2 years ago

Ultimately, not attractive enough in whatever category. For some reason, you MAANGs are oblivious to how desirable those company names and salaries are to women... Just too demure, I guess.

piva007• 2 years ago

For some reason my friends in other careers like the arts, culinary, hospitality, janitors, construction are getting happily married and starting families.

Being attractive doesn't demand money, it demands you to be an interesting, loyal, caring person to someone else.

I'd guess that believing in this worldview where money is an obstacle for finding someone is in itself a filter for potential matches.

bun_terminator7• 2 years ago

For us, there's just too much money taken off our wages to guarantee long-term safety and stability for even a single child. And wage increases barely touch that: The leftover amount is almost constant over a factor of 2 in income increase.

xethos• 2 years ago

Your phrasing implies you blame high tax rates, but I'd first attack this from the opposite end: the market for housing has not been leaving enough in your pocket, with capital (whether morgage lenders with interest rates, or, more likely, landlords) soaking up any excess gained by your pay increase

bun_terminator7• 2 years ago

Both taxes and rent take their part, but taxes several times more. So yes I blame taxes because that's almost the entire problem.

Pay increases not resulting in more income is an effect of a highly complex tax structure that essentially takes of as much as possible without people going on a killing spree.

bitshiftfaced• 2 years ago

I have to say, I'm skeptical of this claim. But I'm not that familiar with the tax code of most countries. Mind sharing what country this is where this would be true?

benterix• 2 years ago

I believe the question is asked backwards. We should be asking why people decide to have kids in the first place. And it is not that easy to answer this question.

punyearthling• 2 years ago

My reasons:

- it's painful

- it's expensive

- it's a drag

- culture war stuff (who wants to deal with school issues, medical issues, community issues, etc.?)

1/3 of women < 44 have no children and the trend is rising. What is causing it?

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