The wording here is a bit odd, almost like blaming people for delaying childbearing. The world is complicated and a number of factors have produced this outcome in the developed world.
My parents were factory workers and they encouraged me to study a university degree as a sure way to a successful career. I finished my degree well into my 20s, but then the economic collapse of 2008 happened and I spent several years living paycheck to paycheck, lucky me who at least had a job.
In my late 20s I finally broke from economic stagnation by moving abroad. Then I spent the next 12 years moving countries every 2-3 years, which isn't good for stability. In fact I didn't meet who would become my wife until my mid 30s.
Now I approach 40 and have a good paying job in tech. However I'm in the US on a non-immigrant visa and my company has done waves of layoffs that I luckily survived. We are seriously considering having a child, but the prospects don't look great. Everything else aside, we don't really know anyone or have a support network here.
I know most of this is moaning and if we "really wanted" we could make it work. But it doesn't discount the fact that it's easier to start a family for someone with a stable job with a support network.
It's not that it has gotten harder to have kids, but that people come to expect and want to provide more.
I had a perfectly decent living standard growing up, but I also remember very clearly in retrospect the economic uncertainty and the things my parents did to save money, and no uncertainty I've faced has been anywhere near that. Of course it's not like that for everyone, but overall, living standards are up massively, yet fertility rates are down, and the two are firmly correlated.
If I were to budget like my parents did, I could afford many kids. But I don't want to budget like that. Not because I resent how we had it, but because I don't want to go back to that just for the sake of having lots of kids.
I wonder if other parents waiting till they can offer the kids more creates pressure. Not only on the parents but the kids as well. I frequently couldn't get what I wanted as a kid, but that was the norm and in fact several kids I went to school with were clearly poorer. However, if I look at kids around me today, they have seemingly everything they could want. If I imagined the majority of the kids around me had had as much stuff, fancy vacations, expensive after-school activities etc. and I had what I had in actuality I would have felt much poorer. Just the after-school activities alone would ruin everything. My friends and family's kids now are always out at clubs and classes and that's where they see their friends. This would put poorer kids at a disadvantage.
But it has gotten harder in some important ways, housing costs as a % of median income have risen by multiples since then. Shelter being thing that probably makes people feel the most insecure
Those 'other things' are generally more optional than shelter, so you'll bid up shelter until you get it while sacrificing those other things. Inelastic demand and inelastic supply is a bad combo.
We see affordability and population growth in places that allow housing.
We don't see population growth without immigration anywhere but third world countries any more, and consistently dropping there too as living standards increase.
While I agree it's a bad combo and could be better, there's nothing to support any notion that cheaper housing will be enough to increase fertility rates.
I don't blame people, just noting that at least in my own youth all I heard were reasons to wait.
Good luck! Funny enough my wife and I are from the US and we waited until we knew our kids would have EU citizenship before having them. And raising kids without a support network sucks, I can't pretend otherwise.
The kids will stay alive, but they would certainly prefer stability, and their parents would've just as much loved to give their children a better life. For most of human history the parents didn't really have much control over improving their circumstances, nor did they have effective means of birth control, so they just had kids whenever. I don't think it's reasonable to just put that aside as "kids are way more resilient".
"But it doesn't discount the fact that it's easier to start a family for someone with a stable job with a support network."
Definitely. Still, sometimes you have to take risks, as you are not getting younger. Maybe moving again somewhere, where you could have a support network, even though pay is lower, might be an option?
We had grandparents around, that definitely helped. No idea, what other people do without that. If both parents get sick, the child still needs lots of care .. and you don't want some stranger to take care of your baby.
My parents were factory workers and they encouraged me to study a university degree as a sure way to a successful career. I finished my degree well into my 20s, but then the economic collapse of 2008 happened and I spent several years living paycheck to paycheck, lucky me who at least had a job.
In my late 20s I finally broke from economic stagnation by moving abroad. Then I spent the next 12 years moving countries every 2-3 years, which isn't good for stability. In fact I didn't meet who would become my wife until my mid 30s.
Now I approach 40 and have a good paying job in tech. However I'm in the US on a non-immigrant visa and my company has done waves of layoffs that I luckily survived. We are seriously considering having a child, but the prospects don't look great. Everything else aside, we don't really know anyone or have a support network here.
I know most of this is moaning and if we "really wanted" we could make it work. But it doesn't discount the fact that it's easier to start a family for someone with a stable job with a support network.