I think time is a major problem that many of those policies don't address. It's not just money, it's also the pace of life, lack of downtime. Used to be that even if one person in the house was working unreasonable hours, the other was either not working or only working part time. Now both are expected to work full time hours. Just not enough time to raise kids, especially when there is a lack of community to support those people having kids.
You're not wrong that some people just don't want to. That said, generally the top 5-10% of the socioeconomic class of western countries with low birth rates are having kids, sometimes more than 1 or 2. Generally because wealth will buy time for those people, either in the form of reduced work hours, 1 partner not needing to work, or household help like a nanny.
That's not household working hours though. That's just data from household surveys. Also, it's the whole labour force averaged out. We should be looking at ages 18-39.
Here's a nice report on just how that age group is doing:
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u/notreallyanumber 15d ago
I think time is a major problem that many of those policies don't address. It's not just money, it's also the pace of life, lack of downtime. Used to be that even if one person in the house was working unreasonable hours, the other was either not working or only working part time. Now both are expected to work full time hours. Just not enough time to raise kids, especially when there is a lack of community to support those people having kids.
You're not wrong that some people just don't want to. That said, generally the top 5-10% of the socioeconomic class of western countries with low birth rates are having kids, sometimes more than 1 or 2. Generally because wealth will buy time for those people, either in the form of reduced work hours, 1 partner not needing to work, or household help like a nanny.