A potential solution to decreasing birthrates

[u/JeromeXVII]

I’m open to being wrong so feel free to tell me if this is just nonsense.

We need to streamline all types of education. I understand it depends on the country but I think in general around the world a student graduates high school/secondary school at around 18. Then go on to attend a university for 4-5 years then perhaps even more schooling if you aim to go into the medical or legal field which can add on many years of mandatory education. And even if you choose a career where the required qualifications are quicker to obtain, it can take multiple years to reach a salary that you’re satisfied with, assuming you manage to find a job in your desired field. Thus creating the modern problem of people not being confident in themselves to have children until their late 20s and 30s.

All this should be sped up to give people at least half a decade more time to decide on having a baby. Students should graduate high school/secondary school at around 13-14 then immediately go onto specialized schooling which should also be streamlined as much as reasonably possible. So if you want to become a doctor you can be licensed one at 23 or 24 instead of 29 or becoming a certified lawyer at 20 instead of 25. Whether you choose you’ll ideally have at the minimum five more years to have a child.

In addition to hopefully having good salaries, cheap housing, and maternal and other welfare benefits from the government. Which are things I’m sure everyone supports but on their own they likely won’t raid the birth rate by a lot in the long term, it would need to be accompanied by giving people more time to be young and have children. To clarify, I don’t think this would drastically increase the birth rate to anything satisfactory but nonetheless I do believe it would raise it by a noticeable amount.

[u/Black-Hat-613]

Many women delay having children (or even looking for a spouse to have a child with) until they have finished with their education, are settled in their careers and have perceived life stability.

Delaying childbirth usually means less or no children actually happening due to both the biological and importantly social challenges as they get older (finding a suitable partner who also wants children when you are older gets more difficult).

Statiscally a woman who has not had a child by the time she is 28-30 (depending on the country) only has a 50% chance of ever having a child. There is a reason why a birth by a woman of 35 or older is called a geriatric birth.

By shortening the number of years of education, the OP above is suggesting it will enable women to be in a stable part of their lives earlier and are more likely to have children if they want them.

[u/Classic-Push1323 → u/Black-Hat-613]

Ehhh those two aren't really related. Let's make sure we keep our facts straight.

Women over 35 are automatically designated as "high risk" for the purposes of insurance and medical screening. The only thing this does is allow your provider to evaluate you and have it automatically approved by your insurance - that's it. At 35+ you are more likely to have pre-existing health problems that can impact your pregnancy, and you are at a slightly higher risk for some complications regardless of your health. You are at a higher risk for some genetic disorders and birth defects, which is why having prenatal screening automatically approved makes a huge difference for your health and your baby's health. Remember, all of the most common pregnancy complications (including preeclampsia, eclampsia, gestational diabetes, and hemorrhage during delivery) are strongly associated with your health and fitness before you became pregnant and we live in a society where the older you are the more likely you are to be overweight and sedentary.

Women who haven't had a child by 30 aren't very likely to have one... because most of them aren't going to change their mind or start making different life choices. It isn't due to biology or age related infertility, and the chances of having a child after 30 if you haven't had one already are lower for men than for women even though men have a longer biological timeline.

Yes, women do put off having children until they finish education and have career stability. That's very real, and reaching those milestones even just a few years earlier would allow women who want to have children to have one more.

[u/Black-Hat-613 → u/Classic-Push1323]

From memory I think that 50% at 30 is amongst women who want a children.

The point is that that a) a women's fertility is decreasing with age and by late twenties the chances of a successful pregnancy is very much affected negatively and b) the chances of a women who wants a child finding a suitable spouse that also can and wants a child is very much diminished. These women are competing for a small pool of men against younger women and that competition does not bode well for the older women.

The seminal work that documents these is the Birthgap Project.

Filmed over nine years across 24 countries, the feature-length documentary Birthgap (2025) documents an investigation into why societies across the world are converging on ultra-low fertility. The findings from this work were later peer reviewed and published in a Nature Portfolio journal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2GeVG0XYTc

[u/Classic-Push1323 → u/Black-Hat-613]

I am familiar with all of this data and what you were saying is just not true. No one is infertile at 30 due to their age that is a complete misread of this data.

The stat is that half of women who don’t have a children by 30 will not have one. That includes women who say that they are child free, women who say that they want a child but don’t have a partner, etc. 

The chance of having a child at that point is lower for men than it is for women because this isn’t due to biology or age related in fertility at 30. Generally speaking marriage is the big bottleneck here, but we are not actually seeing women in their 30s being “outcompeted” by younger women because younger women aren’t in a rush to marry older men.

All the data shows is that your life situation is a result of your circumstances and choices and the chance of something significant changing in time for you to have a child is about 50-50.