More complicated than when? You used to have kids because you needed more hands to work the farm and a good number of them died young.

Yes that model has been inverted.

The family used to tax the grown or mostly-grown children in the form of farm labor. The government in many prior centuries taxed like 2-5% total and the rest was intrafamilial support.

Now it is flipped on its head. Everyone else's families tax your child for their social security, socializing the benefits while still you retain most the costs privately.

Thus tragedy of the commons situation. Why make that investment when you can just tax everyone else's kids and rest assured of your own social security, if they don't pay it you can just have them tossed in a cage or their assets seized, no need to have children yourself.

It feels more like people [used to] have kids because they fucked and hadn't made the connection between that and having children. Them working at whatever you worked at was just necessary so you can help them grow, keep an eye on them, and pay for their upbringing.

I don’t know about that. My great grandmas and grandmas didn’t have lots of kids for the labor, they had them because they didn’t have a way to not have them. The grandpas might have though.

Coincidentally, my aunts did not have to have more than 2, and almost every single one had 2 kids.

Exactly, so that made having children a financial benefit. I'm confused that you said it but don't get it.

It’s amazing that the need for more hands on the farm declined at precisely the same time birth control became widely available.