i agree with most of your points, especially the reduction of work hours, but cost is not the issue that keeps people from having kids. it's actually the reverse. the more money people have, the less likely they have kids.

the problem is lifestyle and career demands.

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dheera 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I think it's also because high middle class earners are financially smart (don't buy things if they don't have the money), AND health-smart (realize their body's needs, including sleep) so they choose logically not to have kids, because they do not have the resources for it, and will not sacrifice their own well-being just to have kids.

The upper class is financially smart, AND has the resources (20+ years of child rearing costs already secured upfront, ability to hire night nannies, ability to take a few years away from work without income, own a home and not at the mercy of rent increases), so they have kids.

The lower class is often not financially smart, is not health smart, and systematically poisoned to sacrifice themselves and buy things they cannot afford. They are given insufficient resources and told that they should have kids, so they do.

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em-bee 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The lower class is often not financially smart, is not health smart, and systematically poisoned to buy things they cannot afford, including kids, so they have kids.

i don't believe that is true.

raising kids is not that expensive. what is expensive is the high expectations for what you should spend on your kids with that middle class and high earners have. like sending kids to college.

	▲	dheera 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> raising kids is not that expensive Huh? In a world where people have zero job security, could get put on some layoff or 15%-per-year PIP quota any time and lose their income at the whim of some politics 5 levels above, and any random health issue could cost hundreds of thousands due to insurance not paying, I'd say as a self-proclaimed financially literate person, that you'd need to save up a couple million in cash and set it aside to even begin considering kids. I could be on the chopping block tomorrow at work and then have to downsize my lifestyle next week, but I'm prepared to downsize as a child-less person. If I didn't have the entire course of child-rearing costs saved up in cash I wouldn't consider starting the process. If children cost $2 million over the entire course of their life, I need to have $2 million now. In cash. That's the financially smart way in an income-uncertain world; you don't ever assume things that you don't already have. 20 years ago, job security was pretty good, you could relax and saving up the full cost in cash was not a prerequisite. You could throw your money into a mutual fund and get rich, because the US had sane economic leaders. You were virtually guaranteed a job if you had skills. None of this is guaranteed anymore. Nowadays, you either have it or you don't; the system guarantees you nothing about the future. And if one wants to avoid that chopping block in today's corporate work environments, working nights and weekends is a good start, but then you'd have no time for kids.