"Wouldn't the real cause of the depressed birthrates be the requirement to own a car in order to have children?"

Yes. The one-time setup costs for "properly" raising kids are probably around $30k. All the kids stuff is extra expensive (in the west) and for the kids seats you need a large car (in the west) and there's social stigma against kids sharing a room (in the west), so you also need a larger apartment.

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justonceokay 2 days ago | parent [-]

Kid stuff is free if your time is worth nothing. There’s always another child outgrowing their car seats and toys and clothes and cribs and games.

	▲	genthree 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Can confirm, the "stuff" costs basically nothing in the scheme of things and nearly all of it can be had used. A bunch of it's also not really all that necessary. Clothes and toys can all be had for very little, without even that much time investment, folks are drowning in this stuff and lots of it just gets thrown away. The real money goes to: 1) Healthcare (in the US). 2) Childcare or foregone wages. 3) School/housing location (same thing; either tuition, or spending 20+% more for the same amount & quality of house in a nicer school district [and the ongoing cost of servicing the extra mortgage on that]; you can skip this, but if you can at all afford it, you'll not feel like it's optional) 4) Space. Larger housing and larger cars. You can skip this kind of (larger car is less-optional if you have more than three kids) but at significant cost to QOL.