If they have the freedom to choose otherwise, they will. The global fertility "crisis" is simply individuals exercising their choices.

Kids are really expensive, and if you want people to willingly have them outside of accidents, you're going to need to pay them a lot of money.

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exitb 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Rising kids also has a time, effort and opportunity costs which are not easily offset with money. I don’t think there’s a way to frame modern parenting in a way where it „pays off” in the same sense as it did in the past. As of now, it’s essentially a hobby.

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danny_codes 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I mean, it can be offset with money. - Kids take time - Yes, so does working. If you cutout the 90h my partner and I spend working, that's a lot of time to put into raising children. - Kids take effort - Yes, so does working. If I didn't need to work this becomes much easier. - Opportunity cost - Yes, just pay me for the opportunity cost. Pay for my PhD after my kids are in grade school.

It's just that these policies are very expensive, and right now we allocate our money mostly to make rich people richer and maintain very high QoL for our elderly population. That's a choice we make in setting up our society.

	▲	aidenn0 36 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Exiting the workforce for a decade (Replacement fertility rate is 2.1 implying some people will have 3 kids, spaced 2 years apart plus 5 years of child-rearing until kindergarten) has an opportunity cost that is potentially in the millions of dollars, depending on the industry, and the time costs of child rearing doesn't suddenly end at 5 either.

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vkou 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There's no amount of money (that society could ever afford to pay) that could convince my wife to have children.

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mekdoonggi 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Yep. And that's good! That's freedom of choice. Similarly, my wife wanted children, and there's no amount of money that could replace the joy of having our child.

Everything is better when we have the freedom to make a choice.

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kixiQu 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I wish society had taxed me (desired path zero children) more in some way that would have routed the resources to my friend who would have wanted to start having kids earlier and have more. Instead, the combination of regional housing crisis with contemporary parenting standards meant she and her husband waited for career progression to have the money for the space to start.

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g3f32r 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Yep. And that's good! That's freedom of choice.

Is it? Was it actually her choice? Or was she propagandized into being a fully-available consumer?

Was she fed a steady diet of anti-natalist/anti-family formation and pro-independence (pro-consume) media and government policies from the moment she was born?

	▲	mekdoonggi an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I will assume that she has the same ability to reason and make an informed choice as you.
	▲	vkou 41 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Thank you for bringing up this incredibly rational, and not at all offensive or infantalizing presumption - one that hypothesizes that my spouse is incapable of thinking and deciding for herself. You are, of course, the sole free-thinking, unpropagandized person in the world.

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liglam 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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