> Childfree/childless rates are up, and will continue to climb

Desired family size is still 2.7 kids, and has been stable at that number for over 50 years: https://news.gallup.com/poll/694640/americans-ideal-family-s...

A growing gap between how many kids people want and how many they have militates against copying the dense housing patterns of Asian countries that have the lowest birth rates in the world.

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toomuchtodo 2 days ago | parent [-]

Desired fertility is like desired Lambos, all that matters is realized fertility. And realized fertility is trending lower globally, as shown by my numerous citations. I’m willing to bet on this if you want, as a demographic scholar.

https://ourworldindata.org/which-countries-have-already-pass...

https://ourworldindata.org/population-simulation-tool

Terra Incognita: The Economics of a Shrinking World [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49352811 - August 2026

The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44866621 - August 2025 (400 comments)

The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival - https://www.suerf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/f_fa99ccdbe... - SUERF Policy Note, Issue No 197, October 2020

“Talk is cheap, show me the fertility rate.”

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rayiner 2 days ago | parent [-]

> Desired fertility is like desired Lambos, all that matters is realized fertility.

Sure, people are having less kids because we banned building housing and then filled the housing we have with government subsidized illegal immigrants. What’s your point?

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toomuchtodo 2 days ago | parent [-]

People are having less kids because women didn’t want them before, they just have the power to not have them now. This is covered extensively in the citations I provided in the comment you replied to. Housing might be a component, but it is not the root cause. Children are a luxury good now, not an extra hand on the farm.

~40% of annual pregnancies in both the US and internationally are unintended (per the Guttmacher Institute and the UN, respectively), so even with fertility rates down in teens and the 21-40 cohort, we still have a long way to go in preventing unwanted pregnancies and children (which translates into a further declining fertility rate curve forward looking, model accordingly).

Birthgap - https://youtube.com/watch?v=m2GeVG0XYTc (two hours, but substantiates every assertion I’ve made, provided as an additional supporting citation)

I assist thousands of folks a year seeking permanent birth control obtain it, mostly the childfree but occasionally someone who already has a kid or two, ama; this is the cheapest, easiest win as it relates to avoiding suffering around unwanted children, and the emotional, time, and monetary costs of unwanted children at scale is simply too high. The historical total fertility rate was because women were not educated and empowered; forward looking fertility rate is the true neutral rate.

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rayiner a day ago | parent [-]

You’re overlooking the Gallup studies showing that the desired fertility rate has been stable at 2.7, well above the replacement rate.

> The historical total fertility rate was because women were not educated and empowered; forward looking fertility rate is the true neutral rate

It’s not possible for an outcome that would result one extinction of the species to be the “true neutral rate.” Rather, even if what you say is true (and I think it isn’t given people’s stated preference for 2-3 kids) what you’re seeing is a social contagion that will self correct when child-agnostic cultures die out in favor of cultures in which having children confers higher social status.

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15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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toomuchtodo 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> It’s not possible for an outcome that would result one extinction of the species to be the “true neutral rate.” Rather, even if what you say is true (and I think it isn’t given people’s stated preference for 2-3 kids) what you’re seeing is a social contagion that will self correct when child-agnostic cultures die out in favor of cultures in which having children confers higher social status.

The only culture whose fertility rate isn't declining and converging around 0.5-1 is those in Israel, and they're going to have to figure out how to support themselves economically as the US tilts away from doing so due to political winds changing.

Good luck to those desiring "children confering high social status" as inflation continues to increase and the cost of everything increases long into the future due to climate change and structural demographics shrinking working age populations globally. Being poor sucks, everyone figures this out eventually, and the future will not be as nice as the recent past was. Kids have a cost, can those who want them for status afford them? We'll find out soon enough.

	▲	rayiner 10 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> The only culture whose fertility rate isn't declining and converging around 0.5-1 U.S. Muslims and Mormons both have a total fertility rate well above replacement (2.2-2.5). https://news.rakwa.com/2025/08/29/muslim-and-arab-fertility-... Muslim Americans are among the most highly educated demographics in the U.S., and Mormons are around the average. So it’s definitely possible without turning the clock back before women had education and choices.
	▲	bindtea388 11 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> and they're going to have to figure out how to support themselves economically as the US tilts away from doing so… Hard to take you seriously as a “researcher” when you apply antisemitic tropes to math. Israel’s GDP is about $700 billion, and growing at 3% (that’s $20 billion) a year. US aid is about $3 billion a year. It’s one thing to mime the meme for shits and giggles, but you’re now trying to use that in a rational argument.