It's not 'can't afford kids', it's 'don't prioritise having kids'. And IMHO, they've been taught to think this way. To put career and materialism above family. There's also the constant messaging about an impending climate apocalypse or the rise of new fascism/nazism - which helps justify 'I don't want to bring new life into this world' logic.
Other cultures continue to have kids even in relative poverty, they don't choose to stop having families because times are tough.
There's Africa, sure, and maybe Mongolia. But it's not clear that it will hold or that they have any secret sauce beyond just not having been yet hit with the full blown modernity.
What if reducing birth rates at this point in time is rational?
On the employment side, we have rapidly advancing automation and AI that are dramatically reducing the work force required to maintain society.
On the ecological side we have a combination of climate change, soil depletion, and many other factors that at least threaten to impose a bottleneck on us. We are smart and adaptive but adapting takes time and energy. During the transition it may be harder for us to support vastly huge populations.
Put those things together and… are we, in fact, doing the rational thing here?
Keep in mind that no trend is forever.
In the 1970s people predicted global Malthusian collapse in part by extrapolating past birth rates infinitely far into the future.
Seems to me that population collapse alarmists are doing the same thing. “If this trend continues forever there will be nobody left!”
Retirement for all was an artifact of rapidly growing populations and shorter life spans. Back 50-100 years ago you had each young person supporting maybe 0.1 to 0.25 retired people, and a retirement age in the 60s meant you’d get a few years before now easily treatable heart conditions would kill you. (Everyone smoked too, which “helped” clear the retirement rolls.)
In a world with even a stable population (let alone a declining one) retirement isn’t viable. Or at the very least the age will be raised a lot. I could see 80 as a retirement age in 2050.
Honestly an institutionalized retirement age in the 60s today is unfair and exploitative toward young people. It’s generational economic cannibalism, stopping young people from establishing themselves to fund the old.
Well, lower birth rates are the perpetual excuse for more immigration. Even Trump made a U-turn on H1B and he's now OK with more immigration. Low birth rates and high immigration give credence to the various "replacement" theories and become a political force that can bring nationalists to power.
Next, lower birth rates could be "rational" if they led to higher standard of living and better quality of life, but that's not the case now, in fact we are seeing the opposite because less children make the work force cheaper thus increasing profits. Increased profits go towards increased power and influence which make the trend irreversible.
> During the transition it may be harder for us to support vastly huge populations.
Nonsensical in the current environment of birth rates below replacement level and falling.
> In the 1970s people predicted
Not people - the mass media. They are just noise and BS which should not be considered in a serious conversation - one way or the other.
If rational people stop reproducing, all we'll have left is irrational people.
Or perhaps, and I know this is a wild idea, we could attempt to address these problems instead of complaining about the "messaging" ?
