It irrelevant - babies are not needed for population growth - there's plenty of countries that are overpopulated all that is required is redistribution of the people we have rather than making more. If we look at these issues globally rather than on a per country basis it looks easier to resolve/different.
funny thing is india, it's not about money. I know tech bros here who make really good income, have good residential properties and cars, they aren't complaining about not having enough money to marry, they just don't find any woman who is willing to marry them.
Most people who are having kids in india are lower income people.
so i just don't understand when people say it's because of money issue, when people with comfy jobs fail to have babies, it's not about money.
What you're saying mostly applies to general category people. If you spend any time listening to middle class families it all comes down to the cost of getting a good education if the kids didn't get a "government seat." As an example, a medical degree in a private college can cost 1cr for tuition fees alone.
The kids pick up on this lament consciously or unconsciously and realise that the more kids they will have, the worse the problem.
The "poor" people get subsidies and freebies, and the more children they have, the more sops state governments throw away at them.
I'm also told, but can't confirm it, another factor is social media pushing fancy vacations abroad spending their entire income.
In India, from what I have personally observed it is mostly a mental health issue (anxiety disorders / depression):
1. Many men and women fear to commit to a relationship today and are increasingly remaining single, or marrying late (in their late 30's or 40's). Thus, even those who marry can't have a large family as the older you get the more fertility issues you have (along with additional anxieties of how to manage young kids when you are old).
2. For indian women in particular, it is also anxiety about loss of freedom if they can't work. Thus, even those who marry young, try to avoid having a large family as they fear it will be an impediment to their career (which means less financial freedom, and the fear of being under the "control" of a male spouse).
3. And finally there's the western capitalistic consumerism , where even spouse or a kid can be seen as an impediment to enjoying a consumerist lifestyle by the individual in their "pursuit of happiness".
Unless you are seeing the population decline issues in China... then blame socialism and it's long time one child policy. A system predicated on the socialists in power having a sort of "paternalistic wisdom" that it can enforce on society regardless of the individual interests of any set potential parents in having a larger family than their socialist masters wish.
> an economic system predicated on individual autonomy and naked self-interest whose incentives run counter to child-rearing
A free market is just the natural state of things which reflects what people want vs the reality of resource constraints. For example, even in communist societies there will always be a (underground) free market.
Real estate: there's not enough of it, new construction targets young unmarried people and successively makes smaller units while gradually raising the price per unit. Young people without families optimize for themselves and continually are willing to compromise for less space for the same money but minimum_space(single) << minimum_space(family+kids)
So new construction, particularly large apartment building have few to no units that anyone could actually raise a family in and trend towards "studio" concrete cylinders.
Places with more space are zoned for exclusive residential and are thus tremendously boring.
Mixed use places are full of vacant commercial space because lowering the rent would trigger property revaluation and the places that aren't vacant are tremendously expensive because of the large amount that has to go to paying the rent ... or paying their low-to-middle income employees who spent half their income on rent.
All of this money is getting sucked out of the economy into A) people who want real estate income without working and B) the financial system giving them loans.
Nobody wants kids because they have to chose between expensive housing where it's boring and extremely expensive housing where it's not. Just furthering the generation on generation the young paying for the previous generations real estate "investment" growth.
People who want to have kids have kids. There have been worse economic conditions, and far worse living conditions for folks in the not very distant past and they still had large families.
There has been a slow burn change to social pressure and autonomy. It seems like women don't want to have a large family, or some a family at all, if the choice is there. The rationale about why they put it off are unlikely to be worth much.
I think every economic remedy will fail. But it'll probably pick up again because I imagine social pressure will turn. All this noise people are making about it right now is the start. Personally I see that as a negative, we should be celebrating a downward population trend. We had so many years of warning about the effects of an ever larger population and now get hand wringing the moment that looks wrong.
My take for a while is that if the low birth rates persist and do become a critical problem, we might just have to do a boring thing that we do for other areas where the unregulated market or society doesn’t produce enough of something or doesn’t solve a problem. We might just have to subsidize it and basically pay people to have kids.
I would not say it’s capitalism but rather industrialization. Children are assets when they can help with farm work but become an expense when work moves to a factory/office setting.
The amount of people who can't see the difference between a monetary system captured by central planners who stand in the way of the free market at every turn and who, in their continuous debasement, perpetuate a K-shaped economy, and capitalism, is quite alarming.
But I suppose that we can't expect much when they've been educated by government employees.
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[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 50.3 ms ] threadMost people who are having kids in india are lower income people.
so i just don't understand when people say it's because of money issue, when people with comfy jobs fail to have babies, it's not about money.
The kids pick up on this lament consciously or unconsciously and realise that the more kids they will have, the worse the problem.
The "poor" people get subsidies and freebies, and the more children they have, the more sops state governments throw away at them.
I'm also told, but can't confirm it, another factor is social media pushing fancy vacations abroad spending their entire income.
1. Many men and women fear to commit to a relationship today and are increasingly remaining single, or marrying late (in their late 30's or 40's). Thus, even those who marry can't have a large family as the older you get the more fertility issues you have (along with additional anxieties of how to manage young kids when you are old).
2. For indian women in particular, it is also anxiety about loss of freedom if they can't work. Thus, even those who marry young, try to avoid having a large family as they fear it will be an impediment to their career (which means less financial freedom, and the fear of being under the "control" of a male spouse).
3. And finally there's the western capitalistic consumerism , where even spouse or a kid can be seen as an impediment to enjoying a consumerist lifestyle by the individual in their "pursuit of happiness".
It's not just rich places that are becoming less fertile.
"Demographers have long shown that what really counts is girls’ education. Schooling means that girls gain more autonomy and a greater say in life’s decisions." - https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/06/04/indias-surprise...
> an economic system predicated on individual autonomy and naked self-interest whose incentives run counter to child-rearing
A free market is just the natural state of things which reflects what people want vs the reality of resource constraints. For example, even in communist societies there will always be a (underground) free market.
Blame capitalism, but the real estate part.
Real estate: there's not enough of it, new construction targets young unmarried people and successively makes smaller units while gradually raising the price per unit. Young people without families optimize for themselves and continually are willing to compromise for less space for the same money but minimum_space(single) << minimum_space(family+kids)
So new construction, particularly large apartment building have few to no units that anyone could actually raise a family in and trend towards "studio" concrete cylinders.
Places with more space are zoned for exclusive residential and are thus tremendously boring.
Mixed use places are full of vacant commercial space because lowering the rent would trigger property revaluation and the places that aren't vacant are tremendously expensive because of the large amount that has to go to paying the rent ... or paying their low-to-middle income employees who spent half their income on rent.
All of this money is getting sucked out of the economy into A) people who want real estate income without working and B) the financial system giving them loans.
Nobody wants kids because they have to chose between expensive housing where it's boring and extremely expensive housing where it's not. Just furthering the generation on generation the young paying for the previous generations real estate "investment" growth.
There has been a slow burn change to social pressure and autonomy. It seems like women don't want to have a large family, or some a family at all, if the choice is there. The rationale about why they put it off are unlikely to be worth much.
I think every economic remedy will fail. But it'll probably pick up again because I imagine social pressure will turn. All this noise people are making about it right now is the start. Personally I see that as a negative, we should be celebrating a downward population trend. We had so many years of warning about the effects of an ever larger population and now get hand wringing the moment that looks wrong.
But I suppose that we can't expect much when they've been educated by government employees.