To try everything Brilliant has to offer for free for a full 30 days, visit www.brilliant.org/howhistoryworks. You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
The baby-boomers have had one most important thing in their possession which the current generation doesn't have--free land. Without land to live on, grow food on or make a house upon, you won't make babies. Poverty is no barrier in producing kids, if you have land to grow food upon. P.S.-Flats or apartments are prisons cells, you pay rent for. No one wants to raise kids in these tiny prison cells.
I have several reasons to not get married or have kids. First off, diaper phobia. I didn't want to change diapers. Secondly, I am gay, so I find no need to partner with a woman, especially in the current legal climate. Thirdly, finances. My father struggled financially his whole life as a minister and died long before reaching retirement. I didn't want to do that to myself or others. I want to reach retirement. Getting married and having kids gets in the way of that.
@ianandersen265 The demands of having kids certainly ages you.. BUT on the positive, it gives purpose and joy! Quite a few of my male friends in their 50's struggle with mid life crisis, divorce and depression. BUT the one thing they would not change in their life is having had their child. Just a thought! Not crticising!
Why in Soviet union brith rate always Stay above 2.1 Even now the former Soviet Union countries have good birth rates.(Kazakhstan, Usbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia )
My dad is a boomer. He was born in June 1945. World War 2 was still going on. Lotta world war 2 vets thought they were going to die so getting married, and then getting a woman pregnant before you left to go die in a war, was a popular sentiment at the time.
@@talandar5773 Just because it wasn't straight-up rape doesn't mean that the overall culture at the time wasn't geared towards male dominance. If the guy wanted a kid, they'd do everything they could to make a kid, even if the woman doesn't necessarily think it's a good idea to be stuck with a kid all on her own when, up to that point, women didn't typically work outside the home, meaning that if her man died in the war, she'd be left with an extra mouth to feed and no way to feed it without finding herself another man. Yes, that changed during the war, but those sorts of changes tend to start in cities and work their way out, and the cultural perception of the changes tends to lag behind the actual changes by a few years, so even though we look back, now, and say "women worked in factories during the war, and made their own money," it was very much _not_ the mindset of any woman being saddled with a kid and potentially no husband that she'd be perfectly okay being a single mom on her own. Thus, if the women had as much say in the matter as they do, today, the mid-war boom would definitely have been much, much less (although the post-war boom would still have been significant, since at that point, you know your guy isn't going to die in a war, because the war is over, and now it's safe to start having kids with him).
@@talandar5773It’s coming from modern eff in ist indoctrination, which purposely encourages an incorrect interpretation of history to further its agenda.
yes... global warm, wealth inequality, shit like that. I would say the internet allows me to see how fucked up the world is (and has always been), and I don't want my kids to suffer.
agreed. Optimism about the future is the greatest factor. someone who expects things to get worse is probably not going to risk getting a child (which is, afterall, a pretty huge commitment - given that a child is pretty much your responsibility to care about for at least two decades). And there just isn't that socio-cultural climate of stable optimism in the current world.
Yeah, who's going to have children seeing inflation can double in 3 years and it's impossible for many to find a job but the government says everything is fine. Even those with a job, not like they saw any raises with inflation everywhere rising.
Yea who wants to bring a child into a world with free Healthcare in most countries, wealth security, less violence globally, equal rights among genders and a robust education system that works with children with disabilities. What a terrible world we live in
Two words: Higher Education. That means people delay childbearing during their most fertile years. Then they delay further to "establish" their careers. Not saying these things are bad, but that when a large chunk of the population is doing this, of course birth rates are going to plummet.
I found the conclusion "Before the people was only expected to marry and have babies and today is expected to study, make work career and make your backpack to europe" very revealing. I think that explain a lot of things
Ever-increasing automation does make it more difficult to just walk in to a hire-to-retire career without some unique selling points of postsecondary education and experiences.
Prior to Now, most people really won't aware that there was a world beyond their local area. They knew there was a world there, they just didn't compare or try to keep up with appearances or Jones beyond their area.
People have to adapt to the new world. To seek out new opportunities or to make them. AKA don’t live in a big city, find a good balance where you can earn the best bang for your buck. And plan ahead.
@@somethingclever8916 Yeah, I think the ultimate point was that people want to pursue other things, not that young people are all traveling the world lol. "Backpacking around Europe" was just a sarcastic example.
I don't buy this, we exist as species and for sure there were even worse conditions. There seems to be genetic evidence of a time were there were less than 10K humans, we were literally on the brink of extinction. It requires 100K humans for the species to be safe. I can't imagine people would stop having kids because of no hope for the future. Actually I think there's a lot of hope for the future, that's why I'm having kids, its because of people like you that decided to not have kids that I have hope, there won't be competition, so things will get easier. So keep thinking what you think, while I have my kids and they inherit the world without your kids to compete with mine, I literally win. Most of the problems with the current society are caused by just too many people, that will fix itself very soon, so there's a lot of hope for the next generation, the zoomers are screwed either way.
Having children is a major economic calculation. Historically, having children has always been economically beneficial. As labor force, old age insurance... it no longer makes economic sense now. There are people who just like kids. But doing something without an economic incentive is called a hobby.
@Rasaiel Well just like all the companies going under so is the idea of prosperity from having kids. No one knows the why to anything.. it's just what people do. So rhe logic of it goes out the window.
I think another factor in decreasing birth rates is, ironically, people taking parental responsibility more seriously. At one time people who were grossly unprepared or had a history of mental health issues or medical issues in their family just had kids anyway. These days people are increasingly aware of the risk that poses to kids and they set a high standard for themselves before considering conception.
Wayward parents still had extended family, siblings, cousins, parents and grandparents nearby to help raise children. An important safety net. Now we live in a hyper individualistic Western world. We are often studying, working, living and having relationships 100s of miles from where we grew up
That's precisely the reason I'm child-free. My supposed child would have 40% more chance of becoming schizophrenic than I deem safe. So I'd rather leave procreating to other people, whether they would be healthier or braver than me.
Fundamentally I think we have much higher standards for raising children than we did in the past. Some of what boomer and gen-x children would have experienced would be decried as child abuse or neglect today. It was once normal to leave children to their own devices from morning until evening, have older siblings take much more caring responsibilities for younger ones, and so on. This made it easier for dual income parents to have children and manage their time without burning out. Now the options are pay enormous sums for professional childcare or supervise your kids constantly when not at school. There's also a lot of social pressure to ferry them around to clubs and other activities rather than just let them entertain themselves. Perhaps that's how it should be, certainly there were problems with the old way of doing things, but it's no wonder people aren't having so many children, apart from how expensive it all is, it just sucks away all the free time parents have. You basically have to have no life away from your children unless you're very rich, and a lot of adults, rather understandably, don't want to do that.
Good to see someone saying this! I didn't want children, and a lot of the reason was my background. Cold parents caused disastrous problems for all 4 siblings. The idea of passing that poison on was unthinkable. I have asked many parents why they wanted kids, and the replies are STARTLING. "I want, I felt, my life, my future, my marriage, my old age"! No analysis of the most important factor...are you fit to be a parent?. Only one of us 4 has kids, and he is not a good dad. He repeats the errors of his parents. But we are still called the selfish ones. Not in my long experience.
Birth control. There was no birth control. Get rid of birth control and I think we'd start mirroring the 30s to 50s. Unless you were sexless, you didn't have a choice. Condoms weren't widely used or reliable. Abortion was also not an option back in those days.
My Sociology teacher in Grade 13: "people had lots of free time after going back home from work, there was little entertainment such as television. Sexual intercourse was a way to kill boredom and get rid of workplace frustrations". Haven't heard a better explanation since then.
My history teacher was always sarcastic about time of Polish People's Republic and his favorite say was that block flats was size of cupboard drawers and the government blackout was made specially to raise more population in country 😂.
One thing not included is that in the US the drop in the pregnancy rare from about 1990 to current is that we have cut teen pregnancies down to a fraction of their previoua size.
@Rexorazor Nope! Kids having kids is never a good thing for the parents or the child. Why do you think a lot of us don't want kids today? We grew up with teenaged parents. It was a poop show!
Yeah, I've seen a ton of other videos mentioning this too. A lot of our population came from the younger parents making rash decisions, and education and medicine have drastically decreased that so it's only natural
So this is actually good. And in all honesty, if we WANTED to, this is how we advance society. Fewer kids born but born into families that planned for them and have the money to invest in their health and education means higher quality future generations. Except it’s impossible to really do all of that cause the economy and the environment have been poisoned 😅
They’re not saying that though? They’re saying that both boomer’s parents and the younger gen’s are pro-leftovers BUT the silent gen/greatest gen wouldn’t criticize their boomer kids for being wasteful bc they believed in a future prosperity for their kids.
no, we're not richer than our parents, you have to spent more % from income to get a home than before, and these days you're competing not only with other people who want to live, but also companies that take it as a business
"but you have a phone" is the boomer version of rich because to them, technology is a luxury. They don't realize that functioning in the modern world requires access to the modern world.
I keep saying this, consumer goods are cheap but necessities like housing, healthcare, transportation and education are all much more expensive. I can buy a new wardrobe with a small portion of my paycheck but that’s not gonna help me start a family.
@@adamatari YES. When you look at the material goods we have access to, yes it's wildly better than 70 years ago. Especially with technology, mainly because when tech is early and experimental it's super expensive, but once there's a lot of competition and it's mass-produced everywhere it becomes very cheap. Information is extremely inexpensive today, mainly because the cost of searching, reproduction, and transmission is almost zero in the days of databases and email vs. decades ago when an expert librarian would be needed to locate, and the copy somehow produced before Xerox, and then shipped through the mail. If you went back in time and handed a still-connected and still-functional smart phone to a medieval king, they'd never have an opportunity to use such a thing, and its value would be incalculable. Penicillin, painkillers, vaccines. But look at the things that have always been expensive: land, gold, labor. These are still remarkably expensive today. This is a basket of goods just as important as the one currently used to generate the baldly false federal inflation rate. But look to the 40s when the quoted statistic in the video was that ~95% of married couples owned their own home. We've clearly seen a ridiculous and precipitous crash in American wealth since then. Having a cheap smartphone doesn't change that.
I was interested to know "What ACTUALLY Caused the Baby Boom?" but after watching this video I'm none the wiser with no new insights. There is no structure to the argument and topics are flitted across without reaching any conclusions. The photography is fine but you can do better in making the arguments. Get a piece of paper, right down the possible reasons for and not and then organise the video in a structured manner so we can see what the argument is. Use existing footage but recut it to make sense. Now going to look at the comments which are likely to be more informative.
@@blackbacon08 All, no structure, just a series of miscellaneous items. I've explained how it could be fixed. If you disagree then please do me the honour of a counter argument.
Yes I also noticed it was unstructured. Adherence to a stronger outline would help, even actually showing the outline in bullet point form at each section break. I doubt you're seeing much better in the comments though ;)
Another factor to think about is throughout the 80s and 90s we were drilled into our heads in school that we needed to stop having kids cause overpopulation. So as we became adults in the late 90s/early 2000s we had it in our heads that you should only have 1 maybe 2 kids if any at all.
Overpopulation is certainly a myth. Now several Westernized countries have begun promoting increasing the population because their populations are in decline. To this day people still treat you like you are insane or stupid if you have over 1 - 2 children. Once you have 3 children, prepare to be mocked by the average person. Having 3 + children is going into territory where most fear to tread.
Yeah, overall I think fear of overpopulation was the driving factor in having few or no kids. Other factors or a combination of them were. I would say not finding a mate is by far more significant. Nearly half of adults are single today. That is probably the biggest hole in this presentation.
Yes, because many of us came from families with 3-8 kids. We watched shows like The Brady Bunch (6), The Partridge Family (5), The Waltons (7), and Eight is Enough (8). Having so many kids was a source of drama and challenges, the consensus was. My mother encouraged us to not marry or have kids until age 30. So all of her kids only had a maximum of 3, 2, or none at all.
The expected growth to 10 billion people is expected to come from developing countries, not from already developing countries having another baby boom.
We're not reaching 10 billion people. Developing countries are facing a declining fertility rate too. Based on the current trajectory, it's mathematically impossible. The people coming out with these predictions are either lying or are just incompetent.
Most of the growth are not by high birth rate but by improvements in public health which extends lifetime of existing population in developing countries. Some developings are already having low fertility rate. And in 2100, it is projected that only 6 countries on the planet maintains replacement fertility rate.
@@alt_zaq1_esc I know for a fact some of these developing countries have higher birth rates as the culture emphasizes marriage and having kids more than a country like England. I know because I have relatives from Nigeria.
This misrepresents a critical factor. Going from farming to industrial didn't eliminate children contributing to the household income. Just take a wander through history of children working in industrial environments leading up to WWII and one will quickly realize that many children were still being born with the expectation that they would contribute significantly to the household income, with some working as much as 16 hour days starting as young as 4 years old. It was not unheard of where the children in some cases were the real bread winners of the household since there were times that factories would be hiring children at their reduced wages (and ability to get into areas adults couldn't) where the market for adults in the same areas were tighter. It was a different world. Child labor laws didn't even really start until 1938 in the United States and then were limited in what little amount of protection they actually gave. After WWII there effectively was finally a stop for the most part of child labor and children at that point were expected to go to school. On a related note, people have this misconception that women didn't work prior to WWII. That is entirely untrue. They worked in large numbers throughout history, just as they do now in male dominated societies. It's just that they tended to work mostly in certain areas such as sewing, laundry, etc... and having a working woman in the household was definitely a break in socioeconomic levels so the poor women pretty much always worked, whereas any middle class or above it was a sign of economic status to not have the women work. What WWII did was break some of the stigma of women working so that a working class family that wasn't *poor* could attempt to justify the woman working while still maintaining somewhat their social standing. Also it opened up the range of jobs women could attempt to get. Considering all of this, yes, this was 100% tied to economy. Having said that, the current trend is very much also tied as was mentioned to the rise of individualism, and this is on a global scale. When one interviews working class people in Asian countries for instance, it is very common for the people to reply that the reason they don't want to have kids is that they would have to sacrifice their lives to pay for the kids, and they would rather have options to live a better life for themselves, like going to the movies, buying makeup, being able to eat out on occasion, etc...
Yeah, the idea that women stayed home is more of a boomer luxury. The Nobel prize in economics last year illustrated women always worked throughout history. If anything things are just trending back to centuries old norms like settling down in your 30s and women working. Most of the people complaining they don't have enough money mean to say they don't have money to send their kids to daycare, tutoring, nannies, and other care that would allow them time for their personal lifestyles. People in poorer countries are having kids just fine and even observing my own peers, kids is not even on their minds, they are too busy planning their next party, vacation, game night, playing video games, or whatever other thing that isn't having kids and a family, but I DO see a panic as they approach 40. It's the phenomena of "emerging adulthood" where basically people act like teenagers for an extended period into their 20s and even 30s (just going out, having fun, minimizing responsibilities, the playboy lifestyle).
@@sor3999depend on the standard of "fine" in poorer country. Even Palestine have a lot of kids, are they doing fine? Individualism means people have more control instead of being pressured by society or families. Not wanting kids suffer vs free range kids + neglect. Live and suffer vs live a good life. Framing individualism as selfish is a "societal pressure" strategy, which clearly does not work.
There was also a move in industrial societies away from unskilled labor to an increased reliance on expertise. This required young people to attend school longer delaying their entrance into the workforce. They then became more of an economic burden for longer.
@@sor3999Daycare is primarily used by parents who work outside the home, not by people pursuing a hedonistic lifestyle. Neither parents can afford to take too much time away from the workplace, because, the more time someone is out of the workforce, the harder it is to get back in.
Isn't "What caused the baby boom" the exact same point of this video? You are saying that we don't need to hear him explaining the central question of this video?
It was also because so many delayed marriage because of the EXTREME economic conditions of the 1930s. That, combined with the unprecedented post-war economic boom, produced a perfect demographic storm.
And the material prosperity. The middle class was almost everyone and they were getting rich building suburbia and filling it with modern cars and appliances.
@mangoskiph9862 with three MASSIVE differences. No intact extended family structures to fall back on. Women in the formal workforce because they MUST be, not necessarily because they want to. And massive student debt attached to worthless degrees. Also particularly among women who are now the majority of University students.
@@mangoskiph9862 Yep been in a stagnation since 2009, too much improve the world then improve ourselves then the pandemic hit. Its like we've been reliving post ww1 and now in 1920's
@@jstantongood5474 "massive student debt attached to worthless degrees" this is only a thing in the US due to how predatory and scummy the academic system and the credit system are. In Europe, the vast majority of Uni students don't have any student debt because public state owned universities are almost free and often just as good if not better than private unis, and even when going private is the better choice, it is seen as utterly foolish to take on debt to pursue a degree so people rarely do it. And yet, richer european countries have even worse birth rates than the US. Thus, that's unlikely to be a significant factor.
Optimism does seem to be one of the strongest drivers of birth rates. One thing that seems common among all childless people is a sense if growing pessimism. I've had to switch careers multiple times in my life, and I'm not even 40. When adjusting for inflation, many of us get paid less today than we did 10 years ago. It just looks like everything is getting worse year after year, decade after decade. Housing prices skyrocket while our wages do not. The cost of childcare goes up while wages do not. People look at this and say "why would I want my kids to suffer like this?" What will the year 2040 look like? Will it take 5 years to get 1 job offer? Will a home cost 90x the median income? Every year since 2009 has looked like 1930, where that particular year is worse than the year before it. 1930 was worse than 1929, 2013 was worse than 2012, 2019 was worse than 2018, etc. Society hasn't yet reached that 1937 bottom.
Excellent point. It's the "Office Space" answer to the question of how your day was. He said, every day is worse than the previous day, which means, every time you see me it's the worst day of my life. (If you haven't seen Office Space, it's a good and funny movie, and not as depressing as this scene makes it sound!)
@@googiegress I love that quote. It's such a true statement. If someone is spiraling down for whatever reason (economy, family issues, health, clinical depression), it really does feel like that. When people are asking why the birth rate is so low, try to imagine that guy in that movie. Would that character have kids as his top priority? Probably not.
@@shawn576 And in the movie, what happens that puts the main character on the 'family path?' A dramatic shift to optimism (even if hypnotically induced) made him ask out the waitress. Hope really is the inducer of 'family life.' That said, if we believe that late Millennials and Gen-Z are putting off kids because they are without hope due to conditions affecting them, if things shift in a positive way, their children will line up more with children of early Gen-alpha and look like a boom even if it is in fact a delayed resonance.
Try renting 🤷🏻♂️ or buying something smallrr simpler. A but dar from main cities. And maybe you could. And yeah you will have to work 24/7 to afford that life you want welcome to adulthood in capitalism 🤷🏻♂️.
@@qj0n sure, but you want to accommodate for your kids to at least get the same amount of space that you were used to as a kid yourself. That's why the housing market is probably the single biggest drawback on starting a family.
The entire video missed a huge factor. A lot of people want to have kids but are struggling. Me and my wife have been trying for 8 years and finally have a little girl on the way. I know of other people have the same problem too. Stats show that infertility issues are on the rise and it’s for men and women. For men there has been a consistent drop in sperm count and testosterone and for women there is a lot of fertility issues on the rise including difficulty keeping the baby and more C-sections.
Same here, husband and I would love to have kids (2-3), but I have PCOS and hypothyroidism (he is perfectly fine, it's purely on my end). We've been trying naturally with the help of hormones and Ob/Gyn's advice so far, and while we at least have my cycles going semi-normally, there is just NOTHING happening in the ovaries department. We'll probably soon be referred to a fertility clinic, to bring out the hard tools. Women with PCOS are still chronically underdiagnosed and their pains pushed aside (I was 25 when I got diagnosed with PCOS, 30 for Hypothyroidism, kept getting told I should just do more exercise and lose weight...). If women can get better treatment at a younger age thanks to correct diagnoses, as well as funding research into issues such as PCOS, endometriosis etc. we can combat female infertility early on. I'm currently 31, so the more time passes, the more risky and difficult it'll be. Anyway, I wish you and your wife the best of luck and that you will be blessed with your sweet baby girl! I'm glad it worked out for you! :)
Do we know why that is? First instinct would be the ever ramping up pollution (be it ground, air or water) and the innumerable health effects, but I'd expect a level of pollution (especially metals) to have been there since the industrial revolution, so... any sources on the causes, or even theories?
Some of the c sections might be due to hospital corruption apparently doctors are paid more if they have to do crazy sections than natural births so some people are told horrible lies so that the patients consent to these surgeries and milk their patients for money the only issue is being aware of the ones who abuse this and doctors who are being legitimate about your babies health and yours
I had one child and realized that I couldn't emotionally handle any more. I was so mentally and financially overwhelmed by one that I knew it would be a disservice to everyone if I had more. That's one thing that people don't really talk about is the fact that younger generations are so overwhelmed and overstimulated by long work hours and constantly being bombarded with technology and activities that having kids feels like too much. Personally, I think it's good to say that out loud because previous generations never would have admitted that one more kid was one more too many. People who were struggling mentally and financially were expected to just suffer in silence and act like they loved it. Not so much today. People who suffer from mental health problems are a lot more open about how they don't want to bring kids into that mess, which is honestly really responsible.
I have three, and adding more children to the mix doesn't really increase work all that much. Work per child goes down as there are more of them, as cooking, bedtime, etc are one activity for all. I think we have a generation that doesn't have resilience any more, as they could never explore the world on their own when they were little. They were always kept in safe little boxes, and therefore have never grown the confidence that things will turn out fine in the end. I think that is what you are describing for yourself, and I find it very heartbreaking. I wish you healing.
@@floodgates182 Pregnancy also gave me a lot of physical health problems. Another pregnancy would have just exasperated it. I have chronic pain all the time now. It's the worst at night, so I never sleep well. A few years ago, I got so tired and burned out that I couldn't take care of my kid or myself anymore. I had to quit my job, and even after more than a year off, I still can't shake the fatigue. It's so bad. I used to be so hard working and determined. I overcame a lot of obstacles, put myself through school, and worked hard at a carerr that I enjoyed. All of that died two years ago. Years and years of poor sleep and no support chipped away at my resiliance and determination until there was none. I have no motivation to even go back to work because I dread the exhaustion that will inevitably come with it. I have no hope that I will be able to manage a job and a family without completely burning myself out again. At the end of the day, my salary wasn't enough to cover the cost of living anyway, which is another reason why I just don't see the point.
@@floodgates182 The shoe fits on both feet so it all depends on your perspective and which side you are on. The truth is that its just selfish. It is selfish to bring a life into this world and it is selfish to not bring a life into this world. Do you see how it fits both agendas?
You didn't mention one of the factors affecting the birth rate after WWII. My mother had a BS and was a Physical Therapist during and after the war. She said that there was a great deal of pressure for women "to replace the men lost in the war", much of it hidden and low key. My brother and I were born 14 months apart. My sister was born 10 years later. My mother didn't lose any children during those 10 years.
Yeah that's a whole other factor too, the loneliness pandemic is really bad atm. More people are single than ever because of lack of third spaces and reliance on dating apps
Can really get a girlfriend or get married and have kids when many people in there 20s are living with their parents because they cant afford to pay for rent without working to death
@@freddiesimmons1394 basically you can think of it as a place to hang out and meet people. I heard teens started going to target to hang out as a third space as an example of fewer third spacing being available. Or how people started going to running clubs to date instead of actually running or using dating apps. Also basically what school does for you, get into contact with people enough to grow friendships Probably preferably not a place that sells alcohol, I feel like that's different from a hang out spot to meet people, has a different context
Your grandparents had financial hardships, but the price of housing was lower compared to income. People lived outside more too, so even if houses are smaller, it doesn't matter if people just use them to eat and sleep in. There is simply no space for more people in young people's studio appartments without losing 'standard of living space'. You cannot expect Western young people to raise multiple kids in a one bedroom appartment, while they grew up having their own bedroom.
The 1926 my ex and I owned in the 1970's was typical of that era. It was 2/1, 926 square feet. Our neighbor had the same house and they raised six kids in it! (I can just imagine the boys living downstairs and pissing in a bucket.)
@@hellogoodbye637 Importantly, that 1 mil house in a regular town is the same crummy house that was selling for $250k in 2019 five years ago, and which might have gone for $150k in 2000. This would be acceptable if a job paying $10 / hr in 2000 was paying $67/hr today. But it's not. It's more like $20 / hr. So, simply put, the owner of your company is paying you less in value per hour, maybe 1/3 what he should. But all the products he sells are full price. Where's that extra money going? He's not legally required to answer.
@@autarchyan5426the main cause for lower birth rates is the death of purpose caused by atheism. Man needs purpose in order to act. If he sees no purpose in doing something, then he will not do it. If he does see purpose behind it, then even the biggest challenges are not an excuse for him to not do it. Atheism killed purpose by saying man is the product of happenstance and that therefore he has no purpose. So all man is left is with pleasure, hedonism. Which will result in death, since man needs purpose and this can only come from God.
@@autarchyan5426 but can you defend your point? You have a feel for purpose inside you, yet your belief cannot explain your need for purpose. Even worse is that you do not believe that your faith is not connected to your actions. “Feeling” that you are correct is very different from “being” correct. How do you know the values you are teaching your kids are correct, that they are good and not bad? How can there be good of there is no purpose? How can there be purpose if there is no creator behind creation? You feel like having children is purpose full, yet you cannot explain where does that purpose come from and it does not matter, only for your demise… Man needs purpose in order to survive, yet a creation cannot create purpose to itself, for that would go against all logic. A creation must be willed into existence with a purpose, thus implying a creator. Spoiler alert: having children is one of the purposes of the existence of man, which is why you feel it is good.
You did not even mentioned it, but the US fertility rate peaked in 1960, which is 15 years after the war. The rate is about as high as in 1920, so it is safe to say that it is more of an "return to normal" than anything less
Most of our socio-economic changes and trajectory is a return towards the historical norm. Note, the historical norm was bad enough that most major religions held up justifying an alleged corrupt, fallen world as a primary concern to be redeemed by an eschaton.
Yeah exactly. We had a boom that wasn't sustainable, it was always going to fluctuate because population isn't always just a straight line. Now it's just evening out, and we're going to have to go through the growing pains, particularly with the boomers living longer than their ancestors.
Find the Statista chart of crude birth rate in the US from 1800 to present. Early Americans were just pumping the babies out. The decline from a high in 1825 to a low in 1935-1940 is followed by a significant jump and then a continued decline. A birth rate argument that does not take that into account is almost entirely blind. 1920 was absolutely not "normal". Instead, the whole chart could be interpreted as the declining birth rate of a developing country. But even that is an improper conclusion, because the country is so big and the conditions throughout so different, that it would be better to track birth rates by county. Truth is difficult to find, and it takes hard work. Harder than any of us are really willing to perform for this topic.
Need to mention the crash housing construction programs that happened in most developed countries after the war. That was done to provide social stability and employment for the veterans. The governments of the time actually did everything they could to make housing as cheap as possible. Example were the suburb construction in the US, social housing and city reconstruction in Europe. Even the USSR took the issue seriously and Khruschev initiated his block housing program. Yes, this housing would be very basic by our standards but it's better then what was before. Housing availability for almost everyone helped family creation.
"If you build it, they will come." They stopped building for people decades ago. Now it's just for profit, not people. Wonder why the babies aren't coming?
"Even the USSR" In fact, it could be argued that they started it! The American Golden Age-a period of economic growth and increased standard of living for the average American-was in part a response to the successes of the Soviet Union and its socialist policies. When did things start to decline? After the Soviet Union dissolved against the will of many of its people. Following this collapse, the financial elite in the US and other capitalist countries felt less pressure to provide substantial social benefits, resulting in the majority receiving mere crumbs.
Birth rates are going down because of access to effective contraception, higher cost of living, women not being financially dependent on men, and greater opportunities for travel and entertainment for the average person. More and more people are seeing the sacrifices required for children and choosing not to have them.
Nah, the rich elite are having less kids. The lower class and middle class who live outside of rich elite locations are having the most kids because they value them more.
The biggest reason no one is having kids is 100% of women are chasing 5% of men because our mass media has convinced everyone they deserve the best without any sacrifice, compromise or effort. And those "best" men are actually not the best men because they have no need or desire to commit / invest in 1 women and women think he nearly married them when that was never going to happen and then would rather live the rest of their life alone with a cat and wine than settle for less than Mr dreamy that they never even really knew.
And media relies way too much on using fear and anxiety to let hope grow. Anxious and fearful you'll self loathe with food and purchases. A hopeful person won't need to do this
@@somethingclever8916 2 major things are GONE for todays generation and that is stable and secure housing and stable and secure careers few can BUY a home and most JOBS don't have the "career" aspect as seen in the 60's where one starts on the factory floor and retires manager of operations for the SAME company so they live in constant "fear" of being made homeless and OR jobless and unable to keep there home
9:34 There you go, that explains it. They weren't having more babies than previous generations. From the 1920's the babies and young children had a far higher chance of survival due to medical advances, sanitation, better food, clothing, washing and heating. After WW2, slums were replaced by better homes. But then in the early 1960's contraception and abortion became widely available resulting in a dramatic fall in birth rates and bringing an end to the baby boom.
And it liberated women from having to marry the first guy they met, raising a boatload of children, and being stuck in bad, even abusive relationships. Financial independence is critical to a woman being able to have equal influence on a relationship, to share dependence and independence mutually, to leave when a partner is too selfish or verbally or physically abusive. These should be socially non-neogtiable. If society is hell-bent on population growth and all of its problems (without taking full responsibility for mitigating and managing those problems), then it should address that without laying the blame and burden all at the feet of women. Plenty of men have little or no interest in having and/or raising a family. If they do have them, many work 8 or maybe 10 hours 5 days a week while the wife works 24x7. We can use technology to create babies if they are so damn important. And we can use social programs to raise them. We can focus on getting good at those things. Creating and raising them the way we do now is far from being perfect. Creating and raising them with technology and hired help need not be perfect either. We adapt to the way people want to and do live.
parents are less willing to help out. Used to be, you had an extended family that would help you out. That doesn't work anymore. If you're drowning it's rare that there's someone behind you to help you. Not least of which because we live further from our birth place than ever before.
less willing or LESS ABLE they are less likely to have a PENSION from a career then there parents and are likely facing retirement or OLD age health costs without a WAY TO PAY FOR THEM
While having extended family nearby helps immensely with having children, it doesn't affect birth rates that much. In many Central/Eastern European countries it's pretty much common to stay in or near your parents home once you get married (whether it means taking over a floor of their house, building another floor on top of it or building your own small house on the property or somewhere nearby). Also in many of those places, "other side of the country" is a 4-5 hour drive so you're never really that far away. In spite all of this, the birth rates there keep falling just like everywhere else.
A lot of older people have to work full or part time to get by themselves, and those that don't are often out traveling and doing things that they could't do in their younger days due to lack of funds and having to raise children. The era of having older neighbors or family members help with childcare is largely over.
Not true.many people from years gone by didn’t even have parents to help out as they died younger from smoking or drinking or work related accidents . Many of our grandparents left their homelands after the war and were very lucky if they ever got to go back to see extended family left behind. So no, people were not living close to home and all the extended family was living on the same street or in a family compound singing around the campfire whilst the elders cared for the young ones and mum and dad went to work.
We have focused too much on work culture and getting everyone into the job market. Companies expect more and more hours out of their employees. They can't afford to live in the cities where they work, so they have to add hours of commute. This situation leaves a young couple feeling old and exhausted BEFORE they have even started a family. They can't see how they can add children and continue to both work such extreme hours because one income won't cover rent and groceries anymore. If we want the birthrate to go up we need to give parents time to have children by raising wages and forcing companies to comply with a more family friendly set of workers rights that will cover parents when their kid is sick or the school calls. The job is important, but so is the individual and their family, and companies have lost that. Baby Boomers and their parents could get a job at a good company, work their way up, be with the company 30 years and retire comfortably. If they got one of those jobs they were set and knew they could raise a family. Those jobs don't exist anymore. Every 3 to 5 years, you are looking for a new job so you never feel stable enough for children.
While I agree these policies are righteous and necessary, I don't think those by themselves would be sufficient to reverse the overall decline in birth rate. Not that I consider that a bad thing. We could do with a declining population for a couple of generations while we figure out an economy that can feed our great grandkids without stable long-term employment.
This needs more upvotes. The burnout is real. And burnout caused not only by job market, but also high pressure throughout school years due to expectation to get into college (undergrad, grad, postgrad) etc. Everyone expected to perform better and better, while income stays nearly the same for ages at best and everything is more expensive..
Tail-end boomer here, I remember thinking while still in high school thinking, "Who the f these companies think their future customers/employees are going to be when they making it too difficult to have a family?" There are multiple reasons not to have children. That's why programs that address only one issue fail. People who really want children find a way. Those who don't will have fewer even if birth control becomes unavailable.
@@nothingthere3959 I made it 37 years before I burnt out, we just took a 2 week vacation and I still feel drained. Trying to figure out how to get back into the go, go , go mindset before I get replaced.
My husband and I want to have kids, but we are trying to pay off our debt before we start trying. Inflation is making it very difficult for us to meet our financial goals, even when we live very frugally.
this is a cycle of olgarchical failure documented by Aristotle thousands of years ago. the local civilains are too poor and stressed out to have children, and they need cheap labor so they bring it in other ethnic immigrants and it gets out of hand and then the system collapses. Same as it ever was.
Let me just tell you this... You will never have "enough" money to raise kids. There will never be a "right time" to have children. That's a trap. And so is relying on two incomes... And getting into debt from post-secondary schooling for a career.
It's simple. The previous generations have turned our society into one where hard work gets you nowhere, jobs pay little to nothing, and everything becomes increasing unaffordable year by year.
That's an oversimplification that narrows it down to 2 or 3 generations and heaps blame on them, when in reality, the peace and prosperity; the booms we've enjoyed came after war on a massive scale. What we're seeing is a return to the natural state of things. It's not easy, and it's not fun, but those of us who are relatively powerless are experiencing a return to basically the ruling class and the poor...pretty much the way it's always been throughout history.
@@tetedur377 Good. Society cannot function when the masses get to experience the decadence of the elite. The elite should be a small, privileged group that exist as a reward for ambition and ruthlessness. The rest need to perform the vital functions of civilization and shouldn't partake of hedonism when it distracts them from their tasks.
I guess it's time to change that then. When's the last time you organised a strike? I heard those are the tool of choice to tackel "job pay little to nothing"-kind of problems. I'm a little startled by how easily our generation (me included) has given up on trying to change things. We are so well connected. We could, if we wanted to, take all the money from the boomers. They need us, we loathe them. If we all went on strike, they'd litterally starve, their portfolio values would go to zero very quickly, and we'd succeed. But we do not do this. The only question left is - why? Maybe we can learn from history. Why didn't the slaves overthrow their masters in the south? Why did it take a civil war to change that? Will it take a civil war to change our current society?
You’ve said that medicine improved and ensured that pregnancy was more survivable and children were less likely to die young, and that’s all true. It’s not to say that pregnancy itself has become without its effects though. Women (and others with a uterus who become pregnant) still have to worry about the toll that pregnancy takes on the body, including potential loss of bone density, teeth and hair falling out, and weakening of joints and pelvic floor, among others. That on its own is enough to discourage pregnancy in some. Also, with the rise of girls being socialized to babysit their siblings, cousins, and neighbors, we get exposed to a taste of what child rearing is like and some of us don’t want to go through that.
It's also a myth that farmers had more kids than nobles. Generally, the people having fewer kids were those living in cities (due to overcrowding and disease), while the people with access to power and resources (i.e. the nobility) got to live longer, healthier lives and have fewer childhood deaths from neglect and malnutrition.
@@plica06 I wrote a long reply that apparently got eaten. It's easy to find the info you need - for a simple overview the medievalist posted an article entitled "How Large were Medieval Peasant Families?".
I think another reason is because people are realizing that they don’t actually have to have kids. I think lots of people from previous generations technically knew that, but lots of people were still raised to either think that it was inevitable like puberty or they felt pressured to get together and form a family because it’s seen as a marker for success, happiness, or being a true adult. One more reason i can think people are having less kids is that we’re becoming aware of generational trauma and becoming a parent when someone has come from that or struggling with it is actually an irresponsible decision. At least that’s one of the reason’s why I’m not a parent. I dealt with mentally ill parents all my life and i’d never ever want to put a kid in that position.
I think you are right…when I was growing up you just did NOT say you didn’t want kids, it was really taboo, or people would say you will change your mind dismissively. It seems more acceptable now to simply acknowledge you dislike children…
My parents were pushed into having kids and started at age 30, in the mid 80s. My mom (yes, shes dramatic) would say she felt like a grandparent going to my elementary teacher conferences (I was born in the late 80s). However, they def should have just stayed strong and not had kids. My sister and I are finishing the job of no kids. However, I really assumed up until about age 21 that I was "supposed" to have kids. Glad I shook myself out of it, I would have been an awful parent!
@@maryhogencamp7041 ugh, same. Worse is i’m still getting it: i turn 30 soon and just earlier this year an older family member gave me the “WHEN you have kids” speech in an argument. It’s fucking mental how people act like such personal choices are their business in this society.
@@hey_thatsmyname good on ya! It’s honestly really sinister how people will push things onto others even when they say no. Societies really need to realize that happiness is not a checklist and having kids isn’t the same as like, needing to eat healthy.
I don't think it's a lack of money (or excess), but a lack of time. Raising a family requires time that isn't available when both parents have to work and there's more to life than just "being a mother".
I completely agree, why would I want to have kids that I am going to throw straight into a daycare that either costs a ton of money or is about as close as you can get to factory farming.
Hope is NOT needed when you have proof and evidence. And evidence shows corporations are sucking us dry and the government has their foot on our necks.... hope is a non factor.
@@antinatalistwitch111 The video literally refutes your point with evidence that we had a baby boom under really bad economic times because they had hope for a brighter future. We're under really bad economic times today as well but the difference is there's no hope for us. Hope matters a lot, I couldn't imagine having a kid these days when I view the future they'll grow up in as a hopeless dystopian hellscape.
Most of us have no future to look forward to. The present is a hellish continuous struggle, the future appears bleak and the past was terrible regardless.
So real. The boomers essentially came of age in an economy that was trending upwards and they got a bunch of government help with school, buying houses, starting businesses, etc. Millennial came of age into a rapidly declining economy and are getting very little help from the government in comparison.
He was actually talking about the parents of the boomers, the ones whose decisions caused the baby boom. They made those decisions during the great depression.
Not everyone suffers the same fate. My lost generation grandma (90 years old) lived a life similar to the great depression because she raised her children in the rust belt where the job market collapsed. (Thanks Studebaker) Even working as an engineer for a stove company for decades my grandpa had times of deep desperation. But to be fair, she was born before the baby boom and raised children durring the most economically difficult time in this region.
Success was handed to Boomers on a silver platter. All they had to do was get a job and follow the rules. If they could do that then they were guaranteed a middle class standard of living. You pretty much had screw up your life on purpose to end up poor in those times. It was as if money was growing on trees and all you needed was a ladder and little bit of effort to pluck the cash from the branches.
When I say I'm scared of childbirth costs, my boomer fam says they had a kid for 100 bucks 40 fuckin years ago. It's an easy $20k to get those Dr's to push over your intestines to fish that baby outta you and recover. I sure AF can't pay $700 a month, what used to be rent, for insurance premiums to hopefully get a discount. It's no secret they are paid to say NO. We need to end the grip the Mafia like ghoulish private insurance system has on Americans. Every other developed nation figured it out, we are ridiculous. I know other countries with robust social safety nets are also experiencing birthrate declines, I'm just a bitter buttcrack.
@@LebSonicThese factors contribute positively to birth rates among the more educated. Precisely because they tend to put more thought into having a child before having one. Religiosity too, but that leads to more suffering as we get more unprepared families and less interesting, passion-driven lives.
TIL Somalia and Nigeria has more affordable food, more affordable housing, better law and order, are healthier high trust societies with better real future prospects than Norway, Netherlands and Denmark.
Adding to that are families moving to cities for job opportunities and away from extended family which would help with child care, and the establishment of child labor laws in which having more children increased the economic burden rather than increased the families’ wages.
@@reinodeforaminia8322 I think a more recent one to add to that list is health awareness thanks to scientific progress and greater access to medical info. We now are much more aware how mental health, physical health and genetics work to affect our kids and that's a pretty big deal to factor in.
The amount of boomers blowing their retirement on cruises and brand new cars is very telling as to why future mothers are making the choice to opt out. There is no more support in most families.
Why shouldn't people enjoy their retirement and spend the money they saved during their working years?Most raised their children, sent them to college, and prepared them to make their way in the world .
In Germany we call the sudden decline of births around 1970 "Pillenknick". It means literally "pill-bend" indicating that the access to hormonal contraception for women made the graph bend down. We call hormonal contraception anti-baby-pill, because it's used to prevent pregnancies and for women it was a revolution, because they could avoid getting pregnant without their partner even knowing. This was particularly liberating for married women, because they finally could decide all by themselves about the pregnancies they'd go through. It's known that as soon as women get easy access to contraception they themselves control, birth rates drop significantly.
It is good to see women have control of their lives, even if birthrates do drop. Constant growth for constant economic benefit, mostly for a few, gives us growing pains. Reduction will have reduction pains. One or the other. The burden should not be on women to change that, if society actually agrees that constant growth is desirable. One thing from women having control is greater financial security for themselves. They don't have to marry the first guy they meet just to survive. They can wait for a partner they are attracted to and who is committed to developing an equitable relationship with a balance of mutual dependence and independence. They can leave a selfish or abusive partner. And then there are the men who won't take responsibilty for the children they help create. They refuse paternity tests; they stiff women on child support. They disappear. Women can't deal with these men so easily if they don't have the financial means. Especially if there are children. Also, the drop in birthrate is not all down to contraception and the ability of women to control their lives. Men are also increasingly choosing not to take on that lifestyle. They have other interests and goals with which parenthood would interfere. And it's their choice and we should not judge. We make our life choices, they make theirs. If anything, we as societies should be working to change for lives in which their are fewer children, or at least fewer children that are born and raised as they have been traditionally up to now. If population growth is considered existentially essential (which is b.s.), then society should adapt to new ways to accomplish that that conform to the way people want to live. We have the means. With technology and changes to social programs, we can do that. Especially if we reduce concentration of wealth to help pay for it and spread influence so that the increased productivity that comes from technology is used to reduce work rather than just added to continued long hours so that shareholder wealth (predominantly of the few) can be maximized.
That doesn't explain China, with their one child policy previously discouraging people from having kids. And now they are encouraging people to have MORE.
@@tyujg7495. You know, its probably more economical that way. I've often thought it would be easier to have a family in some 2nd/3rd world. No internet, but the human connections they have is unrivaled by anyone in 1st.
My husband and I are not having kids because we are both disabled, and taking care of each other is the most we can manage, bringing a tiny human into the mix seems like a bad idea.
Everyone who's served in the US military over the last 24 years can tell you that there's a mini-baby-boom on base every time a unit returns from a combat deployment. The return from WWII absolutely had a big effect in American birth rates, as did the fact that the USA was the only major economy that hadn't been devastated by WWII.
My mother said that after ww2 there were huge billboards encouraging women to get married and gave babies. It was her observation and opinion that there was an organized propaganda campaign, and she felt pressured.
All I know is that I’ve been just this side of not being homeless for like 15 years, with random pockets of needing to couch surf. I’ve lived in gov’t subsidized housing before, but there were rules about how I was the only person allowed to live there, so no significant other, no kids, no dogs, no cats. I could have been set for life if only I was ok with living and dying alone. I wasn’t allowed to experience love because I was only earning $25 an hour at work and couldn’t afford anything better, and that idea pissed me off, so I moved out last year… and holy fuck do I regret it. I could have kept my apartment, bought a van parked on the street, and just raised a family in that. Use the apt for kitchen and bathroom, and just lived in the van. Why didn’t I think of that? I lost my gf, I lost my job, I lost everything because I got pissed at the idea of them trying to tell me what to do. I could have worked around it…
@@shellieperreault6262 I assume it is based on the city that you live in. I have a 36yr old alcoholic brother that never used his college degree (in a field where there are good jobs), and has instead chosen to work his college side jobs forever by delivering pizza and doing various side jobs. He gets income based housing and free Medicaid, but he still drives a Lexus and gets botox. My mom is partially to blame for this as she pays for his car insurance, cell phone, and cosigned on the Lexus with him...but I still find it ridiculous that someone that gets income based housing and Medicaid has ANY left over money to get botox, drink alcohol, and have a Lexus!! It infuriates me actually! He lives in Denver, CO. If tax payers are going to have to pay for someone, I think a MINIMUM requirement should be that person may not smoke, drink, or do drugs, and must be on a form of birth control if they want to receive assistance.
@@shellieperreault6262 Where did you live and what year was this? $14/hr may have been fine for your situation, but I doubt we can say the same for many places nowadays
@@shellieperreault6262 Well, I'm glad you were able to pull it off in a medium cost-of-living city in pretty modern times. That's a decent accomplishment. But I feel like you are getting to be more of an outlier. I'm sure more people could live like you if they focused on bare necessities, but that's just not what most people can afford to do.
The next generation were living better than the last, that's not true anymore. Now the future looks bleak (climate change, job insecurity, stagnant wages, skyrocketing costs of living, growing inequality, the threat of automatization and AI)
Yeah, that fear of nuclear war was just nothing. You must be young enough not to know how good things are materially. Yes, housing is abnormally problematic, but where was that big baby boom of the nineties when the economy was doing so well? There are many reasons that are true. Birth control and feminism are key. Too many people spending too much time in school also. Even expected life span might be a reason. Yes, the future does seem a bit bleak financially, but people are still materially much better off today than ever.
@@nunyabidness3075 longer life expectancy does NOT equate to LONGER fertility windows but toss in far lower job security and the "need" for far more schooling pushing the starting age of families is trending higher making the fertility window smaller
@nunyabidness3075 We have more material things, sure, but every year our spending power decreases, our liberties are being encroached on by the bureaucracy, the world of work is getting worse and less predictable, and the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands has been trending up, the price of housing is becoming unobtainable to all but the highest earners. I don't understand how you can sit there and say we're better off than X time in history, as if that's supposed to be some solace even if it were true.
@@CFlandre First, I didn’t say we were overall better off. Just materially. Money buys material things. Your spending power is only really down because of Covid and the government overreaction to it. It’s still near a historical peak. It just doesn’t feel that way. Second, you seem to be falling for the hockey stick thing where you think every recent trend will keep going until doomsday. Previous generations had all sorts of different problematic short term and long term trends to make them feel like you do now. My first car loan was 13%. Mortgages had come down from well over 10%. We’ve been out of oil several times. The nuclear thing was no joke. Crime waves were much worse, Etc.etc. (Oh, and the world was going to freeze over from pollution in those days). Housing costs are problematic because much of the problem is government policies that were made to make housing more affordable. Politicians aren’t good at, nor really interested in convincing people that the best solution is short term pain rather than intervention. Also, it’s just too easy to defeat a political opponent who wants to get rid of an affordable housing policy even though that policy is increasing the cost of housing. Inequity has been over hyped and factually lied about to make it seem worse in order to make people more willing to give government more money to spread around. It will correct or be corrected, but it’s hard to do because once again, a lot of it is government policy to help the little guy which is causing the problem. Number one on that front is too many kids in college getting worthless degrees or too expensive degrees. We had the so called Robber Barons (who were neither robbers nor barons) 150 years ago. It got fixed, and it will again. In the meantime, those guys gave us some nice things, so it wasn’t all bad. Modern hospitals, libraries, universities, and lots of product improvements we use everyday. Whenever you think your time, or you, or your generation is some sort of victim, remind yourself previous generations almost all were worse off for hundreds of years. Even baby boomers who in many ways had such lucky timing and advantages will probably turn out not to have had it any better over all.
@@nunyabidness3075materialy yes. Today generation have less chance of getting killed, but higher self unalive rate. The irony of better living conditions
I wanted 4 but can't afford 1. Don't see a way to afford them or even myself. 27 years old. Maybe something will change, maybe it will not, that's just life. Wish everyone peace and love and success of your goals for life.
Yes, it's a big problem when the only option to have kids is to take on an ever increasingly large amount of debt. Cheers brother. Maybe bankruptcy isn't so bad after all.
@@dont_hit_trees Huh! I never heard of that one. I legit learned something today! :) I did know about the milk man and ice man, though. "Fun" fact; the reason why I will always remember that ice-men were a thing, is because of the story about how my aunt got HIT BY LIGHTNING getting some ice from the (outdoor) icebox, during a thunderstorm--and she was holding a METAL spatula at the time. (She didn't die, by the way.)
The first half of the introduction of the video does not feel very well put together, everything else is pretty coherent though. The voiceover seems a little too depressed though. Other than that, great video.
The intro was 7 minutes, which was agonising. I wish he’d just do a quick 90 second intro followed by a sponsor and get on with it. Instead he had to repeat the video’s points
Agreed. He should have written an outline of what he was going to say, one in which each point added to the argument, and a conclusion that wrapped it all up. When I was in school, a teacher said this about writing an essay: 1) say what you're gonna say, 2) say it, and 3) say what you said. This was so hard to follow and the delivery was so unappealing. I only listened to the whole thing because I find the topic compelling and I thought he would at some point nail it. But that never came. What a disappointment.
We opted out from having kids because of two reason. We BOTH had to work in order to pay the bills and we BOTH had to take care of our aging parents who themselves lacked a parachute to make their retirement years stable. In short we simply had no space to add kids into our equation (wanted or not). In order to have kids you need the time, space and overheads to do it. We simply had none of that from the get go. I simply don’t see how it is that we are NOT the only ones to have had it so. If a country wants more kids they need to create the conditions whereby the option to have AND raise them is tennable.
They are trying to do that because they know that if people don't have children, there won't be a populace to fund the govt., nor care for the aging population. Families receive tax incentives to have children in "pro-natal" countries such as the USA and Canada. They also welcome immigration.
Others have said it, but it bears repeating. The world today is not one that gives us hope for tomorrow. To bring a child into a hopeless world would just be cruel.
I'm surprised why white people feel hopeless. We're living in the most peaceful and most prosperous era of human history. What exactly is so hopeful about it?
Honestly as a gen z i dont see myself having kids simply because of the massive undertaking it is, and how it effectively ends your current life and makes it gear towards your kid, i wouldnt doubt i would love my kid, but i want flexibility in my life more
Yeah, it totally changes everything but if you have two people pulling in the same direction, the increased workload isn’t nearly as tough as you’d think and I promise you that that little ball of cuteness smiling at you is a joy you can’t get anywhere else.
the flexibility won't matter after a while. We are not built to have such a life so you'll be spending endlessly trying to feel something. Then you'll wonder why things are still not making sense and end up seeing a shrink. They'll then diagnose you with nonsense and get you hooked on some nonsense drug.
Your current life will end either way. People change, go away, new people don't enter your life because they are already living their life somewhere else. So if that's your reason, it'll turn out poorly for you.
One factor to examine, and I don't think was explored here, is housing availability/affordability. A couple wanting a child pretty much need to be homeowners. That is, they need more space, and assurance that a landlord won't terminate the lease. Housing and home ownership are terribly unaffordable, in *many* places around the world. Who is going to raise a family when living in mom's basement?
You're right. For many people, especially those at or below the average household income, it's almost like you're talking about putting two small families in one house. This was, in fact, not uncommon a century ago, before the Labor Movement, which led to unions, which led to better wages, benefits, and working conditons. And the rich had very high taxes. But that was all stripped away by trickle down economics. Boomers didn't do that. Some boomers did that. Like 5%. And they were helped by collaborators, most of whom are conned.
Reason I don’t have them yet even with a 6 year relationship: 1. I was in collage until recently and after working summer jobs for 10 years I now have to get a job in the field I studied and I now realised that I need experience so should have worked for free during my studies to gain experience (take a note collage goers) 2. Me and my bf together cannot get a loan from the bank and put it on the property we are trying to buy. We can’t also afford a loan because the salery income is too low for the cost of the apartment/house/land… it use to be okay back in 2020 and then everything went up. But the wages stayed the same. 3. I cannot think of a way to bring a baby into my life when I can barely afford to live without my parents.
Living with your parents is probably the only answer. You take care of them, they take care of you, and when they retire, they give you free childcare. It's very common in India and other countries. The dream of American individual family units is dead now. Also, don't accept a free internship. Always get paid, no matter what. I don't know what your major was, but there are ways to get entry-level jobs even though they don't seem entry-level. Keep your head up!
A few things that you may want to reconsider.: 1) Being unmarried and even considering having children and buying a home with a "boyfriend". 2) Planning on relying on two incomes. Children are best with their mother at home with them, not in daycare or with babysitters. 3) Considering relying on parents as an adult for things such as money, accommodations or childcare. 4) Not having a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Through a genuine relationship with God, we can gain insight into what His plans are for our lives and we can have wisdom for how to live our lives appropriately. We also end up having eternal life, that goes above and beyond just this life.
@@believestthouthis7 This seems out-of-touch. 1) The tax advantages of marriage really benefit couples, especially when claiming dependents. 2) Work-from-home jobs are very difficult to maintain with needy babies and energetic toddlers. Taking care of a child is a job in and of itself. Working while caring is basically like being double-employed. It's a tremendous strain on mothers. 3) A majority of parents are retiring with small nest-eggs and barely any savings. They've been hoping social security will allow them to retire comfortably, when really, it won't even cover basic necessities in some areas. 4) A relationship with the Lord is great and very important, but it doesn't keep people out of debt. The Lord wants you to help yourself. Give Him your fears and worries and work with Him to find opportunities. Do not look forward to Eternal Life without putting your work in in this one.
When the old Soviet Union found itself with a population issue in the mid 1940’s they resorted to economic incentives to increase the production of baby’s and it generally worked. It worked so well they had to dial down the incentives several times until they stopped it in 1991. This was called the Mother Heroine award and apart from receiving a nifty medal there were significant economic benefits. The down side was you had to have a lot of babies, 10 or more to be exact. Approximately 430,000 women were awarded this title during its existence, so it created a lot of children.
You know that soviet union was largerly agricultural, and that village dwellers didn't have passports (internal ID) up to around 1970s, and had to request permission to relocate to a city ?
@@fhunter1test That does not change the fact that their command economy used incentives to increase their population. Freedoms and morals aside, their program did as it was intended, regarding increasing births. Their famines and wars kind of cancelled out the benefits though.
@@user-nu8in3ey8c command economy or lack of contraception and sex-ed, among other things? Also - number of births per 1000 people were steadily declining since 1910s. And around 1970s - dropped below the US one.
One aspect that often gets overlooked when talking about home prices is exactly what constitutes "a home'. In 1950, the average new home buyer was likely looking at a 900-1000 square foot, single story ranch with perhaps 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. If it had a garage, it was almost certainly a single car garage. The kitchen likely did not have a dishwasher, and if it did, it probably wasn't built in. By contrast, a 21st century "starter" home likely has at least 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, solid surface countertops, a fireplace, 2-3 car garage, a dedicated laundry room, etc and probably comes in at least 1,600 square feet. The perception of what a starter home should be is so totally out of whack, at least in part due to decades of near zero percent interest. Also, when my grand parents built the house the lived in for just under 60 years, they had it paid off in less than 5 years. That wasn't uncommon at the time. Of course, they didn't take expensive yearly vacations, eat out most nights and every lunch, buy designer clothes or purses or pay someone to mow their lawn.
Exactly. Thank you for your reality check! My parent's first home was a tiny 2 bedroom, where my third brother was born. Nice neighborhood, but no AC, and one (1) black and white TV.
I keep thinking the same thing. First, people need to make and accurate comparison. The other thing was that the teacher or meter reader or postal worker who bought one of those tiny homes on postage stamp lots in neighborhoods with 100 identical buildings also tended to have an extra job or two. My dad, a teacher, delivered milk from 4:30 to 6:30 before he went in to school. And he put a few hours a retail clerk each week. Blue collar workers who had good pay, benefits, and working conditions had strong unions. At the same time the rich paid much higher taxes. All those factors combined created the greatest middle class the world has ever seen or will ever see, because those factors are gone. Having said all that, housing costs ARE untenable. Somehow, officials have to go after the Hedge Funds and Private Equity Groups scarfing up houses, cutting into homebuying inventory, artifically increasing prices, creating short term rental units, which also decrease units... Frankly, they ruin pretty much every industry they get into, and they are into just about every industry. There are some great RUclips videos on the Private Equity nightmare.
One thing that economists and politicians keep ignoring, that I really think should factor into any efforts towards future population incentives (up or down), is that we've tripled the world population in the last 100 years. So maintaining this post-boom population isn't necessarily something we _need_ to do, and perhaps is something we _shouldn't_ do.
An unsustainable economy based on the expectation of continual growth is the problem. It might help to look at it from a comparison perspective; as long as other developed countries also have terrible birth rates then maybe we won't see it as a military issue.
@@googiegress Ah, the military. The real reason we make women get pregnant, and the reason we have PT tests in schools. ;) With the ongoing development of drone warfare (does _nobody_ remember Skynet?!), that becomes less and less of an issue, too. We've already only got a quarter the population of China, so we're already relying on a technological edge...
@@googiegress I agree, but population growth is the easiest way to achieve economic growth. That's why it is a priority, especially for the business community. That's why Nixon and Kissinger opened up China. For business leaders. It gave them a massive cheap labor pool (there went all those great blue collar jobs, and a significant chunk of the middle class) and a billion new consumers. China leapt the Industrial Age in one generation. Now they are a sociopolitical threat. But some people got really rich in the meantime. Many of them still are.
I chose to not have kids because I never really grew up. I'm a middle aged adult with a full time job and enjoy working to buy toys and vacations. Don't want to give that up for kids. I suppose for me, I just never felt the need or desire to have any.
Is this the part where we are supposed to shame you into radically changing your life circumstances to appease us random strangers (who only want to ensure enough future tax livestock exist to sustain our pensions)? "Grow up. Man up. Time to be an adult." Is it working? Do you feel like conforming to the Boomer ethos yet?
I think this is the crux of it all more than anything. Go back 500+ years. There's no TV, no internet, not much local entertainment. Travel can take you at best 50 miles a day if you have a horse and then it's extremely dangerous, still. No chains of Motels and service centers along the way. So what do you do with yourself? Having children is about all you can do to have a life that has some meaning and joy in it.
Same. Growing up in a very low income household, we had the basics but never a dime to spare for small luxuries. Now I'm able to do and buy things I want. Why would I give that up?
I live in a rural community in Brazil. Each generation land inheritance gets smaller, I inheritted a small plot, too small to survive, and studied and became a teacher. Had a single son, feelling guilty, because I wouldn't be able to leave much for him. So I imagine how bad it can be when you don't even own a house, you have to rent. There is really no incentive to raise a family like that, having a child to be milked for rent in the next generation.
I'm a childless Gen X-er, and my reason for not having kids is not wanting to deal with the hassle of raising them. I'm just self-absorbed/selfish enough to not want to sacrifice my time, but also self aware enough to know that means I'll be happier without kids. There's also this "having more disposable income" thing too.
The productivity-pay gap widened in the US around 1973, and increased further under Bush 2002-2006, then (inherited by) Obama 2009-2011. Productivity is measured like GDP, items×price, i.e. the “living wage” in itself doesn’t correlate with birthrate, not even shifted by
Healthcare wasn't as unaffordable and to such an extreme for profit extent either back in the 50s-60s. Easier to get a good paying job straight out of high school. One that turns into a long term career path. Invest in anything in the 50s-60s, be it stocks, home ownership, precious metals and you'd be rich in the 2000s easily. College was affordable with part time jobs even through the 70s, potentially even the early to mid 80s. The list goes on and on, the same can not be said today.
The rich paid high taxes and unions were vigorous, leading to job security, better wages, benefits, and working conditions. It lead to the greatest middle class the world has ever seen. Or will see. Because unions were destroyed, taxes on the rich were cut and cut and cut. Greed was turned into a national virtue. The greedy are lionized. Income and wealth have been concentrated to the levels of the Gilded Age.
I'm 22 and I just had my first kid (hopefully of many) earlier this year. My girlfriend and I aren't married and didn't plan to start a family so young but we've been dating 4 years and when she got pregnant we decided there was no time like the present as we both wanted a family at some point anyway. It helps that the area in which we live is rural, and housing is incredibly cheap. We bought a 2 bedroom one bathroom house 3 months after we found out for 30k.
Most of the pessimistic respondents are urban/suburban. I live in a rural area (love it) and it is much easier to afford a home and land. You have to drive into town for a Starbucks though (wink).
Where are you that a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom house costs 30k? Is this some sort of time travel wizardry? Or is the house in extremely poor condition or uninhabitable upon purchase?
-money -being a woman and not having time to take care of myself or enjoy life outside of being a mother -these men aren’t husband material/father material. I don’t trust them to help me or be good dads.
men never raised children. men were never nannies. men were never fathers in raising children sense. women in extended families always raised children. a good dad that works around the clock and is at home around the clock with kids and satisfies his wife around the clock is extremely modern demand. women werent let to work. women find just any man with a job of any kind. providing meant just literally cheapest food so she wont starve. providing now as a word means a completely different thing. " not having time to take care of myself or enjoy life" how much do you think you had time before with 10 kids on a tiny house in the middle of nowhere? didn't have money to travel, to shop.
This explanation resonated with me more than any so far for the baby boom. My great grandma worked in the garment factories starting at age 14. My grandma went to college (which was a little unusual at the time) and by the time she'd enter the workforce, the gen above her would have 20 or 30 yrs of experience over her. No wonder she decided to stay home and raise some boomers instead 😂
Also even though it was still hard to have children in the past, some things weren't penalized like they are today. Your children could run freely outside or stay alone at home. This is now illegal. They can't even commute alone to schools. How are we supposed to "have it all", meaning having a job and the family if we can get into trouble simply because of the system construction?
He was used in a few older How History Works videos before. Honestly he sounds much better now somehow? Before it did seem a little flat but his delivery has definitely improved. I'm digging it, keep it up!
We're so much poorer then before. The vast majority of households have no savings and are living paycheque to paycheque. Most single and double households can't afford a home, much less kids. Most don't expect to live with the same spouse for their lifetime so they are cautious about raising kids with someone they expect to divorce. This is even worse for men who get shafted with the current family law meaning men don't have kids with women that will leave them. The return of true poverty and homelessness means you choose the wrong spouse you're out on the streets shortly after, especially for women if they choose kids over career.
I have an unlivable house, I'll sell it to you for $120k less than the average going rate. It comes with 2 custom high-end bathrooms and a mid tier kitchen. It just needs a new porch, some new floors downstairs, new doors/frames, rip apart 1 bathroom and redo due to leaky tub, the entire garage rebuilt, the dishwasher repaired, utilities in arrears paid off, a new vent in one upstairs room, repainted inside and out. Some other issues, but perhaps they won't bother you as much as they do me? Roof is brand new as of 1 month ago.
Life as a parent just doesn't interest me. It has nothing to do with money, or how women are, it just doesn't interest me, like certain hobbies don't interest me either
To be fair many of the old traditions were ditched for no good reason yeah sure they may be more free now than ever before however these new freedoms have had major consequences mainly in those people's lives further down in unexpected ways. In truth they wanted absolute freedom to do what they want whenever they wants however they want without any consequences of their actions the unhappiness was both due to them feeling depressed about the restrictions with unnecessary desires. People these days now live in a world where divorce rates are much to high, corruption has run rampant, wages are garbage, economy is busted, people divided against one another over opinions, overreliance on convenience, working extra hard on basic jobs due to company greed, sexual immorality, unstable family dynamics, partial and full on child neglect, abandonment of God the list goes on. Many people jusy simply didn't realize a lot of ancient traditions were there to protect them from certain dangers however over time people would justify removal of these traditions for freedom jusy so they don't have to hear any more nagging sure some traditions were pretty extreme but they were sadly necessary Oh and by traditions I don't mean celebrating niche holidays or family activities I mainly speak of things like traditionally not doing sexual acts until marriage and other such things that fit that category
Whatever caused fluctuations in birth rates prior to the 60s does not apply afterwards. Before widespread birth control was available a married couple who didn’t want to have kids had to really alter their sex life compared to when they did want kids. Doing this effectively was hard. Many couldn’t pull it off. Today couples have a genuine choice about when to have kids. Most people choose one or two. Very few want 4+.
If you black and from the south and your grandmother or great grandmother didn't have a litter of kids then your family was definitely not the norm lol. I asked my grandmother why so many she said during that time they maybe didnt have money like to splurge as we do now but food was always plentiful so having more kids wasnt a burden for most. And ahe said it was like having your own little empire or community that you know will always be there for you.
Both of my parents are Baby Boomers. One thing that stuck out to me in his childhood story was that the polio vaccine was invented and he and his peers were inoculated early in life. There was also access to antibiotics and more of an understanding of, say, anesthesia for surgery... Lots of his peers got tonsil surgery. Basically... Not only were there births.... But the babies lived to grow up! High birth rates aren't as impactful on population if the kids don't survive.
And now we have people saying vaccines are worse than viruses. 40% of Americans are leaning toward not vaccinating their pets for rabies, bordatella, parvovirus, etc. Rabies was a big problem. Just saying.
While i do like the new voice, it was a bit of a surprise. The pacing/editing felt a bit off too. Maybe the new guy can add in some more emphasis on certain words (could even be edited in in post a bit, but better if done in the recording). Also maybe a bit better video editing that’s more engaging. It’s a very interesting topic too. Well researched too!
I highly disagree. I liked the topics of this channel but the voice and the intonation was always offputting. This one is much more pleasant to listen to.
"Less to lose means more kids" That's totally true. This expression hits the true reason why birth rates are steadily decreasing. The fear of living below the standards our parents gave to us is strong enough to make us think heavily before having offspring. That is without considering the crazy high cost of living and education today. Modern society and the current standard of living are way more demanding than they were back then. Even though globalization and the democratization of knowledge and learning are some of the biggest advancements in current society, these have led to extreme competition and set a ceiling for progress and success. There's no way that there could be an increase in the birth rate anytime soon.
I love how calm you approach the topic. As a young woman I'm quite often annoyed to hear pressure towards me and other people (mostly women) of my age, when I watch videos about demography. All these: "Let's take their human rights and money, so they'll finally start to work as baby producing machines!" (which is a very strange position, taking into account the world population growth). This video was informative, empathetic and objectified nobody. Way to go!
HHW:We're richer now than ever before. Me: Correction. The top 10 and 1% are richer than ever. Everyone else is fighti g for the crumbs that fall on the floor.
The modern working class is not just poor in money, but also time. Many of the poor in the past were also busy, but many modern household and professional tasks require the use of a computer and near-constant staring at a screen. It's easier to watch kids while knitting or cooking or mending furniture than while writing an email or navigating your insurance company's website. Basically, the same reason computers are bad for your eyes.
One of the arguments you gave was that people were optimistic that things couldn't get worst and that they had to get better for their kids. I think this has a lot to do with the boom, and the current bust. People now don't have any optimism for the future, and only see tjings getting worst in every metric. Wars are breaking out, economic stagnation and even decline is hitting us, salaries aren't growing with inflation and peopme are getting poorer over time, the housing industry has never been as broken as it is today, unemplyment is high and is exponentially higher among youths, ... things are worse than they were years ago and they seem to be getting worse. We don't have an optimistic view on the future and don't want to make kids in a world where they're going to suffer more than us
The narrator's argument, though, sounds specious. I mean, the depression lasted until the war. It's hard to believe many people were feeling optimistic when they had to leave their family and cross the country to get a job. And when people compare current circumstances to that, well...
I wouldn't be able to enjoy having kids. Depressed as it is every day my misses does 12 hour shifts in a carehome and we just about manage to pay the bills. Lack of motivation, bleak future and financials for me. In the UK i blame the government for not planning for the future. We just import people instead of nurturing our own to have kids. The society we have created is toxic like no hope for anyone and our leaders only line their own pockets. I'm one of five born in the 80's. My mum didn't work and we had a happy childhood. It wasn't easy and we didn't have a lot but my mum was there always caring for us, my dad worked away in a stable job. I just think they've made it a chore to have children. You can't support 1 child never mind 2 or 3. It's very demoralising for me as I wanted a big family but I never earned enough to do what my dad did.
There was a “baby boom” in 1995. I attribute that to “new house, new baby”. Interest rates were pretty high. You could get an adjustable rate mortgage at 11%. Therefore, there was a depression in prices in the housing market . People of chil-bearing age suddenly began to be able to afford single family homes, and there you go…. They all knew that they could refinance if they stayed on the straight and narrow a few years down the road, and rates did go down, and they stayed down for a long, long time.
I was one of those young mothers in the late 70s/early 80s who had a 12% mortgage for a while. Some people had it worse than that. We counted on refinancing in a few years when the rates went down. The inflation was horrible then - much, much worse than now.
7:43 this statement doesn't actually make much sense. Children of the Great Depression tend to conserve things and not throw them away. If anything an eco-conscious person of any age would share a lot of their habit, with the exception of matbe stocking up on a lot of food or clothing in the first place.
Was just coming to say this. Most of the people I've known who grew up in the depression were the LEAST wasteful people I've ever known. True recyclers. Everything they used was reusable, washed, and saved. Altos cans were turned into hygiene or first aid kits. Clothes were mended. My Grandpa was a plumber and his garage and backyard were filled with pipes and fittings to be used on future projects.
When you grow up in struggle, and try harder then all of your peers to get to a place without struggle, what's the point of having kids and resuming said struggle once more. If you can't provide a better life for your child then you had growing up, what have you accomplished.
In the States, the reason for pregnancy tests to be selling more than before is, more than likely, due to some states having VERY STRICT or non-existent, abortion access. So at any sign of a possible pregnancy, it is imperative to find out as early as possible.
![Megan Thee Stallion - Bigger In Texas [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QxTkZTLWdo4/mqdefault.jpg)
To try everything Brilliant has to offer for free for a full 30 days, visit www.brilliant.org/howhistoryworks. You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
The baby-boomers have had one most important thing in their possession which the current generation doesn't have--free land. Without land to live on, grow food on or make a house upon, you won't make babies. Poverty is no barrier in producing kids, if you have land to grow food upon.
P.S.-Flats or apartments are prisons cells, you pay rent for. No one wants to raise kids in these tiny prison cells.
U can't make people have babies. Whites especially aren't having babies.
I have several reasons to not get married or have kids. First off, diaper phobia. I didn't want to change diapers. Secondly, I am gay, so I find no need to partner with a woman, especially in the current legal climate. Thirdly, finances. My father struggled financially his whole life as a minister and died long before reaching retirement. I didn't want to do that to myself or others. I want to reach retirement. Getting married and having kids gets in the way of that.
@ianandersen265 The demands of having kids certainly ages you.. BUT on the positive, it gives purpose and joy! Quite a few of my male friends in their 50's struggle with mid life crisis, divorce and depression. BUT the one thing they would not change in their life is having had their child. Just a thought! Not crticising!
Why in Soviet union brith rate always Stay above 2.1 Even now the former Soviet Union countries have good birth rates.(Kazakhstan, Usbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia )
My dad is a boomer. He was born in June 1945. World War 2 was still going on. Lotta world war 2 vets thought they were going to die so getting married, and then getting a woman pregnant before you left to go die in a war, was a popular sentiment at the time.
yeah I remember doing that in 1943
And the woman had less of a say
@alicianieto2822 it's not like they were r@ping them, so I don't understand where this sentiment is coming from.
@@talandar5773 Just because it wasn't straight-up rape doesn't mean that the overall culture at the time wasn't geared towards male dominance. If the guy wanted a kid, they'd do everything they could to make a kid, even if the woman doesn't necessarily think it's a good idea to be stuck with a kid all on her own when, up to that point, women didn't typically work outside the home, meaning that if her man died in the war, she'd be left with an extra mouth to feed and no way to feed it without finding herself another man.
Yes, that changed during the war, but those sorts of changes tend to start in cities and work their way out, and the cultural perception of the changes tends to lag behind the actual changes by a few years, so even though we look back, now, and say "women worked in factories during the war, and made their own money," it was very much _not_ the mindset of any woman being saddled with a kid and potentially no husband that she'd be perfectly okay being a single mom on her own.
Thus, if the women had as much say in the matter as they do, today, the mid-war boom would definitely have been much, much less (although the post-war boom would still have been significant, since at that point, you know your guy isn't going to die in a war, because the war is over, and now it's safe to start having kids with him).
@@talandar5773It’s coming from modern eff in ist indoctrination, which purposely encourages an incorrect interpretation of history to further its agenda.
I think the biggest factor is a lack of optimism about the future. The immediate future is pretty bleak. We don't want to bring kids into this world.
yes... global warm, wealth inequality, shit like that. I would say the internet allows me to see how fucked up the world is (and has always been), and I don't want my kids to suffer.
agreed. Optimism about the future is the greatest factor. someone who expects things to get worse is probably not going to risk getting a child (which is, afterall, a pretty huge commitment - given that a child is pretty much your responsibility to care about for at least two decades). And there just isn't that socio-cultural climate of stable optimism in the current world.
Yeah, who's going to have children seeing inflation can double in 3 years and it's impossible for many to find a job but the government says everything is fine. Even those with a job, not like they saw any raises with inflation everywhere rising.
the future for people in dark ages didn't look to bright either and they didn't care
Yea who wants to bring a child into a world with free Healthcare in most countries, wealth security, less violence globally, equal rights among genders and a robust education system that works with children with disabilities. What a terrible world we live in
Two words: Higher Education. That means people delay childbearing during their most fertile years. Then they delay further to "establish" their careers. Not saying these things are bad, but that when a large chunk of the population is doing this, of course birth rates are going to plummet.
Three words: cost of living
I found the conclusion "Before the people was only expected to marry and have babies and today is expected to study, make work career and make your backpack to europe" very revealing. I think that explain a lot of things
Ever-increasing automation does make it more difficult to just walk in to a hire-to-retire career without some unique selling points of postsecondary education and experiences.
Prior to Now, most people really won't aware that there was a world beyond their local area.
They knew there was a world there, they just didn't compare or try to keep up with appearances or Jones beyond their area.
People have to adapt to the new world. To seek out new opportunities or to make them. AKA don’t live in a big city, find a good balance where you can earn the best bang for your buck. And plan ahead.
@@somethingclever8916 Yeah, I think the ultimate point was that people want to pursue other things, not that young people are all traveling the world lol. "Backpacking around Europe" was just a sarcastic example.
So people living in Europe have less of a checklist because they are already in Europe and don't have to backpack there
Kids are the parents' hope for the future. And when the future around has no hope, there are no kids.
I don't buy this, we exist as species and for sure there were even worse conditions. There seems to be genetic evidence of a time were there were less than 10K humans, we were literally on the brink of extinction. It requires 100K humans for the species to be safe. I can't imagine people would stop having kids because of no hope for the future.
Actually I think there's a lot of hope for the future, that's why I'm having kids, its because of people like you that decided to not have kids that I have hope, there won't be competition, so things will get easier. So keep thinking what you think, while I have my kids and they inherit the world without your kids to compete with mine, I literally win.
Most of the problems with the current society are caused by just too many people, that will fix itself very soon, so there's a lot of hope for the next generation, the zoomers are screwed either way.
Having children is a major economic calculation. Historically, having children has always been economically beneficial. As labor force, old age insurance... it no longer makes economic sense now.
There are people who just like kids. But doing something without an economic incentive is called a hobby.
@Rasaiel Well just like all the companies going under so is the idea of prosperity from having kids. No one knows the why to anything.. it's just what people do. So rhe logic of it goes out the window.
😂😂😂😂 I don’t care about hope. I can barely afford to take care of myself let alone bring a kid into this world.
@bornstar481 So true!! I see soooo many already struggle with one kids and thinks it's smart to bring another into the world.
I think another factor in decreasing birth rates is, ironically, people taking parental responsibility more seriously. At one time people who were grossly unprepared or had a history of mental health issues or medical issues in their family just had kids anyway. These days people are increasingly aware of the risk that poses to kids and they set a high standard for themselves before considering conception.
Wayward parents still had extended family, siblings, cousins, parents and grandparents nearby to help raise children. An important safety net. Now we live in a hyper individualistic Western world. We are often studying, working, living and having relationships 100s of miles from where we grew up
That's precisely the reason I'm child-free. My supposed child would have 40% more chance of becoming schizophrenic than I deem safe. So I'd rather leave procreating to other people, whether they would be healthier or braver than me.
Fundamentally I think we have much higher standards for raising children than we did in the past. Some of what boomer and gen-x children would have experienced would be decried as child abuse or neglect today. It was once normal to leave children to their own devices from morning until evening, have older siblings take much more caring responsibilities for younger ones, and so on. This made it easier for dual income parents to have children and manage their time without burning out. Now the options are pay enormous sums for professional childcare or supervise your kids constantly when not at school. There's also a lot of social pressure to ferry them around to clubs and other activities rather than just let them entertain themselves. Perhaps that's how it should be, certainly there were problems with the old way of doing things, but it's no wonder people aren't having so many children, apart from how expensive it all is, it just sucks away all the free time parents have. You basically have to have no life away from your children unless you're very rich, and a lot of adults, rather understandably, don't want to do that.
Good to see someone saying this! I didn't want children, and a lot of the reason was my background. Cold parents caused disastrous problems for all 4 siblings. The idea of passing that poison on was unthinkable. I have asked many parents why they wanted kids, and the replies are STARTLING. "I want, I felt, my life, my future, my marriage, my old age"! No analysis of the most important factor...are you fit to be a parent?. Only one of us 4 has kids, and he is not a good dad. He repeats the errors of his parents. But we are still called the selfish ones. Not in my long experience.
Birth control. There was no birth control. Get rid of birth control and I think we'd start mirroring the 30s to 50s. Unless you were sexless, you didn't have a choice. Condoms weren't widely used or reliable. Abortion was also not an option back in those days.
My Sociology teacher in Grade 13: "people had lots of free time after going back home from work, there was little entertainment such as television. Sexual intercourse was a way to kill boredom and get rid of workplace frustrations".
Haven't heard a better explanation since then.
My history teacher was always sarcastic about time of Polish People's Republic and his favorite say was that block flats was size of cupboard drawers and the government blackout was made specially to raise more population in country 😂.
Yeah I think free time us one of the bottlenecks, we are working and commuting most of the day, we can't put aside time for love and family
Grade 13?
So a 6pm curfew and residential power cut at 7pm then and no power to residents until 5am? 😝
This is absolutely not true
In every aspect
One thing not included is that in the US the drop in the pregnancy rare from about 1990 to current is that we have cut teen pregnancies down to a fraction of their previoua size.
Hehehe teen preggos was a good thing then. 😂
@Rexorazor Nope! Kids having kids is never a good thing for the parents or the child. Why do you think a lot of us don't want kids today? We grew up with teenaged parents. It was a poop show!
Yeah, I've seen a ton of other videos mentioning this too. A lot of our population came from the younger parents making rash decisions, and education and medicine have drastically decreased that so it's only natural
So this is actually good. And in all honesty, if we WANTED to, this is how we advance society. Fewer kids born but born into families that planned for them and have the money to invest in their health and education means higher quality future generations. Except it’s impossible to really do all of that cause the economy and the environment have been poisoned 😅
@@kaybrown7733it can work fine in societies where multigenerational households are the norm
How is saving leftovers not environmentally sound? It reduces food waste.
Yes, there's a lot of bias in this presentation.
They’re not saying that though? They’re saying that both boomer’s parents and the younger gen’s are pro-leftovers BUT the silent gen/greatest gen wouldn’t criticize their boomer kids for being wasteful bc they believed in a future prosperity for their kids.
omg, so stupid
no, we're not richer than our parents, you have to spent more % from income to get a home than before, and these days you're competing not only with other people who want to live,
but also companies that take it as a business
"but you have a phone" is the boomer version of rich because to them, technology is a luxury. They don't realize that functioning in the modern world requires access to the modern world.
I keep saying this, consumer goods are cheap but necessities like housing, healthcare, transportation and education are all much more expensive. I can buy a new wardrobe with a small portion of my paycheck but that’s not gonna help me start a family.
@@adamatari YES.
When you look at the material goods we have access to, yes it's wildly better than 70 years ago. Especially with technology, mainly because when tech is early and experimental it's super expensive, but once there's a lot of competition and it's mass-produced everywhere it becomes very cheap. Information is extremely inexpensive today, mainly because the cost of searching, reproduction, and transmission is almost zero in the days of databases and email vs. decades ago when an expert librarian would be needed to locate, and the copy somehow produced before Xerox, and then shipped through the mail.
If you went back in time and handed a still-connected and still-functional smart phone to a medieval king, they'd never have an opportunity to use such a thing, and its value would be incalculable. Penicillin, painkillers, vaccines.
But look at the things that have always been expensive: land, gold, labor. These are still remarkably expensive today. This is a basket of goods just as important as the one currently used to generate the baldly false federal inflation rate. But look to the 40s when the quoted statistic in the video was that ~95% of married couples owned their own home. We've clearly seen a ridiculous and precipitous crash in American wealth since then. Having a cheap smartphone doesn't change that.
Real. Cost of living has outpaced wages for the last decade.
The money is worth less.
I was interested to know "What ACTUALLY Caused the Baby Boom?" but after watching this video I'm none the wiser with no new insights. There is no structure to the argument and topics are flitted across without reaching any conclusions. The photography is fine but you can do better in making the arguments. Get a piece of paper, right down the possible reasons for and not and then organise the video in a structured manner so we can see what the argument is. Use existing footage but recut it to make sense. Now going to look at the comments which are likely to be more informative.
Which parts of the video were confusing to you?
@@blackbacon08 All, no structure, just a series of miscellaneous items. I've explained how it could be fixed. If you disagree then please do me the honour of a counter argument.
@@alanrobertson9790 So ALL of it was confusing? Come on, pay better attention next time.
@@blackbacon08 In another post I put what I thought were the factors but you seem incapable of having a debate. Just a few throw away lines.
Yes I also noticed it was unstructured. Adherence to a stronger outline would help, even actually showing the outline in bullet point form at each section break.
I doubt you're seeing much better in the comments though ;)
Another factor to think about is throughout the 80s and 90s we were drilled into our heads in school that we needed to stop having kids cause overpopulation. So as we became adults in the late 90s/early 2000s we had it in our heads that you should only have 1 maybe 2 kids if any at all.
That is totally true, all the population explosion books scared us to death. I had 2.
Overpopulation is certainly a myth. Now several Westernized countries have begun promoting increasing the population because their populations are in decline. To this day people still treat you like you are insane or stupid if you have over 1 - 2 children. Once you have 3 children, prepare to be mocked by the average person. Having 3 + children is going into territory where most fear to tread.
The fear of "the population bomb"
Yeah, overall I think fear of overpopulation was the driving factor in having few or no kids. Other factors or a combination of them were. I would say not finding a mate is by far more significant. Nearly half of adults are single today. That is probably the biggest hole in this presentation.
Yes, because many of us came from families with 3-8 kids. We watched shows like The Brady Bunch (6), The Partridge Family (5), The Waltons (7), and Eight is Enough (8). Having so many kids was a source of drama and challenges, the consensus was. My mother encouraged us to not marry or have kids until age 30. So all of her kids only had a maximum of 3, 2, or none at all.
The expected growth to 10 billion people is expected to come from developing countries, not from already developing countries having another baby boom.
We're not reaching 10 billion people. Developing countries are facing a declining fertility rate too. Based on the current trajectory, it's mathematically impossible. The people coming out with these predictions are either lying or are just incompetent.
Most of the growth are not by high birth rate but by improvements in public health which extends lifetime of existing population in developing countries.
Some developings are already having low fertility rate. And in 2100, it is projected that only 6 countries on the planet maintains replacement fertility rate.
Check the 2020 census. All major developing countries are below replacement.
@@alt_zaq1_esc I know for a fact some of these developing countries have higher birth rates as the culture emphasizes marriage and having kids more than a country like England. I know because I have relatives from Nigeria.
@@alt_zaq1_esc I agree. Our planet is entering a phase full of old people
This misrepresents a critical factor. Going from farming to industrial didn't eliminate children contributing to the household income. Just take a wander through history of children working in industrial environments leading up to WWII and one will quickly realize that many children were still being born with the expectation that they would contribute significantly to the household income, with some working as much as 16 hour days starting as young as 4 years old. It was not unheard of where the children in some cases were the real bread winners of the household since there were times that factories would be hiring children at their reduced wages (and ability to get into areas adults couldn't) where the market for adults in the same areas were tighter. It was a different world. Child labor laws didn't even really start until 1938 in the United States and then were limited in what little amount of protection they actually gave. After WWII there effectively was finally a stop for the most part of child labor and children at that point were expected to go to school. On a related note, people have this misconception that women didn't work prior to WWII. That is entirely untrue. They worked in large numbers throughout history, just as they do now in male dominated societies. It's just that they tended to work mostly in certain areas such as sewing, laundry, etc... and having a working woman in the household was definitely a break in socioeconomic levels so the poor women pretty much always worked, whereas any middle class or above it was a sign of economic status to not have the women work. What WWII did was break some of the stigma of women working so that a working class family that wasn't *poor* could attempt to justify the woman working while still maintaining somewhat their social standing. Also it opened up the range of jobs women could attempt to get. Considering all of this, yes, this was 100% tied to economy.
Having said that, the current trend is very much also tied as was mentioned to the rise of individualism, and this is on a global scale. When one interviews working class people in Asian countries for instance, it is very common for the people to reply that the reason they don't want to have kids is that they would have to sacrifice their lives to pay for the kids, and they would rather have options to live a better life for themselves, like going to the movies, buying makeup, being able to eat out on occasion, etc...
Yeah, the idea that women stayed home is more of a boomer luxury. The Nobel prize in economics last year illustrated women always worked throughout history. If anything things are just trending back to centuries old norms like settling down in your 30s and women working.
Most of the people complaining they don't have enough money mean to say they don't have money to send their kids to daycare, tutoring, nannies, and other care that would allow them time for their personal lifestyles. People in poorer countries are having kids just fine and even observing my own peers, kids is not even on their minds, they are too busy planning their next party, vacation, game night, playing video games, or whatever other thing that isn't having kids and a family, but I DO see a panic as they approach 40. It's the phenomena of "emerging adulthood" where basically people act like teenagers for an extended period into their 20s and even 30s (just going out, having fun, minimizing responsibilities, the playboy lifestyle).
I Iove how economics is primarily just sociology, history & politics 😂😂😂
@@sor3999depend on the standard of "fine" in poorer country. Even Palestine have a lot of kids, are they doing fine?
Individualism means people have more control instead of being pressured by society or families. Not wanting kids suffer vs free range kids + neglect. Live and suffer vs live a good life. Framing individualism as selfish is a "societal pressure" strategy, which clearly does not work.
There was also a move in industrial societies away from unskilled labor to an increased reliance on expertise. This required young people to attend school longer delaying their entrance into the workforce. They then became more of an economic burden for longer.
@@sor3999Daycare is primarily used by parents who work outside the home, not by people pursuing a hedonistic lifestyle. Neither parents can afford to take too much time away from the workplace, because, the more time someone is out of the workforce, the harder it is to get back in.
You don't need anything before 7:20. Everything before that was just the narrator asking, "What caused the baby boom?"
Thank you
King
The whole video should have been half as long. Quite frustrating listening to him build things up instead of getting on with it.
Isn't "What caused the baby boom" the exact same point of this video?
You are saying that we don't need to hear him explaining the central question of this video?
@@janmajer4662That's not what he said. He said the question is repeated in various different ways until almost 8 minutes into the video
It was also because so many delayed marriage because of the EXTREME economic conditions of the 1930s. That, combined with the unprecedented post-war economic boom, produced a perfect demographic storm.
And the material prosperity. The middle class was almost everyone and they were getting rich building suburbia and filling it with modern cars and appliances.
that's what's happening now.
@mangoskiph9862 with three MASSIVE differences. No intact extended family structures to fall back on. Women in the formal workforce because they MUST be, not necessarily because they want to. And massive student debt attached to worthless degrees. Also particularly among women who are now the majority of University students.
@@mangoskiph9862 Yep been in a stagnation since 2009, too much improve the world then improve ourselves then the pandemic hit. Its like we've been reliving post ww1 and now in 1920's
@@jstantongood5474 "massive student debt attached to worthless degrees" this is only a thing in the US due to how predatory and scummy the academic system and the credit system are. In Europe, the vast majority of Uni students don't have any student debt because public state owned universities are almost free and often just as good if not better than private unis, and even when going private is the better choice, it is seen as utterly foolish to take on debt to pursue a degree so people rarely do it.
And yet, richer european countries have even worse birth rates than the US. Thus, that's unlikely to be a significant factor.
Optimism does seem to be one of the strongest drivers of birth rates. One thing that seems common among all childless people is a sense if growing pessimism. I've had to switch careers multiple times in my life, and I'm not even 40. When adjusting for inflation, many of us get paid less today than we did 10 years ago. It just looks like everything is getting worse year after year, decade after decade. Housing prices skyrocket while our wages do not. The cost of childcare goes up while wages do not. People look at this and say "why would I want my kids to suffer like this?" What will the year 2040 look like? Will it take 5 years to get 1 job offer? Will a home cost 90x the median income?
Every year since 2009 has looked like 1930, where that particular year is worse than the year before it. 1930 was worse than 1929, 2013 was worse than 2012, 2019 was worse than 2018, etc. Society hasn't yet reached that 1937 bottom.
Excellent point. It's the "Office Space" answer to the question of how your day was. He said, every day is worse than the previous day, which means, every time you see me it's the worst day of my life. (If you haven't seen Office Space, it's a good and funny movie, and not as depressing as this scene makes it sound!)
@@googiegress I love that quote. It's such a true statement. If someone is spiraling down for whatever reason (economy, family issues, health, clinical depression), it really does feel like that.
When people are asking why the birth rate is so low, try to imagine that guy in that movie. Would that character have kids as his top priority? Probably not.
Exactly, and you’re talking about 2040 but any child born right now will live past 2100, I know I wouldn’t want to be alive by then if nothing is done
@@googiegress I can't see a printer at work without thinking of that movie.
@@shawn576 And in the movie, what happens that puts the main character on the 'family path?' A dramatic shift to optimism (even if hypnotically induced) made him ask out the waitress. Hope really is the inducer of 'family life.'
That said, if we believe that late Millennials and Gen-Z are putting off kids because they are without hope due to conditions affecting them, if things shift in a positive way, their children will line up more with children of early Gen-alpha and look like a boom even if it is in fact a delayed resonance.
If I can't afford a house, I can't afford kids. If it comes to a house OR kids, the house wins.
You have to have a house to shelter the kids.
Try renting 🤷🏻♂️ or buying something smallrr simpler. A but dar from main cities. And maybe you could. And yeah you will have to work 24/7 to afford that life you want welcome to adulthood in capitalism 🤷🏻♂️.
@@glennso47 Yeah, how are africans having the most kids? You jackov
I believe, it's not a problem to rise kids in an apartment. In many places, house is a luxury, apartment is 'normal'
@@qj0n sure, but you want to accommodate for your kids to at least get the same amount of space that you were used to as a kid yourself. That's why the housing market is probably the single biggest drawback on starting a family.
The entire video missed a huge factor. A lot of people want to have kids but are struggling. Me and my wife have been trying for 8 years and finally have a little girl on the way. I know of other people have the same problem too. Stats show that infertility issues are on the rise and it’s for men and women. For men there has been a consistent drop in sperm count and testosterone and for women there is a lot of fertility issues on the rise including difficulty keeping the baby and more C-sections.
Same here, husband and I would love to have kids (2-3), but I have PCOS and hypothyroidism (he is perfectly fine, it's purely on my end). We've been trying naturally with the help of hormones and Ob/Gyn's advice so far, and while we at least have my cycles going semi-normally, there is just NOTHING happening in the ovaries department. We'll probably soon be referred to a fertility clinic, to bring out the hard tools. Women with PCOS are still chronically underdiagnosed and their pains pushed aside (I was 25 when I got diagnosed with PCOS, 30 for Hypothyroidism, kept getting told I should just do more exercise and lose weight...).
If women can get better treatment at a younger age thanks to correct diagnoses, as well as funding research into issues such as PCOS, endometriosis etc. we can combat female infertility early on. I'm currently 31, so the more time passes, the more risky and difficult it'll be.
Anyway, I wish you and your wife the best of luck and that you will be blessed with your sweet baby girl! I'm glad it worked out for you! :)
Some amount of that is due to people trying for babies later, as they don’t have enough finances/security when young
Do we know why that is? First instinct would be the ever ramping up pollution (be it ground, air or water) and the innumerable health effects, but I'd expect a level of pollution (especially metals) to have been there since the industrial revolution, so... any sources on the causes, or even theories?
Find a sperm donor
Some of the c sections might be due to hospital corruption apparently doctors are paid more if they have to do crazy sections than natural births so some people are told horrible lies so that the patients consent to these surgeries and milk their patients for money the only issue is being aware of the ones who abuse this and doctors who are being legitimate about your babies health and yours
I had one child and realized that I couldn't emotionally handle any more. I was so mentally and financially overwhelmed by one that I knew it would be a disservice to everyone if I had more. That's one thing that people don't really talk about is the fact that younger generations are so overwhelmed and overstimulated by long work hours and constantly being bombarded with technology and activities that having kids feels like too much. Personally, I think it's good to say that out loud because previous generations never would have admitted that one more kid was one more too many. People who were struggling mentally and financially were expected to just suffer in silence and act like they loved it. Not so much today. People who suffer from mental health problems are a lot more open about how they don't want to bring kids into that mess, which is honestly really responsible.
I have three, and adding more children to the mix doesn't really increase work all that much. Work per child goes down as there are more of them, as cooking, bedtime, etc are one activity for all.
I think we have a generation that doesn't have resilience any more, as they could never explore the world on their own when they were little. They were always kept in safe little boxes, and therefore have never grown the confidence that things will turn out fine in the end.
I think that is what you are describing for yourself, and I find it very heartbreaking. I wish you healing.
@@floodgates182 Pregnancy also gave me a lot of physical health problems. Another pregnancy would have just exasperated it. I have chronic pain all the time now. It's the worst at night, so I never sleep well. A few years ago, I got so tired and burned out that I couldn't take care of my kid or myself anymore. I had to quit my job, and even after more than a year off, I still can't shake the fatigue. It's so bad. I used to be so hard working and determined. I overcame a lot of obstacles, put myself through school, and worked hard at a carerr that I enjoyed. All of that died two years ago. Years and years of poor sleep and no support chipped away at my resiliance and determination until there was none. I have no motivation to even go back to work because I dread the exhaustion that will inevitably come with it. I have no hope that I will be able to manage a job and a family without completely burning myself out again. At the end of the day, my salary wasn't enough to cover the cost of living anyway, which is another reason why I just don't see the point.
@@floodgates182 The shoe fits on both feet so it all depends on your perspective and which side you are on.
The truth is that its just selfish.
It is selfish to bring a life into this world and it is selfish to not bring a life into this world.
Do you see how it fits both agendas?
@@w0ngky I love even people reply to you, yet their post has no relation to what you wrote, or indeed the topic at hand.
@@floodgates182 pfffttt....You seem like those people, who use kids as insurance. Cut this BS and touch grass.
You didn't mention one of the factors affecting the birth rate after WWII. My mother had a BS and was a Physical Therapist during and after the war. She said that there was a great deal of pressure for women "to replace the men lost in the war", much of it hidden and low key.
My brother and I were born 14 months apart. My sister was born 10 years later. My mother didn't lose any children during those 10 years.
The reason why I don't have any kids is: 1. I can't get a date to save my life. 2. I am stuck in a debt pit with very little out of it.
oh my god... you're me
Yeah that's a whole other factor too, the loneliness pandemic is really bad atm. More people are single than ever because of lack of third spaces and reliance on dating apps
@@MangoPanicAlso everything is made to stress the shit out of you. Media, noise pollution, traffic, living like cockroaches.
Can really get a girlfriend or get married and have kids when many people in there 20s are living with their parents because they cant afford to pay for rent without working to death
@@freddiesimmons1394 basically you can think of it as a place to hang out and meet people.
I heard teens started going to target to hang out as a third space as an example of fewer third spacing being available. Or how people started going to running clubs to date instead of actually running or using dating apps.
Also basically what school does for you, get into contact with people enough to grow friendships
Probably preferably not a place that sells alcohol, I feel like that's different from a hang out spot to meet people, has a different context
Your grandparents had financial hardships, but the price of housing was lower compared to income. People lived outside more too, so even if houses are smaller, it doesn't matter if people just use them to eat and sleep in. There is simply no space for more people in young people's studio appartments without losing 'standard of living space'. You cannot expect Western young people to raise multiple kids in a one bedroom appartment, while they grew up having their own bedroom.
The 1926 my ex and I owned in the 1970's was typical of that era. It was 2/1, 926 square feet. Our neighbor had the same house and they raised six kids in it! (I can just imagine the boys living downstairs and pissing in a bucket.)
Really good point about the space
That's about twice the size of my place, and a solid 50% larger than the average apartment size here.@@frequentlycynical642
I agree. Back in those days there was housing for every income bracket. Now it's either a 1 million + house or an apartment for 2000k a month
@@hellogoodbye637 Importantly, that 1 mil house in a regular town is the same crummy house that was selling for $250k in 2019 five years ago, and which might have gone for $150k in 2000.
This would be acceptable if a job paying $10 / hr in 2000 was paying $67/hr today. But it's not. It's more like $20 / hr.
So, simply put, the owner of your company is paying you less in value per hour, maybe 1/3 what he should. But all the products he sells are full price. Where's that extra money going? He's not legally required to answer.
Counterargument to fewer kids, if you have more to lose: Scandinavia has a strong economic safety net, but birthrate is not any higher.
the same was with japan in its peak economic growth
the problem lies simply in the nationalistic-tribalistic nature. if you loose that then you become a hedonist
@@autarchyan5426the main cause for lower birth rates is the death of purpose caused by atheism.
Man needs purpose in order to act.
If he sees no purpose in doing something, then he will not do it.
If he does see purpose behind it, then even the biggest challenges are not an excuse for him to not do it.
Atheism killed purpose by saying man is the product of happenstance and that therefore he has no purpose.
So all man is left is with pleasure, hedonism.
Which will result in death, since man needs purpose and this can only come from God.
@@juanranger4214 I am an atheist but I do have a purpose and I have many kids. I need no God even tho I like pagan ones
@@autarchyan5426 but can you defend your point?
You have a feel for purpose inside you, yet your belief cannot explain your need for purpose.
Even worse is that you do not believe that your faith is not connected to your actions.
“Feeling” that you are correct is very different from “being” correct.
How do you know the values you are teaching your kids are correct, that they are good and not bad?
How can there be good of there is no purpose?
How can there be purpose if there is no creator behind creation?
You feel like having children is purpose full, yet you cannot explain where does that purpose come from and it does not matter, only for your demise…
Man needs purpose in order to survive, yet a creation cannot create purpose to itself, for that would go against all logic.
A creation must be willed into existence with a purpose, thus implying a creator.
Spoiler alert: having children is one of the purposes of the existence of man, which is why you feel it is good.
You did not even mentioned it, but the US fertility rate peaked in 1960, which is 15 years after the war. The rate is about as high as in 1920, so it is safe to say that it is more of an "return to normal" than anything less
Most of our socio-economic changes and trajectory is a return towards the historical norm.
Note, the historical norm was bad enough that most major religions held up justifying an alleged corrupt, fallen world as a primary concern to be redeemed by an eschaton.
This is a case where a good graph beats paragraphs of text. Sometimes graphs are overused or hard to interpret, but this is the ideal place for one.
Yeah exactly. We had a boom that wasn't sustainable, it was always going to fluctuate because population isn't always just a straight line. Now it's just evening out, and we're going to have to go through the growing pains, particularly with the boomers living longer than their ancestors.
Find the Statista chart of crude birth rate in the US from 1800 to present. Early Americans were just pumping the babies out. The decline from a high in 1825 to a low in 1935-1940 is followed by a significant jump and then a continued decline. A birth rate argument that does not take that into account is almost entirely blind. 1920 was absolutely not "normal".
Instead, the whole chart could be interpreted as the declining birth rate of a developing country. But even that is an improper conclusion, because the country is so big and the conditions throughout so different, that it would be better to track birth rates by county. Truth is difficult to find, and it takes hard work. Harder than any of us are really willing to perform for this topic.
Yes, as someone born in 1962, I never really felt I owe my existence to the end of the Second World War.
Need to mention the crash housing construction programs that happened in most developed countries after the war. That was done to provide social stability and employment for the veterans. The governments of the time actually did everything they could to make housing as cheap as possible.
Example were the suburb construction in the US, social housing and city reconstruction in Europe. Even the USSR took the issue seriously and Khruschev initiated his block housing program. Yes, this housing would be very basic by our standards but it's better then what was before. Housing availability for almost everyone helped family creation.
housing "stability" followed by income stability
"If you build it, they will come."
They stopped building for people decades ago. Now it's just for profit, not people. Wonder why the babies aren't coming?
The Boomers already have homes, so it's in their interest for home prices to go up, not down.
Exactly housing is budget item liked to your stability and future like no other in existence.
"Even the USSR"
In fact, it could be argued that they started it! The American Golden Age-a period of economic growth and increased standard of living for the average American-was in part a response to the successes of the Soviet Union and its socialist policies.
When did things start to decline? After the Soviet Union dissolved against the will of many of its people. Following this collapse, the financial elite in the US and other capitalist countries felt less pressure to provide substantial social benefits, resulting in the majority receiving mere crumbs.
I'm over 25 years old and I don't know anyone in real life who can afford a house / flat.
Same. Either they are living at their parents, renting a room, or openly suffering and complaining that almost half of their wages go to rent.
Hm......so the probability of finding a committed mate goes waaaay up the moment I can afford 10% down on a condo or townhome?
well, actually... a lot of people can afford a house somewhere in the middle of nowhere, but where's fun in that? We don't need just any house)
@@jskratnyarlathotep8411 Yeah I agree. It's like being disconnected from the rest of the world. Most of the people don't like that
means ur life loosers
Birth rates are going down because of access to effective contraception, higher cost of living, women not being financially dependent on men, and greater opportunities for travel and entertainment for the average person. More and more people are seeing the sacrifices required for children and choosing not to have them.
Nah, the rich elite are having less kids. The lower class and middle class who live outside of rich elite locations are having the most kids because they value them more.
Im going to have to contest that women are having to work as incomes were split in two to supress wages thats not a good thing for the worker
The average person can't afford to travel... delulu
@@the_expidition427yeah but it’s not great to have to marry a guy regardless of quality in order to not be impoverished
The biggest reason no one is having kids is 100% of women are chasing 5% of men because our mass media has convinced everyone they deserve the best without any sacrifice, compromise or effort. And those "best" men are actually not the best men because they have no need or desire to commit / invest in 1 women and women think he nearly married them when that was never going to happen and then would rather live the rest of their life alone with a cat and wine than settle for less than Mr dreamy that they never even really knew.
A child is a product of hope
A child is a wage slave, F your hope.
And media relies way too much on using fear and anxiety to let hope grow.
Anxious and fearful you'll self loathe with food and purchases. A hopeful person won't need to do this
More like a product of gambling.
You're gonna bet on it until it ends up like a worse loser than you.
@@somethingclever8916 2 major things are GONE for todays generation and that is stable and secure housing and stable and secure careers
few can BUY a home and most JOBS don't have the "career" aspect as seen in the 60's where one starts on the factory floor and retires manager of operations for the SAME company
so they live in constant "fear" of being made homeless and OR jobless and unable to keep there home
@@somethingclever8916only applies to people with a brain
9:34 There you go, that explains it. They weren't having more babies than previous generations. From the 1920's the babies and young children had a far higher chance of survival due to medical advances, sanitation, better food, clothing, washing and heating. After WW2, slums were replaced by better homes. But then in the early 1960's contraception and abortion became widely available resulting in a dramatic fall in birth rates and bringing an end to the baby boom.
Also the increased career opportunities and ambitions for young women.
And it liberated women from having to marry the first guy they met, raising a boatload of children, and being stuck in bad, even abusive relationships. Financial independence is critical to a woman being able to have equal influence on a relationship, to share dependence and independence mutually, to leave when a partner is too selfish or verbally or physically abusive. These should be socially non-neogtiable.
If society is hell-bent on population growth and all of its problems (without taking full responsibility for mitigating and managing those problems), then it should address that without laying the blame and burden all at the feet of women. Plenty of men have little or no interest in having and/or raising a family. If they do have them, many work 8 or maybe 10 hours 5 days a week while the wife works 24x7. We can use technology to create babies if they are so damn important. And we can use social programs to raise them. We can focus on getting good at those things. Creating and raising them the way we do now is far from being perfect. Creating and raising them with technology and hired help need not be perfect either. We adapt to the way people want to and do live.
parents are less willing to help out. Used to be, you had an extended family that would help you out. That doesn't work anymore. If you're drowning it's rare that there's someone behind you to help you. Not least of which because we live further from our birth place than ever before.
less willing or LESS ABLE
they are less likely to have a PENSION from a career then there parents and are likely facing retirement or OLD age health costs without a WAY TO PAY FOR THEM
While having extended family nearby helps immensely with having children, it doesn't affect birth rates that much. In many Central/Eastern European countries it's pretty much common to stay in or near your parents home once you get married (whether it means taking over a floor of their house, building another floor on top of it or building your own small house on the property or somewhere nearby). Also in many of those places, "other side of the country" is a 4-5 hour drive so you're never really that far away. In spite all of this, the birth rates there keep falling just like everywhere else.
@@lovrogorupec7868In Eastern Europe there is also the factor mass migration to Western Europe.
A lot of older people have to work full or part time to get by themselves, and those that don't are often out traveling and doing things that they could't do in their younger days due to lack of funds and having to raise children. The era of having older neighbors or family members help with childcare is largely over.
Not true.many people from years gone by didn’t even have parents to help out as they died younger from smoking or drinking or work related accidents . Many of our grandparents left their homelands after the war and were very lucky if they ever got to go back to see extended family left behind. So no, people were not living close to home and all the extended family was living on the same street or in a family compound singing around the campfire whilst the elders cared for the young ones and mum and dad went to work.
We have focused too much on work culture and getting everyone into the job market. Companies expect more and more hours out of their employees. They can't afford to live in the cities where they work, so they have to add hours of commute. This situation leaves a young couple feeling old and exhausted BEFORE they have even started a family. They can't see how they can add children and continue to both work such extreme hours because one income won't cover rent and groceries anymore.
If we want the birthrate to go up we need to give parents time to have children by raising wages and forcing companies to comply with a more family friendly set of workers rights that will cover parents when their kid is sick or the school calls. The job is important, but so is the individual and their family, and companies have lost that.
Baby Boomers and their parents could get a job at a good company, work their way up, be with the company 30 years and retire comfortably. If they got one of those jobs they were set and knew they could raise a family. Those jobs don't exist anymore. Every 3 to 5 years, you are looking for a new job so you never feel stable enough for children.
While I agree these policies are righteous and necessary, I don't think those by themselves would be sufficient to reverse the overall decline in birth rate. Not that I consider that a bad thing. We could do with a declining population for a couple of generations while we figure out an economy that can feed our great grandkids without stable long-term employment.
Colonize space
This needs more upvotes. The burnout is real. And burnout caused not only by job market, but also high pressure throughout school years due to expectation to get into college (undergrad, grad, postgrad) etc. Everyone expected to perform better and better, while income stays nearly the same for ages at best and everything is more expensive..
Tail-end boomer here, I remember thinking while still in high school thinking, "Who the f these companies think their future customers/employees are going to be when they making it too difficult to have a family?"
There are multiple reasons not to have children. That's why programs that address only one issue fail. People who really want children find a way. Those who don't will have fewer even if birth control becomes unavailable.
@@nothingthere3959 I made it 37 years before I burnt out, we just took a 2 week vacation and I still feel drained. Trying to figure out how to get back into the go, go , go mindset before I get replaced.
My husband and I want to have kids, but we are trying to pay off our debt before we start trying. Inflation is making it very difficult for us to meet our financial goals, even when we live very frugally.
you would be poor with kids regardless of paying your debts. just get used to the idea.
this is a cycle of olgarchical failure documented by Aristotle thousands of years ago. the local civilains are too poor and stressed out to have children, and they need cheap labor so they bring it in other ethnic immigrants and it gets out of hand and then the system collapses. Same as it ever was.
@@RedmanticoreNo offense, but this is stupid advice
They would be even more poor with debt and kids.
Let me just tell you this... You will never have "enough" money to raise kids. There will never be a "right time" to have children. That's a trap. And so is relying on two incomes... And getting into debt from post-secondary schooling for a career.
It's simple. The previous generations have turned our society into one where hard work gets you nowhere, jobs pay little to nothing, and everything becomes increasing unaffordable year by year.
That's an oversimplification that narrows it down to 2 or 3 generations and heaps blame on them, when in reality, the peace and prosperity; the booms we've enjoyed came after war on a massive scale.
What we're seeing is a return to the natural state of things. It's not easy, and it's not fun, but those of us who are relatively powerless are experiencing a return to basically the ruling class and the poor...pretty much the way it's always been throughout history.
@@tetedur377 Good. Society cannot function when the masses get to experience the decadence of the elite. The elite should be a small, privileged group that exist as a reward for ambition and ruthlessness. The rest need to perform the vital functions of civilization and shouldn't partake of hedonism when it distracts them from their tasks.
It's billionaires and corporations
I guess it's time to change that then.
When's the last time you organised a strike? I heard those are the tool of choice to tackel "job pay little to nothing"-kind of problems. I'm a little startled by how easily our generation (me included) has given up on trying to change things. We are so well connected. We could, if we wanted to, take all the money from the boomers. They need us, we loathe them. If we all went on strike, they'd litterally starve, their portfolio values would go to zero very quickly, and we'd succeed. But we do not do this.
The only question left is - why?
Maybe we can learn from history. Why didn't the slaves overthrow their masters in the south? Why did it take a civil war to change that?
Will it take a civil war to change our current society?
the ruling class did stop making them evade the blame.
Why discuss population growth when people are saddled with debt before they enter the workforce?
only a USA issue but the LOW berth rate is far wider then the USA like Japan and China and continental Europe
the world is not america little bro
They are suddenly concerned with it only because it will affect their profit: 😱 who will be their slave?
@@XPK15 migrants
Don't know how this happened to you but I entered the workforce at 16 and paid my way.
You’ve said that medicine improved and ensured that pregnancy was more survivable and children were less likely to die young, and that’s all true. It’s not to say that pregnancy itself has become without its effects though. Women (and others with a uterus who become pregnant) still have to worry about the toll that pregnancy takes on the body, including potential loss of bone density, teeth and hair falling out, and weakening of joints and pelvic floor, among others. That on its own is enough to discourage pregnancy in some. Also, with the rise of girls being socialized to babysit their siblings, cousins, and neighbors, we get exposed to a taste of what child rearing is like and some of us don’t want to go through that.
It's also a myth that farmers had more kids than nobles. Generally, the people having fewer kids were those living in cities (due to overcrowding and disease), while the people with access to power and resources (i.e. the nobility) got to live longer, healthier lives and have fewer childhood deaths from neglect and malnutrition.
source on that claim please
@sangomasmith Your comment did not explain your initial statement that farmers and nobility were having the same numbers of children?
@@plica06 I wrote a long reply that apparently got eaten.
It's easy to find the info you need - for a simple overview the medievalist posted an article entitled "How Large were Medieval Peasant Families?".
I think another reason is because people are realizing that they don’t actually have to have kids. I think lots of people from previous generations technically knew that, but lots of people were still raised to either think that it was inevitable like puberty or they felt pressured to get together and form a family because it’s seen as a marker for success, happiness, or being a true adult.
One more reason i can think people are having less kids is that we’re becoming aware of generational trauma and becoming a parent when someone has come from that or struggling with it is actually an irresponsible decision. At least that’s one of the reason’s why I’m not a parent. I dealt with mentally ill parents all my life and i’d never ever want to put a kid in that position.
I think you are right…when I was growing up you just did NOT say you didn’t want kids, it was really taboo, or people would say you will change your mind dismissively. It seems more acceptable now to simply acknowledge you dislike children…
My parents were pushed into having kids and started at age 30, in the mid 80s. My mom (yes, shes dramatic) would say she felt like a grandparent going to my elementary teacher conferences (I was born in the late 80s). However, they def should have just stayed strong and not had kids. My sister and I are finishing the job of no kids. However, I really assumed up until about age 21 that I was "supposed" to have kids. Glad I shook myself out of it, I would have been an awful parent!
Ugh I’m still on the fence and I know I’m getting up there in age. Just scared the government will make the decision before I do 🙄
@@maryhogencamp7041 ugh, same. Worse is i’m still getting it: i turn 30 soon and just earlier this year an older family member gave me the “WHEN you have kids” speech in an argument. It’s fucking mental how people act like such personal choices are their business in this society.
@@hey_thatsmyname good on ya! It’s honestly really sinister how people will push things onto others even when they say no. Societies really need to realize that happiness is not a checklist and having kids isn’t the same as like, needing to eat healthy.
I don't think it's a lack of money (or excess), but a lack of time. Raising a family requires time that isn't available when both parents have to work and there's more to life than just "being a mother".
This seems to be a conclusion from Korea. People chasing good corporate jobs aren’t giving them up to raise a kid while they work 50 hrs a week
I completely agree, why would I want to have kids that I am going to throw straight into a daycare that either costs a ton of money or is about as close as you can get to factory farming.
Lack of time? With so many labor saving devices? 😮
@@glennso47 Do you know what a job is?
@@glennso47 Yes so the peasants can even produce more! Trust the ruling classes they will always find more work for you!
You mentioned hope and I really think that's the core of it, many don't see a good future as possible
Hope is NOT needed when you have proof and evidence. And evidence shows corporations are sucking us dry and the government has their foot on our necks.... hope is a non factor.
@@antinatalistwitch111 The video literally refutes your point with evidence that we had a baby boom under really bad economic times because they had hope for a brighter future. We're under really bad economic times today as well but the difference is there's no hope for us. Hope matters a lot, I couldn't imagine having a kid these days when I view the future they'll grow up in as a hopeless dystopian hellscape.
@@antinatalistwitch111 Are you just copy/pasting the same thing to any person who says hope?
Most of us have no future to look forward to. The present is a hellish continuous struggle, the future appears bleak and the past was terrible regardless.
Saying baby boomers had the same financial hardship as millennials, might be the funniest joke on the internet currently
So real. The boomers essentially came of age in an economy that was trending upwards and they got a bunch of government help with school, buying houses, starting businesses, etc.
Millennial came of age into a rapidly declining economy and are getting very little help from the government in comparison.
He was actually talking about the parents of the boomers, the ones whose decisions caused the baby boom. They made those decisions during the great depression.
Not everyone suffers the same fate. My lost generation grandma (90 years old) lived a life similar to the great depression because she raised her children in the rust belt where the job market collapsed. (Thanks Studebaker) Even working as an engineer for a stove company for decades my grandpa had times of deep desperation. But to be fair, she was born before the baby boom and raised children durring the most economically difficult time in this region.
Success was handed to Boomers on a silver platter. All they had to do was get a job and follow the rules. If they could do that then they were guaranteed a middle class standard of living. You pretty much had screw up your life on purpose to end up poor in those times. It was as if money was growing on trees and all you needed was a ladder and little bit of effort to pluck the cash from the branches.
When I say I'm scared of childbirth costs, my boomer fam says they had a kid for 100 bucks 40 fuckin years ago. It's an easy $20k to get those Dr's to push over your intestines to fish that baby outta you and recover. I sure AF can't pay $700 a month, what used to be rent, for insurance premiums to hopefully get a discount. It's no secret they are paid to say NO. We need to end the grip the Mafia like ghoulish private insurance system has on Americans. Every other developed nation figured it out, we are ridiculous. I know other countries with robust social safety nets are also experiencing birthrate declines, I'm just a bitter buttcrack.
1. Affordable food
2. Affordable housing
3. Law and order
4. Healty high trust society
5. Real future prospects
This is the best comment right here. ☝️
79 vxs mandated with one in 32 damaged for life.
All these points are not related to birth rates. Look at 3rd world countries. Religiosity is the biggest contributor to birth rates
@@LebSonicThese factors contribute positively to birth rates among the more educated. Precisely because they tend to put more thought into having a child before having one.
Religiosity too, but that leads to more suffering as we get more unprepared families and less interesting, passion-driven lives.
TIL Somalia and Nigeria has more affordable food, more affordable housing, better law and order, are healthier high trust societies with better real future prospects than Norway, Netherlands and Denmark.
Three things influence birth rates; economics, optimism or pessimism for the future, and contraception.
Adding to that are families moving to cities for job opportunities and away from extended family which would help with child care, and the establishment of child labor laws in which having more children increased the economic burden rather than increased the families’ wages.
and culture and politics
Oh so prostitutes gave birth every 10 months or so and ended up with 30+ kids throughout history? Because contraception did not exist before?😂
@@reinodeforaminia8322 I think a more recent one to add to that list is health awareness thanks to scientific progress and greater access to medical info. We now are much more aware how mental health, physical health and genetics work to affect our kids and that's a pretty big deal to factor in.
more factors than 3
The amount of boomers blowing their retirement on cruises and brand new cars is very telling as to why future mothers are making the choice to opt out. There is no more support in most families.
My parents vacay so much since they're empty nesters, it's stupid. Good for them, they can afford it.
Why shouldn't people enjoy their retirement and spend the money they saved during their working years?Most raised their children, sent them to college, and prepared them to make their way in the world .
Maybe but your parents don't owe you the money they earned
@@darcy5761 Yes, yes they do.
@@darcy5761 They don't, but we also don't owe them grandchildren.
In Germany we call the sudden decline of births around 1970 "Pillenknick". It means literally "pill-bend" indicating that the access to hormonal contraception for women made the graph bend down. We call hormonal contraception anti-baby-pill, because it's used to prevent pregnancies and for women it was a revolution, because they could avoid getting pregnant without their partner even knowing. This was particularly liberating for married women, because they finally could decide all by themselves about the pregnancies they'd go through.
It's known that as soon as women get easy access to contraception they themselves control, birth rates drop significantly.
It is good to see women have control of their lives, even if birthrates do drop. Constant growth for constant economic benefit, mostly for a few, gives us growing pains. Reduction will have reduction pains. One or the other. The burden should not be on women to change that, if society actually agrees that constant growth is desirable. One thing from women having control is greater financial security for themselves. They don't have to marry the first guy they meet just to survive. They can wait for a partner they are attracted to and who is committed to developing an equitable relationship with a balance of mutual dependence and independence. They can leave a selfish or abusive partner. And then there are the men who won't take responsibilty for the children they help create. They refuse paternity tests; they stiff women on child support. They disappear. Women can't deal with these men so easily if they don't have the financial means. Especially if there are children. Also, the drop in birthrate is not all down to contraception and the ability of women to control their lives. Men are also increasingly choosing not to take on that lifestyle. They have other interests and goals with which parenthood would interfere. And it's their choice and we should not judge. We make our life choices, they make theirs. If anything, we as societies should be working to change for lives in which their are fewer children, or at least fewer children that are born and raised as they have been traditionally up to now. If population growth is considered existentially essential (which is b.s.), then society should adapt to new ways to accomplish that that conform to the way people want to live. We have the means. With technology and changes to social programs, we can do that. Especially if we reduce concentration of wealth to help pay for it and spread influence so that the increased productivity that comes from technology is used to reduce work rather than just added to continued long hours so that shareholder wealth (predominantly of the few) can be maximized.
Cultures do no longer shame and pressure young adults into it, also those who can are mostly travelling or having fun.
Their choice their right.
That doesn't explain China, with their one child policy previously discouraging people from having kids. And now they are encouraging people to have MORE.
Can't afford kids when the cost of existing is so damn high.
Fr
Then move to the wilderness and start hunting like all the birds do
@@tyujg7495. You know, its probably more economical that way. I've often thought it would be easier to have a family in some 2nd/3rd world. No internet, but the human connections they have is unrivaled by anyone in 1st.
@@tyujg7495.that is stupid
@@chrisklugh OMG, did we just find a reason the British tried to conquer the world??
My husband and I are not having kids because we are both disabled, and taking care of each other is the most we can manage, bringing a tiny human into the mix seems like a bad idea.
Everyone who's served in the US military over the last 24 years can tell you that there's a mini-baby-boom on base every time a unit returns from a combat deployment. The return from WWII absolutely had a big effect in American birth rates, as did the fact that the USA was the only major economy that hadn't been devastated by WWII.
Also people having babies inspires other people to have babies as well.
N a lot of wives get pregnant cheating too.
@@fastinradfordable Sadly accurate. That's why there's also a mini-boom in divorces after each combat deployment.
A man I knew, an Iraeli, said that the guys liked to joke that the second thing they are going to do when they get home is take their shirt off.
@@fastinradfordable Jody be creepin'.
I just don't feel like having kids. That is all
Then stop existing
My mother said that after ww2 there were huge billboards encouraging women to get married and gave babies. It was her observation and opinion that there was an organized propaganda campaign, and she felt pressured.
lmao
@@A-BYTE64 what's so funny? You think my mom made that up?
@@1ACL just ur stupid
All I know is that I’ve been just this side of not being homeless for like 15 years, with random pockets of needing to couch surf. I’ve lived in gov’t subsidized housing before, but there were rules about how I was the only person allowed to live there, so no significant other, no kids, no dogs, no cats. I could have been set for life if only I was ok with living and dying alone. I wasn’t allowed to experience love because I was only earning $25 an hour at work and couldn’t afford anything better, and that idea pissed me off, so I moved out last year… and holy fuck do I regret it. I could have kept my apartment, bought a van parked on the street, and just raised a family in that. Use the apt for kitchen and bathroom, and just lived in the van. Why didn’t I think of that? I lost my gf, I lost my job, I lost everything because I got pissed at the idea of them trying to tell me what to do. I could have worked around it…
How did you get subsidized housing with a $25/hr wage? I was a single mom with two kids and made $14/hr and no one gave me sht.
@@shellieperreault6262 I assume it is based on the city that you live in. I have a 36yr old alcoholic brother that never used his college degree (in a field where there are good jobs), and has instead chosen to work his college side jobs forever by delivering pizza and doing various side jobs. He gets income based housing and free Medicaid, but he still drives a Lexus and gets botox. My mom is partially to blame for this as she pays for his car insurance, cell phone, and cosigned on the Lexus with him...but I still find it ridiculous that someone that gets income based housing and Medicaid has ANY left over money to get botox, drink alcohol, and have a Lexus!! It infuriates me actually! He lives in Denver, CO. If tax payers are going to have to pay for someone, I think a MINIMUM requirement should be that person may not smoke, drink, or do drugs, and must be on a form of birth control if they want to receive assistance.
@@shellieperreault6262 Where did you live and what year was this?
$14/hr may have been fine for your situation, but I doubt we can say the same for many places nowadays
@@blackbacon08 That was Austin, TX. 2007-2019.
@@shellieperreault6262 Well, I'm glad you were able to pull it off in a medium cost-of-living city in pretty modern times. That's a decent accomplishment.
But I feel like you are getting to be more of an outlier. I'm sure more people could live like you if they focused on bare necessities, but that's just not what most people can afford to do.
The next generation were living better than the last, that's not true anymore. Now the future looks bleak (climate change, job insecurity, stagnant wages, skyrocketing costs of living, growing inequality, the threat of automatization and AI)
Yeah, that fear of nuclear war was just nothing.
You must be young enough not to know how good things are materially. Yes, housing is abnormally problematic, but where was that big baby boom of the nineties when the economy was doing so well?
There are many reasons that are true. Birth control and feminism are key. Too many people spending too much time in school also. Even expected life span might be a reason. Yes, the future does seem a bit bleak financially, but people are still materially much better off today than ever.
@@nunyabidness3075 longer life expectancy does NOT equate to LONGER fertility windows but toss in far lower job security and the "need" for far more schooling pushing the starting age of families is trending higher making the fertility window smaller
@nunyabidness3075 We have more material things, sure, but every year our spending power decreases, our liberties are being encroached on by the bureaucracy, the world of work is getting worse and less predictable, and the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands has been trending up, the price of housing is becoming unobtainable to all but the highest earners. I don't understand how you can sit there and say we're better off than X time in history, as if that's supposed to be some solace even if it were true.
@@CFlandre First, I didn’t say we were overall better off. Just materially. Money buys material things. Your spending power is only really down because of Covid and the government overreaction to it. It’s still near a historical peak. It just doesn’t feel that way. Second, you seem to be falling for the hockey stick thing where you think every recent trend will keep going until doomsday. Previous generations had all sorts of different problematic short term and long term trends to make them feel like you do now. My first car loan was 13%. Mortgages had come down from well over 10%. We’ve been out of oil several times. The nuclear thing was no joke. Crime waves were much worse, Etc.etc. (Oh, and the world was going to freeze over from pollution in those days).
Housing costs are problematic because much of the problem is government policies that were made to make housing more affordable. Politicians aren’t good at, nor really interested in convincing people that the best solution is short term pain rather than intervention. Also, it’s just too easy to defeat a political opponent who wants to get rid of an affordable housing policy even though that policy is increasing the cost of housing.
Inequity has been over hyped and factually lied about to make it seem worse in order to make people more willing to give government more money to spread around. It will correct or be corrected, but it’s hard to do because once again, a lot of it is government policy to help the little guy which is causing the problem. Number one on that front is too many kids in college getting worthless degrees or too expensive degrees. We had the so called Robber Barons (who were neither robbers nor barons) 150 years ago. It got fixed, and it will again. In the meantime, those guys gave us some nice things, so it wasn’t all bad. Modern hospitals, libraries, universities, and lots of product improvements we use everyday.
Whenever you think your time, or you, or your generation is some sort of victim, remind yourself previous generations almost all were worse off for hundreds of years. Even baby boomers who in many ways had such lucky timing and advantages will probably turn out not to have had it any better over all.
@@nunyabidness3075materialy yes. Today generation have less chance of getting killed, but higher self unalive rate.
The irony of better living conditions
I wanted 4 but can't afford 1. Don't see a way to afford them or even myself. 27 years old. Maybe something will change, maybe it will not, that's just life. Wish everyone peace and love and success of your goals for life.
Yes, it's a big problem when the only option to have kids is to take on an ever increasingly large amount of debt. Cheers brother. Maybe bankruptcy isn't so bad after all.
My dad’s a boomer. They had a milk man, rag and tin man, mail man, ice man. Generally, a lot of men showing up at grandmas door back then. 😂
What does a rag and tin man do?
@@SharpBalisong Collects old clothes (rags) and metals. 1950s idea of recycling.
@@dont_hit_trees Huh! I never heard of that one. I legit learned something today! :)
I did know about the milk man and ice man, though. "Fun" fact; the reason why I will always remember that ice-men were a thing, is because of the story about how my aunt got HIT BY LIGHTNING getting some ice from the (outdoor) icebox, during a thunderstorm--and she was holding a METAL spatula at the time. (She didn't die, by the way.)
Exactly. And no DNA testing back then.
@@dont_hit_trees Interesting!
The first half of the introduction of the video does not feel very well put together, everything else is pretty coherent though. The voiceover seems a little too depressed though. Other than that, great video.
Dude i thought i was tweaking. Dude was all over the place
The intro was 7 minutes, which was agonising. I wish he’d just do a quick 90 second intro followed by a sponsor and get on with it. Instead he had to repeat the video’s points
Agreed, the first 5 minutes were difficult to follow
@@captainleisuresuit insanely difficult to follow
Agreed. He should have written an outline of what he was going to say, one in which each point added to the argument, and a conclusion that wrapped it all up.
When I was in school, a teacher said this about writing an essay: 1) say what you're gonna say, 2) say it, and 3) say what you said.
This was so hard to follow and the delivery was so unappealing. I only listened to the whole thing because I find the topic compelling and I thought he would at some point nail it. But that never came. What a disappointment.
We opted out from having kids because of two reason. We BOTH had to work in order to pay the bills and we BOTH had to take care of our aging parents who themselves lacked a parachute to make their retirement years stable. In short we simply had no space to add kids into our equation (wanted or not). In order to have kids you need the time, space and overheads to do it. We simply had none of that from the get go. I simply don’t see how it is that we are NOT the only ones to have had it so. If a country wants more kids they need to create the conditions whereby the option to have AND raise them is tennable.
They are trying to do that because they know that if people don't have children, there won't be a populace to fund the govt., nor care for the aging population. Families receive tax incentives to have children in "pro-natal" countries such as the USA and Canada. They also welcome immigration.
3:35 the x axis of this graph is great. Who knew 1930 lasted for so many decades?
Came here to mention the X axis
Others have said it, but it bears repeating. The world today is not one that gives us hope for tomorrow. To bring a child into a hopeless world would just be cruel.
I'm surprised why white people feel hopeless.
We're living in the most peaceful and most prosperous era of human history. What exactly is so hopeful about it?
One more soul for upcoming soon rapture of church!
I totally get that. Something seriously has to give before we continue adding fuel to the class war fire.
Why aren't people having kids? Bro people can hardly afford to have pets.
I swear people’s dogs today have a better life than I did growing up 😂
Honestly as a gen z i dont see myself having kids simply because of the massive undertaking it is, and how it effectively ends your current life and makes it gear towards your kid, i wouldnt doubt i would love my kid, but i want flexibility in my life more
Yeah, it totally changes everything but if you have two people pulling in the same direction, the increased workload isn’t nearly as tough as you’d think and I promise you that that little ball of cuteness smiling at you is a joy you can’t get anywhere else.
the flexibility won't matter after a while. We are not built to have such a life so you'll be spending endlessly trying to feel something. Then you'll wonder why things are still not making sense and end up seeing a shrink. They'll then diagnose you with nonsense and get you hooked on some nonsense drug.
@@lovrogorupec7868 its still pretty rough. I love my kid and im happy i had them but you *really* gotta want them to make it worth ir
agree dont want kids either because of this reason.
Your current life will end either way. People change, go away, new people don't enter your life because they are already living their life somewhere else. So if that's your reason, it'll turn out poorly for you.
One factor to examine, and I don't think was explored here, is housing availability/affordability. A couple wanting a child pretty much need to be homeowners. That is, they need more space, and assurance that a landlord won't terminate the lease. Housing and home ownership are terribly unaffordable, in *many* places around the world. Who is going to raise a family when living in mom's basement?
You're right. For many people, especially those at or below the average household income, it's almost like you're talking about putting two small families in one house. This was, in fact, not uncommon a century ago, before the Labor Movement, which led to unions, which led to better wages, benefits, and working conditons. And the rich had very high taxes. But that was all stripped away by trickle down economics. Boomers didn't do that. Some boomers did that. Like 5%. And they were helped by collaborators, most of whom are conned.
Reason I don’t have them yet even with a 6 year relationship:
1. I was in collage until recently and after working summer jobs for 10 years I now have to get a job in the field I studied and I now realised that I need experience so should have worked for free during my studies to gain experience (take a note collage goers) 2. Me and my bf together cannot get a loan from the bank and put it on the property we are trying to buy. We can’t also afford a loan because the salery income is too low for the cost of the apartment/house/land… it use to be okay back in 2020 and then everything went up. But the wages stayed the same. 3. I cannot think of a way to bring a baby into my life when I can barely afford to live without my parents.
Living with your parents is probably the only answer. You take care of them, they take care of you, and when they retire, they give you free childcare. It's very common in India and other countries. The dream of American individual family units is dead now.
Also, don't accept a free internship. Always get paid, no matter what. I don't know what your major was, but there are ways to get entry-level jobs even though they don't seem entry-level. Keep your head up!
A few things that you may want to reconsider.:
1) Being unmarried and even considering having children and buying a home with a "boyfriend".
2) Planning on relying on two incomes. Children are best with their mother at home with them, not in daycare or with babysitters.
3) Considering relying on parents as an adult for things such as money, accommodations or childcare.
4) Not having a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Through a genuine relationship with God, we can gain insight into what His plans are for our lives and we can have wisdom for how to live our lives appropriately. We also end up having eternal life, that goes above and beyond just this life.
@@believestthouthis7 This seems out-of-touch.
1) The tax advantages of marriage really benefit couples, especially when claiming dependents.
2) Work-from-home jobs are very difficult to maintain with needy babies and energetic toddlers. Taking care of a child is a job in and of itself. Working while caring is basically like being double-employed. It's a tremendous strain on mothers.
3) A majority of parents are retiring with small nest-eggs and barely any savings. They've been hoping social security will allow them to retire comfortably, when really, it won't even cover basic necessities in some areas.
4) A relationship with the Lord is great and very important, but it doesn't keep people out of debt. The Lord wants you to help yourself. Give Him your fears and worries and work with Him to find opportunities. Do not look forward to Eternal Life without putting your work in in this one.
When the old Soviet Union found itself with a population issue in the mid 1940’s they resorted to economic incentives to increase the production of baby’s and it generally worked. It worked so well they had to dial down the incentives several times until they stopped it in 1991. This was called the Mother Heroine award and apart from receiving a nifty medal there were significant economic benefits. The down side was you had to have a lot of babies, 10 or more to be exact. Approximately 430,000 women were awarded this title during its existence, so it created a lot of children.
You know that soviet union was largerly agricultural, and that village dwellers didn't have passports (internal ID) up to around 1970s, and had to request permission to relocate to a city ?
@@fhunter1test That does not change the fact that their command economy used incentives to increase their population. Freedoms and morals aside, their program did as it was intended, regarding increasing births. Their famines and wars kind of cancelled out the benefits though.
Also they banned abortion for some time, which helped to create more dead babies and mothers
@@user-nu8in3ey8c command economy or lack of contraception and sex-ed, among other things?
Also - number of births per 1000 people were steadily declining since 1910s. And around 1970s - dropped below the US one.
Aside from the tens of millions of people Stalin murdered during his 25+ year reign, Russia lost more than 45 million people in the two world wars.
Video starts at 7:20, you don't need the intro.
I lied, 16:26
It is so long, I almost clicked off the video despite being interested in the topic
One aspect that often gets overlooked when talking about home prices is exactly what constitutes "a home'. In 1950, the average new home buyer was likely looking at a 900-1000 square foot, single story ranch with perhaps 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. If it had a garage, it was almost certainly a single car garage. The kitchen likely did not have a dishwasher, and if it did, it probably wasn't built in. By contrast, a 21st century "starter" home likely has at least 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, solid surface countertops, a fireplace, 2-3 car garage, a dedicated laundry room, etc and probably comes in at least 1,600 square feet. The perception of what a starter home should be is so totally out of whack, at least in part due to decades of near zero percent interest.
Also, when my grand parents built the house the lived in for just under 60 years, they had it paid off in less than 5 years. That wasn't uncommon at the time. Of course, they didn't take expensive yearly vacations, eat out most nights and every lunch, buy designer clothes or purses or pay someone to mow their lawn.
Exactly. Thank you for your reality check! My parent's first home was a tiny 2 bedroom, where my third brother was born. Nice neighborhood, but no AC, and one (1) black and white TV.
I keep thinking the same thing. First, people need to make and accurate comparison. The other thing was that the teacher or meter reader or postal worker who bought one of those tiny homes on postage stamp lots in neighborhoods with 100 identical buildings also tended to have an extra job or two. My dad, a teacher, delivered milk from 4:30 to 6:30 before he went in to school. And he put a few hours a retail clerk each week.
Blue collar workers who had good pay, benefits, and working conditions had strong unions.
At the same time the rich paid much higher taxes. All those factors combined created the greatest middle class the world has ever seen or will ever see, because those factors are gone.
Having said all that, housing costs ARE untenable. Somehow, officials have to go after the Hedge Funds and Private Equity Groups scarfing up houses, cutting into homebuying inventory, artifically increasing prices, creating short term rental units, which also decrease units... Frankly, they ruin pretty much every industry they get into, and they are into just about every industry.
There are some great RUclips videos on the Private Equity nightmare.
One thing that economists and politicians keep ignoring, that I really think should factor into any efforts towards future population incentives (up or down), is that we've tripled the world population in the last 100 years. So maintaining this post-boom population isn't necessarily something we _need_ to do, and perhaps is something we _shouldn't_ do.
An unsustainable economy based on the expectation of continual growth is the problem. It might help to look at it from a comparison perspective; as long as other developed countries also have terrible birth rates then maybe we won't see it as a military issue.
@@googiegress Ah, the military. The real reason we make women get pregnant, and the reason we have PT tests in schools. ;) With the ongoing development of drone warfare (does _nobody_ remember Skynet?!), that becomes less and less of an issue, too.
We've already only got a quarter the population of China, so we're already relying on a technological edge...
@@googiegress I agree, but population growth is the easiest way to achieve economic growth. That's why it is a priority, especially for the business community. That's why Nixon and Kissinger opened up China. For business leaders. It gave them a massive cheap labor pool (there went all those great blue collar jobs, and a significant chunk of the middle class) and a billion new consumers. China leapt the Industrial Age in one generation. Now they are a sociopolitical threat. But some people got really rich in the meantime. Many of them still are.
I chose to not have kids because I never really grew up. I'm a middle aged adult with a full time job and enjoy working to buy toys and vacations. Don't want to give that up for kids. I suppose for me, I just never felt the need or desire to have any.
Is this the part where we are supposed to shame you into radically changing your life circumstances to appease us random strangers (who only want to ensure enough future tax livestock exist to sustain our pensions)?
"Grow up. Man up. Time to be an adult."
Is it working? Do you feel like conforming to the Boomer ethos yet?
I think this is the crux of it all more than anything. Go back 500+ years. There's no TV, no internet, not much local entertainment. Travel can take you at best 50 miles a day if you have a horse and then it's extremely dangerous, still. No chains of Motels and service centers along the way. So what do you do with yourself? Having children is about all you can do to have a life that has some meaning and joy in it.
@@JD-gk7eh
Spot on
Well we have more fun things and distractions compared to our parents and grandparents
Same. Growing up in a very low income household, we had the basics but never a dime to spare for small luxuries. Now I'm able to do and buy things I want. Why would I give that up?
I live in a rural community in Brazil. Each generation land inheritance gets smaller, I inheritted a small plot, too small to survive, and studied and became a teacher. Had a single son, feelling guilty, because I wouldn't be able to leave much for him. So I imagine how bad it can be when you don't even own a house, you have to rent. There is really no incentive to raise a family like that, having a child to be milked for rent in the next generation.
I'm a childless Gen X-er, and my reason for not having kids is not wanting to deal with the hassle of raising them. I'm just self-absorbed/selfish enough to not want to sacrifice my time, but also self aware enough to know that means I'll be happier without kids.
There's also this "having more disposable income" thing too.
Other factors were the rich actually paying taxes after the war as well a decent living wage to the work force.
Today's GOP would label Dwight Eisenhower a Communist.
The productivity-pay gap widened in the US around 1973, and increased further under Bush 2002-2006, then (inherited by) Obama 2009-2011. Productivity is measured like GDP, items×price, i.e. the “living wage” in itself doesn’t correlate with birthrate, not even shifted by
Healthcare wasn't as unaffordable and to such an extreme for profit extent either back in the 50s-60s. Easier to get a good paying job straight out of high school. One that turns into a long term career path. Invest in anything in the 50s-60s, be it stocks, home ownership, precious metals and you'd be rich in the 2000s easily. College was affordable with part time jobs even through the 70s, potentially even the early to mid 80s. The list goes on and on, the same can not be said today.
The rich paid high taxes and unions were vigorous, leading to job security, better wages, benefits, and working conditions. It lead to the greatest middle class the world has ever seen. Or will see. Because unions were destroyed, taxes on the rich were cut and cut and cut. Greed was turned into a national virtue. The greedy are lionized. Income and wealth have been concentrated to the levels of the Gilded Age.
I'm 22 and I just had my first kid (hopefully of many) earlier this year. My girlfriend and I aren't married and didn't plan to start a family so young but we've been dating 4 years and when she got pregnant we decided there was no time like the present as we both wanted a family at some point anyway. It helps that the area in which we live is rural, and housing is incredibly cheap. We bought a 2 bedroom one bathroom house 3 months after we found out for 30k.
Most of the pessimistic respondents are urban/suburban. I live in a rural area (love it) and it is much easier to afford a home and land. You have to drive into town for a Starbucks though (wink).
Where are you that a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom house costs 30k? Is this some sort of time travel wizardry? Or is the house in extremely poor condition or uninhabitable upon purchase?
I come from an Irish family off 7. My parents stopped having children when we got a colour TV. Now we have social media and RUclips etc. 😅
-money
-being a woman and not having time to take care of myself or enjoy life outside of being a mother
-these men aren’t husband material/father material. I don’t trust them to help me or be good dads.
men never raised children. men were never nannies. men were never fathers in raising children sense. women in extended families always raised children. a good dad that works around the clock and is at home around the clock with kids and satisfies his wife around the clock is extremely modern demand. women werent let to work. women find just any man with a job of any kind. providing meant just literally cheapest food so she wont starve. providing now as a word means a completely different thing.
" not having time to take care of myself or enjoy life" how much do you think you had time before with 10 kids on a tiny house in the middle of nowhere?
didn't have money to travel, to shop.
So sorry to hear that.
This explanation resonated with me more than any so far for the baby boom. My great grandma worked in the garment factories starting at age 14. My grandma went to college (which was a little unusual at the time) and by the time she'd enter the workforce, the gen above her would have 20 or 30 yrs of experience over her. No wonder she decided to stay home and raise some boomers instead 😂
Also even though it was still hard to have children in the past, some things weren't penalized like they are today. Your children could run freely outside or stay alone at home. This is now illegal. They can't even commute alone to schools. How are we supposed to "have it all", meaning having a job and the family if we can get into trouble simply because of the system construction?
In Europe it's still legal to let child outside, they can also commute on their own to school, but the drop is here as well
@@qj0n I'm talking from Polish perspective
New voice? it's alright but it sounds dead and has no emotion. Really need to work on that part.
that's just how brits speak mate
He was used in a few older How History Works videos before. Honestly he sounds much better now somehow? Before it did seem a little flat but his delivery has definitely improved. I'm digging it, keep it up!
I like the old voice @@EyeconicMoronic
AI?
@@tylerg7954was also going to say this as a Brit myself😂
We're so much poorer then before. The vast majority of households have no savings and are living paycheque to paycheque. Most single and double households can't afford a home, much less kids.
Most don't expect to live with the same spouse for their lifetime so they are cautious about raising kids with someone they expect to divorce. This is even worse for men who get shafted with the current family law meaning men don't have kids with women that will leave them. The return of true poverty and homelessness means you choose the wrong spouse you're out on the streets shortly after, especially for women if they choose kids over career.
I have an unlivable house, I'll sell it to you for $120k less than the average going rate. It comes with 2 custom high-end bathrooms and a mid tier kitchen. It just needs a new porch, some new floors downstairs, new doors/frames, rip apart 1 bathroom and redo due to leaky tub, the entire garage rebuilt, the dishwasher repaired, utilities in arrears paid off, a new vent in one upstairs room, repainted inside and out. Some other issues, but perhaps they won't bother you as much as they do me? Roof is brand new as of 1 month ago.
Life as a parent just doesn't interest me. It has nothing to do with money, or how women are, it just doesn't interest me, like certain hobbies don't interest me either
people discovered that they could be free and started questioning the traditional ways after seeing everyone so unhappy
To be fair many of the old traditions were ditched for no good reason yeah sure they may be more free now than ever before however these new freedoms have had major consequences mainly in those people's lives further down in unexpected ways. In truth they wanted absolute freedom to do what they want whenever they wants however they want without any consequences of their actions the unhappiness was both due to them feeling depressed about the restrictions with unnecessary desires. People these days now live in a world where divorce rates are much to high, corruption has run rampant, wages are garbage, economy is busted, people divided against one another over opinions, overreliance on convenience, working extra hard on basic jobs due to company greed, sexual immorality, unstable family dynamics, partial and full on child neglect, abandonment of God the list goes on.
Many people jusy simply didn't realize a lot of ancient traditions were there to protect them from certain dangers however over time people would justify removal of these traditions for freedom jusy so they don't have to hear any more nagging sure some traditions were pretty extreme but they were sadly necessary
Oh and by traditions I don't mean celebrating niche holidays or family activities I mainly speak of things like traditionally not doing sexual acts until marriage and other such things that fit that category
You can have children and still be free lol
@@Antonina-z4w yes and no, I know two deadbeat dads they are "free" from their baby mamas but not free from the child support.
@@jetsetradio7715 I don’t mean that I mean you can still have your own life also managing a child.
Society has been more liberal and anti-traditional than it ever has and all we realized is we're even unhappier because of it lol.
I can't take care of myself much less than another human being. That's why i dont have kids.
Whatever caused fluctuations in birth rates prior to the 60s does not apply afterwards.
Before widespread birth control was available a married couple who didn’t want to have kids had to really alter their sex life compared to when they did want kids. Doing this effectively was hard. Many couldn’t pull it off.
Today couples have a genuine choice about when to have kids. Most people choose one or two. Very few want 4+.
If you black and from the south and your grandmother or great grandmother didn't have a litter of kids then your family was definitely not the norm lol. I asked my grandmother why so many she said during that time they maybe didnt have money like to splurge as we do now but food was always plentiful so having more kids wasnt a burden for most. And ahe said it was like having your own little empire or community that you know will always be there for you.
Both of my parents are Baby Boomers. One thing that stuck out to me in his childhood story was that the polio vaccine was invented and he and his peers were inoculated early in life. There was also access to antibiotics and more of an understanding of, say, anesthesia for surgery... Lots of his peers got tonsil surgery. Basically... Not only were there births.... But the babies lived to grow up! High birth rates aren't as impactful on population if the kids don't survive.
And now we have people saying vaccines are worse than viruses. 40% of Americans are leaning toward not vaccinating their pets for rabies, bordatella, parvovirus, etc. Rabies was a big problem. Just saying.
While i do like the new voice, it was a bit of a surprise. The pacing/editing felt a bit off too. Maybe the new guy can add in some more emphasis on certain words (could even be edited in in post a bit, but better if done in the recording). Also maybe a bit better video editing that’s more engaging. It’s a very interesting topic too. Well researched too!
you want him to sound like a cartoon character or something?
I highly disagree. I liked the topics of this channel but the voice and the intonation was always offputting. This one is much more pleasant to listen to.
@@somewhereright3160 fair and valid! I just think there could be a happy balance between the two.
I watched on 1.25x, worked well at that speed.
"Less to lose means more kids" That's totally true. This expression hits the true reason why birth rates are steadily decreasing. The fear of living below the standards our parents gave to us is strong enough to make us think heavily before having offspring. That is without considering the crazy high cost of living and education today.
Modern society and the current standard of living are way more demanding than they were back then. Even though globalization and the democratization of knowledge and learning are some of the biggest advancements in current society, these have led to extreme competition and set a ceiling for progress and success.
There's no way that there could be an increase in the birth rate anytime soon.
I love how calm you approach the topic. As a young woman I'm quite often annoyed to hear pressure towards me and other people (mostly women) of my age, when I watch videos about demography. All these: "Let's take their human rights and money, so they'll finally start to work as baby producing machines!" (which is a very strange position, taking into account the world population growth). This video was informative, empathetic and objectified nobody. Way to go!
HHW:We're richer now than ever before.
Me: Correction. The top 10 and 1% are richer than ever. Everyone else is fighti g for the crumbs that fall on the floor.
The modern working class is not just poor in money, but also time.
Many of the poor in the past were also busy, but many modern household and professional tasks require the use of a computer and near-constant staring at a screen. It's easier to watch kids while knitting or cooking or mending furniture than while writing an email or navigating your insurance company's website.
Basically, the same reason computers are bad for your eyes.
One of the arguments you gave was that people were optimistic that things couldn't get worst and that they had to get better for their kids. I think this has a lot to do with the boom, and the current bust. People now don't have any optimism for the future, and only see tjings getting worst in every metric. Wars are breaking out, economic stagnation and even decline is hitting us, salaries aren't growing with inflation and peopme are getting poorer over time, the housing industry has never been as broken as it is today, unemplyment is high and is exponentially higher among youths, ... things are worse than they were years ago and they seem to be getting worse. We don't have an optimistic view on the future and don't want to make kids in a world where they're going to suffer more than us
The narrator's argument, though, sounds specious. I mean, the depression lasted until the war. It's hard to believe many people were feeling optimistic when they had to leave their family and cross the country to get a job. And when people compare current circumstances to that, well...
I wouldn't be able to enjoy having kids. Depressed as it is every day my misses does 12 hour shifts in a carehome and we just about manage to pay the bills.
Lack of motivation, bleak future and financials for me.
In the UK i blame the government for not planning for the future. We just import people instead of nurturing our own to have kids.
The society we have created is toxic like no hope for anyone and our leaders only line their own pockets.
I'm one of five born in the 80's. My mum didn't work and we had a happy childhood. It wasn't easy and we didn't have a lot but my mum was there always caring for us, my dad worked away in a stable job.
I just think they've made it a chore to have children. You can't support 1 child never mind 2 or 3. It's very demoralising for me as I wanted a big family but I never earned enough to do what my dad did.
I don't want to have a kid because I simply don't want to have a kid. And I'm unsure if I want a relationship either, currently leaning no.
There was a “baby boom” in 1995. I attribute that to “new house, new baby”. Interest rates were pretty high. You could get an adjustable rate mortgage at 11%. Therefore, there was a depression in prices in the housing market . People of chil-bearing age suddenly began to be able to afford single family homes, and there you go…. They all knew that they could refinance if they stayed on the straight and narrow a few years down the road, and rates did go down, and they stayed down for a long, long time.
I was one of those young mothers in the late 70s/early 80s who had a 12% mortgage for a while. Some people had it worse than that. We counted on refinancing in a few years when the rates went down. The inflation was horrible then - much, much worse than now.
A disjointed poorly crafted argument with lots of info but lacking any real cohesion.
7:43 this statement doesn't actually make much sense. Children of the Great Depression tend to conserve things and not throw them away. If anything an eco-conscious person of any age would share a lot of their habit, with the exception of matbe stocking up on a lot of food or clothing in the first place.
Was just coming to say this. Most of the people I've known who grew up in the depression were the LEAST wasteful people I've ever known. True recyclers. Everything they used was reusable, washed, and saved. Altos cans were turned into hygiene or first aid kits. Clothes were mended. My Grandpa was a plumber and his garage and backyard were filled with pipes and fittings to be used on future projects.
People don't want to have babies in apartments, and people don't want to have babies when they don't have enough money.
Infertility, wealth inequality, social media, job issues there are so many reasons for lower birth rates.
People are fertile as hell. Some of us have to wear 3 condoms and holler for the girl to dive for cover.
When you grow up in struggle, and try harder then all of your peers to get to a place without struggle, what's the point of having kids and resuming said struggle once more. If you can't provide a better life for your child then you had growing up, what have you accomplished.
In the States, the reason for pregnancy tests to be selling more than before is, more than likely, due to some states having VERY STRICT or non-existent, abortion access.
So at any sign of a possible pregnancy, it is imperative to find out as early as possible.