Why people don't want kids anymore (apparently)

[ska invita]

More good news

https://archive.ph/giMXa

Three more EU member states — including the most populous, Germany — have joined the list of countries with “ultra-low” fertility rates, highlighting the extent of the region’s demographic challenges.

Official statistics show Germany’s birth rate fell to 1.35 children per woman in 2023, below the UN’s “ultra-low” threshold of 1.4 — characterising a scenario where falling birth rates become tough to reverse.

Estonia and Austria also passed under the 1.4 threshold, joining the nine EU countries — including Spain, Greece and Italy — that in 2022 had fertility rates below 1.4 children per woman.

 

[ska invita]

Massive course correction from the CCP

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archive.ph

China has stepped up a nationwide campaign to convince single people to date, marry and have children as Beijing grapples with an increasingly severe demographic crisis.
Local governments are cold-calling married women to ask about their plans to have children and are handing out cash to parents to encourage them to have more than one child.
Universities have been asked to introduce so-called love courses for single students, and regular articles appear in state media about the benefits of having children.

China’s population is shrinking, with the number of deaths outstripping births, piling pressure on local governments to address an increasingly bleak demographic outlook.

“China’s population faces three major trends: ageing, low birth and low marriage rates,” said prominent economist Ren Zeping in an interview with domestic press last month. “There are fewer children and more elderly people. The speed and scale of China’s ageing is unprecedented.”

Beijing has pledged to offer subsidies and bigger tax cuts for parents to reduce the cost of raising children. The State Council, China’s cabinet, in October said it was drafting a plan to build a “birth-friendly society” as part of a broader stimulus package to tackle an ailing economy. Details of this plan are still being thrashed out.
In the meantime, married women in their 20s and early 30s across the country have been receiving calls from local officials asking about their plans to start a family, according to multiple people who spoke with the Financial Times and posts on social media.

In some instances, callers asked women to attend prenatal body checks. Other callers were more direct, offering subsidies to women who had more than one child. Couples need to have on average 2.1 children to reach the population replacement rate.
A Zhejiang resident who declined to be named said officials offered local women a Rmb100,000 ($14,000) subsidy for having a second child.

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While Beijing successfully stopped couples from having multi-child families, it is harder to use administrative powers to achieve the opposite result, he said. “Such old wine in a new bottle will not be effective, as the rationale underlying late marriage and low fertility are entirely different.”

 

[JimW]

It's astonishing really, when I first came back to work in rural development not much more than twenty years ago you'd find unregistered kids growing up in the mountain villages with relatives as their mum had hid out there to avoid a forced abortion. We had to build up trust so people didn't think we'd be turning them in; used to be one of the key measures of local government performance and a lot would stop at nothing to make targets.

 

[Rimbaud]

I have 2 young kids (6 weeks old and 17 months old) who I had when I was 35 and 36.

I always intended to have kids but ended up rushing into it a bit as I wanted to have them before I reached my late 30s or early 40s, and my wife wanted to get started before her mid 30s. Still feel like I'd rather have done it in my 20s - I'm not old yet but I remember my younger self's ability to stay up drinking until 4am and then still make it to work the next morning, or to go to lectures after literally not sleeping all night, and I feel like that superpower which seems to disappear around the age of 27 would have been super useful to still have at this time in my life. Also, I often think about how someone I went to school with who got pregnant at 16 might have missed out on enjoying her 20s but now already has adult children and free time by her mid 30s, while I'll be approaching 60 by the time I reach that stage.

Housing is the main reason I delayed it. As soon as me and my wife got the money together for a housing deposit we basically rushed into it. We moved into our house literally a week before our eldest was born.

So I'd say the extended time it takes to achieve stability - in the sense of a stable career which pays enough and also to save for a housing deposit - is a big reason for it. My sister is 38 and her boyfriend is an academic who lacks tenure or a permanent contract so they can't get a mortgage, and they aren't going to have kids when their landlord could potentially make them homeless on a whim, so it may sadly end up being too late for her.