this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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I disagree. There's a lot of reasons why people don't have children, including:
edit: sorry i realized i made these points US-specific but you were talking about russia, sorry.
They aren't necessarily US specific. Wages not keeping up with inflation and rising cost of living is a factor from South Korea to Japan to Singapore as well. Some countries muck it up themselves like China with their one child policy back in the day (even the Chinese fertility rate has dipped below 2.2, I think).
Well, it's only a very, very recent problem in Japan. They had stagnation for decades. Little to no change in wages, little to no change in prices. In 2011, I was making something like 33,000 USD per year there and living very comfortably with ample savings and what the Japanese considered to be a large apartment. It's a pretty affordable country, aside from travel. Or if you want to live in a fancy place in a desirable big city neighborhood.
(And yes, I have been to Japan since then and know that things have changed somewhat. It's still cheap compared to the US. Food is so cheap, it's amazing what you can get.)
So much of our world is based around women keeping it on the rails without receiving credit for their efforts.
The strongest correlating factor around whether a child born into the world will starve to death or not is whether the mother has a basic education. It outweighs even regional data.
In a developing country rates also go down with civilization as people learn how not to breed like bacteria. But once it's about choice, that starts to be a good list. I'd almost list safety as a common theme in them. And in Russia.. yeah.
No - actually I was talking worldwide. Russia's just a notable example.
And I would say that all of the things you listed are, directly or indirectly, consequences of the fact that wealthy authoritarian parasites have warped societies to their benefit regardless of the harm done to others, so are actually examples of exactly what I'm talking about.
One point I want to add: Throughout most of human history, it was economically beneficial to have lots of children. They were your retirement plan (and cheap labor).
In most developed countries, this is no longer the case. People who want children get one or two, just to scratch the itch, but that's not enough to sustain the population (without migration).
Well, interest rates were just raised to 19% in Russia. So good luck financing anything.
You say you disagree but all those points seem to fall under what they were arguing for.