I appreciate you taking the time to write that post. I think my point is simply that I dislike such black and white and rather binary labeling of a complex situation. Just slapping "neoliberal", "individualism", and "late stage capitalism" labels just feel lazy to me. Note that I never referred to this situation as a "problem". Rather, I would refer to this as an observable pattern as I am not ready to say lower birthrate is a problem yet. Anyways, I just want to put in some of my thoughts regarding those points you put down above.
Likewise for taking your time to reply. Arguably, there isn't anything "black and white" when there's evidence backed-up. Have you had a look at the data and findings from the articles?
- Long working hours
Birthrate was higher 30, 50 and more years ago. I hardly think they have better work hours than we do now on average. We now have the base 40 hours per week schedule that did not exist back then. We also have maternity and paternity leaves in many places. So I guess I don't find this to be such a strong driving force.
Young adults are working double hours than prior generations.
Prior generations at least had rely one adult income to meet living costs, now it requires two, and most working adults don't have the time nor the salary to raise a family, and when they do, it's a struggle.
- Rising living costs
That is indeed a problem but keep in mind we went through a very lengthy period of low inflation rate. We are still much better compared to the many periods in the past such as the great depression and so on. People cited childcare costs being high which is absolutely true. I might argue that that is the cost of child care that weren't quantified before so maybe it's better that this is being measured? Stay and home wives of the past contributed massively to the economy that were discounted.
Child care essentials were much cheaper in the past,
much cheaper. Don't know which your country in, but in the UK, people are stealing Aptimilk/Cowsgate and being sold in the black market as families can no longer afford it.
- Unaffordable housing
Fair, though there are plenty of places with cheaper and more affordable housing that still have dramatic decrease in birth rates. Japan famously has deflationary real estates. I am a big proponent of better land use, urban design and housing policies in general so ultimately I won't disagree with you there.
There are cheaper houses in rural places, not in the cities. Young people move to cities for high paying jobs and education. There isn't enough opportunities and facilities in rural locations.
- Lack of public safety net
Objectively, I think we can agree that we have much more public safety net compared to before. Nordic countries are also famously known for their scope of social safety nets. East Asian countries tend to have more collectivism social fabric where generational households help raise the younger generations. I guess I would chalk this up to an exclusively North American problem?
It's a problem everywhere bar Nordic countries. Read the East Asia and Europe study, it cited limited public spending and lack of support as one of the main drivers as to why women choose to postpone/not have children.
Childcare is also expensive and can be difficult to find in hypercapitalistic societies.
- Retirement age increasing
I guess the impact of childbirth relating to this point is… more jobs are being kept by boomers who won't retire? I'm not too sure how this point relates to this topic. Regardless, I don't know the effect of this to say anything about it.
Of course it's related. If your retirement age increases, that means your pensions are affected. The value of pensions will be lower in contrast to previous generations and countries decrease the amount of pensions being paid out to prevent the system going bust.
Aging demographic means fewer workers. If people rely on two fulltime working adults to make end meet, and if they are working longer, the time to have children/care for them is restricted.
- Job insecurity
I think it's a bit difficult to apply the current economic to the past. I supposed it is true that the manufacturing jobs of old offered more job security. But I'm not sure that's the case for many other industries and/or when we had completely different economic/social systems.
It's literally the most cited reason for women/FAB in East Asia. East Asian women fear of losing their jobs if they announce their pregnancy. It's a huge problem.
Maternity leave is near non-existent, employers just fire them or force them to retire early. For women/FAB to get back into work is difficult as they are mostly burdened to take care of the household and likely to face rejections in the job market.
- Inequal distribution of wealth
Wealth inequality has always been an issue from medieval time to now.
And is that acceptable reason for it to be existing? Wealth inequality existed because of feudal systems and regressive tax systems. i.e King owns the lands, peasants are forced into serfdom et cetra.
But I guess I want to highlight the inequal distribution of wealth you are referring to probably didn't even consider women's work. In that sense, I would say it has improved massively to go from not being paid for anything to being paid now.
Now that's just discourteous. I wouldn't have listed unequal distribution of wealth if it wasn't a factor.
Explain to me why the do gaps in gender pay still exist today? Back in ye' old days and most societies, women worked for free, all their earnings and assets were given to their husbands or father.
It was in the past two to one hundred years or so, that women were gaining more rights to owning property and having control of their income. In the USA it was in 1974, women was able to open bank accounts, apply for credit and commit to a mortgage without needing a male co-signer.
If unequal distribution of wealth between genders is not a problem, then explain why do single mothers (who make up most of single-parent headed households) mostly live in rented accommodation?
- Inequal distribution of household and childcare responsibilities
Arguably a worse problem in the past than now, don't you think?
Uhh it still exist
Different parts of the world have different social and cultural attitudes of gender.
Again one of the most cited reasons in the studies. Look at the East Asian countries studies.
- Intergenerational wealth divide and inheritance
Not sure how that affects childcare. This feels like the same issue in the above "Inequal distribution of wealth" point.
In hypercaptialistic economies most of the wealth is hoarded by older generations, thus an unequal distribution of intergenerational wealth and inheritance.
If older generations own the assets, the young working demographic are most likely to be renting and getting a mortgage is proven difficult for them. In addition, young working adults are likely to be paying tax more than older generations, which is an added cost to living.
Housing crisis is a growing issue that millennials and gen z'ers would have to rent forever or wait till their parents die, and then inherit their wealth at the ripe age of 65. Millennials who are lucky to buy a property have had financial assistance from their parents.
If parents own a property, children are likely to have better life outcomes than the parents that are renters. A millennial whose parent is a renter is likely to be renting of rest of their life - this depends on the country of course and property market vary place to place, but it is a growing issue in the developed world.
- Uncertainties about child's future
Indeed we have a lot of crisis to deal with such as climate change and more. No argument there. If I have to be nitpicky though, I would say we had lots of massive wars in the past in various regions. The cold war was an existential threat as well. Yet we have the lowest birthrate in the most relatively lengthiest peaceful time now.
Financial insecurity is what most have qualms with. If the economic outlook for a country is bad and the individual cannot afford to emigrate, then their choice is likely to not start a family. It's financial planning.
Again, my main point is mostly rooted in my dislike of applying simple labels on a complex situation. Economic and financial reasons can all be contributing to it but I don't think it helpful to just apply such a vague label. We have different cultures, economic models, and social models of different mix and spectrum. Ultimately, I think the biggest commonality are probably women getting better education. Women gaining more choices in this matter. All of which are a good thing because women should be free to want to focus on their careers and hobbies if they want.
I have explained my points with evidence to boot and linked studies that cited the most verbalised reason from young adults not having children is that "it is expensive". Why is it increasingly expensive to have children, one should ask.
In the 70s onwards, Neoliberalist policies encouraged competition, thus led to women attaining education to compete in the market better. Moreover, economic pressure made dual-income households a necessary, pushing women into employment.
True it is complex and there are a number of driving forces, but one cannot overlook that Neoliberalism has influenced the choice in family planning.
I think it may be time to consider stay-at-home parent an entire job/career in a way that that can be paid. If the goal is to encourage one parent to stay home and raise kids, the loss of financial independence for that parent would be a hard pill to swallow. I would bet that that would mostly fall on women once again to sacrifice. Until that is addressed, I doubt this decreasing birthrate pattern would reverse.
They do exist, they're called state benefits and when single mothers attain them, they are stigmatised as "scroungers".
Neoliberalist societies discourages state benefits and welfare support, the very common saying "Don't have children if you cannot afford them".
www.theguardian.com
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
