Why Aren't People Having Kids!?

In recent years fertility rates have dropped in the United States. In 2018 according to the CDC the fertility rate was at 1.728 and in 2019 it dropped to 1.705. For the U.S. to effectively replace their population, the fertility rate would need to 2.1 which is the equivalent of 2100 birth per 1000 women. In contrast, the current numbers are lower by a wide margin. The United States isn't the only country struggling with this as well. It has become an issue throughout the world. 

Why would you think this is important? Lois M. Collins from Deseret News uses Demographics Intelligence Chief Lyman Stone as her main source in her article "Declines in America's Fertility Rate May be Stabilizing. Is There Hope for a Reversal?" She quotes stone saying, "The entire economy is an intergenerational transfer good luck selling your house if there's no one there to buy it." An intergenerational transfer in laymen's terms is a transfer of anything from one generation to another. This means without a new generation to take the reins, it is impossible to an economy to maintain itself. From an economic point of view people are the greatest resource. Ms. Collins also says, "Among social reasons, economic research shows less population growth leads to less innovation and entrepreneurship, smaller rates of per capita economic growth and problems with intergenerational transfers, from stock market to Social Security and home sales." The part that sticks out to me the most is "less innovation", with less births we miss opportunities to produce great thinkers and innovators leaving society to just collapse. In a video interview with the Wall Street Journal Elon Musk, a great innovator and entrepreneur in his own right says, "Population collapse is potentially the greatest risk to the future of civilization."

So this begs the question. Why don't people want kids?  Npr.org talks about declining birthrates in Germany even though they invest 260 billion dollars a year into 156 family-oriented projects. With this much money you'd think it would stand to reason more children would be born, but it had no effect. NPR explores this further identifying career as one of the possible reservations women may have about child-baring. The cite the Institute for Higher Education Information Systems in Hanover who identified that 10 years of graduating college women with children were making far less money than their childless female co-workers. A Harvard study posted on "gap.hks.harvard.edu/" explored this issue as well in the United States and as an example of one of their findings on this issue they state that Mothers were 6 times less likely than childless women to be recommended for a job and if they were their recommended starting salary was around 7.9% less than a childless woman.  Going back to NPR they quote the German Minister of Labor, Ursula von der Leyen's experience when having her first child. She says, "All my colleagues at the hospital where I worked were disappointed that I was pregnant because they thought that I would never ever come back," she recalls. "But when I did return, they were disappointed in me and questioned whether I would be a good mom. It was awful." 

This kind of culture can definitely be detrimental to women who are considering starting a family. How would you feel knowing that if you had a child your chances for higher wages and even gaining employment would diminish? How would it feel to experience the same as Mrs. von der Leyen? With reservations like these it is almost not surprising why a woman wouldn't want to have children. However, as a consequence we face the inevitable collapse of society. 

So how do we resolve this? There are the obvious reasons like closing the wage gaps and looking at a woman for her qualifications to do a job and not using children as a consideration. Regardless of this though it is ultimately still the choice of the woman whether she wants to have children or not. I don't think adding pressure is going to help, but at least removing any obstacles that might cause reservations for the individual should be implemented and outwardly it seems like a few simple fixes. I'm sure there are more reasons as well and I've only really outlined a couple of possible issues. I hope anyone reading this will do more research on their own and expand their understanding. 

Sources:

Gochnour, Natalie. “Natalie Gochnour: What Utah's Historically Low Fertility Means for the State.” Deseret News, Deseret News, 6 Dec. 2018, https://www.deseret.com/2018/12/6/20660479/natalie-gochnour-what-utah-s-historically-low-fertility-means-for-the-state.

WSJDigitalNetwork. “'Tesla as the World's Biggest Robot Company:' Elon Musk on AI and U.S. Innovation | WSJ.” YouTube, YouTube, 6 Dec. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSD_vpfikbE&ab_channel=WallStreetJournal.

Nicholson, Esme. “Germany's Paradox: Family-Friendly Benefits, but Few Kids.” NPR, NPR, 7 May 2013, https://www.npr.org/2013/05/07/180610371/germanys-paradox-family-friendly-benefits-but-few-kids.

Correll, Shelley J., Stephen Benard, and In Paik. "Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty? 1." American journal of sociology 112.5 (2007): 1297-1339.