If it is of interest, I carried out a highly informal reddit survey on the birthrate in the context of Scotland’s TFR being below that of Japan (with a summary here).
A common reason for not having children was the cost in terms of health, time, stress, freedom to travel, plan holidays, and move house. These are mostly invariant with income (unless you can afford a full-time nanny) and are the natural product of “good parenting” norms/obligations.
(which, it should be noted, are often reasonable: I think being a good parent does require spending a lot—more than any usual lifestyle activity—of time on your children; the kind of emotional investment which can lead to stress or pain; and a degree of stability/commitment which precludes the free-wheeling lifestyle of a single or DINK).
I am guessing that many modern people rate these intangible costs quite highly and the amount needed to pay them to accept the tradeoffs is therefore very high.
If it is of interest, I carried out a highly informal reddit survey on the birthrate in the context of Scotland’s TFR being below that of Japan (with a summary here).
A common reason for not having children was the cost in terms of health, time, stress, freedom to travel, plan holidays, and move house. These are mostly invariant with income (unless you can afford a full-time nanny) and are the natural product of “good parenting” norms/obligations.
(which, it should be noted, are often reasonable: I think being a good parent does require spending a lot—more than any usual lifestyle activity—of time on your children; the kind of emotional investment which can lead to stress or pain; and a degree of stability/commitment which precludes the free-wheeling lifestyle of a single or DINK).
I am guessing that many modern people rate these intangible costs quite highly and the amount needed to pay them to accept the tradeoffs is therefore very high.