Another important factor is the ever increasing school attendance. Hundred years ago, if you attended school until you were 18, you were considered highly educated. Today, you are considered too stupid to be allowed working at half of the jobs unless you have some kind of university. Starting you family in your 20s vs in your 30s results in a different family size. You have less time to raise kids. Your parents are more likely to be dead or otherwise unable to help you take care of the kids.
Feminism was supposed to give women a choice, but instead it turned into shaming motherhood. (In my country, “domestic wife” is literally used as a slur by feminists.) According to the cultural narrative, a woman who chooses to have kids and stay at home, is a loser. And if she decides to have both a family and a career, she is supposed to start the career first, even if from certain perspective that makes less sense—if you have a career and you enjoy it, then starting a family means giving it up. (And if you don’t enjoy your career, then why was it so important to have it?) On the other hand, if you have kids first, there is plenty of time for the career after they grow up and leave home, and then you never need to give up a successful career once it started. Or you can change your mind and choose to have more kids.
Basically, people are told that they have enough time to have kids later. And it’s… kinda true… but it also changes how many kids they will have.
“Hundred years ago, if you attended school until you were 18, you were considered highly educated. Today, you are considered too stupid to be allowed working at half of the jobs unless you have some kind of university.”
You just made me realize how big of an impact university expectations are on fertility twofold. It’s obvious that if people are supposed to be 22 now before starting “real adult life”, instead of 18, that will affect fertility rates by virtue of being less time to get situated and a shorter fertility window. However, there’s a not so obvious double whammy, in that your children will also now be dependents for 4 years longer too! So instead of 18-40 year olds thinking, “i have 22 years to have kids that will just need to make it to 18″, we now have to think “i have 18 years to have kids that will need to make it to 22.” Timeframe shortened ~20%, dependency burden also increased ~20%.
Another important factor is the ever increasing school attendance. Hundred years ago, if you attended school until you were 18, you were considered highly educated. Today, you are considered too stupid to be allowed working at half of the jobs unless you have some kind of university. Starting you family in your 20s vs in your 30s results in a different family size. You have less time to raise kids. Your parents are more likely to be dead or otherwise unable to help you take care of the kids.
Feminism was supposed to give women a choice, but instead it turned into shaming motherhood. (In my country, “domestic wife” is literally used as a slur by feminists.) According to the cultural narrative, a woman who chooses to have kids and stay at home, is a loser. And if she decides to have both a family and a career, she is supposed to start the career first, even if from certain perspective that makes less sense—if you have a career and you enjoy it, then starting a family means giving it up. (And if you don’t enjoy your career, then why was it so important to have it?) On the other hand, if you have kids first, there is plenty of time for the career after they grow up and leave home, and then you never need to give up a successful career once it started. Or you can change your mind and choose to have more kids.
Basically, people are told that they have enough time to have kids later. And it’s… kinda true… but it also changes how many kids they will have.
“Hundred years ago, if you attended school until you were 18, you were considered highly educated. Today, you are considered too stupid to be allowed working at half of the jobs unless you have some kind of university.”
You just made me realize how big of an impact university expectations are on fertility twofold. It’s obvious that if people are supposed to be 22 now before starting “real adult life”, instead of 18, that will affect fertility rates by virtue of being less time to get situated and a shorter fertility window. However, there’s a not so obvious double whammy, in that your children will also now be dependents for 4 years longer too! So instead of 18-40 year olds thinking, “i have 22 years to have kids that will just need to make it to 18″, we now have to think “i have 18 years to have kids that will need to make it to 22.” Timeframe shortened ~20%, dependency burden also increased ~20%.