More and more women are running the numbers and deciding it’s a bad investment.
{{ Their struggles are encapsulated well by Patsy Freeland of New Jersey, one of the dozens of women my colleagues followed up with, who said, “I was not prepared for how inflexible work would be, how expensive it would be and how much our society and economic systems are built off of taking my labor as a mother for granted.” Her words perfectly illustrate the “motherhood penalty” as depicted in the video above. }}
Absolutely! By the time I reached my early 20’s, it was apparent that parenthood was a financial loser.
But if Gov’t policy is encouraging births (outside of the low-income Medicaid population) you’re going to need to do something to make it more financially attractive (i.e., free childcare for working mothers, etc.)
In a crony capitalist economy, there’s a price on everything.
Our current system relies on people entering parenthood without an examination of the financial costs. Increasingly, people are getting wise to the game and refusing to play.
No, you cannot put a price on it and it is indeed priceless, but it still requires resources. A prudent person would “Know Thyself” and make those realistic kitchen table economic decisions. “We can’t afford it” is oft heard in every other area of life. To bring a new life into the world with no thought to living standards, quality of life, not just of the child but of the parents, and no funding plan is just a vanity project. The poor person’s vanity project Thomas Malthus spoke of.
Parents and siblings are often regarded as priceless. Among my former coworkers, I knew as many that had kids as didn’t. For those who did, their kids are priceless. For those who didn’t, many didn’t want any at all (both money, and “kids are a PITA”).
That’s at least part of the reason why the birth rate has plummeted during my lifetime, and now sits below “replacement level”.
The following is not a political comment in any way. It’s just numbers. We need more immigration to at least keep up with replacement rate so that various societal systems and programs don’t collapse.
Maybe people just need faith? All I have to offer is my life experience.
In the mid-eighties I was divorced and paying child support for one child. I remarried and within 20 months of my 2nd marriage we had two children, born 55 weeks apart. Three years later we had a 3rd child. My main work was slow so I was working 2 jobs, my wife was working, and we did lawn care for my parents. They paid us $60 a month and provided us an evening meal. Money was tight. One of our first arguments was about money. My wife came home with a 99-cent package of sugar cookies. I told her we couldn’t afford them.
We knew we were poor, but we had a great time. Did a lot of things that didn’t cost much money. Our kids remember those adventures with the most fondness.
Fast forward to today. We both retired early. I at 62 and her at 60. We have 7 figure wealth and no real debt. (Financed a new car with Honda 2 years ago because they offered 2.9% financing.) We travel, give the kids money though fortunately they don’t need it and have 7 grandchildren, one is in her first year at KU. All of them, except the collage girl, live within 3 miles of us.
Of course you wouldn’t. After you have them, they are priceless. But young people have choices, and they aren’t -generally- choosing that route. Which I think is the point of this thread. They have choices, and the “motherhood penalty” (especially in the US) weighs heavily in that thought process.
BTW, sounds like you have a lot to be happy about. Growing good kids is definitely a feat.
I hear you, but times are different now. Your experience from the 1980s isn’t all that common among younger people in the 2020s. It’s much more difficult to afford day-to-day life in 2025, let alone a marriage and kids.
No disrespect intended - Lots of people in older generations make the assumption that as long as people work hard, they’ll be able to live a happy life. I’m not so sure that’s the case any longer.
The data shows that this isn’t true. If you look at the statistics, the countries that provide the BEST benefits to mothers and children … tend to have the lowest birthrates. And conversely, the countries that have the worst benefits for mothers and children tend to have higher birthrates.
What is the point of earning all the money and hoarding, but not enjoy it with a family? YMMV. My son was born pre-mature and we were scared and avoided having second child, by the time we decided to go for it, nature didn’t cooperate. There is not a day goes by where we don’t regret our decision to delay.
If government can make childcare affordable, with WFH possible for many women, raising a family should be possible. Humanity had kids and raised family forever. With all the technology advancement, if we lose that, what a shame.
I think you’re interpreting that wrong. The “best benefits” may still be insufficiently remunerative to entice a woman to birth a child under the nation’s current economic regime.
Maybe it takes a $1 MM lump sum before it’s worthwhile – there’s some market clearing price.
If you have a child with any kind of disability, the cost of care could bankrupt the family. And for children that require lifetime care beyond the parent’s death, the stress of that must be soul crushing.
After all, we live in country where the predominant approach to people with expensive healthcare needs is “Let’em die”.
It’s a generalization, but the least financially prepared are -in general- the least educated. So their earning potential is substantially less. There is a strong correlation between education and birthrate. Or, rather, an inverse correlation. The more educated people are, the lower their birthrate. There are lots of papers about it.
Plus a movie (Idiocracy). It takes the idea to the absurd, but it’s based in sound science.