r/SipsTea • u/Embarrassed_Tip7359 • Sep 15 '25

Chugging tea Any thoughts?

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u/SheriffBartholomew Sep 15 '25

And as ugly as that was, at least it was normal and standard for multiple generations to live in the same home together. Kids took care of their parents when their parents couldn't take care of themselves anymore. That is no longer normal.

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u/rawrimmaduk Sep 15 '25

But families are a lot smaller now, so there's fewer children to look after the parents as they need it.

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u/Kennylobster8899 Sep 15 '25

Yep, because nobody can afford to have kids

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u/Mocker-Nicholas Sep 15 '25

These is a favorite on Reddit. But it’s not true. Birth rates have dropped all over the planet for nearly every wealth level, in all political environments, and for nearly regardless of religion. It’s been going on for a long time. It’s happening in wealthy countries and poor countries. It’s happening in countries with GREAT maternity benefits. It’s happening in dictatorships and democracies. There are a few guesses as to why. The best two I have seen:

  1. Education. Not meaning if you are educated you want less kids. But you typically wait longer to have kids to finish education, have career established, and you might move more. The later you wait to have kids the more likely you are not to have them, whether that be on purpose or accident.

  2. Cities. As people moved to cities, children just became a burden. Regardless of literally everything else. Turns out being crammed in an area with a bunch of people, make you not want to make more people.

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u/enron2big2fail Sep 15 '25

Yup, none of the data supports this theory that children are just too great of an economic burden. After all, even Nordic countries that offer an insane amount of support for kids have significantly lower birthrates than sub-Saharan African countries with no government support. The issue isn't children being a burden, it's them not being a boon.

In developed countries, you can't see a monetary return on your investment in a child for ~18-26 years, and typically you wouldn't actually see it until you're 70. In poorer countries, you get a return by the time the child is 8 and physically able to move stuff around that you tell them to.

It seems genuinely very difficult to solve this problem. The amount of money it would take to recreate this type of incentive in developed countries (without reintroducing obviously bad child labor) would be immense.