Birthgap - Childless World PART 1 (English Version)

** Featured at the Chelsea Film Festival, 2021 **
The era of ultra-low birthrates has begun. But why are people having so few children these days? And what are the consequences ? Come on a journey of discovery across 24 countries to find the reason and also the future consequences for young and old alike.
This is Part 1 of Birthgap - Childless World.
(c) Birthgap.org

[@scarlett9050]

My teenage daughter mentioned population collapse in science class and everyone laughed at her. Even the teacher. They’re still teaching overpopulation.

[@birthgap]

Yes they sadly are still teaching overpopulation without realizing a new era has begun. I'd be happy for your daughter's teacher to show the documentary in their class.... We are producing an Educator Pack to assist with Q&A afterwards.

[@whenpigsfly3271]

Nothing will be done about this demographic collapse until financial capitalism and rent seekers are destroyed once and for all.

[@chad1682]

Scarlett Intelligent people don't go into teaching in the USA because the system is dysfunctional and the pay is terrible. Unfortunately, the profession attracts low IQ radical liberals.

[@BubblegumCreepydoll]

I remember when there were kids and teenagers everywhere. Now there are just old people everywhere. It’s also kinda weird to hear how these people feel like everything has to be planned and perfect and they can’t make up their minds when, where or how to fit in a child. But if I were young in the USA Today I wouldn’t become pregnant. The USA is extremely anti-family anti-healthcare, anti-children and anti-pregnancy. It can be live threatening to become pregnant in the USA. Women are also given a designated cesarian date and don’t even get to choose to have natural birth. The whole thing is completely absurd. Everything has to be planned. Although it may be happening for different reasons, I think there could be a balancing act.

[@iandougall7169]

Pity for the other kids. Shame on the teacher

[@SteveBMayer]

Maybe its because we all work 66% of the time we are awake, and still cant afford a house.

[@adaeptzulander2928]

It's not about the money. Children grow up poor the world over, but still grow up. They don't know any better. The problem is Western values has miseducated people to believe children need to be provided ANYTHING they desire, and that parents need to raise them as if they were little prince and princesses.

[@Helga7850]

maybe you don't understand that hideous people want us to procreate because they need future slaves to exploit and underpay Reply

[@Scribemo]

Workism = no time, no money, no future, no meaning beyond productivity.

[@Silver77cyn]

Workisim=Capitalisim

[@MrSandman_0981]

​@@Silver77cyn Should we apply Communism then?

[@Silver77cyn]

@@MrSandman_0981 Nope.

[@068067]

@@Silver77cynNice well rounded argument. Just stellar

[@abigailgarcia1019]

People seeking financial freedom while being enslaved to their jobs.

[@dweamy1]

I do not think that there is one single issue why birthrates have dropped, there are multiple reasons. As a woman, my argument is that being a mother/motherhood is not respected and is probably considered to be of low value in the same way having a job/career is. Motherhood is not celebrated. Financially it's hard to leave the work force to look after ones kids, so work is the main focus so that a roof is over your head, and food on the table, and staying on the career ladder. Then the added issue with the instability of relationships, and the risk of divorce will also no doubt have an effect on why people have less children. Easier to support 1-2 children than 8 if your relationship breaks down.

[@parabellum4622]

Mmm, there's a lot more t*h*ere. I agree, motherhood is disregarded in much of society. In terms of relationship stability we do not have a society th*a*t supports relationships in any regards to anyone. Our society is now based upon *_"How much money can we make as much as possible in order to have more money than I need so that I will never not have enough._* Not, to actually being human and interacting with each other to make as many good relationships a possible. We'*v*e made it so that we have to ACTUALLY not interact with one another besides work in order do anything we would want. No on*e* wants to have a kid that will have to quite literally do the same things as we are already doing in order to exist for infinitum. *C*ivilization is supposed to get better. It's not getting better it's derailing.

[@Eric-ej3oy]

We have a day set aside for or that celebrates mothers. "Mother's Day".

[@batelshimoni1078]

@@Eric-ej3oy That's funny. Single mothers are still being ostracized, married mothers are not given assistance. "Mother's Day" is as relevant as Christmas - doesn't really do anything but give more trash for the mothers to clean up. Unpaid cleaning, mind you, unpaid cleaning whereas a cleaner is paid at least 23 AUD per hour. Unpaid and ridiculed for being useless.

[@sarahbreisch4750]

​@@batelshimoni1078savage and accurate takedown of mother's day. I'm a mother of 8. Mother's day means nothing to me.

[@cr4yv3n]

Feminism turned motherhood into a slur. Feminism forced all of us to work more for less by doubling the workforce for the same number of jobs Environmentalists push the idea that "humans should not have kids" to...save the planet. And on and on and ON!

[@13thcentury]

A great shoutout to the woke Cambridge students. Without their boycott and protests, i would have never heard of this great film. Classic example of the streisand effect.

[@jub8891]

lmao

[@lachatnoir1127]

Thata how I got here too

[@nneubsfl9278]

same here!

[@dadmaxx8127]

Love it!

[@Nothing_to_see_here]

Nailed it!

[@normanshadow1]

Im 63. My dad supported a wife and 6 children. He was a blue collar worker and we were middle class, lived quite comfortably. Bring those days back please!

[@beefy0978]

They can’t. We’re too greedy. If wages rose enough that we could afford a large family on one wage, we”d still have two wages a bigger house, more cars and more social media presence. The planet is imposing its own balance on us once again.

[@bassmanjr100]

It's a myth. Your parents likely worked way harder than people do today.

[@tommyj6481]

Hi mate, not going to happen. There was less taxation back then, houses were more affordable etc. Basically its way more expensive now.

[@RosieandFriends1]

This is the whole problem. You need two incomes to raise a family. It’s hard to just pay for yourself let alone a child. I wanted children but I never found someone to have them with and I don’t want to be a single mother. It’s very sad.

[@anulfolantigua940]

To do that people need to go Vegan since most of the resources food, fuel, water and land is going to raise farm animals that is the real reason and beside meat, dairy and eggs destroy human health that cause also wasting resorces to treatment of preventable deseases

[@julie2x]

What wasn’t mentioned is how raising children has changed dramatically. Uber focus on the child and their happiness at the expense of a balanced life. I raised my children this way (and as a single parent with no family help). It shows the younger generation that family life and raising children is filled with drudgery, deprivation and standing in the sidelines with no life. Maybe we need to let up on the competition, the child focused life, the impossible situations of mothers who both work and raise children. And the expectations people have for what life is (easy, without challenges, uncompromising) - I think this has been facilitated by the internet/social media.

[@Cocoisagordonsetter]

It is very child centered now that's for sure. What happened to your partner? Raising children in a 2 parent home is challenging enough so I was lucky, but we always lived far from family. I got a minor cancer when my kids were little and my husband got a serious medical diagnosis. Everything has been fine, but it was sort of destabilizing.

[@kirstinstrand6292]

You left out the controlled mainstream media and corporate media - the real culprits.

[@goergeskaplan2910]

Precisely! And personally, I'm a father of 2 (still) young boys, and that is something that my wife and I had discussed pretty right away when we decided to start our family. "Luckily", we were both on the same wavelenght and agreed, and understood, that what we sometime call "the King child" in our corner of the world, would make us probably unhappy and ever chasing a perfect image that doesn't exist. And might disintegrate us in the end. We discussed and agreed that only both our individual happiness, and as a couple, could make us good and viable parents. Hard to make happy kids with sad disfunctional parents... So we've compromised all the way, a tad towards the kids still, it's the era (and because of our unending for love them too ofc), but we never lost sight of ourselves. That there should be space and time for ouselves too, that our lives should not be entirely and solely governed by the needs of the children. And I mean the morden "needs", beyond love, safety, food, warmth, stimuli, kindness, etc. There has been time when we said, no kiddos, we're gonna do this, we're gonna go there or we're gonna do it this way. Yes, even if you two adorable little monkeys are unsatisfied with it. And explained to them kindly that mummy and daddy also have to be happy to be good parents. I think they always understood. And I'd say it's proven to be for the best so far. So yeah, I believe you're right about that aspect of nowadays parenting, the social image of perfection that is ingraned in us and expected from parents, has completely unnatural expectations, often unrealistic, and so often counterproductive in the end. Especially to young parents, already naturally terrified at the prospect of being responsible for a little life. And this is one more huge incentive not to have children I'm sure, or at least to be scared engouh to delay it for ever longer, anf for ever more people it seems. Add economical stress, polution, news echo chambers about extreme safety atmosphere/incident issues, loss of hopes in the future and politics and governance, rampent poverty and the discusting distribution of wealth... and so many other stressful factors.... well this ain't the spirit of the 50's for sure.... Sad, but real. God I'm glad and thankfull for my family and my children. I know I would have died a lonely, grumpy and sad old man otherwise ^_^ Love. Be kind! Cheers

[@Jojo-pv3uf]

@@goergeskaplan2910my parents raised us this way and now as grown adults who are all married, we are grateful they had that foresight. I always knew “mom came first to dad and dad came firs to mom” it made me secure. I remember one incident where my brother and I were teenagers arguing with our mom and my dad said “ you will not argue with my wife in my house”. It reminded me that she’s more than “just” my mom, she is also “his wife” and she was his wife long before she became my mom, and as much as in my mind I could argue with “my mom” arguing with “his wife” is unacceptable 😂. So i believe your children will not only appreciate your approach, but it is the best way of setting them up for success. You and your wife are the foundation holding the whole family together, and a strong foundation ensures that the house will always be safe.

[@aunch3]

💯 our lives revolve around trying to make sure our kids are always having fun

[@Terrillthegreat79]

After caring for parents and grandparents, who can afford kids or have energy to start a family of their own? A one bedroom is so expensive. How can you afford to have kids, pay childcare, and buy a house in today’s global economy?

[@sammencia7945]

Look at rural Japan. Abandoned wooden houses for $10k.

[@piedradesechada]

Don’t pay for childcare! Look for a husband who makes good money and take care of your child yourself!!

[@CharlotteMEllett]

I don't expect my children to take care of me, and any parent who does is wrong.

[@Terrillthegreat79]

@@CharlotteMEllett when your parents make you a caregiver for your siblings at a young age, you’re not thinking about adding another mouth to feed or an additional bill to pay because you never had a choice. Btw… caring for your elders is the right choice.

[@CMR308]

Thanks to "Redacted" covering the Cambridge students and their protests I ended up here. Can't wait to watch part II and III.

[@katyekel]

Same! Way to go Redacted!

[@krissielongknife1479]

Lol me too!!! Amazing

[@real-eyes-realise-real-lie8888]

Me too 😊

[@superbalaur1297]

Same here!😂

[@turdferguson12]

Me too

[@hrtdinasaurette3020]

Anecdotally- in the mid 70s my father left my mother alone to raise myself and my younger brother. The couple of friends she did have were also single mothers. As children we felt very much that we were a burden who had caused my mother a lot of suffering. The poverty was very challenging but, the relationship between us kids and our mother was the hardest thing. By a very early age I knew I was not prepared to repeat this process and I am childless. This is not a call for pity. This is just an illustration of one of the many reasons women have stopped having children. In total my father left 4 children and eventually settled with a career woman for 40 years. They did not have children. I think the collapse/destruction of the nuclear family and the security it provided must have played some part in this worrying situation.

[@rathelmmc3194]

I often wonder this as well. Like how many people are self selecting out because of bad childhoods.

[@beaulieuc8910]

exactly well said

[@elsie6828]

Promiscuity and substance abuse were propagandized starting in the 70s. None of this is accidental.

[@tammyiswicked]

I had a single mother and she was amazing. BUT she still had to sacrifice so much. And I decided that the struggle was too hard. I could not raise kids on my income without so much stress that the kids would suffer.

[@idepartasair]

What an entirely devastating story and perfect illustration of society's attitude toward the family unit.

[@mebtor]

"When the ordinary thought of a highly cultivated people begins to regard 'having children' as a question of pro's and con's, the great turning point has come." Oswald Spengler

[@stephenhoughton632]

But that is not what he has shown. It is when people don't plan ahead to have the kids they want that things go wrong.

[@rachelwatley173]

​@@stephenhoughton632My daughter was born exactly 1 week after my 18th birthday (1996)... She was not planned. Her father and I had been dating for several years, and we decided to get married. Neither of us went to college, both of us have GEDs. He worked and I stayed home, it didn't make financial sense for me to work because childcare would have eaten up my entire paycheck at the time. I found ways to earn extra money at home. I began selling cakes and baked goods.😊 By the age of 21 we were able to buy our first house. At 25 we started our own event planning and catering business. Our daughter is now 27. She is a college graduate with a Bio/ Chemistry degree, married, and they just bought their first home last year. Your priorities become your reality... There will never be an ideal time in life to have children. You can make all of the plans you want, but life rarely goes in accordance to plans, so you have to understand how to be flexible and make the best of every situation you find yourself in. Some of the best things in life are the things you never planned on.

[@yurigansmith]

Did he really say that? Is there a source for that quote?

[@mebtor]

@@yurigansmith The Decline of the West Volume 2, Knopf edition, page 104. (Oh, and yes, he really said that.)

[@gabrielanthonio5325]

We are not seen as humans anymore. We are increasingly seen as cogs in the financial system to make the upperclass even richer. We are born into a world were heritage and inheritance is worth more than hard work. In a world where money is everything.. many feel defeated. We do not have time for family or children anymore. We work ourselves to the grave. What point is there to bring a child (or more) to a world like that? If you truly love children.. do not bring them into this world if you are not able to spend enough time with them and give them stability. I am well educated with a good salary.. but my work demands to much time from me.. for me to even consider having a family. We are no more than well educated modern slaves with suits and ties. When more people draw that conclusion.. this is the result. "How many slaves do you intend to raise?" It's either that or give a *single* kid a large inheritance so he can live a better life. You can't have two, three or four children in todays society. That in combination with climate change and the expensive house-market is making the decision rather easy for people aged 20-40. And do not even entertain the thought of what todays 10 year olds will decide when they are 20-40. They will more than likely bring us down to 0.2 - 0.6 / woman. I come home. 3h "free-time" I go to bed. Wake up. Work. Repeat. We are not masters of our own lives. We are simply here to complete tasks that are currently too advanced to automate. For many.. that will soon change. As a result of our prosperity during the 20th Century we should have been awarded more free time with family, 25h-30h work weeks. But instead the rich just got richer. Why earn money if you can't even spend time with your loved ones? What is the point of having children if you have to work 60h/week, or more? Kid will just grow up without knowing his parents. Also.. traditional values aren't cherished anymore. Divorce is a very common occurrence nowadays compared to 1900s-1970s. People break up all the time, over tiny things. Which makes it even harder to envision a "happy family" future. You have to consider all sorts of outcomes.

[@linmal2242]

Total Rubbish ! A whole lot of people hard a harder life than YOU years ago and they all managed to fit it into their daily lives. Some went to war for years, some had to do shift work, some did overtime or created a business, which is hard work. Excuses, excuses; make time and make it work for you and your kids.

[@ollievendor7413]

It's not rubbish. We see what happens to children born in even harsher times/environment. They suffer a lot. Lots of violence or starvation. Child labor too. Exteme poverty means children work full time jobs in sweat shops or even partake in prostitution for a bit of food. ​@@linmal2242

[@Jaime-eg4eb]

How surprising that literally making wage salves out of people and taxing them to oblivion makes them unwilling to create replacements for themselves so that their owners can keep enjoying themselves.

[@friedawells6860]

Love this comment XD I've heard that Hungary is contemplating a policy of no income tax for families with 4 or more children

[@abcxyz123]

@@friedawells6860 well, they'll need such😂. Expensive household

[@purplemonsoon8376]

Shocking isn’t it 😂 Antinatalsim ❤

[@lettajones5625]

Bingo

[@skylinefever]

Yes, people have gone on strike the only way they can. I love joking "Have children, the people on the top of the Ponzi scheme need more people on the bottom to exploit."

[@doma3554]

I mean, the fact that they kept saying every "industrialized" country had the same problem, seems to be the answer. The priority of those countries is money and profit at the expense of literally any other concept you can think of. Mental health, family, friendships, free time, etc. And to top it all off, calling the systems out for it only yields words like "weakness", "play hard", etc. thrown back. Or even worse, telling people to smile and be happy and proud and appreciative of the endless grind.

[@wamnicho]

Well it's simple, you can't worship endless materialism and brainless entertainment and hope to keep a society together.

[@someonesomeone25]

Having children is largely incompatible with a satisfying modern life which involves lots of sexual partners, education, career, travel, hedonism, and material goods. And there's no real easy way to make those things compatible.

[@whenpigsfly3271]

Every industrialized country suffers from financial capitalism and rent seeking.

[@friedawells6860]

On the one hand that's true, but also no one would want to live in a non-industrialized country since people there are barely scraping by and are vulnerable to war, disease, and famine. The birth gap crisis is a crisis of luxury and of excess technology and of people chasing job titles first over family and spirituality.

[@doma3554]

@@friedawells6860 I agree. Everything always has pros and cons, trade-offs, a balance. Even if not apparent in the immediate, whatever is lost in the pursuit of some gain, will become apparent over time. There's no perfect way of living, being, feeling, etc.

[@biancap1549]

The real reason is that the cost of living is too high and people have more awareness of what bad parenting can look like

[@stephenhoughton632]

That is not what the evidence showes.

[@xxdomixx1085]

@@stephenhoughton632 We don't need evidence to see this. Just look around and ask old relatives. My grandpa worked alone as a teacher and was able to raise 3 children and build a house. My father and my mother both had to work fulltime, but still they build a house, payed back the loan in 8 years and had my sister and myself. I am a registered nurse now and I live in a 400 sqft (37 sqm) flat that I bought with a loan and I can't go on vacation to any other countries besides than poor states and I can't sustain a family alone. I am certain that I will have at least 1 child, regardless of my financial situation, because I really want children, but in no world I can support a huge family.

[@BloodSweatandFears]

One of the reasons yes, other factors like a fertility issues as well. I’m lucky enough to have a child and plan on two more if I can, but two of my friends have been trying and can’t get pregnant. They are told it’s “unknown infertility” meaning there’s nothing the dr can see that’s causing it. Here in the USA I’m of the mind that our very processed and fast food diet has some thing to do with it, along with birth control pills being taken for 20 years straight.

[@biancap1549]

@@BloodSweatandFears that as well. But there is an assumption that feminism and childfree people are to blame. The reality is that most people want children, but they're growing up slower because they can't establish roots and the cost of living is too high. Then you also have health problems causing infertility

[@BloodSweatandFears]

@@biancap1549 I think both of those is true. And to be clear I mean modern feminism not real feminism. Out of many people I know more than half have chosen not to have kids or cannot find a partner for various reasons. One being social media and online dating being a bad dynamic that in my opinion is ruining dating and trust. 2 of my female friends want children but have fertility they attribute to being on hormonal birth control for 15 years straight. It’s a lot to unpack for sure lol

[@utube11235]

There are also the issues of: 1. Men and Woman not wanting to be married to each other anymore, not even wanting relationships anymore. A genuine war of the sexes now that's also leading to the single/loneliness crisis. 2. The alarming rate of divorces makes marriage undesirable 3. Couples moving away from parents and extended families to seek jobs elsewhere, leaving the tremendous burden of raising children solely on the couple (while having to balance their careers, pay the bills etc), while previously it was distributed among grandparents, uncles, aunties, older cousins, neighbours etc.

[@Sumire-rere]

The western culture's obssession over 'self-reliance' is really bonkers. It really does take a village to raise children. But somehow, here in the west, we keep telling ourselves and each other that we gotta do everything on our own or else we'd be seen as a 'burden' to family. The whole mentality of 'get out of the house once you turn 18' is so messed up tbh.

[@utube11235]

Precisely. It’s crazy in every way. Currently the couple move away from parents and the parents are left to live lonely and depressed lives as they grow old and helpless. The couple take up a place in some city for work, have kids whom they’ll have to raise alone or pay expensive daycare to look after, while having full-time jobs. Finally the parents live alone and depressed, the couple is burnt out raising kids on their own, and the kids grow up with parents who barely have time for them, and they don’t receive the love and wisdom from grandparents who are yearning to give it to them. Grandparents lose children and grandchildren, children lose the support and help of parents, the grandchildren grow up without guidance or the care and wisdom of grandparents. Everyone loses. This has probably never happened in human history at this scale. I think it’s got to do with the education system. We’re educated for jobs that are mostly available only in cities and so are forced to move away, creating the above cycle. If this doesn’t change we’re all doomed. We need to plan to get out of this mad, senseless cycle that’s clearly changing the course of the human race for the worse.

[@LuisCarruthers]

Mass higher education has basically ruined everything.

[@carlysheree3130]

I’d like to add- lazy boomer parents that show no help or support as being grandparents. This makes situations on young couples harder to financially support themselves and be parents without the support from grandparents

[@spankeyfish]

Point 3 is why the 'nuclear family' was the start of the problem.

[@fersuvious]

Every one of my friends in Vancouver canada who haven’t had kids cite affordability as the reason. We all waited till our 30’s to have kids and now we are all turning 40 and yet most of us aren’t anywhere ahead financially than we were 5-10 years ago.

[@Sisterlisk]

Do those same friends spend thousands of dollars on pets, gadgets, and a fancy car?

[@kdpunshon3073]

Lol vancouver..my home town.. destroyed by greed on all levels. Good job im old and do not have to live there.

[@sharegreats2157]

@@Sisterlisk That's exactly right. In Germany also. Couples invest in dogs and cats, but no children.

[@Sisterlisk]

@sharegreats2157 such an empty life, if you're able to have children but won't

[@megankissinger8269]

​@@sharegreats2157Dogs and cats cost a fraction of what children do.

[@witsend236]

I'm a 67 year old man from England. I have noticed in my life an increase in misanthropy. It has always been there but over the last 40 years the growth is very apparent. Now with the change in family values and expectations on both parents failing, misanthropy steps in and the result is people avoiding other people and do not want long term relationships, or children. The role of both men and women has changed dramatically over the last 40 years, and both sides feel the other is responsible. Evidence for this is all over social media. That’s where our problems lie.

[@annacomnena217]

Rockefeller agenda

[@annal2740]

Lol, try being a woman. Misogyny is everwhere.

[@l.3626]

PART 2 and 3 needs to be released, this documentation is so important for humanity.

[@smileimagirl]

Give us a future worthy of our children and we might have more.

[@MyBelch]

Make your own future. Are you really so helpless?

[@smileimagirl]

@@MyBelch don't deal with society?

[@59Gretsch]

Is it possible your expectations are too high? When in history have average people had more security than today?

[@fcmxd3888]

"Career. Career. Career. Career. Career. Wrong time. Not enough money." Hmmm.....almost like the economic system is the problem.

[@abupinhus]

That is good example inductive fallacy. This has nothing to do with economic system. It has clear correlation with means of production. When your means of production are primitive, you can increase your personal production by using children as non paid labor. So one have beneficial midterm invesment, that starts to give results after 6 or 7 years. When you have sophicticated means of production, you have very long term invesment. Until your invesment did not start paying back, it is all cost to you. Majority of humans are not very good with long term investments, our brain does not work this way. So, you have depopulation in all economic systems, as long as means of production advanced, so one can not use his kids as labor.

[@soniaterhovanessian7198]

I was told by a gynaecologist a few years ago that more and more women are having premature menopause at younger and younger ages. She said it so flippantly. I asked if it was known why and she said no. This is grossly overlooked. Something is amiss. Yes, career. Money. Finsnc8al and political crises. But there's something also happening to our fertility. And also men's. Is it the hormones in our food? Our water? Toxins? Stress? The pill? Radiation from our devi es? Medication? And is it intentional?

[@wmad33]

Yes, I would agree - all of the above and I could add a few more. Our environment is toxic and that's not taking into account the social engineering we've been subjected to.

[@elsie6828]

Yes, hormone disrupting chemicals and toxins; phyto and xeno-estrogens, in everything from cosmetic products to refined sugar.

[@katiemurphy3601]

That's interesting, because I was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure/ perimenopause at age 28. I have never been on the pill/had an IUD, no smoking or drinking, nor gotten the C va×, & I eat pretty healthy,. By God's grace, my husband and I were still able to have children, but it does seem so odd that so many are struggling with this. We invested in a good quality water filter because I don't trust anything, but when there's no apparent cause it's very frustrating.

[@SYA357]

I heard that premature menopause simply comes from not having become pregnant. The body was like "I don't need this anyway", like a shop owner closes early when no one came during the day.

[@katiemurphy3601]

@@SYA357 I'm sure that could be the case for many, but personally, that's not why I have it. I got married at 20 and we wanted to start our family right away. I had my first baby 2 weeks before my 22nd birthday, had my second baby at age 24, & third at 26. I also had some chemical pregnancies between, which I believe were one of the early signs.. So it's just frustrating to not have answers or a reason.

[@saw.me.yeah.]

I want someone to explain to me, an Indian 20 year old woman, how am I supposed to change my mindset of not having kids or be married when I made the decision based off on everything I've seen growing up in India. In our society we still have a lot of traditional households, where the woman leaves her parents' house and goes to live with her in-laws and her husband. What this results in ( I'm sorry for generalizing here) is the berating and disgraceful position she is put in by the husband and in-laws over the years. We've all heard it happen so often , maybe she gave birth to a girl child, maybe she did not bring enough dowry, maybe she is of a different cast or class etc. She can't leave because of the kids and "what will society say" ( trust me this is a big issue in India, we think of society before we think of ourselves) and over the years being a housewife is not enough and not honorable anymore. If she is a more modern woman and has a job, she is still demoralized and demeaned about not being a good mother to her kids and not being present all the time. If she then chooses to get help from outside like hiring a nanny that's considered shameful. Now coming to the even more complicated mental battle we have to play is the generational trauma we pass around in India for the sake of bonding I guess. We are all constantly seeing our parents struggle because of their financial or educational position. Making us believe that money and education is of vital importance. Children are not. We have our role models tell us that we must think for ourselves and love ourselves first, family is important but only the one we currently have and not the one we would be making. Our parents give their emotional burden to us, especially if you are the older child and we are supposed to somehow take in this out pour of trauma from a 50 year old person as a 20 year old, rationalize it in our heads and be okay with feeling helpless about it. Now why would I have kids when I've seen all these examples of not having them? How do I convince myself that in 2023 if were to find a guy and have kids with him all this and more would not push me to insanity?.

[@rageagainstthedyingoftheli3861]

I'm not indian so I can't speak to your position exactly. I did have generational trauma though that put me off having kids originally. Having a kid and raising them the way I wanted to be is the best thing I've ever done with my life, you have to be strong to put a stop to passing on the trauma. This is probably a lot easier when you gave your own house though ❤

[@marygee3981]

❤true. Your own home is key. It is not a popular idea, but in Japan they have this term 'vanishing' it removes elder care. Move away. As a parent I insist that the young enjoy their lives, have children if you wish. Stop caring for elders. Govt. Needs to remove insurance companies from the equation. If we have a health system everyone pays into, instead of giving it to Insurance companies which charge exhorbitant premiums, there would be plenty of money for elder care freeing up All People from elder care! Yes, I want my family free of that when my time comes, i love them that much. So I encourage the young to move away but write a letter, send a card or a small b-day gift.😊

[@Cocoisagordonsetter]

You are only 20. You need to get educated. You will meet higher quality guys and increase your value immensely. You might not have kids, but that shouldn't be your main focus right now.

[@Yosetime]

@@Cocoisagordonsetter What? That is exactly what she is trying to get away from!! She is not chasing an education just for the purpose of being 'valuable' and meeting a higher quality man. Geez!! Her life is not about that at all. Her life should be lived as she likes. Not to marry. Not to increase her value in society. Not to have kids. She wants to be free to make her own choices! And your comment is completely opposite of what she is trying to say. She doesn't want that.

[@Cocoisagordonsetter]

@@Yosetime You are putting a lot of words out there about one person's rant. I stand by mine.

[@mittens3000]

I became a parent in 2005 at the age of 25. When my son attended kindergarten in 2010 I was known as the "young Mom". I was 30. All the other parents were in their 40s. I thought it was an odd label to apply to me because 25 didn't seem that young to have a child but now that I am the parent of a legal adult, my son just turned 18, and I am age 43 the label of "young empty-nester" doesn't seem so odd as most of the parents I know - my age range late 30's to mid 40s - have families comprised of young children. I've watched in real time the growth of the phenomenon of later age parenting. Fascinating documentary. I will be interesting to see how this all turns out.

[@MattyNelson-rs3ik]

We won't be here to see it..

[@Jose-se9pu]

It's becoming more and more common to see couples having their first child in their early 40s. Time Will tell if this is good or bad, but it's something that it's certaintly happening.

[@1Life2Little]

We need to make it a valued career to have and raise children. We also need to make it possible for a household to be able to live on one income like it was in the older days.

[@RosieandFriends1]

This is so true

[@run2cat4run]

Or let in more migrants

[@MrSuperultramegaguy]

So repeal the 19th ammendment then? Because that's the only way this is undone

[@real-eyes-realise-real-lie8888]

They reward families with cash incentives for each child they have in Russia.

[@canguian]

Well in the US there is not maternity paid leave they call that socialism

[@tonkashouse]

@birthgap I'd like to propose the solution: Older people need to accept that if they want grandchildren AND educated daughters, the grandparents need to BE THERE to help raise the grandkids. Commit to your children, especially daughters, that you will be there to help shoulder the burden of dishes and laundry and diapers and picking up from school and everything else. NOT living your best lives playing golf in Florida or Arizona. We evolved as intergenerational families with aunts and uncles and grandparents always around to help raise kids. Modern life has fooled us into thinking we can get by with just a nuclear family of 2 parents and the kids. Dropping birthrates and the mating crisis is showing us that is not the case. Knowing that my wife and I would have ZERO support from our families absolutely was a factor in not having children.

[@RCCarDude]

That's nice in theory and it used to be the norm, BUT it doesn't acknowledge that feminism encourages the delay or abstinence of starting a family and openly disparages the life choice of motherhood.

[@tonkashouse]

@@RCCarDude You want to blame Feminism, others blame religion or not enough religion, others blame patriarchy or pro-choice or porn and video games distracting men.... I'm sure they're all factors to some extent but they're all irrelevant in regard to what Grandparents can do to influence their own young adult daughters and sons.

[@skylinefever]

This makes me think of the number of older siblings who choose to be childfree because their parents forced them to raise younger siblings.

[@LP-dc7fh]

When I look at my young children (who often tell me how much they want to be mommies and daddies one day), this is exactly what I know my husband and I will want to do for them. We were exceedingly lucky to find each other young, become well educated, and he entered a very lucrative field. So when we were in our late 20s, I could stay home with our babies and we could afford to hire help, since none of our family lived nearby to help us. We have been very lucky and I worry that our children will need much more help if they are going to have families of their own one day.

[@RCCarDude]

@@tonkashouse I don't want to "blame" feminism but I definitely understand why you could read my comment that way. I should have been more clear: feminism has basically won the culture war and because of that any shift in culture away from female individualism will be seen as a shot across the bow at feminism.

[@sukchong1877]

How can we have children when both partners have to worker over 12 hours or more just to scrape out an existence? How to find time to raise well adjusted children when parents are dead tired after a hard day's work? Those who choose to be childless are actually the responsible ones with the potential to be wonderful parents, should the economic circumstances allow. How ironic. The answer is that simple.

[@Jaelynne17]

In America, healthcare is too expensive, childcare is too expensive, housing/rent costs are more than half of the monthly take home pay. There is poorly funded/no funded maternity pay or maternity leave (6 weeks is nothing). Pair that with a failing school system, parents having to work multiple jobs and several hours just to make ends meet and you have your reason right there. Instead of providing free healthcare and childcare to children, from birth to eighteen, regardless of socioeconomic status, the higher ups decided that greedy corporations were more important and they should have all the tax breaks, bail-outs, etc. But us normal people? We’re taking on way too much of the financial fallout that the top 1% has created. It’s only fitting that we’re heading for failure… we’ve allowed it to happen.

[@earlysda]

America has had much worse problems to face in the past, and people still had kids. The difference this time is that many have started believing Evolution and Climate Alarmism which tells them that life is worthless and humans are the problem.

[@jesusmtz29]

I'm 35 and our third daughter was born 3 weeks ago. This documentary is making me feel slightly better about our exhaustion. Having kids is hard but it's undeniably the ultimate purpose in life. I have no doubt about. I just put my older 7 and 5 yr old daughters to sleep and told them how much I love them. feeling the love be reciprocated is absolute magic and does not compare to my career successes

[@HelloKitty-kb7ji]

For you maybe. For other (many) people only having kids is not enough

[@jeffbezos3633]

@@HelloKitty-kb7ji many people are selfish

[@bumblebee8653]

Assuming you have a husband to help you. I agree with you 💯. It is exhausting especially when a single parent must raise the children alone and find the means to support them alone. Motherhood should be valued more in society.

[@fleurbee8360]

@@bumblebee8653 Hehe your username made me giggle for obvious reasons (it's cute). But yes I agree with you, Motherhood and Fatherhood MUST be valued more by society.

[@mitooquerer]

@@HelloKitty-kb7ji he did not say that 'only having kid' is enough. By his words you can see that he values both, family and career success but his kids give him the most joy.

[@zofiahajkova3961]

They made life expensive, economy unsustainable, environment slowly uninhabitable, and yet they wonder - why are people not having kids?

[@boxjoint]

That’s a complete lie!

[@animal0mother]

How I don't like the birthgap visualization charts: Like many maps, they visually weight lower population density areas higher. One could look at some large, sparsely populated state/province with a large birthgap, and the size of that black area would look quite large, when it might matter much less than a smaller black area that represents some large city. For example at 19:23, I assume that northernmost Japanese island is sparsely populated than say Tokyo, but that small black area in Tokyo's prefecture likely spells a much larger impact on population decrease and the overall senescence profile of the nation. What I'd prefer but might be harder to display, would be a 3D map with population density as height so that the volume taken up is directly proportional to total population, with an outlined dark area marking the birthgap, so that we see it in real population, and not as a ratio.

[@LindaSaffioti]

I can’t afford to have kids. If I can barely keep my own income strong there’s no way I’d bring children in. The men I’ve tried to have relationships with are not reliable. Men with money choose playmates not families. Women I know who have stayed with men have to put up with unfair treatment in order to be in a family unit. And the cycle continues. The patriarchy has gotten out of whack. Males can adjust themselves by doing as much self work as women do instead of surface level relief.

[@LunaKilo]

That was a good point that people who have children don't have less children, but more people remain childless. Thank you for figuring that out :)

[@joanvallve7647]

Well that's not true. In Europe most of people come from families with 2 o 3 kids, and they are now having just one, and too late. This means 50% or more reduction in just one generation. What the documentary states, might be true for large families 4/5 kids, but not for the (statistically) 'normal' ones.

[@chrishart8548]

@Joan Vallve we have chosen to have just one and that's looking like a mistake. I really hope things can change for the better. Looks like the next few years are going to be the start of a whole new world or complete control like the hunger games. I can't see how the rich will settle for anything other than complete control or total defeat.

[@Screw_This]

@@joanvallve7647 From about 32:00 to 42:00, the documentary makes the point that in the entire industrialized world family structure has not changed for women who have had children, but many more are now childless. The birthrate for mothers has remained the same, but the birthrate for women has plummeted. So @lonegramlarsen6766 has it right according to the documentary. Do you have a source to back your claim?

[@joanvallve7647]

@@Screw_This Percentage of 'only child' in Western countries in the late 60s: between 5 and 9%. Current percentage in Western countries: between 25 and 30%. This documentary only gives a percentage for families in Japan having 3 or more children, which remains similar. In my opinion, the 'child alone' data is much more relevant and completely contradicts the documentary thesis, which states that only the number of childless women has boosted. No, that is not true, so the thesis might also not be.

[@GloriaBeauclair-vl4vb]

How can young people start a family if they cannot even afford a home?

[@DragonFurnace]

The journey of a thousand miles...

[@Eph5wife4life]

I mean....apartments and other housing situations exist.... you don't HAVE to be a home owner to provide shelter for your children. And before you say anything about high rent, In America at least there are programs for first time home buyers that allow people who would otherwise never be able to buy a home, be able to get a home and get approved for a loan with an interest rate as little as 5 percent. Other initiatives and programs may even buy the property outright for you, and then just set up a direct loan where you just repay them directly every month with little or even no added interest!! There are ways to do it!!! People need to STOP using homeownership as an excuse for not having at least one to two children.

[@Cocoisagordonsetter]

A home? People used to have kids in a teepee. Have you ever heard of apartments? The bigger issue is finding a suitable partner. The other stuff is just excuses.

[@Not.a.bird.Person]

@@Eph5wife4life That's just bullshit. There is a difference between being able to physically own a home and being a serf just paying back interest on a loan where you never accumulate any financial security through paying the principal. The issue is not the home in and of itself (or even apartment if you want to go there), it's the financial security. Even if every young person alive were given homes, most of them wouldn't even be able to afford living in them.Try having a 15k$ repair on a home with a monthly take home pay after expenses of 500$... that's 30 months of paying back without accounting for interests or other expensive life events!!! The real issue is that for years incomes have been stagnant and regressing in purchasing power to afford the salaries of old people, their entitlement programs and their housing ponzi schemes. Housing affordability is just a symptom of this. When people say they can't afford a home, they are saying more than just ''homes are expensive'', they are implying ''everything else is expensive'', they are implying ''my salary is too low to cover living expenses even if I buy a house'' and they are implying the money is somewhere else if it's not in their pockets.

[@Not.a.bird.Person]

@@Cocoisagordonsetter The difference between having kids and a teepee and having them in an apartment is that you don't have a fiancial obligation by living in a teepee... while living in an apartment implies you have a landlord asking for rent and if they are anywhere near the average (or even below), the rent they are asking is extortion and that means there is no money left at the end of the month to pay for another person's food, clothing, additional room, education and transport, let alone entertainment.

[@SR0-0356]

Great documentary. As a trained economist, we looked into a lot of these metrics in grad school. However, I don't think anyone really understood the gravity of what we were looking at since we were all in our mid-20s. Now, heading into my 30s, the game has changed. Young women, deeply afraid of never being mothers. Young women deeply angered by the horrid narratives perpetuated by progressive radicalism. It has failed them. It will fail us. There is nothing more dangerous than progress for the sake of progress. Sometimes it's best to let people live by their nature.

[@paulmetcalfe4054]

The first comment I (mostly) agree with. Where I would be angry is at your professor for not stressing the seriousness of this. This way his pupils would be better prepared for real life. The work life balance with family playing a major role. This is the true path to happiness.

[@bigglyguy8429]

Civilization is not natural. That's the entire point of it.

[@renefridge]

I would suggest that the cost of housing plays a huge role in population decline. Both people in a partnership have to work to afford a house, either to own or rent. Subsequently children are unaffordable. As a child (many years ago), nearly everyones mother looked after the home and had more children. Owning a home was easily affordable on one income, now there is no chance of that. So until property values drop substantially which they ultimately will as more and more empty houses occur, both parents will be forced to work and thus less children. Also I would suggest lifestyle plays a significant part in people not wanting children, but that's another story.

[@britneybij3997]

I was slowly coming to realize in my late teens that I wouldn't want kids because of how irrirated I get from basic interactions with them, even kids my own age at the time. But with all the other shit of everything being unaffordable and unsustainable it only validated my decision and I even want to take extreme precautions such as getting sterilized before I even get hit on by a man.

[@linmal2242]

@@britneybij3997 Sad. Don't preclude your options; you may have a change of heart ! Life has funny turns !

[@isabellacostantino2497]

Amen! You said everything! I cry a lot exactly because of these reasons that will lead me to never be able to become a mother…. Because i am responsabile and i will never give birth to my child in survival conditions..I dont need a pregnancy test to love my child! I i love him already! And i cant do this to him/her ! Its a very unlucky era for us that are 30 now….

[@nolaspeaker5656]

It's negative exponential. The NWO will end up with their 500 million without having to do anything about population directly.

[@CharlotteMEllett]

What do you think of all of the people who have children anyway? Why do you think that expensive housing is necessary?

[@walkingrighthere3851]

My husband and I raised 4 children on one very modest income in Seattle when all we heard was that it was impossible. We lacked nothing of ultimate importance. We went without, spent wisely, and even tithed 10% to our church. We saved our money, bought a fixer-upper that we renovated ourselves and that is now paid for. None of our kids graduated college because they chose not to. All of them married young (just like we did). They and their spouses all have 3 children each and are are now raising them on one income. They too, all own their homes and swap babysitting with their siblings because we're a close family. Because of it, all the grandchildren see each other regularly and adore each other. It's a good life that I wouldn't trade. Are we all strange anomalies or is it just a lie that it can't be done?

[@divinedela9125]

Thanks for this. I so much needed to hear this

[@friedawells6860]

Wow very inspiring! Do you have any extra advice for someone who would want to live like you? My fiance and I are starting out our journey together this year. We are both 25 and desiring to have a godly marriage.

[@walkingrighthere3851]

@@divinedela9125 I'm so happy to hear this! It really can be done!

[@walkingrighthere3851]

@@friedawells6860 Really? Wonderful! We have found that God's ways are good and can be trusted even when it feels impossible or just too hard. Godliness with contentment IS great gain! Blessings to you both as you start your adventure together😘

[@friedawells6860]

@Walking Right Here Thank you so much! I'll take that to heart. God has already done many wonderful things in my life including bringing my fiancé, Jacco, into it. I really believe that His ways are the best. Please pray for us ❤️

[@farrahburke4768]

Hope this video blows up - came from your podcast with Chris Williamson and so pleased I found it. Thank you!!

[@birthgap]

Thank you for your kind words. Glad you enjoyed it.

[@Jackrobert28]

@@birthgap I disagree that low birth rates have no cause across societies. I'd say the cause would be liberalism as apposed religious patriarchy -- with all the other things that come with liberalism, feminism, pluralism etc. All the nations that have low or tending to lower birth rates have liberal economic models and slowly but surely liberal cultural norms. Saudi Arabia is now becoming more liberal after nearly a 100 years of religious tandem rule with its elites.

[@brockwfgmail]

Same

[@scriptozavr]

Same, came from Chris's podcast.

[@birthgap]

@@scriptozavr Welcome!

[@Lozzygoz]

My mental health being unstable at times made my decision to not have children simple. I would not impose an unstable environment on children.

[@linmal2242]

It might have straightened you out; caring for another, dependent human !

[@Lozzygoz]

@@linmal2242 settle petal 🌻

[@MrSandman_0981]

@@linmal2242 nope

[@zamandzeya]

My friend lives in Japan, she tells me it's really expensive to have children and find childcare

[@yeahno9380]

We have turned having children into an expensive burden. I can't tell how many times I've heard the argument that a person should or is waiting to get financially stable before they think about kids dont know how it is in other countries but this is the common sentiment here in the U.S. Also something to think about, the whole conversations surrounding abortions should come into play. Edit: I commented before I even finished watching this. This was really interesting and good

[@someonesomeone25]

Having children is largely incompatible with a satisfying modern life which involves lots of sexual partners, education, career, travel, hedonism, and material goods. And there's no real easy way to make those things compatible.

[@whyaminotoriginal]

@@someonesomeone25 brain dead take. Its about money and security for the children created

[@someonesomeone25]

@@whyaminotoriginal I disagree.

[@whenpigsfly3271]

Social media has ruined women's minds. Statistics gleaned from dating websites verify that 80% of women are chasing 20% of the men.

[@lucasurbina4394]

It's a trap because i doubt many people become what they consider finantially stable enough to have children, which actually means belonging to the upper middle class, something that it's very very hard in my country and many others

[@bvd9701]

I came here from Chris Williamson’s KZbin channel. I forwarded that interview and this Part 1 of the documentary to my two daughters, both in their 20’s.

[@birthgap]

Thank you Barbara - I'm delighted that you sent the link to your daughters. My passion is driven by wanting young people to understand birthrate decline better than most currently do.

[@djk0125]

I remember In the US during the early 1970s the economy started changing for the middle class & divorces increased. There where more & more mothers who HAD to start working (+ raised the kids & do all the domestic work at home). That isn't desirable for a woman. Single men are are so into gaming & porn plus they often don’t have very good jobs & can't afford to marry or have kids; they are terrified of the topic. We were also always told as kids "what a terrible world we were creating & how it was declining therefore it was not a good place to bring up children anymore". Our working mothers often didn't seem to be enjoying bringing us kids up, we children assumed they regreted having us because it was too difficult. It seem they were stuck working long hours in their daytime jobs & then stuck with a second miserable job at night doing all the house work, cooking for everyone at home & doing all the child rearing alone even when the father was at home. Many of us were afraid to have children, especially if we were alone. If a boyfriend gets you pregnant he will run for the hills & leave you alone & your parents will not forgive you. It is a horrible position for a woman to be in.

[@Sho-td8wg]

The cruel irony is that the point in life when we are most fertile we are in an unsuitable situation to form families. In my last teens and 20's i wasn't in a stable enough place to reasonably have kids. I wasn't in a long term relationship. Also, a lot of the reasons for avoiding teen pregnancy still persists as a young adult.

[@yashathebelgianmalinois348]

I'm 49 and had my only child at 20. I'm educated, had a great career. Bought a home, gutted it, made over 100k after paying it off. My son owns his own home and is still with his high school sweet heart. You need to be motivated and have goals/ priorities no matter what age.

[@LiLiUzumaki123]

⁠@@yashathebelgianmalinois348the economy for you to buy a home with a child 20 years ago no longer exists.

[@mupty]

Also young adult women are more focused on hookups than they are about marriage. Thus why there's an alarming amount of single mothers in that age bracket.

[@amcalde]

We have four kids. They are quite spaced out, but that's just how they came. We live relatively poor and simple lives because of this. Ever since our first (in 2002) our friends said, "Oh I wish I could afford to have children." Many of those friends remain childless to this day.

[@marty9011]

We have 4 kids too & we lived a relatively poor & simple life as well. That has never bothered us. One of our grandchildren is soon to be the father of 3 - good for him.

[@porkchoppeaches]

You are far richer for having them.

[@jameshay3664]

maybe you couldn't "afford" it. but you did it anyway and you're all alive. We act as if financial success and even stability is the primary goal in life when so many of our ancestors could never dream of the economic positions we hold today, globally...

[@blkequus]

I married late, by the time we felt we could afford children I was in my late 30s. I was very lucky. I lost the first. Then had my first son. Was told not to have anymore as it was a health risk. But I took the risk and had a second. I never thought about the cost of raising children. We were poor but had a roof over our heads, food, and clothes. We didn't take big vacations. Both boys went to college and one got a masters. Yes, I'm still poor by a lot of people's standards. I stayed home with them till they were in their mid teens. Best job I ever had.

[@thesisypheanjournal1271]

You can never "afford to have children." Regardless of your lifestyle, your money will have to go farther. If your idea of a night out is Denny's, you'll be replacing that with McDonald's. If you get a new car every year and totally upgrade your wardrobe seasonally and redecorate your house every time trends change, you'll still have to cut back on things you've come to think of as "necessities." So if you "wait until you can afford kids" you'll never have them. You just have to have them and find your joy in them, not in material goods.

[@tristan7216]

"and we know what happens with below replacement birth rates" - yes we know. After 4 or 5 generations everyone can afford a place to live. Indoors. This is wonderful.

[@tristan7216]

After 7 or 8 generations, nature begins to heal. Our living planet remains a living planet. The end of reproductive greed is our best chance for long term survival.

[@FirstHandLLC]

And not fight for jobs that pay enough to survive and have families

[@paodbdauw]

This is the only sane comments I've seen so far. 😄

[@MyAirMyles]

Wrong, automation will take the jobs, populations will centralises into cities and the prices will remain high, if not highest ever as location will be everything.

[@millenialmemoirs]

Are you homeless? You can’t afford a place to live but have the luxury of an iPhone to post this comment?

[@mazscsu]

I don’t know why? Gee I have no idea why? It can’t be because every country suffering from this suffers from a culture of hyper capitalism and extreme competition where no one wants to settle down before 35-40? And that no where in the culture is child rearing praised or looked up to in any way? Maybe we all know exactly just why but we never ever questioned how we live and how vastly different it is from the lives our ancestors for tens and tens of thousands of years lived like.

[@MoDa87]

The ever rising cost of everything does not help either. We actually never can afford what we need to raise children. Starting with appropriate housing. Children are not meant to be raised in soulless blocks of flats. Or cities build for cars. Where playing on the street unsupervised is a guaranteed way to get hit by an SUV.

[@mazscsu]

@@MoDa87 it’s truly sad watching it happen in real time. I hope there’s a turning around the corner.

[@abigailgarcia1019]

Yes! I agree 100%.

[@theevilhuman1]

I have read many articles and watched videos about declining birth rates, and this video blew my mind. I didnt expect that the low birth rates were caused due to exceeding number of people going for childlessness, instead of for smaller family sizes. It shows that to solve any issue, we need to both look at data as well as examine potential factors from.a theoretical.perspective.

[@LeperMessiah01234]

From those that I know, nearly every family (who is in a stable relationship) and has kids, have quite a few. Meanwhile most others have zero. There is also an extremely strong overlap between religiosity and birth rates. People need to wake up to the fact that immigration won’t solve anything and the future of most of the world is “Talibanization”. Not specifically Islam, but intense religiosity taking over society in general.

[@dale116dot7]

Practically, the cost of living is too high and men are thrashed in divorce so men do not want to risk paying for kids and mom when she leaves, and then being destroyed in “family court”.

[@Syrchek1]

A great documentary. I was aware that this is a problem, but I was not aware how fast it is going to go downhill in the near future. The crisis of loneliness will also get much bigger. Many people will feel their second half of life is pretty desolate. If I look at my grandmother who died at age 82, the last 20 years of her life was a time when she was surrounded by her 5 grown up children and 13 grandchildren. She even got to see one great grandchild being born. Very few people will have a rich life like this in the future.

[@RCCarDude]

This is very true. My child sees her grandparents quite often, but because we had her so late I feel like I cheated her out of a lot of time with them. Something else people don't seem to consider is that while they might not want to be parents, have they thought about not being grandparents, because that means something a lot different. People will not let you be involved with their children without a good reason, so when the loneliness really sets in with this cohort, they're going to be very distraught. We see this with more and more people lavishing attention on their pets. It's perverse in many respects.

[@zebrafinch12]

There are people who don't have kids and don't want them for many reasons including abuse. Don't assume.e everyone is the same

[@someonesomeone25]

Companion bots are the only real.solution to both the young male loneliness crisis and the elderly childless loneliness crisis. Artifical wombs are the only real solution to the birthrate crisis. Technology is the only solution to most things.

[@ronmaest]

@@RCCarDude and nevermind their own parents who won’t enjoy the dimension of grandchildren. Life is not fair, it is what it is.

[@ronmaest]

@@zebrafinch12 of course. That and/or personal mental issues/disorders that one may deem too horrible to pass on.

[@AlyssaPowers0]

This is a huge epidemic. I'm 38 and my fiancé is 35. We have been trying to have children for over a year and a half. My heart sinks as I continue to age and still haven't had a big fat positive. Thank you for talking about this. As much as I want children, I feel so alone that I have yet to have children. 7 months ago, we sold everything and left the USA to have a more relaxing and healthy life in hopes that our fertility would improve. Still unable to have a child is absolutely heart breaking. I always dreamed of having 5 children, at this point I'd be blessed to have one. I waited till I met the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I was on birth control for 17yrs. I have had all the vaccines, and I haven't always taken the best care of my body. I blame myself for not being able to even get pregnant. The emotions a woman carries who wants children but cannot seem to produce children is beyond devastating. This goes so much deeper than just the population decline. Thank you again for reporting on this topic. Unplanned childlessness is a reality for too many woman. I wish the government would help with fertility help, because it's so expensive.

[@NN-gy7xl]

Go carnivore. Then try. Youll get pregnant within months. You're welcome.

[@MrEpz4321]

You should have had children 15 years ago. Society is messed up.

[@markmartin7384]

Hey I read your story and felt like responding by chance. I am a herbalist and health practitioner. Have you tried and natural methods?

[@pce12345]

Before you have a child consider the world they'll be living in. Climate change is going to destroy everything. And your child won't want to have children.

[@swampfaye]

Adoption?? Both my late husband and my father were adopted.

[@NorthlandSLC]

Small town know about population collapse. Kids leave for college and don’t return. The age demographic changes, labor shortage means you loose business and that has serious effects on tax bases and city amenities are lost, roads do not get fixed and parks get closed. I’m my town you wait two years to get contractors to fix your roof. Manual labor doesn’t hire seniors. We lost every shopping store except Walmart. No cloths or housewares except what Walmart has on its shelves which they can’t seem to keep stocked. So people leave and the issue just gets worse.

[@yucol5661]

The issue would get better if moving wasn’t such a financial punch on the people who have to move. It would be nice if you could just move somewhere better after your town has finished being useful and no longer has a need to grow. But the finances and social support is just not there to help seniors or movers. It’s not easy for people in ghost towns.

[@bighoss9705]

According to the World Health Organization, roughly 73 million induced abortions occur worldwide each year, with 61% of all unintended pregnancies and 29% of all pregnancies in general ending with an abortion. Of course we don't want to talk about this. But facts are facts.

[@MegsLeaB]

The secret is there is never a good time to have children, you’ll never feel ready, you’ll never have enough money, you’ll never have enough support, but you just need to jump in with both feet. If I can have a child during medical school, raise them during medical residency and fellowships, and another one during my first year in practice while still taking time off of my career as a physician and still have a good career after it’s not impossible. During this time my husband and I had no support and very little money and were living in a country was not our birth country a good six hour flight away from any family members. But my husband and I managed to be able to make it work. It is possible.

[@hunt8619]

All centered around you and your husband. You are so righteous. But are your children happy, and will they be happy throughout their lives facing bullying and other types of violence, body shaming, age shaming, inferiority complex, inevitable physical and maybe mental succumbing of their beloved parents, etc.?

[@MrSandman_0981]

Good luck when divorce comes.

[@WhiteNoiseValhalla]

I doubt you did much raising.

[@always_b_natural703]

As a childless senior, here's what I've felt and noticed. Parenthood is a thankless, expensive and often tedious job, while at the same time is highly judged both by those close to you and by strangers. How many times do you hear parents say "I can't wait to have grandchildren!"? This is a common refrain. IOW, I like children, and I like them even more when I can have fun with them, and don't have to be responsible to raise them. Children used to be a necessity, because there was manual work to be done, and soon even very small hands would be picking up kindling to bring to the fire, or hauling cups of water to moisten the garden. In modern times, there isn't this need, and it's more commonly expected now that children have a prolonged childhood free of any responsibilities. I don't know what the answer is. I know I would have been a crap*y parent. I didn't want to subject anyone to that sort of childhood. It takes a dedicated and emotionally healthy/available person to raise a child. I laud them. I just knew it wasn't for me.

[@always_b_natural703]

@@livebreathe3011 Awesome. I've lived the life I always wanted.

[@user-sm7pm1df3e]

I'm a 35 year old woman and I feel the same way. I am a teacher and enjoy working with kids, but parenting isn't for me. I also don't want to bring children into an increasingly troubled world. I see the argument that population decline can be a problem within our given economic systems but I think overall it's a positive. We need to live more simple, quality lives. Musk and electric cars are not a solution to the environmental crisis. Fewer people living less modern lives is. I hope wildlife will regain habitats.

[@tiroles]

@@user-sm7pm1df3e For you to answer that it means that, or you still didn't understand, or you actively WANT humanity to desapear from the planet. It isn't just a matter of "Oh it will remain a happy bunch, living in peace with cows and chickens." No. To colapse, it means, we will vanish. For good. If you are ok with that, you are more indoctrinate than you might think. And that would just prove more the point of the video. And you have 35. Wait to reach to 45. It will get lonely pretty fast and pretty hard. Just listen to the older woman of the video. They are not happy. They are very sad and regretted. And you think you will be different? You will not. Sadly, you will read all I'm saying here and think you are still right.

[@fotoz2363]

@@user-sm7pm1df3e the more you age the worse it will become

[@jupiterthree5228]

Good for you :] As long as you are happy.

[@yubelyuki661]

I think that we are in the "death phase" of the "mouse utopia" experiment, only applied to humans. in the mouse utopia experiment, the mice lived much like humans, with apartments, no predators and endless food supply. They experienced an exponential growth phase where their numbers doubled every two weeks, but then something happened - social unrest developed, with young male mice unable to find a place for themselves. Mother mice suddenly abandoned their kids, as they were constantly harrassed by the males for sex, leaving them no time for proper care. By the end of the experiment, the mice stopped reproducing altogether, causing population collapse, and worse - the last mice that were still capable of reproduction refused to do so even when placed into an entirely new habitat, because the catastrophe changed them mentally so much. I see a lot of what happened in the last phase happening in human civilization right now. Young people are unable to secure their own places to live, due to lack of housing, insane rent prices etc. And the young generations who could have kids can't when they are unable to find mentally stable partners to reproduce with in the first place. Spreading incel mentality will scare away women from entering into relationships in the first place, too,because it is too dangerous for a woman to partner up with a man that will moat likely kill her.

[@Pikrodafni]

"Raising children is hard. If it was easy, fathers would be doing it." - Dorothy Zbornak, "The Golden Girls".

[@birthgap]

;)

[@user-rj2zm7ub2k]

Single mothers are the worst burden on society... Statistically.

[@TheCrispOne2024]

@@user-rj2zm7ub2k 💯!! Single motherhood is a direct result of poor decision making… leaving the gov’t and tax payer dollars to pick up the slack 😕

[@bigglyguy8429]

So FUNNY, to insult fathers as 2nd class parents, hilarious! Oh wait, where did all the good men go? Far away from people like you, and even from 'fatherhood', as that's become a sick joke now, if not a crime men are punished for. Now scroll up and watch the video again, then keep laughing.

[@HenryPaulThe3rd]

Saw you on Chris Williamson. Amazing documentary. More people need to see this before it’s too late.

[@birthgap]

Thank you Henry

[@whenpigsfly3271]

It's already too late. Capitalism, feminism and misandric laws have destroyed families, prevented families from forming, and promoted the promiscuous female. Women who have high body counts don't make good wives or good mothers.

[@purplemonsoon8376]

A lot of people aren’t gonna have kids for ethical reasons, look up Antinatalsim. This is wonderful news for us.

[@ChrisWillx]

It goes without saying that I absolutely love this. Great work mate. Keep grinding!

[@birthgap]

Views have quadrupled since I was on your Modern Wisdom podcast 2 weeks ago. Thank you Chris!

[@Erzenii]

Chris, it's Your "fault" I found out about this documentary! Thank You!

[@ashmash1934]

Just watched both shows back to back. You're all getting lost on 'why are women choosing to have fewer kids?', when the answer is in the question. Choice. Because they have a choice now. And having kids is scary, so given the choice a lot will avoid it. Women are choosing to have fewer kids because they can *choose* and it happens everywhere you give them more choice/options. The result of diluting the options you have from one to two is that it's a zero sum game. Choice will reduce the birth-rate by exactly the number of women who choose not to have kids. Choice is the problem here. Women didn't used to have these choices. That's what has changed. The birthrate drop does coincide with options increasing for women.

[@DennisNeijmeijer]

I wouldn't call choice the problem. It's the mechanism, sure. The actual problem is discouraging the choice. Looking down at motherhood and family life. A failure to make up for the village we humans once had to help raise a child. In that environment, not many want to choose for a family.

[@ashmash1934]

@@DennisNeijmeijer But isn't that the point? What has 'changed' to cause birth rates to go down? You can't really fix it if the cause was giving ppl choice. And choice will cause a massive drop off in the birth rate. All the ppl who choose to not have kids represent fewer kids than would have been born without that choice. Binary choices are zero sum, so the choice must necessarily reduce the birth rate by everyone who makes that choice. I'm not saying ppl should be unwilling parents. I'm just pointing out that no one feels ready for kids really, so when it happens most ppl are terrified, even when it's planned. Throughout history we just got through that fear and ended up glad we had kids. Now a lot of people are chickening out when nature tries to force their hand, then it never comes at the 'right time' because there really isn't a right time & you're never ready.

[@michaelsong5555]

The reason for birth rate falling is quite simple -- money. The cost of living is getting higher than the income for most people (post-tax), so people stopped having children to reduce the cost. Obviously, there are other reasons (such as freedom of not having children), but those are secondary to the primary reason, which is money.

[@eliselavallee]

As well as abortion being legalized and the invention of contraceptives. A decrees in population hurts the health of the economy. Why else was Roe vs. Wade never codified?

[@KaleighMacKay]

Many People can barely afford to financially support themselves today - let alone anyone else. housing affordability and availability is becoming a world wide issue. No one wants to adopt, people need to make something new that looks like them. And having kids just for the purpose of taking care of the aging population is a bad reason to have kids.

[@hwway4488]

The problem is that the cost of living with children for fertile adult women is too high to afford for most.

[@totem6064]

Chris Williamson sent me here

[@birthgap]

I enjoyed the conversation with Chris on his Modern Wisdom podcast greatly... thank you for "being sent" here.

[@andrewmackenzie325]

Me too. Was a fantastic discussion.

[@brockwfgmail]

Same

[@RCCarDude]

@@birthgap Have you been on Tom Bilyeu's podcast?

[@sheilatorio6811]

Me too! That was such an interesting and very important topic! More people need to know. Ok. Watching this now.

[@smitty1919]

As someone who motherhood has come into my life unexpectedly, I totally get why people are not having kids. It’s exhausting and very self-sacrificing. My third baby is due in 2 months and my other children are both under the age of 4, so my experience is a bit more intense than if I waited longer between having them. But it makes sense that women who have children, are still having more than 1 and 2. Once you have one baby, the prospect of having more is inevitable. I never thought I would have THREE kids, but becoming a mother has transformed me in a way that nothing else has done. It is a huge blessing.

[@Cocoisagordonsetter]

You know what you are doing this time around. My 3rd and final child lights up the world of even strangers. It's weird. They all come out totally unique, but you are a pro now. (Newborn phase is very very hard and very very fleeting.)

[@happythanos6632]

Whether it's blessing or not is subjective, several women have experienced many postparrtum complications it wrecks your body too much physical & mental fatigue plus the responsibility of raising the baby in a good human is no joke. It's not a blessing at least for me.

[@carlysheree3130]

@@happythanos6632yes definitely agree with pregnancy wrecking the body. My hair has never been the same since giving birth to my child 12 years ago, and my periods are terribly heavy and painful since child birth.

[@ZAWARUD00]

​@@happythanos6632That totally depends. My wife has 4 kids and is totally fine. I know women having more than 10 children, and being in great shape. One of the mothers in my parish left the hospital 24h after having her 12th child, because she was bored in the hospital.

[@KyleEvra]

Corpse Bearer!

[@user-do2ev2hr7h]

The problem with the argument being made here is that it's not really depopulation that's the problem per se, it's the fact that our societies tend to be built upon systems that assume endless and continued population growth. There's no inherent reason why we can't (eventually) build new systems better equipped to function under the new realities of demographic trends.

[@anainmazatlan]

Good point. 👍

[@whatever20485]

This.

[@spankeyfish]

Yes but we'd have to tax wealthy people for that to happen, which is why it won't.

[@kimmiewise1044]

Actually it's the opposite. These systems are designed, not on population growth, but age limits and an early age of death. Think about how much longer the human life span is now compared to just 50 years ago. While there have been birth booms and declines over the decades, the population has been relatively controlled via young deaths. Most people couldn't think about living past 70 just 50 years ago but now we have a thriving population of 90 year olds and even a population of 100 year olds. This was not precedent in most of our structures because we would expect more people to die sooner than they are. This is what programs like social security and state pension were banking on. People who would die less than 10 years on the system. This would be sustainable regardless of the birthgap because as there are less young people being born more old people would die and we would reach equilibrium. But with our expanding lifespans of people taking a $12,000 yearly pension for over 20-30 years per the law, that's more pressure on young people to pay into the same funds old people are using for far longer than intended. That creates an inverted pyramid. If more old people were dying younger than it wouldn't be an inverted pyramid, it would just become a block and reach equilibrium. But if we have an increase in life expectancy we have to match it with birthrates if we keep the same age frameworks of 65 being retirement age. Maybe we could change the law in the required age for retirement and force the older generation to work for longer as they live for longer. But it's hard to make the argument that a 75 year old grandpa should be expected to still be grinding his hours shoulder to shoulder to a 55 year old guy. But unless we start reversing the birthgap and start going above replacement, that's the only other system we can work on.

[@inapickle806]

Yup, fewer people isn't really a problem once you get past the bump in more elderly than young. That could be dealt with through fair taxation.

[@bettykober6904]

I wanted to say that the women I know personally who chose not to have children did so because - They did not want to have a relationship with a man because, in their life experience, that meant being beat-up. Other women that I know chose not to get married because, in their observation, that was the equivalent of becoming a house slave. They saw their Mothers work themselves to death on the altar of their families. The ones I knew personally, who were not happy with family life, were locked into marriage with an unfaithful husband. I reckon I would sum up the reason why a number of women might choose to not get married and have children is because - they do not want to live in fear, did not want domestic violence, did not want an unfaithful husband, did not want to be absorbed by their husband every minute of every day for the rest of their lives. I am stating some experiences. A good man with honorable qualities (faithful, honest, self-control, patience, self-sacrificing, hard-working, loving) is worth his weight in gold.

[@4chukwuebuka]

😅😂keep waiting for your good man, you might find him before the age of 60

[@duelcaliberlive]

Women only care about men being attractive. If you're not attractive you don't exist.

[@rose-yeah]

@@4chukwuebuka waiting?? 😂no. There is no a good man

[@4chukwuebuka]

@@rose-yeah 😕 so no 60 years old woman marriage?

[@gvis8217]

Blablabla typical women babbling. You and your friends probalby already rejected hundreds of good men because he was too boring or whatever. And being a housewife today is a total cakewalk copared to 60 years ago. Keep crying and have fun with your cats drama queen.

[@helenandrew4808]

Just shared this with my 20-year-old daughter, who wants children. You echo the message I give her. Having children has an expiry date, but a career does not.

[@Nyny.1000]

Bottom line.

[@whyaminotoriginal]

Whats so great about having a kid you can barely afford?

[@mrknarf4438]

@@whyaminotoriginal the love.

[@hunterbidensaidslesion1356]

@toanewday The love, the personal growth and the knowledge and realization that one is a transient cell in a larger organism that doesn't cease to exist with one's own personal death.

[@whenpigsfly3271]

What? Feminism says she can play the field while getting her professional career going and then marry a doormat at the age of 35 and start a family. Or, freeze her dried out eggs and start a family at 45. Of course, the success rate is about 3%. Only 50% of women marry. 50% of those divorce. And, 80% of those divorces are filed by the wife. So, only about 1 in 4 women get married and stay married. This is not a good environment in which to raise children.

[@AndthenthereisCencorship-xc6yi]

Lets be honest here, too. The world as it is has changed drastically from 20, 30, and 40 years ago. Prices are off the charts of inflation. Who can afford 2 or 3 children? Housing is off the charts as the cost of homes have soared into the stratosphere over the last 25 years, completely locking out most of the middle class. Jobs are not keeping up with inflation. It is common to see two parents working to make ends meet and some work multiple jobs to survive. The birth gap is not something that appeared yesterday. Economic and social conditions have so negatively impacted the lives of the middle class that it is a no brainer.

[@Not.a.bird.Person]

In my opinion, the explanation for falling birth rates is as counter-intuitive as the explanation of how population increases without a change in birth rates. That is, for the same reason the older population becomes larger, their influence increases over time and the incentives are for them to care more about the issues affecting them. If you have a high population of old people, let's say the median age starts increasing and goes to 40-50 years old by virtue of having better healthcare technology, by default you have a whole population who can't vote until they are 18-21 and have no economic decisions or impact either and that means that if you are not careful, the majority interests start to diverge from children and young child bearing people both economically and politically towards older people. In the old way of doing things, the state had nothing to do with the care system for old people. Most old people who couldn't work had to hope they would stay on the good side of their children to stay alive or continue working till their death and that death happened much sooner. Today, the situation is much different, the converging interests of old people are to stay alive and happy for as long as possible and with longevity now possible through medicine, countries started to adopt pension systems and those pension systems are, in pretty much every case, a ponzi scheme between old and young people where the young keep the fresh money coming in and the old split the rewards. The same ponzi scheme is also operating in much of the rest of society as well when factoring jobs and their pay structure (favoring the old), assets accumulation (favoring the old who accumulated) and entitlements (most entitlements go directly to older people through healthcare). By living longer than they used to and in a better health than was historically achievable, the older people of the past 30-40 years have had pretty much the entire deck of cards for them to play to their advantages and those advantages directly come into contradiction with the life quality of the young population capable of having children. By accumulating assets on a ponzi retirement scheme, housing prices are impossible to attain for young people willing to have children. By having been part of companies for 40 years and having salary giving positions, old people can suck every bit of money out a company that could go towards sustainable salaries for the young and give it to themselves. By having the most electing power, old people could elect whoever would promise the most entitlements to them. In the end, when out of control, this scheme breaks because it impoverishes the young so much that they simply cannot allow themselves to have children as it becomes an economic impossibility. What happens then is a spiral of population bombing because no one has the social courage required to kill the pension/economic system keeping their older relatives alive and keeping every young person too poor to afford having children in quantities that could break the cycle.

[@amyrick5631]

I know that amongst my peer group there is a lot of us in our late 20s/early 30s without children and all of say we just can’t afford to bring children into this world. Currently it’s become impossible to rent or own a home without two adults working full time. I also think there is something to be attributed to governments creating an unstable and seemingly unsafe society, nobody thinking logically wants to bring life into an unstable society.

[@FactsCountdown]

It's a propaganda by crony capitalist like Elon Musk, they just want more slaves workers and consumers for their company

[@sw6118]

It’s impossible to do without two incomes and every woman knows that the likelihood of divorce is 50% so it will be on her. Yes, some men are asked to pay child maintenance in divorce and most who are required to do, but many simply walk, or refuse to work, and it becomes a huge problem. So that 50% divorce rate makes children quite a gamble.

[@Newlinjim]

This is the other side of the equation. Those having children are driven by emotion which increases societal instability.

[@izdatsumcp]

presumably you can find cheap rent if you move out of the city. it seems you are instead pursuing career over children.

[@izdatsumcp]

@@sw6118 lol women are the ones who initiate divorce

[@LadyMarigoldWithers]

41 and childless in UK, never met a man who was willing to commit fully and I didn’t want kids without marriage so wasted many years in ltrs and time just vanished 🤷🏻‍♀️ guess I thought I would meet someone who shared my values and it would happen naturally but it didn’t. I’ve never been very maternal anyway so I’m kind of on the fence about it. I’m likely gonna look after my folks and have my dogs. All the single men I know including my brother aren’t interested in commitment to anything except their own enjoyment and don’t want children. I think a huge part of that is the risk of losing it all if the woman leaves and weaponises the kids. Until the courts address the disparity there and incentivise couples to breed I doubt that will change. I’m surprised that keeps being left out of the mating crisis conversation, I’d wager it’s one of the biggest factors. Also, I don’t like the lack of autonomy in our lives here, everything is regulated/taxed/monitored and technology has overstepped it’s utility. We’re so separate from nature now that even I feel lost here sometimes and that’s not a cycle I have an interest in perpetuating. Just my thoughts, my friends are considering a second child but are on minimum wage and that’s the biggest reason they probably won’t.

[@whenpigsfly3271]

I applaud you. Not many women even know this. The very few that do usually speak of it in very hushed tones and certainly not in public. As it turns out, misandric laws have been the most effective form of birth control the world has ever seen.

[@skylinefever]

I'm grateful you never tried to baby trap a man. That to me is far worse than anything. It makes someone else suffer because the system sucks.

[@LadyMarigoldWithers]

@@whenpigsfly3271 I don’t doubt it for a second. My cousin went through this when I was in my formative years and almost killed himself. He has had no contact with his daughters for years now as they were turned against him. I also had the door slammed in my face by the mum at the time and that was that. I had babysat often and loved those girls and I think it probably had a lasting effect on me which is why I’m indifferent about having my own.

[@LadyMarigoldWithers]

@@skylinefever you have to want a baby for that 😂. It’s such an awful thing to do either way, I’ve heard of men sabotaging their partners birth control too! Why would you!?

[@whenpigsfly3271]

@Beelzeblub - I think most women don't realize how feminism has stolen their hope of having a family. It has taken 70+ years for men to fully appreciate the risks associated with having a family. When you compare the risk against the cost and benefits, having a family, from a man's point of view, is just not viable. It is strangely amusing to see women in LTRs diagnose the marriage problem as "men are insecure" or "men are intimidated by my education and income." Once men realize how dangerous family courts are, the best relationship a woman can hope for is a sterile one called "friends with benefits." Yet the younger women trudge on carrying the feminist's banner with all its attendant vitriolic rhetoric and having no idea of the harm they're doing. We should bear in mind that the legal and social systems we labor in are designed by rich oligarchs, and everything going on in the world is exactly as they want it to be. The oligarchs will soon see a world containing 500 million people. I can't believe that the people who produced this video portray the fertility situation as an accident or a social misstep. The reality is that it has been engineered to be this way, and feminism and family laws are part of that social engineering. The history of the world is nothing but an ongoing story about the oligarchs mistreatment of the peasants and what the peasants are going to do about it.

[@gertrudesguidote819]

Am 76, with 13 children, 25 grandchildren and 1 wonderful great grandson and immensely enjoying myself! I’ve long forgotten all the pains and sufferings of helping my husband let our kids grow and survive. God has been a faithful provider and support, I have no regrets 😊!

[@danbaltic9678]

Amazing!

[@ElijahDecker]

25 grandchildren and only 1 has reproduced once? Are any of the others at least planning for children?

[@VultureXV]

_Create a system of economic demand that requires extreme working hours just to make ends meet for a majority of the population_ _Refuse to provide assistance towards younger, childbearing age, couples_ _Continue to economically leech off of a dwindling youthful class, which in turn creates even less for the youthful class_ _Bitch and moan that people aren't having kids_ My words of wisdom to the Oligarchy: Congratulations, you played yourself.

[@novakattila]

People used to have way more kids in way worse circumstances. My grandma was born in a little cabin without electricity or running water.. She had 8 siblings. She lived to be 91. We're bitching about non-existent things today. The fact is we're lazy, entitled and prefer living comfortably over furthering society. And so we will die out, and it's not gonna be pretty in the end.

[@VultureXV]

@@novakattila I want my future kids to have an actual chance, not just work for the rest of their life in some dreg job living in a derelict manner until they're gray in the hair.

[@novakattila]

@@VultureXV thats literally what life is mate. People are just mentally too weak today to tolerate hardship.

[@magnusdanielsson2749]

A few things happened in the 70s all over the world. The views of the future turned from ”glass is half full” to ”glass is half empty” The environmental movement. The shift from classical economic theory to the neo classical. The modern feminist movement and liberation of women. The spread of more agressive consumerism. Speculative economical behaviors of companies. A disconnect between companies profits and worker salaries(one increased exponential the other stood still) Individualism of one kind or another came to dominate. All this combined makes for a quite big change in cultures.

[@ronmaest]

You forgot the pill and tampons.

[@skylinefever]

Yes, improvements in mass production were supposed to enable 4 day work weeks while providing us with all we need. Instead, more of the profitability of automation went to the people at the top, meaning the rest of us work even harder. We just work harder with more efficient equipment so the bigshots can buy bigger yachts. If regular people were seeing the upside in advanced automation, we might have enough time and money to do a great job of raising kids, if that is what we all desired.

[@itchynail]

@@skylinefever to be frank, its not just the bigshots who benefit from men's overwork but "liberated women". They account for 70+% of consumption in the USA and produce nothing. Including babies.

[@jhwwebster7273]

Easy to see that fear keeps women from having children; fear of being trapped, overwhelmed, losing their identity. I am here to tell you that your fears will come true..but only in small doses and it is far outweighed by the joy and deep love and satisfaction you have because of your children.

[@babyboijeremy]

​@@ronmaest Tampons don't affect fertility. It make more sense to say women entering the workforce affected these numbers more so. So now they keep delaying child birth. However they have the freedom to decide, and mostly they never find the *perfect* guy so they eventually settle and when they do ofcourse its too late. Its a lovely thing how mothernature always wins.

[@blessednhm]

This truly will be a difficult problem to solve. One of my life long dreams is to be a mother. Unfortunately it is getting harder to find someone with similar values willing to marry and raise a family together.

[@clareunderwood6690]

I think this is a really valid point. I feel that a lot of women in the previous generations were willing to put up with a lot more than the younger generations today, in what they expect from men. Personally, I feel like men need to do their trauma healing work and get in touch with their emotions, in order to meet women's expectations. I watched my own mother and her mother in damaging codependent relationships. There are many reasons why women aren't having kids, and this is a factor, as well as burgeoning prices, lack of community and support, climate crisis, a sense that there is over-population, because where I live it doesn't feel like there is under-population, when everything is over-subscribed and not working properly. It's complex and multi-layered. I hope you fulfilled your dreams. I became a mum at 39 years old, but I only have one child.

[@Panamenya]

@@clareunderwood6690 The world has never had more people in it than it does now. Tomorrow it will have even more. Next year it will have even more. Twenty years from now, it will have even more. In the year 2100, it will have even more, and it will still rise. There is no birthgap happening. There is no under-population. This film is a manipulation, cherry-picking a few countries and making it seem like this is happening everywhere, when it's not.

[@johnburman966]

People will never admit they swapped shiny stuff for having kids. I helped raise 5 stepchildren from birth to maturity but now live alone...forgotten by them...they have no children. My solution is to have a creative inner and outer life, and never let age get in the way...until I let go this body.

[@korenna123]

I'm confused what do you mean? You raised children and they still left you, so are you better off than the people who swapped for shiny things initially?

[@johnburman966]

@@korenna123 No I am not better off. The point is that I did try and I failed. But I matured a lot doing it. Why don't people admit they are selfish, easier to have cats, no sacrifice... and just be honest. But I'm not whining about it I learnt a lot. Just think it's sad....like seeing nature dying.

[@user-do2ev2hr7h]

I don't think it's that they won't admit it so much as it is they simply aren't particularly bothered by it.

[@johnburman966]

@@user-do2ev2hr7h You said it. This is probably the real reason I live alone.

[@Not.a.bird.Person]

Young people, by far, are not wealthy enough today to own shinny things and are not even close to being responsible for this. I'm talking about the real shinny things here : housing, cars, healthcare, etc.. The reality is most young people pay around 80% of their money towards old people owning shinny things. For instance, I pay around 35% in taxes where I live. About 70-80% goes to socialized healthcare which I will never realistically use in my life and which is used to the tune of 80% by people older than 55 where I live who overwhelmingly overcrowd the system. Around 10% of my taxes go towards pensions, again, a shinny old people system I will never experience in my lifetime because there mathematically will not be enough children to make the system work by the time I get to 65. That's a solid 80% of my taxes going to old people owning shinny things I don't. (up to 28% of my gross earnings through taxation) The remainining money I have goes towards shelter, living expenses and accumulation of wealth in the hopes of buying a home. Let's go through each : -My shelter is an apartment owned by old people who use it as an investment scheme for their retirement. I pay about 35% of my aftertax earnings towards shelter as I have no other inexpensive choice. (about 23% of gross earnings) -My living expenses are mostly food, transport and communication, all of which combined account for around 25% of aftertax earnings and half of which goes towards paying salaries of overpaid executives who all happen to be over 55-60. (up to 8% of gross earnings) -Any remaining money goes towards investments and paying back debt. Both endeavours are basically how banks can afford paying other investors (older people) who both made my debt possible and paid first into the pot of investment funds hoping the line would continue to go up in value. (26% of gross earnings) I'm at a total of 85% of my gross earnings going towards old people directly or indirectly in this calculation (not factoring many things for sure but still probably accurate within +/-10%). If anyone has any shinny thing here, it's definitely not me or other young people. A cellphone is not a shinny thing, a house and healthcare are.

[@thanasisk]

One comment here - why sustain the population at current levels, given that automation and machines will increasingly replace human labour?

[@inapickle806]

Exactly

[@user-gg3nm4xm6r]

The opening sequence of Mike Judge's film "Idiocracy" was an eye opener 20 years ago..

[@MrBobDobolina]

A company in Seattle raised the minimum salary paid to $45,000 and adjusted everyone else's salary accordingly. This wasn't done as part of an experiment but the results were analyzed by the University of Washington. In the two years following this salary increase, the company experienced a significant baby boom among its employees. It's the money, stupid.

[@gutsblackswordsman4707]

Yet we can't make all 8 billion people have the same kind of lifestyle and amount of wealth right? perhaps this population drop is really necessary, it just has not come up to Southeast Asia or Africa until now. Stabilize it to around 4 billion and I bet everyone lives abundantly.

[@Moreau121]

Can you post a source?

[@NoOneToNoOne89]

@@gutsblackswordsman4707exactly. Supply and demand. When the Forrest becomes overgrown, a fire clears out the excess to make room for new growth. These cycles are observable everywhere in nature. Yet, we humans, in all of our arrogance, think we’re above the cycle. Silly humans.

[@thelastbrobo7826]

Cap.

[@zoroarkwaifu5914]

@@gutsblackswordsman4707 thanos is that you?

[@Marrero1]

One dad used to be able to support his wife and 3 kids with a regular old job. Now both parents have to work that same job just to support themselves.

[@stanbernadino]

This was very enlightening, thank you!

[@jnauttube]

In interviewing the women who fall into the 'unplanned childlessness' category, I can't help but think back to the young couple at the beginning of the movie "Idiocracy". "We can't have children right now... not with the market the way it is..."

[@hunterbidensaidslesion1356]

Mike Judge is an astute observer of human nature.

[@anissaferringer4965]

I work in social services in a part of the country still "green". The other couple isn't too far off from reality either.

[@gorochu4287]

Do you think your child deserves parents who are at least financially equipped to raise children?

[@MrSandman_0981]

@@gorochu4287 As someone who grew up in a very low middle class family I ask the same question.

[@flewjewcoop5308]

Excellent analysis and long overdue conversation. My eldest of three children is my only girl. She went on to college after high-school and married her college sweetheart right after the graduation. Rather than her pursuing a career they made the conscious decision to start a family. It was tough on only his income, but he is a dedicated father and a hard worker. I now have three precious grandchildren who have the benefit of two parents and a stay at home mom. A real success story!

[@lemaindefemme4858]

An educated mom, at that. Well done, all.

[@hub5343]

That is awesome - well done to you and to your daughter - and her partner. I think many people shy away from struggle nowadays, and live in constant fear of it such that they never have children for fear of not being able to support their family: but it is false reasoning, as you simply find a way to support it. People need faith in their own ability to find ways to support their family.

[@MadFlourish]

Happy for you but want to point out that at any moment her husband could have died and then she would be stuck with 3 children + a degree but very outdated (or no) work history. My mother was in that position when trying to go back to work after being a SAHM for several years. The worst part is that she never paid into social security so now everything she makes is for that goal. My father made great money as an engineer btw

[@cventer838]

@MadFlourish Isn't there life insurance policies for sudden or accidental death? I was a stay at home mom for 25 years, when my youngest went to 12th grade, I started working again at my husband's company and don't regret either option. It was wonderful to be there for my kids and it's great working again. It's not that complicated. You adapt to your circumstances. My 3 kids, one is working in the company, the other just graduated and has a job, the 3rd one is still a student. Kids don't live with you forever, they become independent. They all had part time jobs. I'm sure each situation has it's own challenges, but being frugal in any situation you find yourself in, make life bearable. No situation, can not be overcome!

[@elizabethwallace-donnelly.2356]

💜🦋🤗

[@chriswatson1698]

A child is two dependents: the child himself and the adult who must care or teach him. Unlike children, seniors are often self-supporting and even economically active. Supporting the elderly is not a problem because we are no longer supporting children and their mothers. We will just support the elderly, instead of the young.

[@pjlove2387]

What a lot of people miss is that people have changed and so have the children. 40 Years ago,, kids were more respectful. They were able to get part time jobs and pay for their own entertainment and clothes. Most of them left home at 18 and became functional adults. Now they are living at home well into their 20,s as dependents..a lot of them not working either because they can’t find jobs or they don’t want to. They are not even really contributing to the upkeep of the house and expect to be provided for and taken care of. And yes it is a failure of parents, society, and our public education system. The segment of the population that has the time, money, and energy to devote their mid 20,s to early 30,s raising children are very much over taken by those who are either struggling in life and love, or those that want to live their younger years enjoying themselves.

[@hdhdkskdhd9745]

This was worth every minute of watching. The truth is a beautiful but harsh reality. Thank you.

[@birthgap]

I appreciate your feedback and am glad that you enjoyed watching.... Thank you!

[@Jackrobert28]

@@birthgap Saw your video from Chris channel. Great video. A thought experiment question I have is, would people seeing more of the life cycle aka more people seeing births, deaths and in between not have a positive affect on people to have more children. So not having that would have an inverse effect ? Also after a war, birth rates increase but as society ages (older people) they are less likely to go to war. Would war create a push for more natalist policy as people want to have their nations survive ?

[@birthgap]

The loss of a sense of community in many societies has certainly distanced people from "the life cycle". Not seeing/feeling that could well be a factor, as you suggest... More generally I believe the solution to stabilizing birthrates lies at the community level

[@Jackrobert28]

@@birthgap indeed. This seems eerily similar to the Calhoun mouse experiment,behavioural sink. Same problem, we have mostly everything but still are not having children.

[@milanjovisic5988]

It can't be fixed. Countries need to have reduction in welfare state. We need to abolish retirement and lowering taxes + more immigration.

[@jocelynisom2500]

When talking to my 21 year old daughter about this, she said she feels like she has to make a choice between children or buying a house and is very scared and frustrated with trying to plan a future

[@LilyGazou]

Don’t buy a house. Buy land. Put up a yurt or cabin. Makes no sense to take on a huge debt of a house.

[@l.3626]

thank you! great voice as well

[@RoboNurse84]

When I was in elementary school in the 90s we had a speaker come in to tell us all the woes our society will face if we continue to have the population growth rate we were experiencing at that time; resource/water scarcity, pollution, poverty, etc. They emphasized consuming less, reusing and recycling, and not having children; or at least having 2 maximum in order to replace the 2 parents. I must have been ~12 years old when I was introduced to this pescimistic, dystopian outlook on life and it has poisoned my way of thinking for the past 28 years. Now, my country is focusing on bringing in hundreds of thousands of immigrants to make up for the negative population growth, and offers scarce resources, programs, etc., for the citizens who were born here.

[@hahamasala]

The reason there are scarce resources for the people here or anywhere is because we have a plutocracy of the top 0.1% that hoards the vast majority of wealth. If they really wanted to they could solve world hunger. And having positive growth from immigration is a great thing economically. They should not be seen as burdens just like children should never be seen as burdens.

[@ElijahDecker]

​@@hahamasalaWealth disparity is a factor, but you do realize that the majority of the 0.1%'s "wealth" is not material, right? Sure, they own huge tracts of land and megatons of luxury goods, but the majority of their net worth is in things that don't tangibly exist, like equities and bonds. Liquidating their portfolios and redistributing their currency would only cause economic havoc and inflation. Only investments that decrease resource scarcity and save labor grow the real economy.

[@oz0912]

Came straight here from your Chris W interview. Thank you for your vital work

[@birthgap]

Thank you Marty

[@angstandvexed]

Thank you for covering this topic, I spent years speaking with people I know. Sadly people are so worried about the future, careers, the planet, on and on the concerns pile up. The one piece of advice my dad told me and I never forgot was, "There never is a right time to have kids." He explained there is only now and have kids now and life becomes about living for them and not about living for just yourself. We are meant to have companions on this journey we call life.

[@jacksonbow2766]

Briliant ending to your post. I had a bit of disagreement on twitter today with a women who was preaching about global warming. I advised that population collapse is the biggest threat right now. They googled the global pop right now and kept on that train. There is no birthrate decline according to many on twitter bevause the global popualtion is in decline. These people would not even watch this documentary. I gave up for a bit and just left them the link to this video pleading they try it just for half an hour at least before dismissing it.

[@jonathanprin1998]

Very well expressed. Problem is most ladies don't feel the same. Life should come when it comes, with sex a natural hobby.😅

[@mrmaly9861]

Guess you encourage teenage pregnancy as well

[@jacksonbow2766]

@@mrmaly9861 Did someone someone piss in your cornflakes this morning?

[@rocknpirates456]

I am definitely one of those people you talk about. I'm mostly concerned about the environment. In many cities in my country we've reached day zero. I'm an engineer, no jobs will offer much more than minimum wage and I refuse to struggle unnecessarily. I am a woman who loves her career and hobbies. Love spending my time with myself. I am my best company. And I'm not saying you are wrong or people like you are wrong. Just saying people like me exist, happily, and we are not wrong either. Being able to understand what brings us both happiness and respect each other is the true key. Best wishes.

[@jeremywvarietyofviewpoints3104]

If we managed to make population stable someone would write a book called "The Stagnant Population Bomb".

[@alexanderthegreatoz5945]

😂

[@JapanTouristWEST]

Amazing documentary and I’m interested in seeing more of your research. I’m involved in community revitalization here in Japan for over 20 years and am wondering if your birthgap data models can be run village, town, city, prefecture, region to simulate timings of area decline.

[@joannevanness3045]

My personal opinion: Japan should offer work visas to people from other countries and allow the workers to work towards full citizenship. I know it’s a reach culturally and Japan historically has been pretty closed to foreigners. But it seems like now people in Japan are aware of the problem. I wonder if this will make them more open to immigration.

[@spankeyfish]

@@joannevanness3045 They've been increasing the number of visas they offer over the last 5yrs or so. I think citizenship is still impossible, though.

[@andreasb3347]

​@@spankeyfishonly for super super phd and what have you people and they will work primarily and not make children 😂

[@andreasb3347]

a normal guy cannot go to Japan and work or to Korea etc. they have incompetent governments in this area and wont change

[@whiskybrush3219]

It's scary having children in this day and age. For one thing, cost of living is outrageous. You have a generation of young adults in many parts of the world that face no possibility of ever becoming homeowners, never mind face an eventual retirement. Job availability is apparently plentiful, but job security is at an all time low, and future employment predictions are blurry as per what fields will be available and which will be replaced by technology. We are also the result of 4 decades of emphasizing self reliance, competence and accomplishments, lifestyle fulfilments personal goal achievement, traveling, etc. That's a lot of expectations on the shoulders of women who not that long had no access to financial stability if their marriage turned bad or went belly up. I absolutely understand the reluctance of locking themselves in a 20 year commitment of child rearing where a big chunk of this time is most likely to see her become less employable and havr to go back to square 1.

[@jayc342009]

There simply is no incentive to have kids other than "it's rewarding". Yeah, sure it is. I'll pass on that, i can't afford to live myself.

[@MyBelch]

This "day and age" is a lot easier to navigate than the 60s or 70s.

[@jaazz90]

Your cost of living is vastly cheaper than cost of living in 1800 yet they had more children. People faced lifetime of servitude to their lords with no prospects of having freedom !!! and still had more children. Your ancestors didn't have food security, often dying of starvation, and yet had more children. They would love to dream of job security. All those reasons are bullshit, excuses, not the reason.

[@HazzyWazzey]

@@jaazz90Hahahah you’re so delusional!

[@jaazz90]

@@HazzyWazzey Hahahah really? You're the delusional one. You don't want kids, simple as. And instead of being honest to yourself you come up with excuses.

[@stellatidman9874]

I am a grandmother of 7. Because we are a pro life family. An unplanned pregnancy when my daughter was 16, she now has 4 children , my son later had 3. So from 2 children myself I am now a matriarch and the envy of many of my friends who thought the "right "thing to do was have a procedure to deal with the "problem". All our lives are richer, grandchildren have cousins that enrich their lives . Everyone wins . Get this message out !! Thank you .

[@Ptaku93]

that's wonderful, I'm so happy for you

[@jenfoster128]

That is so lovely! I have 7 children, my brother has none, so my kids won't ever get to experience cousins. My mother has tried to talk me out of having anymore kids since I had the first two even though she herself came from a family of 8 and loves her brothers and sisters. People are envious of her too to have so many grandchildren but she views them as a burden and would rather take trips and go out to dinner instead of spending time with them. It's really sad.

[@brandom1953]

I'm very happy for you. I bought in to the "Population Bomb", I'm now 70 and grieving the children and grandchildren that I don't have. This video and the research that went in it is pretty convincing. Also alarming is the fact that America leads the world in the number maternal deaths. The maternal deaths ratio in America is 33 deaths per 100,000 births. The nation behind us is Canada @ 11 deaths per 100,000 births.

[@michaelmaclean5688]

new life is never the wrong thing, even if it seems at the moment an inconvenience.

[@RemoteViewr1]

God Bless You❤

[@zoedickeson6111]

This is interesting & relevant Thank you.

[@isabellacostantino2497]

People cannot afford to have children anymore… not because we cannot give up something… its BECAUSE YOU JUST CANT MAKE IT! Children need dignity and UNFORTUNATELY MONEY is what you need!

[@katiez688]

As an inaugural Millennial I feel so VALIDATED by this global development. All of us powerless “little” people have felt like we have no power to fight back against the ruling class. But we are realizing how powerful we are when we refuse to reproduce and give the ruling and political class new serfs.

[@skylinefever]

Yes, I love making a similar point. Why have children so the system can enslave them?

[@Uber1937]

Tengo dos hijos y os doy la razón.

[@crystalfullerton3908]

Gen X and SAME. It fills me with satisfaction.

[@dr.a.w]

The game is over when the pawns refuse to play.😛🍿

[@dr.a.w]

@@crystalfullerton3908 Gen X also. The first generation people took pills to not have...

[@5uper11ero9irl]

I'm a woman who wanted to have children but the demands of our modern capitalistic society has made that impossible to do it and be a good parent. Kids need not just food, shelter and clothing. They need love, time, and attention, and glasses and braces and collage funds (because who can count on their countries education system to properly prepare them for the modern workforce)......

[@chad1682]

5uper11ero9irl isn't that incredible sad though? Or maybe you didn't want a family enough to pack your bags and leave the country? I would think that if something was central to your life you'd be willing to do absolutely anything to get it....

[@abcxyz123]

​@@chad1682 that cannot be expected of most, obviously.

[@friedawells6860]

I think the problem is not capitalism. In the 40s, 50s and 60s they had capitalism but they did not have this problem because society was built around single income families. I am grateful as a women for my education and my opportunities, but now it's not just that women *can* have careers but they are *expected* to have careers and it's very very hard to be a mother and a successful career person. Its like the servant with two masters parable. And now the cost of living and consumer pricing is ajusted around single persons who can spend all their wages on themselves and things aren't commonly priced for families.

[@abcxyz123]

@@friedawells6860 the problem is definitely capitalism. Back then you had social democracy pushing back capitalism to an acceptable level for more people and long-term health. Soon after capitalism became way to overarching other aspects of society. People are ready for much more social democracy and less capitalism, they often are just not aware of it due to the constant mainstream narratives.

[@friedawells6860]

@@abcxyz123 Perhaps, but you can see that socialist countries like Denmark and Germany that have extensive regulations, maternity leaves, free daycare, free education and social welfare still have this problem and their birth gap is even larger than the US. I think we have created a culture where women are ashamed to take time off work to raise their kids. We have decided that having a career is the ultimate form of fulfillment and that the woman is lazy or missing out on her potential is she stays home while the husband works. And it may have something to do with a sort of culture of capitalism that molds people through advertising to be the ultimate worker and consumer, but I think the economic system itself is not to blame.

[@andrewpawley8883]

VERY interesting analysis. Enjoyed it a lot. Good job.

[@musicbus84]

the reason women are not having children is that they need 2 incomes to support a household...