Europe’s Fertility Crisis Explained

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While global fertility is dropping, provisional data for 2023 suggests that Europe's is falling at an unprecedented rate. In this video, we'll explore the existing crisis, why it's getting worse and whether European governments can do anything to fix it.
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[@JayAndNightASMR]

Governments keep saying theyre worried then do the bare minimum to fix it, like everything else

[@blueboy3990]

Well the people themselves are the problem

[@inteallsviktigt]

I don’t think that’s true. And more that they quite literally have zero idea how to fix it.

[@blueboy3990]

You can't force people to have kids in a democracy

[@missm10]

@@inteallsviktigt because they want to uphold capitalism. encouraging people to have kids means putting practical support in place for those to want to have kids. right now it dosen't exist.

[@134343]

​@@blueboy3990if childcare is free, get long periods of maturity leave, better orchestrate work & private life, and get all kinds of tax benefits when having children most likely more people would get children since you take out the monetary and personal stress.

[@user-goohanbeom]

I would say the problem is that younger generations are no more able to own anything. Securing good job is harder, houses and rent are evermore expensive, marriage is unstable... good luck with having kids.

[@elorenzo98]

They are just spoiled and too concerned of economy in life. Care less and fuck more, that’s the way.

[@da1vinci1edi]

West is being destroyed on purpose they don't want white people anymore.

[@Elemblue2]

wefs wants lower population, so this is a desired side effect of youll own nothing and be happy. The wef is evil. Not saying they always get their way, but they do alot. Dont be social engineered into your choices.

[@bharath2508]

exactly

[@chrislouis7913]

I blame this generation. No wonder marriages don’t work when people are on dating apps or not serious about relationships at all and simply just want to “play around”

[@andreamazzeo4306]

I'm a 25 year old Italian. Neither I nor any of my peers I know are anywhere near getting married or buying a home. I do not expect that to happen when we are 30. It's not about lack of will, but literal impossibility.

[@croatianwarmaster7872]

I just want to meet a girl man, and make some babies

[@arcticbeak]

Well, if you can't buy/build a house without kids, you certainly also can't with kids. I'm waiting to have kids until I live in my own house.

[@whitneyanders5945]

The Italians I know all waited to mid to late thirties to get into a serious relationship and were all living with their parents until then. So.. according to your culture, you still have plenty of time to get married and pump out the kiddos (if you so desire).

[@orfeoassiti6669]

@@whitneyanders5945Yeah sure, but having kids at 35 means that IF YOU DO (big IF), at most you can have a couple of them. That’s why our birth rate is not of course 0. But for every woman that wants and has children (usually one or at most two) there is also another woman that cannot or does not want to have children, that’s why the average is around 1 births per woman

[@josevilas4927]

Non è una mancanza di volontà, ma una mancanza di soldi. E pensare che l'Italia ha inviato milioni nei paesi d'America compreso il mio.

[@MsMeyara]

As a Dutchie I can tell that things have changed so badly in the last ten years. When I got my daughter 9 years ago, things were financally so much better. These days you've gotta be rich to afford a child. It's also not helping that both parents are expected to work fulltime.

[@etiennewijler6830]

Indeed, especially with those absurd childcare prices. Monthly payments to daycare can easily exceed 2000 euro, such that one of the parents might end up working solely to afford daycare...

[@wenterinfaer1656]

​@@etiennewijler6830Hammer your life away to afford a child - the idyll we deserve.

[@rcdmrl]

@@etiennewijler6830it’s similar in the uk. We pay 2k and, on top of that, it’s 8:30pm and my wife is still working. It’s just too complicated.

[@nothereyetlost]

That’s not the problem. That’s only a symptom

[@PepeCoinMania]

this is not the core of the issue

[@drac124]

- Kids: living with their parents with 30 years old. - Government: Why this generation are not having babies???? Truly a puzzle.

[@Getsbuffer]

And yet, people were fucking in multi generational households for hundreds of years previously and the fertility rate was very high. Yes, even in industrial societies where children were a net burden for years, not just farms. Granny was the childcare.

[@MrSam2497]

If you live with parents and have full time job, at age of 30 you should have least a 100k€ in savings since you don't have living expenses as your parents probably already have paid their mortgage.

[@lucky2516]

@@MrSam2497Assuming parents have their own place and not also renting 😅

[@RollOnVlogs]

@@MrSam2497 Delusional take

[@MrSam2497]

@@lucky2516 wasn't it supposed to be the boomers fault that us younger generations can't have houses because they are hoarding them or asking too much for the old house? Now even they don't have house? Like seriously which generation was supposed to he the one that fucked everything up? The silent one? The lost one?

[@xanxus211]

To spite your young is to spite your future. House prices, cost of living, house prices, the prohibitive cost of child rearing, house prices and a hostile ageist governments unwilling to make the necessary change to rectify these problems are all to blame.

[@thatonejoey1847]

So the old, most likely childless fools that run our governments don't care about the future generations? Maybe a system of governance that prioritises lying and short term gains without a way for the common man to cull them when they get to geriatric was a mistake

[@kanthanesankandiah760]

This is huge victory. Fertlity rate must go down and continue to do so until Russia Ukraine war is over or All of us must become millionaire

[@thatonejoey1847]

@@kanthanesankandiah760 wtf are you saying, I read it 10 times and it doesn't make sense

[@joeblogs6598]

The fundamental issue is government interference. The housing crisis exists because of the regulations that must be met in order to build a house. Costs of living and child rearing have increased due to inflation, which is created directly and solely by the government printing money, it does so because of a refusal to balance the budgets. We must have a significantly smaller government, at least an order of magnitude smaller. If you refuse to do so then there is nothing to be done but let the decline continue to its end.

[@kanthanesankandiah760]

@@thatonejoey1847 do you love war you left wing terrorist

[@RuRaynor]

Using immigration to solve the fertility crisis is the dumbest thing. Bringing more adults into the country puts more pressure on housing, which is the number 1 reason that people are not having children.

[@fenom6159]

If you really want a better fertility rate, you need to take away women's rights. Pursuing education and carrier leads to having children later in life, having fewer of them or not having them at all. The solution is extremely easy, yet no politician will approve of this because this might get them unellected.

[@konraddobson]

Also causes a lot more problems and doens't even solve the one it was intended to. It's idiotic.

[@s0vhjfe4SA08adc9js]

It also puts downward pressure on wages leaving the working class poorer overall, meaning less kids. The only ones who benefit are industrialists, who also happen to fund the campaigns of politicians and coincidentally, the media.

[@carlislebailey8902]

Costs more money than it would or ever will generate lol 😂 just calculate the costs on training , language courses , cultural classes if needed etc .. and at the end vast numbers still do not work also the amongst 2 generations migrants !! Never mind the security trreats and social havoc that it causes which costs money on number of fronts

[@Obinsfnubf447]

They know it. They do it on purpose. And normies don't realize a thing.

[@fedbat2199]

My government is so worried about population decline that it lowered taxes to the rich. Good job 👍

[@sifuhotman1300]

They should Force the rich to breed ;) Make them have big families so the wealth gets distributed Plus they'd be well raised and well fed

[@JamesSmith-ix5jd]

They will also tax the poor for not having babies, just wait.

[@orfeoassiti6669]

@@sifuhotman1300I think forcing someone to breed is called “rape” and it’s not usually accepted in most societies 😅😂 Though actually in reality it’s the very opposite, rich people don’t have kids, poor people do

[@gringo6362]

Taxation is theft

[@manudwarf49]

In Dublin: ● €2,500 per month rent for a 2-bed apartment ● €1,000 per month per child for crèche "Why aren't people having more children? Truly incomprehensible."

[@danielwebb8402]

Almost like, as per 98 of the previous 100 generations, you are supposed to bring up your own children rather than prioritise 2 cars and foreign holidays

[@Rambletripe1]

That's a huge factor, but it's worth noting it's declining in fertility every country on the planet including those where cost isn't a factor. (hang on he kind made that point as i finished writing this)

[@citizenkhan4696]

@@danielwebb8402 B!tch why the fvck do i pay almost 30% in monthly taxes for!?

[@Davdit]

Meanwhile Africans live on the streets and still have 5 kids

[@cz2301]

Foreign holidays are more pleasant and instagrammable than raising kids

[@zibbitybibbitybop]

The housing problem is self-explanatory: if you cram everybody into tiny apartments in a city where rent and everything else is expensive, they'll make the logical choice to not have any kids because it costs too much and there's no place to put them. It's not that nobody wants kids anymore, it's that it makes no sense to have them under the circumstances, and if you don't address the real underlying issues, no amount of subsidies or other carrots will matter.

[@888records]

There’s so many reasons nowadays why kids are not needed or even more of a hassle.

[@nietzscheankant6984]

Who, exactly, is FORCIBLY CRAMMING people into "tiny apartments"? Just how on earth do you have the gall to speak about "the real underlying issues", while not actually bringing up a single one yourself, and instead engaging in equivocation, with nebulous implications of malevolent forces working behind the scenes or whatever?

[@AndRei-yc3ti]

Thats an excuse. It has little to do with "Children are expensive". Should prices magically fall people still wont have kids. Why? The institute of motherhood has veen destroyed and women think being a mother is something bad or takes second place to career. Also, because the youth wants more "Me time" to travel and have fun and think that would be impossible with kids. Also the fact that men and women are in competition in the workplace and are at war socially doesnt help either. Fix this and prices dont matter.

[@martel8936]

​@@888recordsyeah who need kids anyway besides every species on earth

[@Memoreism]

If the government paid us 2k a month to have a kid, I'd say sure, why not? But that's not going to happen lol.

[@Ivytheherbert]

I live in Sweden. I live in a small student room, because I had to put the rest of my income towards private healthcare when the constant mismanagement of the public system saw waiting times skyrocket to literally years. It's been over a year since I got private treatment abroad, and I still haven't had a response to the referral that was sent to the public clinic over two years ago. Rather than fix these problems, I'm watching the government debate how to make it harder for people to emigrate here, how to appease Turkey because a country that defines libel as a criminal, rather than civil, offence believes too strongly in absolute freedom of speech to not give permits to Qur'an burners, and whether to give more tax breaks to the rich. We have no hostile neighbours, but the government still operates a system of conscription for some kids. But hey, 18 months parental leave, when it's actually practically impossible for most people with a time-limited employment contract to take all of it, sounds like a great bargain that absolutely outweighs all of the above! No wonder the Swedish birth rate is shooting up!

[@enescustovic1883]

Sweden is a dystopian nightmare. I moved here seven years ago from Canada only to discover the truth about contract employment, blatant nepotism, high cost of living, and waiting years to be able to move into one of the worst neighborhoods in the country so i can afford to pay rent. Oops i guess. I'm done moving though.

[@rey6708]

@@enescustovic1883 u should have moved to norway instead lemao

[@drrodopszin]

These newer generations are more _experienced_ than older generations. They experienced how bad is when your parents divorce, how hard is to raise kids alone, how mom was angry all the time because there was no money. They experienced how easily you're getting fired from a corporate job, they experienced brutal job searches. Marrying and having kids during university 😂😂😂? Who _risks_ that? They know about mental health. They know about the emotional needs of both the baby and themselves. All these look increasingly harder to nail and you push having babies once you are in a narrower and narrower goldilocks zone.

[@Moody-Boy]

I believe you succinctly described the intricate nuances at the heart of this problem. Increasing this “Goldilocks Zone” is truly the key to solving this dilemma.

[@kazaakas]

Just an anecdote, I know so many people who would've liked to have kids, but chose not to due to the extremely high cost of living while their salaries remain stagnant. The housing crisis is the everything crisis.

[@rake483]

I am one of them. I would like to have kinds, but a 2 bed room apartment large enough to have kids in costs around 1600€ where i live. That is my entire monthly salary (after taxes). The mother would have to work full time as well, but who will take care of the kids then? Daycare is expensive.

[@ofacid3439]

Kazaakas is for «Russians» in Aleut. Just curious

[@ofacid3439]

And yes, children are a burden in overcrowded dumps called cities yet they are little helpers in a countryside

[@potato1084]

@@albert7311Are you dumb? 😂 Get a job.

[@abdell75roussos]

Utter shit. Other religions in the UK? I buy you a house, will you get married and have children? No.

[@ArturoSubutex]

Unfortunately, don't hold your breath for governments to do anything that might bring down the value of their own real estate...

[@carlosandleon]

Easy scapegoat. Everyone is lamenting about the housing market but the explanations aren’t even sound

[@bobboo101]

@@carlosandleon ... are you uninformed? you do understand the arguments?

[@RandomPerson-tz7wk]

@@bobboo101 Are you any different? The major factor effecting child birthrate is women education. The more educate they are, the less child they have. It's universal statics that can be seen through practically all nations. Real Estate is a minor factor, it doesn't explain why poor family in high housing area still have more kids.

[@sinoroman]

@@RandomPerson-tz7wkpeople have been encouraging and pushing women into STEM, which is making it worse because those in the health/medical sector have one of the lowest fertility rates

[@bobboo101]

@@RandomPerson-tz7wk unbelievable. Firstly, source? Secondly, if your argument does have credibility it is because educated women understand they cannot support a family. That’s the only part of your argument that holds credibility. Finally you’re implicitly advocating for the recession of the right to be educated for women. We’re not Islamist fundamentalists.

[@marki57686]

I’m currently pregnant and the mothers and pregnant women are terribly bullied by society. Doesn’t matter if you are stay at home mom or working one or whatever. I have never seen so much hate ever. From ordinary people. Not to mention doctors and hospitals. No support from government. I’m actually surprised people still have some kids. We as society absolutely deserve whatever is coming.

[@nevertrustgoogle]

Yeah, everyone looks down on you for bringing more unfortunate souls into this damned dying world. What did you expect? A trophy?

[@jcronin3155]

What utter horseshit. Mothers make more noise now than any other demographic.

[@raptor6680]

@@nevertrustgoogleHey look, I found the problem! You!

[@aapzehrsteurer9000]

@@nevertrustgoogle You're part of the problem. Go be sanctimonious someplace else.

[@yucol5661]

We never cared for mothers much. You make a cute, valuable a baby and that’s that. But we sure are good at making young women think they’ll be loved and helped. Sure some people keep their pregnant word and help their cousin or volunteer their time to charities and support groups. But by and large, people who preach the virtues of motherhood and family are the first to not help you at all.

[@eswesje]

For me it's also the fact that new parents are expected to work both so much. If I were to have kids, I would want to spend time with them and not having to put them in daycare all the time.

[@user-wx1gd9fs1k]

My brother and I had two stay-at-home parents until we both went to school. Crazy, who the fuck could afford that these days? Seven years with TWO stay-at-home parents! It was the 70s, and they were hippies. My grandad had 7 kids on with one income and my grandmother working now and again in a shop.

[@H2OSoarin]

Having kids is usually a sign of confidence in the future. It's a statistic that is difficult to distort or confuse, it speaks louder of public confidence than any opinion piece.

[@MsJubjubbird]

That's even seen in the animal kingdom. When resources are abundant groups of animals will have more young

[@BAmalakas]

@@MsJubjubbirdexcept countries with the worst poverty seem to have massive birth rates

[@chrissmith3587]

⁠@@BAmalakasthat’s a different style of economy

[@MsJubjubbird]

@@BAmalakas because families are often self- supported through subsistence living, or supported in the community. Plus kids are an economic asset (added labour force) rather than an economic liability, so it's not about affording kids when. They make you money and take care of you when you are.old. Not to mention that sex ed and contraception access are often negligible and women have to open their legs on command.

[@jamiedodger1235]

​@@BAmalakasto be fair even countries in poverty fit this rule: most nations in poverty at the moment are expected to see huge economic growth over the next 50-100 years, whereas Western nations are looking to stagnate or decline, and even if they do grow economically the working class will see none of those gains

[@Balmorax]

Talking about generational differences, my parents got their apartment allocated by the state during socialism, bought it later at a ridiculous fraction of current market price. Meanwhile I can't even afford rent for one room apartment without living hand to mouth. Not that I have many things to complain about, just want to reaffirm that it is indeed harder to set up conditions for starting up a nuclear family.

[@abdiganiaden]

World economy is basically driven by real estate, which basically extracts wealth from future generations. It’s a reason why 60% of millionaires in world made their money from real estate.

[@JP-xd6fm]

My parents bought their apartment with a 10 years mortgage, I can't do it even with a 40 years mortgage....

[@JP-xd6fm]

@@abdiganiaden This is so easy fix for goverments. TAX the empty property, tax property per square meter, tax the f. millionaires and return the money to the working class. They can take away their bank account, but their houses are attached to the country (literally) so let's f** them up

[@cansen1441]

real estate like what? @@abdiganiaden

[@OM-df9lj]

@@JP-xd6fm my parents (and everybody in 90s) bought their apartment with the equivalent of 6 months salary..., now, people should sell their future 30-40 years to buy a flat in a place where they have no schools, no kindergartens, no hospitals, narrow roads and they can shake hands from one building to another one through the windows, because all the buildings are one on top of the other ones

[@blinkjetimmersion]

It's not just economics. It's the younger generation being more concerned with providing quality parenting regardless of income. They experienced a big family and saw that their parent’s would've done better with less children. Its mainly the older daughters (and some sons) opting for 1 and done families or to be child free.

[@victorgijsbers8018]

you think people that grew up with many siblings think that the family would have been better off with some of their brothers and sisters not in the picture? Which ones would the family have been better off without? What a ridiculous point to make. there are much better reasons why people are not having kids, you sound like a psychopath.

[@robotnitchka]

Younger generations do indeed seem to be more in touch with reality in this regard. There is no point having children if you will ultimately traumatise them into permanent malfunction.

[@fraufuchs9555]

Agreed. As the older daughter, I was parentified, and it was really bad for my mental health. I wouldn't have children even if you payed me.

[@enceladus4900]

that is actually a good point, even my siblings used to blame my mom for having 6 children whenever she gets overwhelmed with responsibility. mind u we were a poor family and finances was the biggest stress cause in our family. with the economy being this shitty rn, thats all the more reason to have fewer children

[@user-yy1uu9kw5l]

I think you indeed have a point, but maybe we are also discovering that focusing on quality parenting is not a luxury we can really afford if we have to reproduce our society.

[@dodopson3211]

Female, Turning 30 soon. Studied at a university of applied sciences in a STEM subject. Despite that my salary isn't sufficient to buy a house, nevermind having a child. I wont risk my financial stability just to carry a child in my womb; clearly wont raise it because the financial burden dictates that majority of kids are send to daycare since both parents are required to work just to make ends meet. No thank you.

[@Guitar6ty]

The government has basically created a slave society one that seems to view families and housing as a bad deal for them to invest in. Sunak the unelected has just given £1.6billion of tax payers money to India and thats as well as £7million a day for fake holiday makers.

[@MrSteror]

Isn't that solved by having the husband pick up the slack?

[@theteamxxx3142]

What ur not paying now u will pay in 30 years when u won’t be able to retire or have free healthcare

[@fockewulf4409]

Enjoy your career, I’m sure those employee of the month awards will care for you at your bedside some day.

[@rzvrzv9894]

Think about moving to a different country. If you live in Europe, this option is very practical. Several of my friends moved around and they managed to build a very nice life for themselves. Good luck!

[@Ryan-fz2fy]

Funny how I'm going up the exact same career path at the same company as my dad at the same age he did yet somehow he could afford a house, car, 2 holidays abroad per year at that time but here i am struggling to find a property to rent that isn't more than 50% of my salary... No wonder no one is having kids

[@dennisreid9039]

I was just wondering the same thing

[@kpc211]

That's not true for post-Eastern Bloc countries, but still the fertility rates are low, often even lower then in the West. I think it has more to do with the changing world and changing expectations. In the past people lived as a whole multi-generational family in a single small room or a little wooden house (that was the only they could afford) and that was considered normal. Now they also often can't afford much, but it's expected that every person will have one's own bedroom, and so on. Now if someone lives in the conditions which were the standard before the WW2, or even often still in 1960s, and has a child - this child may be taken from him because of "keeping a child in improper conditions". Also the family model has changed, now both the man and the woman are expected to work - and there is nobody to spend time with the children.

[@bellamaine7269]

I remember this one lawyer talking about how when he was in college and working part-time as a server he was renting this one apartment with a great view that he really loved , but now after 20 years he realized the same apartment is now way too expensive fer him

[@MrSigmaSharp]

I'm 34 and married. Both my wife and I love kids. What stops us from having a child you ask? Housing market of course. We are renting and struggling to buy. How can I bring someone else in this world when I'm not sure about the roof above my own head?

[@taipizzalord4463]

Exactly, you'd be insane to have kids while renting. It's just far too expensive and insecure.

[@Prockski]

People have had kids in worse circumstances. That going said, if you don’t want to have kids then it’s your choice and no one else’s.

[@gothicgolem2947]

@@taipizzalord4463idk about insane I’m sure many have kids while renting and give them a great life

[@notright7]

@@Prockski when I was growing up as a kid in the US, we rented till I was 14. We had to move 4 different times because the landlord wanted to change something. The last time we moved was because the landlord got a deal from the state to house people who could not live on their own. My wife and I would love to have kids, but we cannot see having one without having better wages and a house.

[@Randombloke00]

​@Britishthetitan Problem is those having kids in worse circumstances usually are in 3rd world countries so there are no child labour laws the way they see it is free labour for the farm

[@7hi5on35]

Its all cost of housing. Governments need to prevent property from being used as an asset. Renting should only be allowed to function as 'none profit', with options to buy after renting for multiple decades. I house per family - no second homes - unless your a corporation.

[@mikon-]

And there are also people (like me) that just do not want to ever have any children. For me its multiple factors: - I just don't like kids and I don't want to spend money on something that has no use for me - Time is also an important factor, because I like to have my freetime for myself - I don't make that much money, so having kids would lower my living standards - I'm also a very unattractive person and finding a relationship with my visual appearance is impossible

[@eren7350]

The last point is key

[@JaimeVega]

Also governments seem to focus too much on policies to keep the elderly happy and their pensions system by taxing and making the life of the younger generation works. Retirees are a huge amount of votes so parties (at least in Spain) they never try to release policies to help the younger generation.

[@let0atreides]

It's normal, there is more old people than young people. Therefore old people have more votes. Therefore you make policies that suit old people or you will NOT get elected and someone else will. It's a viscous circle.

[@ticklepickle7786]

Same in Portugal, thats why a part of me was exited about covid (this is a joke)

[@bazookaman1353]

And people think I'm crazy for being anti-democracy.

[@let0atreides]

@@bazookaman1353 You possibly are. What would you rather have, a dictatorship with one guy at the top for life ?

[@bazookaman1353]

@@let0atreides It baffles me how people go on and on about dictatorships when democracies are dictatorships with extra step.

[@generallegenddt.allgemeine8478]

"European governments are getting increasingly anxious about their demographic decline." Can't confirm that. Actually, they're just focusing their vote-buying-programs more and more on retirees. 😂

[@flochforster88]

Yeah exactly. They'll replace all of us, as long as it makes them richer. Disgusting policies.

[@hickknight]

That's because it's a vicious cycle anyway, since they are the largest group of voters. Meaning, pandering to them is what gets you your spot in power.

[@tomasvrabec1845]

Actually no. There is more and more concern and it's very obvious. Why? Well the left side of the spectrum talk about it and then talk about migration. The right side talks about it and demand more action. Even the populist right uses it as it's point to get more votes - but they get them because more are concerned about it.

[@RextheRebel]

Europeans are worried about their demographic decline. But their governments are the reason for their worries. As it's the government who is responsible for it.

[@mortaldao8044]

If EMPOWERING women leads to low fertility rates and destroyed societies... How do you fix it?

[@MoDa87]

We have asked our governments to fix the issues but it goes against the interests of the owner class. So now we are engaging in a form of strike or protest that they can not break. Many don’t actually know that’s what they are doing. But it is what it is.

[@moliomotiejus6412]

"Just be born into a family with huge generational wealth and assets bro " - some higher-ups at Brussels probably

[@francesco3588]

I actually would like to have children one day, but how am I supposed to afford even one child AND a place to live for us both??

[@foxyboiiyt3332]

It's a terrible situation. I wouldn't have been able to do anything family wise but my dad passed away and I inherited a house. Otherwise I'd have never afforded it. I'm not that old but I feel for those in the 25-35 age group

[@OutsiderLabs]

Lol. Meanwhile the poorest places on Earth have the highest fertility rates. Westerners would rather live pampered lives than ensure the future. Your economy isn't the problem.

[@MegaWilderness]

That's your problem. You need to concentrate on a husband and not mooching off the state

[@d.b.2215]

​@@MegaWildernessAnd you belong in the wilderness, where your idiocy can't affect other human beings

[@bobboo101]

@@MegaWilderness so the argument here is become a gold digger or not be able to support a child? Brilliant.

[@heronimousbrapson863]

It's a common problem for most industrialized countries: higher income people don't have time to have children, and lower income people lack both time and money.

[@yucol5661]

In a dystopia, people would recognize the value of children to the economy and would pay for parents to have more of them or outright buy workers from pre-order.

[@user-wx1gd9fs1k]

This is my theory about why our ancestors had the late bronze age collapse.

[@Skillseboy1]

I would love to see more research on the current state of dating in Europe and how it has been affected by the digitization of the past decade or so. As a 23-year-old in the Netherlands, I feel like my generation is completely different when it comes to dating and relationships in contrast to generation in the 70's and 80's for example. Something which of course affects the fertility. In my experience, these are some features of our generation that could play a role: We're less outgoing in speaking up to people we may like, we're overly picky, we have little patience to really get to know a dating partner, we're less persevering when relationships become hard or less fun, we prefer looser relationships, we're more patient to wait for the right partner, we feel less need to hurry.

[@sharp_iodine2737]

Stop blabbering about nonsense. Every generation does things differently but the overwhelming data from surveys points simply to the cost of living crisis. Survey upon survey points to the sheer cost of things as the main reason couples aren’t having children. The problem is not people not finding partners, the problem is with couples choosing not to have kids because of the cost. If you’re this lonely maybe you should seek therapy instead of crying about your generation like an incel

[@amorfati6728]

That matches my experience, as a Frenchman.

[@mirabela1344]

​@@amorfati6728same as polish

[@tarknural5963]

Same in UK

[@larsviktorfreirewakenhut6930]

Same in Germany

[@yamchas]

If the world population ends up going down because of demographics, and not because of the many crises it is making for itself, i.e. food, atmospheric, oceanic and land pollution, heat, droughts, mass migration, then it will be a pretty positive way to calm things down...

[@asnark7115]

That was my opinion. I really loathe the human bottom feeders who push the population narrative for a lot of other reasons, but not that. They're correct.

[@Chris-pf8by]

Yes the planet could do with less people. However a declining population is painful for any country as explained here. Especially since elderly care is still a labor intensive affair. As for the reasons for low fertility, I believe the reasons are diverse, with urbanization, work reasons and dare I say it... Tinder & co?

[@yamchas]

@@Chris-pf8by That's for sure, but that seems way more manageable than the collapse of the environment. Other reason for fertility crisis: price of rent and housing has gone through the figurative roof, life in general is more expensive, people are worried about the ecological and many social crises that are looming, women want to focus more time on their carreer, contraception is more widely available, and perhaps people have finally realised that having kids is tiresome? As for Tinder, I'm not sure, but well...

[@leonidas14775]

Fix the economic problems and then birth rates will sort themselves out. Politicians wagging their fingers at people for not having kids won't solve anything.

[@gregprocter765]

not strictly true as some of the decline is based on science of falling sperm rates

[@joanabug4479]

@@gregprocter765 And that's been linked to long periods of stress which might be caused by the bad life situation. Sperm rates didn't just decide to drop out of the blue. When animals find an abundant meadow they reproduce more than ever - NOT before they've found it!

[@jiggy7108]

how exactly do you do that when a major reason behind those economic problems is the lack of workers due to low birth rates. Also, the richer a country gets, the lower the birth rate gets so it's not true that fixing the economic issues will fix the issue. The biggest issue is culture and values. People are willing to risk and sacrifice less in order to have kids than before

[@anteeko]

"Fix the economic problems and then birth rates will sort themselves out. Politicians wagging their fingers at people for not having kids won't solve anything." It wouldn't fix everything, huge divorce rate are a clear dis-incentive for anyone brave enough to start a family. The family court is absolutely brutal.

[@OmahaTonyG]

People were far poorer throughout history than they are now. Economic issues have nothing to do with fertility. Birth control and abortion are the root causes.

[@choopa1670]

They want to increase the fertility rate ha…. Then just address the cost of living crisis.

[@thatonejoey1847]

Then they would be out of the job so they will import the third world instead of addressing the issue

[@benchoflemons398]

There is 0 evidence that increasing incomes will increase fertility.

[@adelalmohtaseb5261]

In Japan they paid over 45 Billion dollars in the last 3 years just for young adults to buy houses in the end they did and they didnt have kids

[@ElectricityTaster]

Cost of living includes streaming services, fancy coffees, new phone every year, etc. etc. Face your FOMO or miss out.

[@NiekNooijens]

@@ElectricityTaster i do 7 years with my phone. 10 years with a laptop. can't afford a house. no streaming services other than a standard TV subscription which I did via internet because thats cheaper (NLZIET) my salary is above average for the Netherlands. I earn 3800 euro and after taxes that leaves me with 2200. I can save up to 600 euro per month. (rent/food/etc) Already saved 50k. I can get a mortgage of 220.000 euro. so the budget for a house is 270.000 average house price is 425.000 please make it work. My dad was able to not only afford a house, but also finance his entire family on his salary alone. oh how the times have changed...

[@colinmunro3158]

One of the biggest factors that determine birth rate is the level of education, especially post secondary. There is a strong inversely proportional relationship between rates of post secondary education and birth rates. Now no one in their right mind would advise lowering rates of education, but the correlation still stands.

[@Gabriel902884]

ye but nobody is prepared to speak about the real problem...the more educated women are the less kids they have and well i understand free choice but it will be the end for our current type of society

[@yucol5661]

@@Gabriel902884IDK man people have been saying the same “poor people will outbreed the rich/respectable. End of society” thing since the 1800s. There’s more to society’s prosperity than inherited wealth. Sure that’s a huge factor, but if you can’t allow poor people to move up in quality of life then what right do you have to complain about there being so many poor people? The solution is right there, make an economy where more and more people stop being poor.

[@enzovalendino606]

I love your contents: You have got a new subscriber from Italy!

[@geograficmanodm1408]

The explanation is very simple. If you can barely support yourself because everything is too expensive, you work from dawn to dusk for a miserable salary that you dedicate almost entirely to rent and you can't buy a house, how are you going to have a child? If we don’t solve the horrible economy we have due to ultra-capitalism, the fertility problem will not be solved.

[@joshnicholson2934]

It's pretty good that people think like this meaning there are not millions of kids in poverty. Unfortunately some people continue to do it anyway

[@lolmies123]

Fertility problem will fix capitalism instead, it can not continue like this.

[@WetPig]

This was the case 100, 200 years ago as well, yet people had children. The root of the issue is the fact that the Western World more or less solved all of their issues during and after WW2. I realized this after reading H.G. Wells - The Time Machine. People have gotten used to a certain standard of living, and they obviously do not want to go back to a lower standard of living. Another huge part is ideological wars, promoted by some governments and big corporations. As a matter of fact, the late-stage capitalism, profit is everything actions by every industry is what is also contributing to this decline. Think of how much of the human race's time is consumed by 2-3 corporations... Think of the lifestyle they want you to live, and why they want you to live that way.

[@DOSFS]

Even with ok-ish socialism policies in some countries, they still face the same problems so that is only part of the problems

[@OutsiderLabs]

Lol. Meanwhile the poorest places on Earth have the highest fertility rates. Westerners would rather live pampered lives than ensure the future. Your economy isn't the problem.

[@tqrules01]

Large families cost lots of money. Money that doesn't exist.. governments are taxing the middle class like hell and make having larger families impossible

[@Madokaexe]

Thank you, for some reason european politicians refuse to talk about their massive taxation, this is one of the main problems.

[@tomorrowneverdies567]

That is not the reason(s). Search more. People since TV ownership abruptly rose in the 1970s make less children because they no longer need them to entertain themselves in their free time. Until the 1970 (when TV widely appeared), if you did not have 4 children or more, your life was more or less very boring and miserable. Also, people prefer to increase their purchases of tech products and tourism trips to the other side of the globe, than raise 1 child.

[@tidbit1877]

So the government takes like 30-40% of your take home income; but the company you work for takes 1-2 times your salary and gives it to their shareholders; so who is taxing you more? Obviously the shareholders so do something about it and demand a higher wage!

[@TheJon2442]

​@@tidbit1877and when you are let go... And someone comes along who will work for less and often do a better job!

[@tidbit1877]

@@TheJon2442 That's why we have unions and the min. wage, so that companies can't screw us all.

[@michalpfeiffer9553]

Government: "please have more kids to sustain the population" The People: "then fix all the problems the country is having, like housing and better wages" Government: "no...."

[@tlow5766]

We have 2 kids and it will stay at that number. Why no more? 1. Started late because of long education times and bad initial jobs 2. There are no real estate objects on the renting market for families 5+ and that forces you to build a house. 3 Building a house in 🇩🇪 is not only expensive, but further complicated by lack of buildable ground and the red tapes when you want to build.

[@benghiskahn3673]

A growing proportion of young people simply cannot reasonably afford to start a family. Everything costs a fortune! Food, energy, transport, housing, income tax, council tax, child care etc etc etc..... and yet wages have been stagnant for over a decade now. Of course more and more young people aren't having children.

[@sebastiansandvik825]

The (honesly good) response to that is that things were even more expensive back in the day for the most part. We seem to want more these days, which is about preferences but not cost. But I personally believe it's more about stability than costs themselves - many young people feel like they are always on the brink of collapse.

[@thatonejoey1847]

@@sebastiansandvik825 bullshit. People before had families of 6 held up by a single income so things have gotten more expensive

[@ChristiaanHW]

@@sebastiansandvik825 i don't know where you get that idea from. if you look at housing it's significantly more now that in the past. you used to be able to buy and pay of a house on a one person income earning below average. and the 2nd parent could be a stay at home parent nowadays you need 2 people with around a average income to even get considered for a mortgage. and so you need to dump you're children at day care because no parent can afford to be home with them which adds another big expense. i don't have numbers on other commodities, but even if everything else would have become cheaper i'm pretty sure the cost of childcare and housing negate those few lower costs elsewhere.

[@batataandshawarmalover]

​@@sebastiansandvik825nonsense. Look up the ratios between house prices and incomes. Or really any other measure of wealth, income and buying power. Young people in Europe haven't been this poor since WW2. And no, it doesn't matter that you can afford a phone or laptop or cheap entertainment, the fundemental milestones that people aim for when starting a family, such as having a stable job with long term prospects and consistent wage growth, or being able to own a home, or not being overly indebted, are all much harder to come by today than they were 30-50 years ago. Anyone denying this is an uneducated person who never bothered to do the research, to look at the cold hard numbers.

[@bobboo101]

@@sebastiansandvik825 "ITs THE kIDs FauLT BeCAUse theY buY tOo MannY avACADo toAST" tthis whole argument

[@BLC888]

"Im not gonna get childeren as long as my future is unstable due to housing crisis, global warming, immigration, war. If i feel stable ill get childeren" - I believe this is the mindset thats the cause

[@F.R.E.D.D2986]

Yeah pretty much. I don't want to bring children to the world, only to let them watch it burn

[@sebastiansandvik825]

Never heard anyone mention immigration as a cause. Also a lack of social safety nets - lots of people these days are forced by markets to move away from parents and friends, which means that they don't have support in raising kids.

[@raze956]

there has always been struggle, yet people decided to to it anyway. if you are that easily deterred than maybe we should be glad that you sort yourself out of the genepool so we have stronger people in the future to begin with. also, its very likely that we will have new problems in the future. with your reasoning, you will never have children.

[@Montaggg33]

People don't want to or cannot accept the fact that they will never have a chance to raise kids in a perfect world, because it doesn't and will not exist

[@BLC888]

@@raze956 Jezus those are some unnecesarily harsh words to someone you know nothing about.

[@remkoburger6595]

I'm from The Netherlands, and at 43, and happily married, we definitely won't have any kids. Why? Because we don't believe things are turning for the better in the near future. A looming economic crisis which'll dwarve the 2008 crisis, a possible WW3, migrant and climate crises... Well, I could go on, but the question one has to ask oneself is: do I really want to put another human life on this world?

[@lorenzozinna4700]

Your ancestors lived through ice ages, wars, black death, and generally worse times than today. And that did not stop them from reproducing. Don't fall for the propaganda

[@hugrid9647]

Definitely a hard problem to solve, still, there's so much generalisation when it comes to discussing it. I agree for most people it's the lack of financial security, but there's also a more complex underlying issue.

[@Inucroft]

It's too expensive to support myself, how the hell am I meant to afford a kid??

[@OutsiderLabs]

Lol. Meanwhile the poorest places on Earth have the highest fertility rates. Westerners would rather live pampered lives than ensure the future. Your economy isn't the problem.

[@inbb510]

The reality is people never really ever had the means to support a family. Once you are a parent, you are never the same again. You never truly live an independent free life after you have children. The hard truth is that in the past, people were more devoutly religious. Therefore they viewed procreation and family as a duty set upon them by God instead of something they engage in because they had the financial means to. Back then for most people, it didn't matter if you became poor after having children because the emotional pleasure they got from forming those bonds with the child and the community around them, combined with the emotional stability they got from satisfying God's commandment to "go forth and multiply" , far outweighed the inconvenience that they felt financially as it was a second priority for them. Fast forward to today where we have a completely different mindset to money, procreation and poverty, it is really not hard to see why developed countries struggle to maintain birth rate. The embracement of childless couples as an independent choice couples make was unthinkable before our grandparents' generation. Nordic countries like Finland and Sweden have lower birthrates than Turkey or Nigeria despite the latter two being much poorer. It is proof that our fertility problem is a cultural one and not an economic one. Or rather it is only an economic problem because of our attitudes and culture of how we view families.

[@uralicdneprov1806]

You can have kids anyway. It's our western concept to plan and to do only things we can afford. Population of poorest parts of the world is hungry and yet keeps breeding like animals.

[@NiekNooijens]

@@inbb510 so basically ḧave kids so you can be miserable together!" nope. not going to inflict that on someone else!

[@milosknapcek3874]

@@inbb510not true at all. In agricultural societies children were free labor. It was economically sound to have as many of them to work your fields.

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

It's not just about housing, it's the general 50 year long financial repression of the working class. Unless you balance the scales in favor of the working class again, fertiliy rates will never go back to normal.

[@TheAmericanAmerican]

Exactly! For some reason, the capitalists are incapable of understanding that us wageslaves need to have a decent living standard in order for us to be able to do labor.

[@ZenioDovgj]

In reality Europe does well in comparisson to other countries. To get fertility back everyone should be stripped and transformed into a poor peasant, and religions propaganda should be non-stop. Works in Africa and arab breeding countries.

[@maartent9697]

@@TheAmericanAmerican They already know they inflicted unreverseable damages regarding the planet and they're just getting the biggest bag till humanity perishes.

[@TheAmericanAmerican]

@@maartent9697 ain't that the sad, dark truth... Shell's own climate scientists back in the 1970s-1980s predicted that climate change would collapse the entire global civilization, and here we are...

[@tomorrowneverdies567]

I don't understand. All working classes of Europe and N.America (and others), have bigger purchasing power now, than in 1973. What are you talking about?

[@metastract]

I'm a gerontologist and the govt has known about all of this for decades - It's just a scapegoat issue for broader systemic problems they don't want to properly resolve. Finding a decent long-lasting relationship is as hard as finding a decent job and buying a house. So, when all that changes so might the interest in kids. Doubt it though.

[@partnermammoth2562]

exactly what I said

[@KnowArt]

the obvious solution was to increase child benefits to the income of a part time job as soon as married women were allowed to work. The opportunity cost as a couple is simply too high. As a single income family you simply can't compete against dual income families for housing and... well, basically everything. Kids aren't too expensive. Competing with childless couples is.

[@ok-tr1nw]

Govts: "guys c'mon have sex now, please" Also govts: "you need money to take care of children? What a funny joke"

[@inbb510]

My mum is a stay-at-home mother and never needed this thing called "daycare". We never eat out or been on holidays much and lived frugally. It is perfectly possible but the "problem" is that everybody wants to be working and earning money with a job. Not suggesting we return to a patriarchal society but we need to just accept that we are going to have to live with low fertility rates and manage our declining population.

[@jahngomba4328]

​@@inbb510also the fact that 1 salary is no longer enough as it used to be due to inflation and now there are lots expenses that didn't exist before

[@the_expidition427]

People were tricked! Its simple take 1 mans pay divide it in half pay the woman the other percentage. Twice the productivity SAME PRICE!

[@inbb510]

@@WealthyandNerdy , with declining populations, governments have very tough choices ahead. Whether that be abolishing the welfare state model to relieve young people of ever-increasing tax burdens, exploiting automation and AI jobs where appropriate and make teaching STEM compulsory to create new jobs where people pay to maintain AI infrastructure.

[@randomlygeneratedname7171]

@@the_expidition427You are too smart for your own good. 🤫

[@dondoodat]

Rich people keep telling us we shouldn't have children if we can't afford them. Then they create the situation where we can't afford them.

[@bobboo101]

fucking brilliant

[@Gian_sas]

rich people bad

[@dondoodat]

@@Gian_sas Don't be childish. I'm more than happy that people be rich, I just think they shouldn't be hypocritical. If we all paid the same percentage of our wealth as tax they would still be the richest people in the country but poorer people would be able to afford to have children, which the rich need if work is to get done. I hope that cleared up your lack of understanding.

[@lukebell8780]

I’m 30 and my partner is 32 we have just had our first child in the uk. We would of done this in our twenty’s but it’s taken us this long to save and get a house and earn enough to financially afford children

[@Drecon84]

I always find it kind of worrying that whenever any global issue is brought up, the economic interpretation is the one that gets the most spotlight, while so many other aspects are more important to people (even though most people might not actually know it conciously). We really need to steer away from measuring everything in money and start focusing on the things that actually matter. Health, education, having a home, food quality.... stuff like that. If we consistently see those factors as more important than money, we can start actually solving the real problems we have in our society instead of only focusing on the economy, which always just ends up benefitting the super rich.

[@alhira5098]

Ye, but the problem is that health, education, having a home and food quality are very much dependent on the factor money. As long as this correlation exists it will always boil down to money.

[@Drecon84]

@@alhira5098 sure, but that's on a whole different level. Most of those depend on money in your wallet or taxation and stuff like that. GDP and economic factors are just about what billionares are gambling on this week. It hardly has any bearing on quality of life.

[@bramvanduijn8086]

@@alhira5098 No they don't, the economists convinced you that they did but you don't need economists to build a home, you need supplies, skilled people, and time. The economists love to think that everything can be translated to money, and then they use that translation to convince people that money is the only thing that matters. But that fungibility works both ways: We can say that everything correlates to time, for example, so to make everyone richer we just have to get rid of most of the work and then people can use their extra time to develop skills, collect supplies, and they can spend their time working on building another house. All without even a single cent passing hands. They tricked us into thinking money matters more than the things money can represent (and then they took all our money, time, health, and even ideas ("intellectual property")).

[@Elphoya]

YES exactly. Provide the people with opportunities to have a good life, and society will flourish. Put all your focus on money while screwing the average person over and everything goes to shit.

[@jacobfreeland6881]

Same. My first thought is that declining religiosity means that fewer people regard life as sacred, which increases willingness to abort or never conceive.

[@nathanspreitzer6738]

It’s not solely an economic problem but also a social problem

[@sfp2290]

Thank you. Lots of people in the comments claiming that solving the housing costs would solve the issue. While in truth, it is just one of many issues, which all contribute to the problem.

[@SladkaPritomnost]

Richard Cantillon An Essay on Economic Theory 1755 Chapter 15 Population of a country increases if people are content to live poorly, If people are used to eat meat drink beer and wine the land cannot support many inhabitants.

[@kehbab]

​@@SladkaPritomnostthe "white" population who is used to this way of life doesnt create many new lifeforms If they do they average at 2 kids per household They dont want kids because its too expensive and they have to reduce their luxuries in life They want to "help" the world by not creating more small co2 factories While foreign born citizens serverly care about family and expand with 3+ per household

[@ralphbrown2498]

And how much do you think that 'social problem' is informed by the economic ones? They aren't in completely separate silo's you know

[@sifuhotman1300]

1. Porn causes the surge in incels, thots and simps 2. Unhealthy food, hormones and microplastics etc 3. Socioengineering gone wrong. Europeans are being demoralized since childhood. 4. Housing market 5. Replacement policy propaganda 6. Wagecucking for big corpo > forming families 7. Glorifying expensive lifestyles 8. Global warming propaganda pushing people to get less kids

[@CaptainConditor]

This is a problem caused by many factors, including higher cost of living which forces both parents to work full time but have no option to leave their children in day care because of the low yet expensive capacity. Many just don't want children because it's just not affordable. Others however don't want children in the first place. You can't just result to migration. A German doctor said it best when she was being on a talk show. If you hire other doctors or workers from the caregiving-field, you'll be forced to teach them German first instead of taking care of your patients, because they won't be able to communicate with you. The EU needs to adress this ASAP.

[@benji-pj4dp]

Or lgbtqi+ being promoted and motherhood frowned upon because women should be big boss bitches

[@benji-pj4dp]

We are richer than we have ever been its entirely cultural. You think people from Africa have loads of free money so they have big families???😂😂

[@McSlobo]

First of all, EU doesn't exist in a vacuum. The part of the world we used to call third world consumes more resources than it used to 30 - 50 years ago, or should I say during the era of western economic imperialism. Therefore prices of commodities will never be the same as they used to be. Also, EU cannot and should not fix Germany's utterly stupid energy policies, it's Germany's own failure. Also, I'd say this is more like psychological problems. People have too high expectations for their style of living and are not as frugal as our ancestor were. Our parents and grandparents didn't have all the fancy crap nowadays young adults want to keep feeling special and valuable enough. Also the social media has rot through youth's brains.

[@thatonejoey1847]

@@benji-pj4dp those kids are useful bodies around the farm so by around age 5 or something they start becoming useful, not having to pay for education also helps. Also having many children means that if one dies you always have a spare, that is how it always was before antibiotics

[@joeblogs6598]

@CaptainConditor Importing immigrants to boost are fertility cannot work in the long term on two counts. Whatever is causing lower fertility in European countries will also affect immigrants once they arrive. Additionally the source nations of these immigrants are experiencing a drop in fertility below replacement rate as well, eventually there will not be a surplus to harvest.

[@user-hc9hs4qs9y]

Europe : Fertility Crisis South Korea : Fertility Nonexsistence

[@joarvatnaland6904]

This is good news. Not for tomorrow's pensioneers, but for the world as a whole.

[@killerqueen152]

I’m shocked that “we need more bodies to feed our capitalist machine” hasn’t been motivational enough for people to have children.

[@crazydragy4233]

Me too! I really don't understand why it doesn't work :/

[@manwiththeredface7821]

You only scratched the surface of possible reasons. - nowadays we have a global crisis every single decade - men and women increasingly have no clue how to interact with and what to expect from one another - the average mental hygiene has taken a nosedive (reducing the number of people actually suitable to be good spouses and/or parents) - divorce rates climbed to an all-time high when WE (adults currently at childbearing age) were kids, we grew up seeing miserable relationships at home and we're expected to want to repeat the same thing...

[@crazydragy4233]

I disagree that mental hygiene has taken a nosedive at all. Simply less people found the previous standard acceptable. There's the idea of options and choices now. People are less inclined to choose the traditional path if they have hope for something better elsewhere

[@fran2911]

@@crazydragy4233 I disagree, everyone is a pos and want everything handled to them, choice is an illusion, everyone is alone at 40, what makes them think that it'll be different for them continuing this attitude..

[@crazydragy4233]

@@fran2911 Life sounds unbearable when everything is so negative. If you think people now are special in any regard you just haven't read anything about what people lived like before. The only difference now is technology is abundant, the people and their flaws are the same

[@freesoftwareextremist8119]

Also add easy access to contraceptives.

[@dudono1744]

​@@freesoftwareextremist8119That just avoids the kinda dark method to have more babies (having unwanted babies)

[@dreambig326]

I'm living in Germany and they've only done things to make the problem worse. The government scrapped paid parental leave to any household earning more than 150 000e pre-tax, plus the labor shortage in kindergartens and schools got only worse, so it's extremely difficult to even get a spot in a kindergarten- that's why lots of women now have to stay at home and can not work and earn money.

[@trytea]

No one talking about the generational shift in wealth. In order to survive, both parents must work. Leaving the ability to procreate diminishing. Back then, you could probably get away with a breadwinner mentally, plus stay at home parent. Now it's survival of the fittest

[@Meggadezz]

I can only speak for Germany. If you look at the demographic concerning immigrants and non-immigrants, you will see a huge difference and if calculated out Germany is further down in the rankings. I live in a moderatley big city for German standards with some hundred thousand citzens. I grew up in tiny villages. It is the same everywhere you look, just minor nuances. In discussions, there are always two factors closely related to each other: + no money + no time Housing costs too much, but the tax burden is rediculous in the first place and it only grows more heavy. You have to pay for so much and get so little support from the government mandatory social insurances, also regarding your future child: dental care is laughably expensive despite being "covered"; daycare places cost extra, *if* you get a place in time and until recently the public transport system was increasing its prices and the financial support would not catch up with that. This all on top of the minimum cost of living. If you wanted to support your family, *both* parents have to go to work. This in return requires a place in the kindergarten which you have to be lucky to get. And after taxes, the income from both parents combined is barely enough if you live in a flat in the city just to make end's meet. And to have property in Germany can be a financial and burocratic nightmare. Many start selling their inherited family homes simply because they can not cover the cost for all the new demands. This also looms over every tenant with their rent most likely increasing drastically. We simply can not afford a child if we want to keep living under okay conditions where we can afford monthly deliveries or a trip to the cinema once a month.

[@Alejojojo6]

Fertility rates among German inmigrants are declining and fast because they face the same issues that average Non-inmigrant background gemans face High cost of housing, high cost of living, job market being unstable... and those inmigrant usually can afford less than natives so... that contributes to furthering the decline.

[@rodox2832]

In Deutschland alles teuer, wir bezahlen nur Steuer.

[@Meggadezz]

@@Alejojojo6 That is correct. Though this does not apply to ""freshly arrived"" people. Additionally, the birth rates were higher before, despite mediocre living conditions, as well in comparison to German natives with similar living conditions.

[@TheJon2442]

​@@Alejojojo6and those who get everything free?

[@times4937]

It is strange that in the 21st century one of the most important existential problems is the lack of affordable housing. It seems that the system should be completely remodeled in this regard. After all, we are not talking about a high-tech area, but an ordinary apartment, a few walls, a floor and a ceiling.

[@nobutoneme1325]

I would have kids RIGHT NOW if my economic situation was better. Instead, I'm 30 and just planning to move out from my parents home this winter

[@lindaajide2115]

If they were really worried child care wouldn’t be so expensive and they would do something about the maternity/paternity leave.

[@fran2911]

Private companies also enslave you, wages are way too low.

[@bramvanduijn8086]

You're assuming competence? Bold assumption.

[@K4ZA]

My guess would be that the governments needs to fix 2 certain things: Housing prices and Wealth inequality. Pawlows pyramid becomes more and more relavent. If you aren't able to fully take care of yourself, then you probably won't be able to take care of someone else (partner & children). My partner and I both have quote on quote good paying jobs, but we still can't afford to buy a big enough apartment for having kids, let alone a house. We would rather travel more and LIVE OUR LIVES as best as we can, than to have kids.

[@valtonen77]

It's almost like endless growth is insane expectation in economics and birthrates. Do some people expect that everything will keep growing until this planet is fully used up?

[@Alepfi5599]

Exactly. Endless growth is what cancer does.

[@blinking_dodo]

Yes. There are people stupid like that. Mostly the rich or people working for the rich. Also related to the never ending toxic push for GDP growth.

[@SimonTmte]

Europe has had negative birth rates for 40+ years, doesn't have to be either endless growth or total collapse

[@valtonen77]

@@SimonTmte And yet theres 50 million more europeans? Sounds more like the population rates should be stabilized at sensible levels than to treat this as some cataclysmic event.

[@adelalmohtaseb5261]

Nobody is looking for endless just stay the same

[@megaxlrful]

The 1950s-1960s "boomers" generation being a total statistical anomaly in this might also be a factor, yet I hear nobody speak of this.

[@GbpsGbps-vn3jy]

It's not anomaly, this is just the result from WW2 - an increasing population and improving economy. Cheap houses and jobs for everyone, but after almost 80 years (or around 4 generations) the magic is over. Personally I'm going to buy some stocks in microwave popcorn manufacturers, popcorn is a must if you're going to watch a show like this one :D

[@raphaelschaller4981]

7:12 I think this is the most important part - making it harder to have housing where not 2x 100% salaries are required, is certainly one of the biggest reasons for decisions against kids.

[@JanBanJoovi-ol1qv]

I now have a wider understanding why there’s a massive immigration move in Europe. However as you mentioned even in those target countries (for immigrants) they also are facing population replacement issues, for the same reasons, younger generations are faced with humungous challenges at raising a child (it’s just not affordable anymore or they simply don’t want their children to suffer the same struggles as theirs). There should be a way to encourage having a child, like giving cash incentives or bills subsidy.

[@kukelhupf]

I wouldn't mind going to work 5-6 days a week if it would mean that my wife could live with the money I make, take care of the house and raise our children. But at this point I don't see any other way than for both of us to work that much and just barely get by on our own. It's very frustrating since I see companies making insane amount of profits in the last 4 years. At the same time our salary hasn't increased a bit, yet the workload has doubled and inflation made the money worthless (maybe a bit dramatic, but you know what I mean). I don't see it in my cards to have a healthy family dynamic if both parents aren't home for at least 5 days a week. Because it is important to me to be able to raise our child as a family and not give them away to daycare.

[@v.ra.]

"Because it is important to me to be able to raise our child as a family and not give them away to daycare." THIS I live in a country where daycare is not a problem, alas, why have kids if you would be their parent 1/3 of the time. Sad

[@tomorrowneverdies567]

How can companies increase their profits, but salaries not increase? Who is responsible for the increase of the sales of the companies' products? Who bought all these products and services? Aliens? And what solution do you propose? We can always go back to the 1950s. But you won't have many things you have now then.

[@matheussanthiago9685]

I start to think that an economical system based off constant accumulation of capital at the very top is really good for the populous

[@LeafHuntress]

"I wouldn't mind going to work 5-6 days a week if it would mean that my wife could live with the money I make, take care of the house and raise our children." "healthy family dynamic" Does NOT compute. If you die or leave to schtoop the secretary, she's left destitute.(and that's assuming you're a nice chap & no abuse etc. happens) If she dies or runs away, you're left helpless, because you'd have *no* idea how to actually DO all that. A healthy family dynamic that does not make, witnessed by all those old suburban moms taking mother's helpers.(drink & drugs) YOU take care of YOUR children a couple of days a week, she takes care of them a couple of days a week, the daycare is excellent in giving care & highly necessary for germs & social interaction. If any grandparents live close by who'd like to see their grandchildren that can happen on that last day. Why would you even _want_ children if you hardly ever get to see them?

[@kukelhupf]

@@LeafHuntress I think you're making a lot of horrible assumptions about me and my potential wife / current girlfriend. Plus my mother is already dead and my dad might not be around when our first kid might arrive in a couple years. So I actually can't rely on grandparents to help me out with that. Also when I'm talking daycare I'm talking about 5 days a week daycare so me and my wife could work enough to make the money to live relatively safely. Meaning we both could see them only a fraction of the time I think is necessary. Especially when the kids are very young I think it is very important to see them as much as possible. And I don't like the idea of someone else taking the job of the parents who I can't 100% be certain instills the life lessons I think are necessary into my kid. Daycare doesn't just take care of one kid where I live. They take care of multiple kids so the very idea that they could just be as good a parent as the real parents seems unreal to me. While I know I wouldn't see my kids as much as I would want. I would still see them the same amount as as when they were in daycare and my wife would see them practically every day. I know nowadays parents have kids and just ship em of to daycare, thinking that it's normal to not be there for them in one of the most influental parts of their live. I disagree with that notion and think in a couple years we will see the results of this way of thinking.

[@user-ve7uv8je8j]

People are not even getting married or even dating anymore. So giving out handouts to help ease the cost of having kids will do nothing. This is an issue that is far more complex than they realize. Family structures and values don't even exist anymore. Everyone is in their own world, unwilling to socialize or ask someone out. That's why birthrates are low.

[@seagullskunk]

This!! The social climate is of pure toxicity

[@killiandevolder1572]

They could actually aid dating. A _good_ dating app, dating events, social events, working on issues that block people from dating, ... might not be very effective or good. But compared to fixing financial problems, it's going to be cost effective.

[@seagullskunk]

@@killiandevolder1572 theyd actually make a huge amount of money if they'd film the cringe of those events and put it up on tv... oh wait that exists already mb

[@user-ve7uv8je8j]

@@killiandevolder1572 that's not possible. The tiny hats won't allow it. Their job is to make sure everyone is as miserable as possible.

[@christianr4769]

Not sure I agree. I feel like most people don’t really have any issue getting into relationships. I agree that marriage is less common though, and that the idea of family values is mostly gone.

[@twbishop]

housing markets are related to credit/debt markets, which are influenced by government/central bank policies, regulations and subsidies. most governments implicitly subsidize mortgage loan markets, but could always offer more discounts, subsidies or tax credits. housing (construction) itself is economically important, separately from issues of fertility and immigration.

[@FirstHandLLC]

My dad bought a new house working as a van driver with only a basic education level. Since then wages haven’t kept up and today his house costs literally 6 times more than what he paid. I have a master’s degree and a good job, but I can’t even imagine being able to afford such house. In fact, a 2 room apartment nearby costs about 3 times as much as his house was when he bought it. And it’s not just the housing. Cars, gas, food, clothing, everything doubled, tripled and quadrupled in price. Am I suppose to start a family in such conditions? No, thanks! I don’t want to have a worse quality of life for my kids than my parents gave me! Poor uneducated immigrants get tons of help from the government and are used to have poor miserable lifestyles in their home countries, so any improvement in living conditions is awesome to them, they can’t fall any further. They always had many kids, they never knew any better. So any lifestyle improvement just encourages them to have more kids. The middle class just gets taxed to death and gets no help from the government. In general it works like this: High education + high income = many kids; Low education + low income = many kids; High education + low income/medium income = no kids.

[@applememes5372]

pretty spot on!

[@aryo6264]

One of the reasons is what I like to call Anti-motherhood regimes: In Belgium maternity leave is 4 months. This is a crime against the mother and foremost the child that no one is talking about. Eastern European women working in Brussels and have to leave their babies at the age of 4 months to go back to work feel that their rights have been violated since their maternity leave in, for example Latvia, is over a year.

[@zer0homer]

4 months maternity leave in Israel too. Not a problem for Israeli because mama (granny) is in da hall usually. Bigger extended family shares child rearing duties well

[@thomasgrabkowski8283]

@@zer0homerIsrael only developed country not have problem of low birth rates

[@zer0homer]

@@thomasgrabkowski8283 and not only because of religious zealots, but because we were and constantly are under a threat of violent extermination. Bad times produce strong people, good times…

[@hiiamelecktro4985]

@@zer0homer”constantly under threat” sounds like you have any chance of losing

[@zer0homer]

@@hiiamelecktro4985 well, you know, ardent members of religion of peace have been the only source of 'fireworks' and pogroms since WW2, Iron Dome and competent policing or not, people still die once in a while and it's still a tragedy. Same goes for my father's people, Ukrainians. No matter how well covered by western equipment now, my family in Kiyv and Khmelnytskyi will never be truly safe unless the current Russian regime falls

[@mmikael281]

I personally think that this is due to the working culture in power, where career development is focused on the first years of work. Starting a family is the last thing on the list of life there, and that's why many miss it completely. This is also the reason why no government support programs work, because they do not address the actual problem in any way.

[@dix0n778]

Ding! Ding! Ding! Also add how much the governments deride farm work, farming used to be done by families for better or worst, now it is being consolidated by multinational conglomerates.

[@leonardoleo5740]

tRUE.

[@nikkinorcal2791]

Thank you. One of the first people I've seen touch on this aspect of the problem. You can see this with college educated vs non-college educated fertility rates.

[@GamingDemiurge]

They worked really hard to destroy the family. They succeed. Enjoy the result.

[@mariow7818]

If government really cared about birth rates they would invest heavily in public affordable housing for rent that is cheap and affordable for anyone. They would build thousands of housing units each year. To make space for young adults to do adult things. By living with parents they don't have privacy to procreate and many don't start relationships because they can't afford it. It would be another investment into retirenment. Becuase part of funds for it could came from retirenment funds. Our country literally made billions more in taxes than year before but there is no real program for housing that would actually help young people. What is there in long run helps banks and developers. Not the young people...

[@GuitarWithBrett]

My entire life it was “the world is over populated” .. now it’s “we are on brink of doom unless more population!”

[@sifuhotman1300]

Socioengineering at its finest. It's like it was on purpose. Now they want us to import all of Africa. Replacement policies are being pushed down our throats.

[@gardeniabrune2125]

PARTS of the world are ridiculously overpopulated, while western countries are not.

[@GuitarWithBrett]

@@gardeniabrune2125 and ?

[@crazydragy4233]

Only because some very sm0rt people thought basic our society and economy on perpetual growth was sane

[@khalidalali186]

This reminds me of an English friend of mine. He and I were discussing this at length, during his visit to my hometown, Abu Dhabi last January. As he couldn’t help but notice the number of kids around, relative to the number of senior citizens or immigrants. I informed him, that we do actually have a below-replacement level birth rate as of 2016, and the only difference with Europe, is that they’ve had it for decades, with varying degrees per each country, with most starting in the 1970s, as far as I can remember. He went on claiming that it was easy to start a family in the UK somehow. I reminded him that not everyone lives in Mayfair during the workweek, and spends their weekends in Essex or Sussex for that matter. Hinting, in the most friendly manner possible, that not everyone can afford it. You can my dear fellow, because you’re quite wealthy. He’s a great chap, don’t get me wrong, and we’ve been friends for ages. I love him as a brother. But, one has to point out the massive elephant in the room. That not everyone can afford renting in London, let alone starting a family of five, and live in Mayfair of all places. The cost of living crisis in my humble opinion, has become the most effective contraceptive known to modern society. Moreover, as soon as society attains a certain level of affluence, accompanied by the entry to the labor market of women on a massive scale, along with the increase of higher education levels. Societies tend to quickly resort to having smaller families, if any at all. He and I, by way of example, both have three siblings, and our parents have five, along with grandparents that had eight or more. It’s just a matter-of-fact at this point of time.

[@sebastiangruenfeld141]

You are speaking from my soul. Living in an aging country is incredibly depressing as a young person. All you see is old people everywhere which per se is nothing to be mad at but it really gets you thinking about the future of your country. On public transport, in restaurants, in grocery stores, at parks, old people are everywhere. Seeing children gets rarer by the day. You'll only see young people in their teens or 20s either at schools/universities or at night when they go clubbing.

[@sonny0jim]

​@@sebastiangruenfeld141and barely even clubbing. I remember 9 ish years ago you could go clubbing on fri-sun or student night and it would be packed, even in my mediocre city. Now, you can swing your arms in a club on a Friday, and can get to the bar while barely touching people on a Saturday or Sunday. When the commons become so bare with people willing to socialise, how are single people meant to meet outside of institutions or online dating?

[@tomorrowneverdies567]

So why has Israel a fertility rate of about 3? How do they do it? Does Israel not have a "cost of living crisis"?

[@LegendNinja41]

@@tomorrowneverdies567 cost of living is really high but the reason for their fertility rates are religious and cultural ones. For example the Ultra-orthodox jews have a TFI of nearly 7! They are 14% of the population. i guess the way the do it is that many people live together in small spaces.

[@hugoguerreiro1078]

​@@LegendNinja41then it looks like the real problem is culture and not the cost of living. My great grandparents were a lot poorer than we are today yet they all managed to raise 6 or more children. Developing countries also tend to have more children, and fertility rates go down as wealth goes up. Even in developed countries you often see poor gypsy families with a ton of children, despite the cost of living. When people say they can't afford children what they really mean is "I value my lifestyle more than children". Because poor people can take care of their children just fine, and have done so for thousands of years.

[@oleksandrkarlash2934]

It's too difficult. Things need to change.

[@TheThink5op]

French here. Currently with two daughters. It costs us close to 1000€/ month for kindergarten and extra school time, and we rent a 3 bedrooms flat near Paris that is probably close to 800 more expensive than a single bedroom appartment. This is before accounting for food, milk and diapers lol. Even with good salaries it is very hard to break even when you decide to have childs

[@heressomestuffifound]

A lot of us feel like the world is over. Environmental catastrophe, heightening nuclear threats, lack of opportunity and dystopian levels of automation and bleak futures really make one want to check out.

[@yarpen26]

I've heard my share of the "omg, no kids because the global warming I tweet so much about will kill them" ladies and knowing the first thing about them, I have major doubts concerning the integrity of this alleged concern.

[@rodrigoameixa7580]

Most of those reasons are hilariously bs

[@Tokaisho1]

The same things were there in the 60’s, don’t worry about these things

[@matheussanthiago9685]

@@Tokaisho1 but they could fucking afford a house, a car and a college degree working part-time a the factory job susan look at the cost of things, and the job market right now, on top of everything single ''once in a lifetime crisis'' looming over our head every 5 seconds how can you say things are anything the same as their were back in the 60's huh? what a delusion take

[@heressomestuffifound]

Which part though? That it's a real concern or that it's a valid concern? That it's a real concern is, well, apparent. It's a concern that I have myself. Whether it's a valid concern or not is up for debate sure.@@yarpen26

[@dr.doomstar5875]

As a german i still try to find the "Generous Pro Family policys" which are mentioned ~ 6:28... Rent goes up beyond imagination, same goes for food inflation. Children are seen as a burden or the reason for poverty. And the FDP just announced that Children has to suffer and will be used as a tool to force their parents to go to work. not even a single free meal a day for this brats.

[@SladkaPritomnost]

Modern feminism fooled women. They are too picky (independent off lousy men, building their careers) waiting for super men alfas until they are no longer fertile. After they reach 40 no man is interested and microwave pizza can cook everyone even a child... No need for partnership for both sexes. Funny enough, everyone needs a house (so demand is high) to "enjoy" his/her free time (apart of lousy work) alone (on social media).

[@thinkingbout]

So true. Adding to that the german politicans seem to work against or too slow on everything that could stop the worsening of the climatecrises, which means a worse future for everyone already living on this earth, so people may think twice before starting a family. Also not much is done against the problem of declining kindergarden capacity, so that parents could work. A genderpaygap and the problem, that the person that takes the parenttime gets less money for retirement, through which a lot of people mostly women will be poor when older. And the list goes on...

[@sifuhotman1300]

Just import all of Africa. And see what happens to the real estate market. ;)

[@AlexanderMielchen]

Hardly surprising, a few generations ago, one parent with an average-paying job was enough to buy a house, support the partner and 2-3 kids and go on family vacation multiple times a year. Now, both need a job, can barely pay rent and have no idea how to support a kid, especially if both have to work full time. Live has gotten way too expensive, you cannot affort kids anymore.

[@saadude96]

Me and my gf have been talking about having kids. We have been wondering if in this economy we can even afford kids. We both have good jobs but it's looking like it will be a struggle

[@somecuriosities]

Why are so many young couples delaying having children in the first place? Couldn't be because of the 'Economic Elephant' in the room, could it? That the number of people in Europe who simply can't afford to have children, even though they want to, and thus have been left having to delay having children, has steadily increased since the introduction of neoliberal economics in the 80's? How can we look at delay in birth rates and not be appalled at the reflection of our economic orthodox: the stagnation of wages, the decline in home ownership, the decline in each of our communities public infrastructure - when each thwart the ability of parents everywhere to give their kids a better life than they had growing up, not worse? How messed up is it that the economic system effectively creates a problem for couples that it then later sells desperate wannabe parents the 'solution' to in the form of IVF treatments, or sidesteps entirely through cheap immigrant labour - effectively shifting the issue of a decline in fertility to another nation elsewhere to deal with? Why are the very smart people at the top conveniently so reluctant to scrutinise the economic system driving couples to delay starting families in the first place?

[@SpannerWorks]

Capitalism sells everything and eventually it will sell its own survival and kill itself.

[@cr4yv3n]

Because cost of living is increasing ARTIFICIALLY by environmentalist VERMIN ! Neomalthusian rats run the EU !

[@MustraOrdo]

Because those at the top are proven to not be smart at all. They're proven to be greedy.

[@Prprpsksks]

Stop noticing. Capitalism good. Communism bad

[@th6566]

Well, what does the top 1% care? Not their problem. And they run the show. In Germany the 40 richest people hold as much wealth as the 40 million poorer half of the population. Can´t be that they´re as busy and competent as 1 million people each, really. The system is designed to funnel most wealth from those who generate it to those who own the means of production, who then buy stuff like housing, stocks etc for investment purposes, not generating anything of value at all. Quite the oppopsite, looking at the housing market especially. It´s not a productivity or housing crisis problem, it´s a greed problem. There would be enough money to solve all the issues. All we´d need are governments that tax the yacht money of the super rich. It has been done before and can be done again.

[@SympNerv]

This should not be a big surprise with the amount of money it cost to raise children, and the hugely diminished spending power of a household from 1960 to present. The wealth gap really needs to be addressed if governments want to have a higher birthrates.

[@magnum3107f]

Ironically UK facing complete housing crisis (along few other crisises) is not covered by the study !!!

[@wildfire9280]

It may be true that a higher tax burden at least theoretically discourages working… unless the tax is on land (more specifically the _unimproved_ value of land), in which case the opposite is-again, theoretically-true.

[@sorenm.lairdsorries7547]

Just to mention that companies may be taxed, too. It does not all directly depend on the number of workers alone. This is especially important as salaries continue to fall into insignificance while company profits have risen out of all proportion over the last 7 decades. When young people can't have a flat together, young ladies have to either be single moms ...or stay childless - which is what industry and the world of advertisment prefers them to be.

[@Velatus5978]

What taxing companies get that communist bastard! Send the unpaid interns, that work to get experiences!

[@Hardcore_Remixer]

This is globalism for you. But there is also the progresivism which only makes matters worse by affecting the culture into causing the same thing. Hence the reason Africans and Indians have lots of babies despite being poor.

[@sebastiangruenfeld141]

Yes, lets tax businesses even more! It's not like Europe already has astronomically high taxes that make it uncompetitive. Not enough of our companies are leaving Europe for the US and China, we need to deindustrialize even more!

[@fonsleduck3643]

​@@Hardcore_Remixerthe indian fertility rates are actually slightly below replacement. African birth rates are high precisely because of poverty and a resulting lack of access to birth control, coupled with a cultural aversion to birth control in some countries. But access to birth control can hardly be seen as 'progressive' or something negative

[@Hardcore_Remixer]

@@sebastiangruenfeld141 No. We need to make the prices of what we import from outside be competitive to what we produce at home and make sure that tax only affects the price the customer pays. That tax will go to the gouvernment so salaries can grow. OR we could force prices to decrease by cutting prices down. Neither is either safe or easy, but if you want a higher birth rate, then you NEED to do something about it. There are a lot of Chinese products that we don't import simply because they're cheap. For example cars. Can't we make it so the price the customer pays is big enough (by adding a tax) to not destroy the competition we have here at home? This way the price difference can go to the gouvernment so salaries can be increased. Or even better! Other taxes could be cut.

[@parkman29]

I think that while yes, a low fertility rate is a problem, there is usually something else wrong that can cause them. A screwy economy makes it difficult to afford things, and why would you have kids if even feeding yourself is hard.

[@Smellslikenarcspirit]

Devaluation of the currency is the answer . In the 50,s you could have 8 kids , woman stays home and gasoline costed 25 cent per gallon . But 70 years later the dollar is not tied to gold anymore , there is an excessive printing of money and now inflation . In 2020 , thanks to nixon and the goverments who thaught spewing money into society is a good idea , we now have to do whit small apartment and barely 1 kid . If you can afford 1 .

[@cristianionascu]

@@Smellslikenarcspirit Well, there were fewer people that accessed way easier to get ressources. We are more people with shrinking ressources. The main problem with a shrinking population is economical first, then social. Economical because, as we age there will be less and less active people that support more and more inactive people for way longer, since we all will live several years longer than our parents, and we are used to a certain, costly, way of life. I don't think that AI and excess automatization is the answer either, we may not have a choice though, that would mean some kind of universal income, with its own downsides. Social, because, it seems that somewhere in the West, there seem to be people that bringing/allowing wave after wave of immigrants can be, at least short term, a solution. It is not, since the majority of those people just suck at the social security tit that the west is known for, without producing much of anything, if not socio-cultural segregation and unrest. I agree that for the last 30 years the West has been brain washed into destroying the family, women's role into society as caretakers, and excessive individualism and consumerism.

[@Smellslikenarcspirit]

@@cristianionascu AI may not be the answer . But it will be used as the answer , and the reason why is : greed . Why pay for employers who only work 8 to 12 hours a day , get sick and ask paycheck while machine dont ask paycheck , dont form unions and only need maintanance and work 24/7 .

[@atlanticamorphine]

As much as it is the cost of living, it's also a social problem in the sort of "perceived" cost of living and people's expectations. Thanks to (social) media, everybody sees examples of how well off people are living, while in poorer countries, large famileis do live in miserable conditions. Less time off to socialize with people (with whom to start a family), the pleathora of options and stuff to aspire. Things you need before starting a family. etc.

[@yucol5661]

The solution to that is to just settle for having kids knowing you can’t afford to give them a good life. Do you think people don’t want kids because they see a yatch and a mansion in TikTok? They are worried about bedrooms, food, education and health insurance.

[@atlanticamorphine]

exactly. Same time, people feed kids off food stamps and have families where children don't all have their own room and are still living a lot better than say a family of 10 in a single room, in India. Back in the day, families just happened. now we have expectations of what needs to happen before we can have a family. And i'm not even saying I feel any different than what you just described.@@yucol5661

[@TheLegendaryLore]

That's a very good point. People have a very skewed conception of what it really costs to have children.

[@danitaaaas]

it's so expensive in europe. your household needs to make 2,000 EUR a month at least so be able to sustain a family.

[@christianr4769]

Is that a lot? It doesn’t seem unreasonable (depends where you live of course).

[@danitaaaas]

@@christianr4769 2,000 EUR is bare minimum

[@willemvanbeek5210]

In The Netherlands we will face the same problem in the near future, we already have a retired babyboom generation who did not make enough baby’s. For example my grandparents had 4 children and just one grandchild (me). Already we see work shortages and tax rises. Its just waiting before the government says: make more baby’s lol

[@max3eey]

Het is eigenlijk gwn kk stoned

[@jaspermooren5883]

Yeah the problem is that the government is kinda 20 years too late. Making kids right now is just gonna make the problem even worse for the next 20-25 years (more kids means you need more teachers, more people in childcare etc). But the main problem is that it is almost impossible to have any influence over this in a rights based democracy. Housing is definitely a factor though that the government can do something about: if you can't buy a house you can't afford kids, or at least at the level that people want to.

[@citizenkhan4696]

Don't worry, we will just invite half or the middle east and Africa to our country. And not the good ones either.

[@llanieliowe794]

Holland is still doing a lot better than Spain and Italy

[@blinking_dodo]

@@jaspermooren5883 I disagree, as the government *does* have influence. (and a lot of it) They just don't want to use it, can't use it or are too busy using it for other things. The Dutch government is broken, it doesn't function anymore. Everyone is so preoccupied with the "now" that nobody thinks of the future. It's disgusting, irresponsible and should be punished as a crime against humanity in my opinion.

[@Gaswafers]

Raising children is essentially a job that costs you money instead of making you money. Even the most "generous" pro-natalist policies mean nothing when people are still coming out in the negatives from their labor. The problem won't be fixed until the people who actually benefit from a stable population(i.e. the rich) are the ones who pay to maintain it.

[@E.Wolfdale]

They(rich) prefer illegal migrants rather than contributing to local population.

[@angelosvlahos]

I'd maybe consider having kids if life wasn't so depressing with no affordable housing, a focus on getting school degrees and high grades, doing important yet underpaid and undervalued jobs and being told time and time again that taking care of the elderly is more important than taking care of the young.

[@3v3rhard]

High taxes and high cost of living has an impact. The pressure is too high.

[@Leomann88]

"The beatings will continue until moral improves" - goverments' attitude towards young generations. GG

[@MasTa_777]

Fantastic video. The housing crisis is a big problem to create families. I am 30 years old and have recently finished my Master's Degree, yet I simply can't afford a new house and get a girlfriend/wife to start a family.

[@mortaldao8044]

If EMPOWERING women leads to low fertility rates and destroyed societies... How do you fix it?

[@norddocs]

​@@mortaldao8044so you want to remove women's rights?

[@Guitar6ty]

Sunak the unelected has just given £1.6 Billion to India as well as £7 million a day for fake holiday makers. Very Liberal with tax payers money but none of it any use to our young people.

[@potato1084]

@@mortaldao8044Get. A. Job. 😂 Stop spamming the same bs.

[@Jareers-ef8hp]

@@mortaldao8044 That is exactly what I am trying to say to all these blue pilled normies

[@Johnson_2022]

There is also the deeper problem of childern in general just not being seen as valuable compared to the income, time and uncertainty they take up. This coming from both parents in most families these days needing to work to gain a sustainable income. Children can easily throw a spanner into works with unexspected illnesses requiring time to be taken off, requring parental guidance after working all day and etc for very little in return. Something thats enhanced more by families being encredably isolated with no community to lean on. If governments were really serious about solving the crisis then they would be encouraging stay at home parents/house spouses rather than a few extra months around the birth.

[@hamlet557]

Quite the opposite: in the west, kids are seen as too valuable and we'd rather not have kids than not being able to provide for them.

[@Artturih]

The problem is unfortunately deeply rooted in our culture and no amount of money is going to fix that.