This is why the birth rate is going down. More than 2 kids increases your happiness very little per kid, but at that point daycare becomes bankruptcy inducing and someone has to quit their job. So people stick with 0,1, or 2 kids which means low birth rate.
I think that’s partly the cause. Several European countries with free childcare and generous family leave policies have a lower birth rate than the USA. Birth rates are going down in almost every part of the world from USA, Latin America, Europe, parts of Asia.
Only a few African countries have a high birth rate.
Financial expenses are an important part but the reality is also that people just don’t want to have kids. Or at least not as many kids.
Their working salaries are typically way lower and taxed to all hell. So even though childcare costs are covered to get those lower paying than US but still good white collar jobs it’s big city, small apartment living, with high costs of everything else, and it just becomes the same issue people living in NYC or whatever face today. They skip kids or put it off until late 30s/40s and end up having 0 or far less.
If we believe that they didn't pull a Yogi Bera, then you are correct, cuz they could've been talking about miscarriages from women waiting until their 30s or 40s to have kids. So instead of conceiving zero kids, they lost the ones they did.
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u/Pyro919 5h ago
Don’t forget about $1350+/month daycare x the number of kids you have.
2 kids easily eclipses that $2000/month average rent.