The percentage of American women who have a child in their lifetime is at 85%, about than same as in the 1950s. The issue is that many more people are choosing to have fewer children. This to me indicates it’s a cost issue, not some sense of impending doom about the future. You’ve already given over to the lifestyle change, the opportunity cost, and commitment to the future of earth with 1 or 2 kids - I bet not having more is strongly financially driven.
There's more than one lifestyle change. From our experience: When you have one kid, you take them with you; when you have two, you stop going.
I would say that going from no children to children was four times as large as the adjustment from single to married. From one child to two isn't as big - maybe the same size as getting married, maybe a bit less.
> The percentage of American women who have a child in their lifetime is at 85%
This is going to be heavily skewed by the fact that Millenial women are in their 30s and thus will be subject to various methodologies in how they're counted for this "lifetime" figure.
My experience is that women in the US over 40 vs women under 40 (as of 2026) have a much different view of children and of marriage. This would line up with cultural changes which occurred during the early 2000s.
As for cost, this idea is promoted all the time but poor people in developed countries and poor people in undeveloped countries have much higher fertility rates. Poor people have more children, therefore it cannot be an issue of cost alone.
It's an issue of opportunity cost. Poor people have less income to lose by having kids, so it makes economic sense to have them when you count in social benefits.
Any woman with a stable well paying job will try to avoid the very real risks of getting passed over for promotions or illegally fired. A lot of employers still see a mother as someone who can't be dedicated to work or takes too much time off.
Then you have Hispanic Americans with much higher fertility than all other groups, even if you account for income. I think it points to a cultural problem where some women see having a child as too much of a risk, becoming dependent on a man and losing it all if he decides to abandon you.
In a more community minded culture you know you have a support network to fall back on if your husband leaves you behind. And if kids are too much of a burden you can leave them with a relative until you're ready to take them in again, and you can be confident they will get raised good. That makes the risks a lot less scary.
> poor people in developed countries and poor people in undeveloped countries have much higher fertility rates.
There can be a whole lot of reasons for that.
poorer people are more likely to be uneducated, have less access to contraception.
Poor people have higher infant mortality.
Children also make people poorer. the higher the fertility rate the more likely that someone will be poor.
Poorer people also tend to be more religious which can limit women's rights, their options, and increase the expectations placed on them when it comes to having children. That's especially true in undeveloped countries where women may have no choice at all.
Having children can also provide a poor woman with status and a title within society. She isn't just a nobody, she is a Mom, and there is some respect that can come with that.
> Having children can also provide a poor woman with status and a title within society.
Especially true in places where women are prevented from attaining most other kinds of status and titles. There are many positive things about being a parent, but none of them can make up for not having a choice in the matter. For people who choose to have kids though, most of them don't regret that decision.
> As for cost, this idea is promoted all the time but poor people in developed countries and poor people in undeveloped countries have much higher fertility rates. Poor people have more children, therefore it cannot be an issue of cost alone.
In these places where people have more children but are overall much poorer, is there a different in infant mortality rate? I know in the past, people having large numbers of children was in part a response to the fact that the infant mortality rate was higher.
A counterpoint to this is that we saw birth rates hover around replacement level from the 1980s until 2007. After 2007 we see a pretty steep decline up to 2026. 2007 to 2015 was mainly Gen X having kids, but this does lineup with the financial chrisis.
I never saw cost as an issue, but then I was not blue-collar. Public school is free, younger kids get hand-me-downs (heck, even the oldest got hand-me-downs from their cousins).
I didn't see the cost scale.
I think time is the more pressing issue. People don't want to be 70 before the nest is empty.
Car seats aren't really the problem in that situation though. Most people struggle to do that even without them, even with mini-vans it could be a problem.
9 kids was reasonable for people who worked on a farm, expected a bunch of their kids to die early, and needed free labor. There's really no reason for 9 kids today.
I'd consider car seat laws to be an indicator for improvements to safety expectations. They are are a lot higher now.
You didn't have an 11 seater back in the day. You just put people wherever they fit and hoped nobody noticed. It was "fine" at one point. You'd be raked over the coals for it now.
Trucks were a great loophole because you were allowed to have more people than seatbelts as long as every seatbelt was in use. At least that was my understanding of the law.
For me it was sitting on a milk crate in the back of a van. I liked watching the road pass underneath us through the rust holes.
I've always felt more kids makes for better adults.
Although I've just realized that I don't really have any friends from one-child families (and I myself have two siblings). Sampling bias, or just statistically normal for XGen?
I'm XGen and two dear friends are from 7 kid families (not due to religious reasons). I've always felt they had some maturity I lacked, eminating from having many siblings to get on with.
