Expensive to have kids is a symptom, not a cause of the issue.
Fewer kids == more investment per kid == more competition for high quality everything == more costs.
Also, more workers in the labor force (aka fewer SAHM’s, etc) == more competition for labor == lower cost for labor (vs historic trends) == can buy less with an hours labor.
The ratio of pay for an hours work to a daycare hour is at historic highs, and there is a reason for that.
If you look at women’s participation in the workforce and overlay it with ratios of worker pay vs buying power, it’s a pretty obvious correlation. There is a reason that labor has been losing ground since the 70’s, and it’s largely because birth control means that women can put off having kids (while still meeting needs like having sex and being in relationships) in order to work and make money and be independent.
The issue here is - whatcha going to do about it?
Most women I know eventually want kids, but then they get screwed by all the younger women who don’t yet want kids making the market, ahem, not very amenable.
And they’re caught in the rat race, which is its own kind of miserable, especially when everyone is competing for the same slots, instead of the roughly half that was the historic norm.
There really is no free lunch though - plenty of horror stories from before too.
Fewer kids == more investment per kid == more competition for high quality everything == more costs.
Also, more workers in the labor force (aka fewer SAHM’s, etc) == more competition for labor == lower cost for labor (vs historic trends) == can buy less with an hours labor.
The ratio of pay for an hours work to a daycare hour is at historic highs, and there is a reason for that.
If you look at women’s participation in the workforce and overlay it with ratios of worker pay vs buying power, it’s a pretty obvious correlation. There is a reason that labor has been losing ground since the 70’s, and it’s largely because birth control means that women can put off having kids (while still meeting needs like having sex and being in relationships) in order to work and make money and be independent.
The issue here is - whatcha going to do about it?
Most women I know eventually want kids, but then they get screwed by all the younger women who don’t yet want kids making the market, ahem, not very amenable.
And they’re caught in the rat race, which is its own kind of miserable, especially when everyone is competing for the same slots, instead of the roughly half that was the historic norm.
There really is no free lunch though - plenty of horror stories from before too.