Surprised this hasn't already been posted here. Best explanation that rings very true for me as a mother.

Instead of religion, urbanization rate seems to be the key factor here

Hi everyone,

I'm a Master's student researching attitudes towards women who choose not to have children.

I'm particularly looking for Black Nigerian women (living in Nigeria or the UK) and White British women living in the UK, aged 18+.

The survey is completely anonymous and takes 5–10 minutes to complete.

Survey: https://gre.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3Vo0R2GyjDHcuVM

I'd really appreciate your help. Thank you so much!

Whether you want to view these as positive or negative or neutral, they could still be possible cultural reasons for singleness and/or childlessness and childfreeness - though I might drop economic ones here and there if it’s connected. I’m mostly staring these factors from a neutral standpoint - I don’t want to necessarily label them as bad or good for society, though they could be one or the other, depending on your view. I just want to list a few of them. I’m also probably missing a lot, so feel free to list more in the comments.

1. We see more attractive people on the daily because of our screen time. Go online and you’ll see thousands of gorgeous, unreal faces. People in real life that you used to find hot look more mediocre now. Less desire and less attraction for real, tangible people.
   
2. Escapism. Many young people rush to AI companions or fantasy stories (like Wattpad and so on). The spread of AI companions and services like Character AI amongst young people is actually a much larger phenomenon than a lot of older people think. Ask me how I know - I used to be addicted to Character AI and used to prefer it over real people, because, essentially, it’s sycophantic and does whatever you’d like. Same issue went for Wattpad before that. A lot of people find that easier than dating. Dating is hard.
   
3. More dating options. Oftentimes in the past, you’d just marry the hottest person you could find in your hometown or local community… Nowadays, we have a choice overload phenomenon that can lead to confusion in SOME people.
   
4. Easily accessible porn. Similar to my earlier point about escapism earlier, as well as overstimulation due to too many attractive people, porn can cause a state in which people of either sex are genuinely not attracted to the opposite sex, feel no need or desire for the opposite sex and simply find it easier to get their dopamine on the internet.
   
5. Travel-centered lifestyle. While there have always been wanderers, pilgrims, nomads and travellers, a lot of people in history were simply tied to the land in which they lived - they had a family they had to live with, a land to take care of, a farm to protect and a static job to do. The travel industry has expanded much wider than that in the past century and today, to the point where many people would prefer a life of travel and find children to be a hindrance to them. Travel is easily accessible, sometimes cheaper and more entertaining than kids.
   
6. Hustle culture. Parenthood is not celebrated by a culture that praises those with success and money, and the constant “uphill battle” to the top. In fact, it’s almost shameful to be a parent nowadays, especially one at home.
   
7. Fear-based parenting. Intensive parenting norms.* *I’ve seen some people talking about this, but yes, people nowadays have extremely high standards for children, to the point where letting them play outside is seen as dangerous, neglectful, abusive, so on. I’m glad that parenting standards are higher, but some of them are just too much. Everything is seen as damaging to children.
   
8. Gender wars. Young people are exposed to the vitriol of certain members of the opposite sex, specifically online because that’s where they’re anonymous, and they feel jaded and no longer want to even be near them. It’s very easy to find viral TikTok videos saying absolutely vile things about men or women. It’s definitely easy to harbor to dislike the opposite sex if you see what both sides say online, especially if you’re young and gullible (susceptible to ragebait).
   
9. Lack of accessible third places. Digital habits often replace real socialisation - a contributing factor. There’s also a lot of privatisation and lack of free public spaces, and everything is so expensive. Yes, this phenomenon is motivated partially by economics.
   
10. Extreme individualism and atomization. Lack of desire to collaborate with anyone, more desire to live on one’s own and simply stay away from others. Less help, tolerance or community for parents. People live more independently from their neighbours and extended family.
    
11. Permanent adolescence culture. A tendency to lengthen adolescence, especially due to economic factors (late purchase of housing and late achievement of financial independence, stagnant wages). Higher education debt. Often lack of practical skills that one might’ve had in the past at the same age. Many people feel like children even into their 30s.
    
12. Cynicism about marriage and children. A lot of people simply see the ideal of happy families as a lie, because of their personal experience.
    
13. Normalisation of loneliness. It’s seen as normal to “bedrot” and not have as many friends as before. Young people also aren’t having sex.
    
14. Digital culture as a whole. This one, I hope, is pretty self-explanatory - high screen times. Digital substitution.
    
15. Anti-child social attitudes. Especially online, children are seen as annoying pests and women who have children are even labelled as “male-centered birds”, especially the ones who want them earlier. Wanting to have lots of children is universally shamed and looked down upon - if you don’t believe me, you should see the comments of any large family. People label those who want to have many children as having a pregnancy fetish.
    
16. Anti-dependence attitudes. Depending on others in any way is viewed as weak and pathetic. Being completely alone and independent is seen as ideal. It’s subtle, but it’s there.
    
17. Fear of climate change. Understandable and self-explanatory.
    
18. Fear of passing down problems. People are afraid to not inflict their own trauma and previous bad experiences on kids.
    
19. General pessimism. We’re told that everything is ending; war and illness and hunger are still a thing in this world. Many people feel it’s selfish to bring a child into such a world.
    
20. Secularism. Before you come at me - I’m a staunch atheist. Simple logic - religion wants to continue and spread itself to the next generation, so it often encourages having more kids. The same cannot be said for atheism or secularism, which is simply the lack of any religion, so it has no set values. Secular attitudes about families also spread to non-atheist countries.
    
21. Fear of losing attractiveness. Pregnancy is seen as something that destroys a woman’s body - not only because of its risks, but because of how it supposedly makes you “ugly”. We do absolutely live in a beauty-obsessed and gym-obsessed society. Beauty standards are worse than ever.
    
22. Fear of irreversible identity change. People are scared to become “just a parent” and not have access to fun/hedonistic activities or group activities anymore.
    
23. Radical self-care culture. There’s a desire to always protect one’s peace and avoid any and all hardships.
    
24. Fear of divorce. People see the divorce rate and… yeah.

genuinely interesting article on marriages around the world and a bit on how it may effect birth rates, both in the past and currently.

especially this part: "After the French Revolution, the government imposed the equal partition of assets among children. Unable to choose just one heir and faced with the over-division of assets, families limited the number of children they had, possibly helping explain why France was the first European country to exhibit declining fertility rates. The same trend has been found in Sub-Saharan Africa. Individuals from ethnic groups where inheritance is shared between all children have lower fertility rates than those from ethnic groups where a single heir is chosen."

since i've seen a lot of commenters arguing about birth rates being tied to technology, then another commenter bites back with "it started falling in the 19th century!!! it can't be technology!!" something that has yet to be mentioned is cultural ideals around inheritance. Back when only the firstborn son can inherit, people had as many babies as they could. But once equal inheritance started to be imposed, birth rates fell. Thoughts?

I'm from Poland, a country notorious for its low birth rate. Women are the focus of the issue in 90% of discussions but men play an underestimated role in the phenomena.

20 years ago when Poland entered the EU, almost a million Poles went West in hopes for a better life. The men that went abroad made A LOT of money compared to the ones back home and well, they started many families abroad. With their assets and income based abroad, they had very little incentive to come back and most didn't.

But today the issue has turned Western-centric. More and more Polish men are going to poorer European countries, and even Asia to start families. Like, they're not bringing their wives and kids back home like how Americans or Western Europeans do it. They just start a new life in those countries and stay there.

And tbh, I sympathies with the logic. Poland is very expensive given how low salaries are. It's really a horrible place to start a family unless you're extremely wealthy or economically illiterate. And Poland is very educated so fewer and fewer people belong to the second category.

Anyway, I feel like this problem is irreversible in Poland. The social and economic factors are so difficult to navigate and I doubt it'll change anytime soon.

In a recent controversial and provocative post the community was quite divided on the question, whether voluntarily not having children is exploiting the welfare system.

I have since reflected on it. While my opinion hasn't changed much, it has become more balanced and I thought it would make sense to write it down. I have collected all the different arguments I came across and addressed them.

This topic quite interesting to me, because I always thought of the demographic issue to be impossible to solve without "social-engineering". I always found that policies relying on people going against incentives to have a poor track record. This is a way forward, that restores incentive and aligns it more with how humans have evolved to behave.

Just realized I've never seen any where there are only our almost entirely elderly people.

I'd be interesting to see a movie taking place in e.g. 2070 and almost everyone is retirement age but not one can retire due to no working age people.

And add these sad conversations about people reminiscing what it was like with young people and children running around.

Maybe the Amish will be the only ones making kids, and the government tries to take them as workers.

Hello!

In online philosophy spaces, I’ve encountered a lot of antinatalists who say you should adopt instead of creating new life, comparing it to “Walking past a bunch of sad abused puppies at a shelter, to only demand a brand new one”

I would love to adopt, but I also would like to get pregnant by someone I love one day.

I also noticed it’s really hard to find a man who would want to adopt. I would basically be wasting my 20s and 30s trying to find a man who isn’t there. Most men I know either only want biological kids or don’t want them at all. I actually just saw something on reddit where it was a dude who wanted bio kids but his gf wanted only to adopt, and raise the kids vegan

I feel like antinatalists don‘t care if people end up lonely and miserable due to this artificial dating restriction. I don’t even see them trying to match people up with this man who wants to adopt. Or donate money so people can at least adopt on their own (cuz funny enough none of them want to adopt lmao)

And I think even if a partner of mine doesnt want to adopt, i think its still a net good on society to have a biological child raised in a loving household.

What do you guys say to these “just adopt” people?

Where/when I grew up, most of my friends’ parents were cops, firefighters, teachers, real estate agents, small business owners, nutritionists, librarians, insurance agents, hairdressers, carpenters, physical or occupational therapists, tax accountants, nurses etc and dual income households with 3-5 kids were very common (I’m <30 so I’m not talking about the distant past). I grew up in a working class/middle class part of a rust belt area. Not a big city but not rural either; was quite walkable and some people lived in townhouses or apartments. I don’t know many people who had stay at home parents, but most people I knew growing up seemed to have good relationships with their parents. We went to the local public schools (some went to parochial Catholic school) and state universities (often “directional” schools) or small private colleges if on scholarships. A bunch went to 2-year trade school or associates degree programs like dental hygiene or HVAC. Many commuted to college while living with their parents. International travel, designer clothes, and fancy cars were extremely rare, as was going to an out of state college. A couple people did travel sports but that was unusual. We had weekend, summer, and/or after school part time jobs. We shared a bedroom with siblings. I feel like most of us turned out decent; we’re all gainfully employed, healthy afaik, most have bought a house or are otherwise no longer living with parents, several are married and/or have kids. 

Anyway, I think that from the increased prominence of aspirational lifestyles in the media, people who aren’t already wealthy become obsessed with sending their children to expensive prestigious schools (whether k-12 or college), thinking people who show off constant travel on social media are happier than they actually are, plastic surgery to look like influencers, and so on. 

I think it is possible to have, say, 4 kids without necessarily having a ”trad” lifestyle where mom stays home and homeschools the kids, or having a $400k+ HHI where both parents are surgeons working 60+. hours/week. There is a happy medium.

Is not bad. Women should have their own choices in life. Thats free will God has given each of us. I support freedom myself but we should encourage them to have kids and state support them too so both sides win. Taking away their rights is like reappealing the anti slave acts.

What's the point of it? If we reappeal feminism and stuff there will be a mass revolt. I have a feeling we lost and the best deal is a compromised deal.

Remember Free will is given to us all. With us men been Pathetic now who blames them for not wanting us? Both sides need to sit down and discuss a middle ground.

Maybe give them money to have kids or free college so its encouraged. Thoughts?

In my entire k-12 education, I've only had 5 female classmates out of a total of 143 classmates.

2 were severely disabled, 2 were single moms by 6th grade the dads being homeless gypsies in their 50s and the last one which I thought was decent and a miracle from God advertising her OF at 14 on the same account where even her grandma knew her on.

Gonna study naval electromechanical engineering at the only maritime university my country has so I won't be unemployed or be one of the lucky(atleast locally) few who is a wage slave.

As you can guess, not a single woman has applied here in the past 25 years, I don't know what to do and I am just trying to set myself up financially for the best future I can.

Why do so many people in their late 20s, 30s, or even 40s lack the social skills to date or maintain a partner?

​Some blame their parents for not letting them date when they were younger, having been told to focus entirely on their education instead. This often leads to an adulthood lacking in social skills and confidence.

​Should parents change this cultural norm of over-focusing on academics? Should they acknowledge that building dating experience and social skills is crucial in the modern world?

​Looking back at my own childhood, a few of my classmates dated each other, which made zero sense to me at the time. I thought, who has time for relationships when we have a mountain of homework to do? Now, I believe I was wrong. Building experience with the opposite gender should start as early as possible because you tend to become socially ostracized the older and more left behind you become.

Edit: Fixed grammar.

Excluding those who suffer from infertility, of course.

​People who choose to be childless, like DINKs (Double Income, No Kids), are selfish individuals who make that lifestyle choice because paying the childless tax costs less than raising two or more children.

People who choose to be childless are selfish, harmful, leech-like, and parasitic free-riders who consume labor and pensions without producing the next generation to provide that labor and fund those pensions in the future.

​People will only start considering having two or more children when the tax on being childless becomes more expensive than all the costs of raising them—diapers, formula, and everything else.

​If we truly want to raise the birth rate to a stable level, we must make living a childless life more expensive than having two or more children.

Having one child should cut the childless tax in half, and only by having two children should one be completely exempt from it.

​This is the uncomfortable truth.