[Bratmon]

> My take on it is: you have to make your country/society a place where people will want to have children and feel/know that their children's lives will be good ones.

It's funny to me that of all the crazy crackpot theories on fertility Twitter, you picked the craziest and crackpotiest.

I'm actually really eager to hear why you think Chad, Somalia, and DR Congo are the countries where people feel the most optimistic about the future, and what you think rich countries should be learning from them!

[phainopepla2]

It's possible that the things that would motivate people to have children in poor undeveloped countries are very different from the things that would motivate people to have kids in wealthy developed countries. So OP's take could be right for the US but wrong for Chad.

Of course, it could also be true that a certain level of affluence and freedom for women simply results in a strong downward pressure on birth rates, which is what I think is most likely. (I am not advocating for rolling back women's rights).

[alephnerd]

> I'm actually really eager to hear why you think Chad, Somalia, and DR Congo are the countries where people feel the most optimistic about the future, and what you think rich countries should be learning from them!

Why not ask Israelis?

Even ignoring Haredim and Arab Israelis (both whose fertility rate has fallen dramatically), secular Israelis tend to have 2 kids on average [0]. Israelis also work much longer hours than Americans (South Korea is the only developed OECD country tied with Israel in hours spent working) [1], live primarily in 2-3 bedrooms low rise brutalist apartment blocks built in the 1960s-90s, earn less than Americans, pay San Francisco level prices for everything, and have almost nonexistent government benefits.

But society as a whole is very children friendly. If you have a baby crying in the background of a zoom call, it's not a faux pas to care for them. If your kids are running around in a mall no one gives you stink eye. Setting up a playdate in the office while parents are working is viewed as completely normal.

Western Europeans and North Americans are much less friendly and more individualistic veering on self-centered.

[0] - https://www.taubcenter.org.il/en/research/israels-exceptiona...

[1] - https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/hours-worked.html

[steveBK123]

It really is cultural. The economics don't help at all, but in the US kids are largely seen as some sort of annoyance, burden, interruption, etc.

I barely know my coworkers kids names half the time. I certainly don't see photos of them or see them popping into zoom backgrounds. Growing up my dads company had picnics and his coworkers had parties and I'd meet his coworkers & their kids.

And while theres obvious things children limit.. like 4am clubbing on a Tuesday... a lot of public spaces are less child-friendly than in the past.

Parenting has become increasingly a home-bound activity over time, with a reduced social life for both parents and children. Or the outside-home activities involving kids are specifically kids focussed and a time commitment, like spending all your weekend mornings at children's sports leagues.

There's very little overlap in 20-30 something singles & family public spaces anymore. It's like the entire world has self segregated.

I also wonder about the extra burden of some of the over the top car seat rules in US (up to 12 years old!?) also causing challenges for parents. Both parents probably need a bigger car, especially if you have 2-3 kids. If you have grandparents that help out, they need the same.

[daymanstep]

Are you saying that Israelis are more likely to have kids mainly because Israeli society is more tolerant of kids?

You seem to be supposing a model where most people naturally want kids, but are just discouraged from having kids because...other people might give them a stink eye if their kids run around in a mall.

In my model, people choose to have kids because it's an important life goal for them, and this decision is not very much affected by whether other people might give them a stink eye if their kids run around in a mall.

[j16sdiz]

Their life are pretty stable - consistently bad, you can say. They know what their kid have is more or less same as what they did - not improving, but not getting worse either

Can you say the the same in a city where housing is getting less and less affordable,?

[krona]

Or Israel?

It's simply a matter of the social position of mothers, or, what defines the social status of women in a given society. In much of the world it's educational attainment and professional status, so it surprises me very little that most women in these countries don't want children, or can easily find an excuse to not to.

[tshaddox]

Are you truly so confident that people in those countries don’t feel optimistic that their children will have better opportunities than their parents did?

I’d be shocked if they didn’t feel that, and even more shocked if it didn’t end up being the case.

[malux85]

Im no expert but my gut feeling is that theres more than 1 reason people have kids.

In "richer" western countries one of the strongest factors in that decision is "will my child have a good life" - that seems pretty sane to me, I wouldn't say that was the craziest and crackpotiest.

But maybe in other poorer countries it's something like "having sex is the only pleasure I get in this unbearable hellscape of an existance"

Very different things

[thewebguyd]

> But maybe in other poorer countries it's something like "having sex is the only pleasure I get in this unbearable hellscape of an existance"

Also, in poorer countries, having kids becomes a necessity for survival. Places without safety nets, elder care, etc. You have kids to both take care of you as you age, and also as labor to help with survival.

That pressure/need doesn't exist in most of the west, so that incentive is gone.

[macintux]

Population growth has rarely been a problem in poorer societies. Every fully developed country (afaik) has seen birth rates decline; that's the context.