[angiolillo]

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

Yes, absolutely.

I used to work in a big city where friends, neighbors, and coworkers with young kids had to sacrifice their career trajectory, friends, hobbies, savings, personal space, and more. Most couples we knew had no kids, some had one, a few exceptional folks had two. A few couples we knew even commented that they ended up having fewer children than they were planning to because of the difficulty with the one(s) they had.

Then my partner and I moved near relatives to a small, family-friendly town. Most of our neighbors have two kids, some have three, and a few exceptional folks have four or more. Almost everything here revolves around families -- even my company has family events and taking time to take care of kids is normalized.

True, living here did not change our decision to have kids, but it actually did change how many kids we ended up having.

> 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.

That's a plausible model, but my model is that people alter their goals based on what they observe happening to other people who pursue those same goals. If young people see their friends, coworkers, and neighbors struggling due to their decision to have children, it seems reasonable that they would reevaluate how important it is to them.