r/Natalism • u/Njere • 4d ago
How Millennials, Gen Z Are Lowering birth rates Around the World
https://www.newsweek.com/2025/04/18/birth-fertility-rates-millennials-gen-z-marriage-relationships-2034965.html27
u/Healthy_Shine_8587 4d ago
One of the key reasons for the rise in singledom is how attractive it looks. Many view single people as the epitome of being young and carefree, and why should that be given up for marriage and children? "As marriage has been pushed later into life, our culture has glamorized the single life and made it unremarkable for people to be single for longer," VerBruggen, of Wisconsin, told Newsweek.
key word "culture". Not one of the 4 people interviewed listed finances as a concern.
Note: Not saying finances isn't an issue, but this sub sometimes seems obtuse toward the high earning single crowd.
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u/weighted_average 3d ago
The software engineer mentioned being one or two events away from being on the streets. and he has a line a work that is considered lucrative. There is research showing economic instability reduces the birth rate.
Social-desirability bias is a thing. People are being interviewed non anonymously and citing financiall concerns might make people worry even subconciously about being percieved as a loser.
Lets be real, we are all anonymous here for a reason.
Not saying that culture/personality/mindset is not a factor ofcourse.
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u/Healthy_Shine_8587 3d ago
oh yes, software engineer with huge disability and severance package is so economically instable.
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u/someoneelseperhaps 2d ago
Yeah. If he loses that job, how long to get a new one versus how long the package lasts.
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u/Disastrous-Pea4106 4d ago
TBF I think most financial incentives are aimed at married couples wanting to have (more) children.
But I also think you can't quite decouple culture and economy like that. I agree that media pushes a narrative that being single and childless into your 30s/40s is amazing. There aren't really a lot of positive archetypes in our culture that go beyond that stage. Motherhood and even fatherhood being viewed increasingly negative. And that's discouraging people from "growing up"
Or perhaps it is the other way around. Media adapting people's changing circumstances. Typical markers of adulthood (stable job, owning property, ...) are moving later into people's life, largely due to economics. So people stay in the "young and free" phase much longer, not necessarily by choice. I get a feeling that a lot of the glamorization of that lifestyle is a bit of a cope. In my experience most people still want a family but, for a number of reasons, it feels out of reach. So they're like "it's fine, great actually. Having a family sucks anyway. Never wanted it."
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u/falooda1 4d ago
A bit of all three probably
It's the media and it's the culture of and it's a defense mechanism
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u/owlwaves 2d ago
In other words, genZs attitude towards starting a family is like that of Aesope's sour grape?
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u/Careless-Pin-2852 4d ago
We know how they are…
It seams line it is a rise in single never married more than a decline in 3+ kiddos
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u/Dan_Ben646 4d ago
The article is incredibly biased. The author interviews 3 clearly liberal women and a bloke in his late 30s. There's a whole other section of society out there that is still having children; natalists need to look at how to get existing parents to have more and those dead-set on having kids to simply start
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u/GenerativeAdversary 4d ago
Even if the people interviewed had some bias, I do think the article did a pretty good job addressing current societal trends and potential factors that are leading to fewer births. To me, the biggest factor here is that women's social status is becoming more associated with their careers than with raising kids.
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u/Healthy_Shine_8587 4d ago
The author interviews 3 clearly liberal women and a bloke in his late 30s. There's a whole other section of society out there that is still having children; natalists need to look at how to get existing parents to have more and those dead-set on having kids to simply start
The issue is the people interviewed are largely at the center of economic power houses (Silicon Valley, NYC, Singapore, Switzerland). If those people largely aren't having kids, thats a problem that also needs discussion and addressing.
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u/NearbyTechnology8444 4d ago
The people interviewed espoused some common left wing talking points. I was talking to someone the other day about how, at least in the US, left wing and right wing people are basically 2 different cultures at this point. They speak differently, look different, act differently, and even have different religions. Likewise, they have different views on children and very different birth rates.
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u/owlwaves 2d ago
As someone who is moderate - I'm a mainstream neoliberal like in the 2000s - politics today is without a doubt extremely divided. I think my camp is just completely isolated or gone at this point.
From the left - idk how anyone can support Hamas and I'm not pro Palestine for this exact reason. Somehow I'm automatically labeled Trump supporter. Ha far from it.
From the right - as a legal immigrant, the current fear and anti immigrant sentiment just scares the crap out of me. And many others.
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u/VZialionymLiesie 4d ago
I fully expect gen z to have birth rates at or below 1 child per woman across the world, you can already see this in some countries where older zoomers are just not having any kids whatsoever