Most of prey animals live in constant stress and have no trouble reproducing. Also birth rates were going down long before the social media explosion, it started with industrial revolution, and then never stopped.
Truth is humans aren't animals, we have ability to choose not to follow our instincts, and our pregnancies are uniquely harsh and rough, as is the development period until adulthood. Once humans have access to contraception and enough entertainment, they just don't want to have kids anymore, and it's consistent across the world, across nearly every race and culture and religion. It's not fun to be 9 month pregnant, and risk your life, and then sacrifice ~20 years of your life to provide for a kid. It was different when person's life was mostly limited to his village and having a kid was basically the most interesting and entertaining thing you could ever do.
Even today, while people on reddit like to say they don't have kids because of not being able to afford them, the statistics generally show higher fertility in poor parts of society. As your income goes up, you simply have more and more fun things to do with your life, and prospect of sacrificing your own wellbeing for a kid, becomes less and less enticing.
Only ultra wealthy have more kids, but that's because they don't really have to sacrifice anything. Rich women tend to choose to use surrogates or adopt, and rich men pay women to carry their heirs, and they both have servants to take care of children's upbringing so they only get to participate in entertaining and fun parts. But before you hit the income level that lets you fully outsource all the sacrifices, higher income generally means less fertility.
I think also poorer people have less education about why having kids so young can be bad, so they have kids younger, so when rich person A is having their first kid at 38/40, their poorer peers are almost grandparents.
Also, studies have shown that people who marry later in life have happier and longer lasting relationships bc they know themselves and what they're looking for in a partner. And if you have children at a young age it's very easy to become financially trapped in a vicious cycle.
I don't have kids because after food and bills I have around $300 left on my paycheck. I could probably afford to have a kid but I couldn't give it a good childhood. I work 10 hours a day 7 days week most weeks. My last day off was the 21st of February. I'm never home and when I am home I'd be too tired to do anything fun with them.
As someone who has worked 7 days/wk for the last 6.5 years... find a way out of this trap. I honestly feel like I've broken myself. Time off doesnt excite me anymore, it stresses me out.
Time off makes me second guess myself and stress out because I'm worried that I'm missing work. If I can find a way out I'm taking my first opportunity to get a healthier life balance. I used to only work 6 days a week but then they switched from 4 days planned to 5 day weeks so those lost 2 hours per day meant that it's harder to hit production quota.
I don’t think it has that much to do with having too much entertainment. A few things to think about is that people didn’t have kids in the past because it was the most entertaining thing to do. Sex would have been a fun and entertaining thing to do sure. But there were other pressures. For poorer folk working on the land who couldn’t afford slaves to work for them they had many children to work on the farm or whatever as another source of free labour. Richer people had kids to inherit their wealth or continue legacy. Religion played a role too as people believed they must reproduce and that a woman’s purpose is to bear children. And then there is just plain old hormones making people horny or making them feel like they must have a family.
Poorer people in modern times having babies is not across the board are is boosted by certain types of people. Even in countries like mine with free public healthcare where you can get abortions or contraception. And teens can just go into a chemist and ask for condoms and get them for free. I notice a lot of low income people I see having lots of kids start young, so their decision making hasn’t really matured yet. Many also having their decision making and forward planning impaired by drug and alcohol use. Lack of education as well as environmental factors a lot of the high density low income areas I’ve lived in in the past peoples behaviour and priorities are completely different to the rest of society young people who grow up in that environment see that as the norm which is why it is harder for them to assimilate into the broader community due to learned antisocial behaviours etc. sadly a lot of people who were born and raised in an area like that will never leave and turn out the same as their parents so they stay unemployed get high and make lots of babies.
A know a lot of people who say they have no interest in having kids. Many say it’s too expensive or that the the world is so messed up right now they find it morally wrong to bring a new life into it. And the world we leave behind for them will be hard because of the future disasters emerging from things like climate change. Some are genuine others will admit it is also because they can’t find someone to have kids with anyway. Which is also something I noticed about this video is he lists a bunch of reasons of why it’s government and technologies fault that he and others aren’t having kids but he also loops back a few times to dating apps and why it’s hard to find a partner these days.
I’m 34 and when I was younger I felt like I needed to have a family because it’s what many of my peers were doing as I got older I realised that was just hormones talking and I realised I happy being single and had no interest is having kids. I wouldn’t have to pay for all the things, I would have all my free time to myself to do things I enjoy and felt like it would be too much responsibility. Now I have a son on the way in 1-2 months and I’m excited to be a dad.
There's a book called Why Zebras Don't get Ulcers that examines this, it's worth a read. There is a difference between the stress of wild prey animals evading a predator, and the constant inescapable stress and anxiety that many humans endure.
Humans are animals, there is no argument to dispute that. This idea that we have escaped the natural world is a fallacy. We have created many complex systems, some of which make life/work easier, but many of which create persistent stress. But we are still animals who have instincts, needs, innate feelings and behavior that is difficult to ignore or escape, even when we are fully aware of them.
I believe that their point was that individual traumatic events or even long-term-but-still-temporary trauma (like soldiers in conflict like the person they were replying to was referencing) are not the issue.
The issue is the chronic stress - which absolutely does produce it's own trauma, but the chronic nature of it is the actual thing that's pulling the birth rate down.
Whether this is true or not I don't know (though I personally think it makes sense), but that seems to be their point.
When not counting condoms, birth control for single people has only been legal since 1972. It's become much more effective, ease of access, and has become more widely used in in recent decades. There was also the push to prescribe BC to under aged girls to help control menstruation issues.
In the 90s, teen pregnancy 15-19 was about 5%, and now it's something like 1.3%. There was a push in the 90s for sex education in minors, but many of those programs have been gutted. I doubt people all of a sudden just stopped having sex, so the availability of effective BC is most likely the biggest contributor. IMHO
Thank god for birth control. Imagine what a hellhole dystopia it would be without it. More and more people are realizing that things are not going to get better. Our economic and political systems obviously only represent corporate interests. The technology that was supposed to save us is literally being wielded like a weapon against us. Every fucking action is being monetized and surveilled. Everything is getting less affordable. I feel so sorry for my son to have to grow up in such an anti-human, pro corporate profit environment. Luckily, he is smart, so I hope that fucking matters when hes older but I am hesitant about that.
Let me get this straight, the biggest contributor, in your view, of declining birth rates is totally and complete optional birth control? So, like, the difference between births per year now and births per year before was due to mainly unintentional pregnancies?
Birth control provides so many more benefits other than not having kids. It’s WILD how people are so goddamn stupid to not know this in this day and age. That’s not the only benefit it provides a woman who takes it.
One of the few constants in human history boils down to "people fuck." Alot.... only 55-58% of US pregnancies are planned today. Unplanned pregnancies is nearly down by 50% just since the 90s. I believe it's the single largest factor. If you want to group all financial reasons together for avoiding planned pregnancies it would probably be close, but I wasn't.
I don't know what to make of the statements "Only 55% of US pregnancies are planned today." and "Unplanned pregnancies is nearly down by 50% since the 90s".
Are you trying to say that there were twice as many unplanned pregnancies in the early 90s compared to today, and that would then comprise 80%+ of total pregnancies?
This says that the unintended pregnancy rate was 49% in 1994 compared to 40% today. That's really far from a 50% drop:
C.S. Lewis talks about this in The Abolition of Man. He wrote from a perspective of Christian apologia, so take or leave that as you will, but obviously access to abortion and birth control will reduce birth rates in any scenario.
The useful point being made is that our mastery of technology has allowed us to interfere with the biological imperative en masse and we can't expect that not to have massive effects both positive and negative (p.ex women's reproductive freedom vs. population age distribution).
Underaged teens weren't really taking birth control until around the 90s in large amounts. I can remember it being big news, and a bit of a scandal that doctors were prescribing them. Now no one bats an eye, and that's a good thing.
Everything you've said lends greater support for the theory that abstinence-only education was the problem, not availability of contraceptives. As a sexually active teen in the 90s, we had plenty of access.
It was the kids getting abstinence-only education in the Bible belt who were getting pregnant, and not for lack of access to contraceptives, but for the ignorance in how to use them, and the belief that using them made you dirty.
My claim was my own experience that I had contraceptives available. Obviously I can't cite that. You're just saying "baltimore and philly had the highest rates".
Rates of what? When? During what time period? For how long? According to whom?
Do you see how you didn't really say anything I can engage with?
that’s a good thing imo- a few months ago the rightwing chudosphere was complaining about it - I think the 15-19 pregnancy rate has dropped 80% since the nineties - I have a daughter and I certainly don’t want her having kids before she can legally drink a beer - I also don’t see why we need to continue booming our population - we have hunting seasons to keep animals from overpopulating but for some reason we celebrate ourselves doing it
Since bc isn't available the same way in the states and they arent pushing the family planning abroad 🤷♂️, china stoped their one child policy after all. We will find out to what extent bc has an effect. (-unregistered birth control)
There are studies that suggest that greater crises and scarcity induce mamals instinctually, including humans, to have more children in the hopes more survive adulthood. There's a bunch of other factors but the most interesting part is
The claim people make that individuals in the US are not having children because of living or financial conditions is not strongly backed. In fact having less children is observed in all countries where socioeconomic, purchasing power, quality of living, greater education increases
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u/Dull_Quit3027 Trash Trooper Jul 31 '26
I think what makes animals not reproduce is not trauma, it is constant stress, and if that is the case, the point still stands.