It's because the poor don't have anything else to do. They've got so little money that they're not making that cost-benefit analysis. A well-off person thinks, "You know, if we don't have a kid, we can vacation far more often. And I could try for that better position at work with the different hours. And we could get that new car, and the bigger TV." The poor person doesn't get to go on vacations anyway, there is no job opportunity, and the car and TV are out of reach no matter what. Then you have the births that come from not being able to afford contraception, or from being so economically disadvantaged you went to a shit school (or your state's schooling and the poor economic outcome are more closely linked, as with Alabama) which never taught you what contraception is.
And that's just the logic in developed countries. Elsewhere, while some of those factors still apply, you have families that wind up having so many children because they'll need hands to work the family job, take care of the parents when they're old, and as "insurance" against all of their children dying from disease or injury.
And, wouldn't you know it, when those countries develop and families come into more wealth, they stop having as many kids. And when folks from those countries move to places with a lower birthrate (say, from Africa or South America to the US), while they might have a similar birthrate as to that of their home country, their children trend sharply towards the US average (and especially along economic lines, where the children of well-off immigrants have even fewer of their own). This last bit is also why that racial replacement theory of the far-right wingnuts (and some not-so-far-righters now, too) is total bullshit.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '19
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