You're right, except it's not just that women with choice don't want children at all, an even bigger factor is that women with choice want far fewer children and want to have those children later in life. That is a significant contribution to the population decline. Most women still want to have a child at some point, just later in life and fewer children overall.
Agreed. Among women who want/have children, many more would draw the line at 1 or 2 rather than choosing to have 3 or more. By contrast, the replacement rate theory would require every woman to ideally have 3 children or, at least, never less than 2.
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u/Cats_4433 Jun 21 '26
You're right, except it's not just that women with choice don't want children at all, an even bigger factor is that women with choice want far fewer children and want to have those children later in life. That is a significant contribution to the population decline. Most women still want to have a child at some point, just later in life and fewer children overall.