The Washington Post recently highlighted survey results that suggest Americans are having fewer children due to financial constraints. I am skeptical.
Having kids is costly, but not how you might think. The basic material needs of children are the same as they’ve always been: They need food, clothes, a place to sleep, a car seat, someone’s time and attention, and, on occasion, medical care.
Some of these needs have increased in price in recent years, but the greater increase has been in the perceived cost of having a child and in the expectations of parenthood. To provide each child with non-stop enrichment, parental hovering, his own bedroom, tuition for the travel soccer team, and a college education… These are modern expectations for many parents—especially in the professional class—but they certainly aren’t necessities.
After all, many Americans in the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers grew up with far less material wealth than kids have today, and far less “child care,” and they turned out ok. The difference is that today, having kids is a choice.
If money were truly the biggest obstacle to having kids, we might expect wealthier Americans to have bigger families. And we might expect richer countries to have higher fertility rates. But this isn’t the case. Instead, paradoxically, higher incomes are associated with lower enjoyment of parenting, indicating cultural factors that plague the upper classes.
Many countries have experimented with subsidies to encourage more births, but these programs are very expensive for their modest effects. One estimate suggests that the U.S. would have to spend $250 billion annually to increase our fertility rate by 0.2.
When 7 in 10 adults say that having another child is “too expensive,” they are right—in a way. Having a child will cost you some freedom, sleep, leisure time, and career opportunities. These are the costs that many people consider to be unaffordable. What this calculus misses is that these costs, however high, don’t compare to the reward of having kids.
Some childless people understand this and would have wanted nothing more than to become parents. When Pew asked childless adults over age 50 why they didn’t have children, the most cited answer (aside from “It just never happened”) was “Didn’t find the right partner.” Many more (33%) cited this answer compared to “Couldn’t afford to raise a child” (12%). Heartbreakingly, this points to low birthrates as a marriage problem, not a money problem.
A healthy culture would view each child not as a great expense, but as the most important investment in our shared future. We would prioritize marriage—the best foundation on which to build a family—as well as extended family and community, religious practice, and workplace flexibility, all of which reduce pressures on parents.
It’s not the money. Politics is downstream from culture. Fertility rates are, too.