Commentators are pinning low fertility rates on everything from feminism to smartphones. But they miss one glaring factor: capitalism, an economic system predicated on individual autonomy and naked self-interest whose incentives run counter to child-rearing.

Capitalism seems so inevitable to us that we sometimes fail to notice its explanatory power. In this case, it’s staring us right in the face. The incentive structures of capitalism run counter to those of child-rearing — and as market logics pervade deeper into every aspect of our society, the business of having babies makes increasingly little business sense.

  • blarghly@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    1 day ago

    This article discusses differences between east and west germany before and after reunification.

    I would instead like to see a graph of nations on earth comparing fertility with things like economic equality, funds spent on social services, subjective rating of “capitalismness”, etc

    Looking down the list of countries by fertility, it seems to me that fertility rate is primarily driven by poverty - the more poor people you have, the higher your fertility. The biggest exception is poor countries that are also formerly communist.

    In an April 2025 article in the conservative Catholic First Things Magazine, titled “Feminism Against Fertility,” Darel E. Paul blames the decline in Western fertility rates on young women who wish to remain childless because “they have more important priorities or simply like being single.”

    To me, this seems more or less correct. In poorer societies, women have less knowledge, less control over their lives and bodies, and fewer opportunities to do things with their lives other than raise children. So, they have lots of kids.

    Women in wealthier nations have access to birth control and know that they have other options in life than raising children. So they don’t have children, and do other things instead. This is an extremely reasonable descision. And it is caused by feminism.

    It is so weird that any time birth rates are mentioned, the left wingers are like “well you need to pay for my childcare!” Bullshit! I know a lot of women, and very few of them have had or have plans to have kids. Why? Because it fucks up your body. It ends all the freedom you have in your life. It takes all your money. And sure, they could get a fair chunk of that back if they leaned on their families - but their families live on the other side of the country in podunk towns they don’t want to return to. And also, they don’t want to spend that much time with their families.

    It seems like a much more reasonable response would be “Yeah, some of us want to take vacations to Maui instead of being sleep deprived and covered in poo. Falling birth rates are a natural response to people being more free and wealthy. We’ll deal with it just like we deal with literally every problem humanity has ever encountered.”