I talk about this topic with my (childless) wife quite a bit. Reasons we postulate:
The rent is too damn high
It takes longer into adulthood to achieve stability
Porn brain
Phone brain (24/7 infinite entertainment)
Dating apps are not delightful
The pandemic led some people to stay in for good
Loss of third places (rent too damn high again)
Tight job markets lead to reluctance to bring kids into the picture
Healthcare is more expensive every year
American individualism diminishes multi generational family support structures after a generation
A long tail of other causes: drugs, gun violence, obesity, losing one's religion, growing up with divorced parents
xyzelement · 9m ago
I used to kinda buy these things until I started getting to know religious people in the last few years. An average secular couple living in Brooklyn has all the problems you're describing, and then their religious Jewish neighbor lives in the same world but has 6.6 kids on average.
The thing that I think is different - even when I was an atheist, I had the value of "children" very strongly - that they are my way to bring life and perpetuate my ideas and contribute to the world. This was always strong with me, and I see similar concepts strong with my religious friends. Meanwhile my secular friends are much weaker on their motivation "oh... yeah maybe I'll be OK with kids if it happens" - because the value is not there, they aren't motivated to deal with the things you're listing - even though these things are NOTHING compared to what people dealt with in history and still had kids.
A lot of money was spent to make sure that happened
toomuchtodo · 3h ago
We should spend as much as possible to ensure that unwanted children are avoided whenever possible. The cost to not is simply too high.
Lammy · 54s ago
Maintain humanity under 500000000 in perpetual balance with nature.
panarchy · 41m ago
Don't feed the troll.
No comments yet
dh2022 · 1h ago
What do you mean?
clipsy · 2h ago
Say what you actually mean: A lot of women spent money to have control over their own lives.
add-sub-mul-div · 1h ago
> This represents a rapid acceleration of the trend, with the surplus of childless women growing from 2.1 million in 2016 to 4.7 million in 2022, and now to 5.7 million in 2024.
Did anything happen in 2016 that young women might have interpreted as a signal that they were on their own and facing hostility?
The rent is too damn high
It takes longer into adulthood to achieve stability
Porn brain
Phone brain (24/7 infinite entertainment)
Dating apps are not delightful
The pandemic led some people to stay in for good
Loss of third places (rent too damn high again)
Tight job markets lead to reluctance to bring kids into the picture
Healthcare is more expensive every year
American individualism diminishes multi generational family support structures after a generation
A long tail of other causes: drugs, gun violence, obesity, losing one's religion, growing up with divorced parents
The thing that I think is different - even when I was an atheist, I had the value of "children" very strongly - that they are my way to bring life and perpetuate my ideas and contribute to the world. This was always strong with me, and I see similar concepts strong with my religious friends. Meanwhile my secular friends are much weaker on their motivation "oh... yeah maybe I'll be OK with kids if it happens" - because the value is not there, they aren't motivated to deal with the things you're listing - even though these things are NOTHING compared to what people dealt with in history and still had kids.
Study Shows Number of Childless Women in the U.S. Continues to Rise - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45268830 - September 2025
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Did anything happen in 2016 that young women might have interpreted as a signal that they were on their own and facing hostility?