> There are enough options...

Maybe, with regard to living in an area with/without kids around.

But for those who want to have children of their own...what I've heard from younger folks around here, that really does not look like an option anymore, unless you're in the 1%.

Not to get all political or spin conspiracy theories, but this makes you wonder why we are going in a direction where abortion + birth control will be illegal (at least for most people). Not to mention relaxing the age requirements for being able to work. Could this be a strategy to force people to reproduce and ensure that the poorly payed, disposable workers supply does not run dry?

At least in America, the most-popular-and-growing preference for birth control seems to be "not in a relationship". Trying to force people past that barrier might get some more-zealous pushback.

Oh the pushback is real. Is it going to help?

If that were the case the powers that be would be using the carrot as well as the stick. Parental leave, tax breaks, etc.

It's a cost optimizations exercise. Why give you tax breaks when I can get the same thing for free?

Anyone who is child free still has a vested interest in the future generation.

An opinion, to be sure, but not the only one. If child free, you’re only vested in whatever it takes to get you to the grave comfortably, demographically speaking (and there are already 8 billion people on the planet, headed to 10 billion).

Another opinion is that children are a luxury good, not a necessity.

>> Anyone who is child free still has a vested interest in the future generation.

> If child free, you’re only vested in whatever it takes to get you to the grave comfortably

Aren't you saying the same thing as parent post? When someone's 60 to 80 years old, which generation is going to "to get them to the grave comfortably"?

Basic necessities like food, etc, no matter the current amount of automation to multiply outputs, you still need a baseline of working people.

That's not a pro-social attitude.

I’m happy to discuss what “pro social” means in another thread to prevent derailing this one. For myself, it means taking care of everyone existing first at a reasonable level of quality, before encouraging more folks to have kids with social or economic incentives because the economic pyramid scheme is at risk.

If you have the resources, the support network, and the emotional aptitude, by all means, invest in having children. Even if you don’t enjoy the experience (the data shows a significant percentage of parents do not), society gets them as taxpayers eventually. But if you don’t, don’t. The data shows that if unintended pregnancies are avoided (about 40% globally annually, per the Guttmacher Institute and the UN), the fertility rate will settle someone between 50-75% of replacement rate (2.1).

TLDR Optimize for your own happiness. Ignore peer and societal pressure. If that means not having kids, and that causes society challenges, that’s a society problem to solve, versus dumping that externality and reduction of agency, freedom, and options on individuals.

The societal problem is elderly care will skyrocket.

Definitely sucks when liabilities come due and you can no longer kick the can down the road. Society will need to become comfortable with the additional go forward productivity drag incurred.