I think this varies wildly depending on where you live. Where I live (Melbourne), just the cost of suitable housing (a/ near a school, b/ close to most jobs, and c/ with space for 1+ children) is so high that it makes it difficult for a lot of couples to even consider children.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-04/why-australians-arent...

But it wasn't cheap "back then" either. I've spent 1 hour one way riding 2 buses to school (same as my parents to work). We had 62 m^2 (670 sq. ft.) of house for 2 parents + 3 children.

It's just now we suddenly consider that too bad. Back then it was normal, just like everyone else.

I don’t know where you were born and how old you are, but that situation was defiantly not usual when i was a child (born 1983 in Israel). If anything I think I’d need a startup-liquidity-event level windfall to be able to afford housing as spacious as my parents bought in the 80s (housing costs increased way more than wages).

It may have been when my parents were born though (mid 1940s, one in what is now Israel and the other in what was then the Soviet Union).

But your parents didn't live in Israel 2019. Israel 1983 was more like today's Venezuela or Argentina. If you move today to a place comparable to Israel in 1983, you'll be able to afford even more space than your parents.

Not sure why 2019 specifically, it's 2024. I think you also underestimate 1980s Israel - although there was a stock-market crash in 1983, it was not otherwise that poor- maybe more like today's Portugal or Greece than Venezuela.

But anyway my parents were 1983 Israelis, they didn't come with future-Israel purchasing power - so they were able to afford their housing on the income of the time :) Other kids in my class had ± similar housing. Some were poor and had worse housing, but not 5 people in a 62m flat level of poverty- for that to be common you had to go back another couple decades (e.g. my mother's childhood experience in the 40s-50s was more like that, might have been common up to the 60s).

> Not sure why 2019 specifically, it's 2024.

Because in 2019 real estate was not only expensive by itself, but also all the future growth was added to a price.

Today in 2024 you can buy very cheap in some places (north, for example).

> there was a stock-market crash in 1983

Not just stock-market. By the time of the crash, Likud laid waste to the whole economy to undermine "the left".

what is space for a child? In previous decades it was acceptable for kids to share rooms via bunk beds.

Kids can share a room but that still means an extra room, which has a cost. Plus kids come with stuff like clothing, toys, school supplies, etc.

Eurostat [0] would have you believe that you need 3 rooms for a family of 2 adults and 1 child. That's fine as an aspirational goal, but I feel that parents with a toddler living in a signle-room flat is good enough, especially for the baby.

[0]: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

I never had my own room. Up until age of 14 I slept on bunk bed sharing a room with my brother and my parents, so it doesn't always mean a separate room.

If you don't own a home you have to rent and they simply won't and can't legally rent you too small an apartment or one with insufficient bedrooms.

In practice having 2 or 3 kids is going to mean going from studio/1 br to 2/3 br and double or triple housing costs.

That seems draconian. Is that a US federal/US state/other country law?

Same in Germany. There are minimum requirements on the living area for children.

State by state but the same most places. Even if the law would let you are you going to raise a family in your 350 sq studio?

They aren't in 'traditional' households where at least one parent stays at home. Without that daycare/nanny and other costs can become very significant. It's also not just daytime stuff. Babies need to feed every 2-3 hours, including at night, and each feeding session can be quite lengthy. That doesn't synergize so well with getting a full night's rest to go join the rat race the next day.

>That doesn't synergize so well with getting a full night's rest to go join the rat race the next day.

I feel this in my bones as I read this while rocking my infant who won't sleep for the last 2 hours.

This. Every time I hear parents in SF Bay Area complain that kids are too expensive, I ask them what are they spending -- turns out they consider stuff like private school a necessity. The bar of "normal" is raised significantly, that's it.

Who takes care of the kids while the parents work?