but it requires a special attachment.

I'd hear out that argument, if there were some solid statistics to suggest it, but somehow I doubt that's a possibility delved into in an MSN article (I didn't read it since you said it's dumb at the outset )

Personally I think declining birth rates are good news for the planet, given it can't support 8B people without burning planet-wrecking fossil fuels in astronomical quantities. If humans don't do this voluntarily, nature/physics is going to do it to them, and it's not just going to be falling birth rates, it's going to be falling "life" period.

Updated from the "Six billion miracles is enough" bumper sticker I saw back at the turn of the century.

Even liberal comedians call it out in satire.

Smart phones have had an undeniably huge impact on the way we live - in all aspect and directions. It's hard to overestimate the influence.

And, yet - pointing back to above ...
Childbearing is down because 1) means of control 2) enormously reduced social convention/pressures 2) coupled w/ conscious personal decision making (finance, lifestyle, goals, health, and actual desire for children) 4) and,finally, wholesale rejection of simplistic (but still peddled) religious nostrum, i.e., "every child is a gift" "any child that is loved .. "

Too many young people go into their adulthood with huge college debt. Single family houses in my area start at half a million. Child care can eat up an entire paycheck. Employers cut more slack for workers with children, but I wouldn't call any company I worked for "family supportive." And once they leashed us with pagers, & then smartphones, our private life was open for invasion & I worked for two companies that didn't have much respect for your off-time. And these weren't high-up positions, either. Then there are the jobs where they give you your schedule a few days in advance. WTF? How do you possibly plan child care if you only get your schedule a few days before work?

And I didn't even touch on the issue of abortion/miscarriage & the life/health risk women take by getting pregnant. Oh, and don't forget pregnant & postpartum women have an increased risk of being murdered.

But hey...smartphones.

I mean, that's not totally unique to women by any stretch, but I think it's definitely more pronounced.

And let's be honest, there's at least a perception that pregnancy is tough on women's figures, so there's a non-insignificant number of women who end up thinking it's more important to their life/prospects to maintain their figure than it is to make babies. Don't mean that in judging way at all, it's just reality.

But yeah, the reasons you speak of are likely much bigger factors. The growing necessity of two-income households being probably the biggest. If the billionaires want EVERYONE to make more babies (no doubt with the goal of "cheaper workers" in the end), they need to stop hoarding every penny they possibly can and accept that they need to help pay for government programs that incentivize the population to have kids.

Based solidly in the patriarchy. Women deserve way more than being accused of not wanting babies because it might ruin their “figures.”

And to be clear I am 100% solidly in favor of women CHOOSING to not have babies FOR ANY FUCKING REASON WHATSOEVER, including that reason. They are ALL perfectly justified, because women are not "obliged" in any way to start with.

It was meant as a comment about the bullshit way society judges women on looks, not an "accusation against women". If I wasn't clear enough about that being my point, I hope this helps clarify

Just maybe, women are tired of being baby factories and kinda want to live their own fucking life.....

Just a thought there MSN.....

when and IF to have kids.

Heck, more people than we think can barely afford to live indoors and eat food on a regular basis and some of these right wing dickheads think they should add the expense of children and paid childcare to the equation?

Its easy to make pronouncements on what people should do when you are comfortable financially or a fucking billionaire who ZERO clue what its like to try to figure out if you can split that last packet of ramen into three meals and still be able to function until payday.

I've been there, not there anymore, but I remember seeing what we had in the cupboards and trying to figure out how to keep functioning until payday.

Facebook, What's App, Twitter/X, Instagram, what else?

If I were a young woman today, I’d be scared to death of having a baby if I lived in a state where abortion is illegal in every circumstance. Pregnancy and childbirth can be very dangerous without proper medical care.

She is afraid she will not be able to support them, and she is afraid of having kids in a world with declining human rights.

I really want a grandkid or two, but I totally understand and respect her position. I hope the world improves.

There are too many humans already.

But they'll never connect it to lack of universal healthcare, and lack of affordable childcare, not to mention no mandated maternity leave.

Women are tired of being treated like second class citizens. They are tired of getting married, contributing to the family financially, and then being stuck doing all the work of household chores and raising the children.

There is a new wave of women electing to be single, and it has nothing to do with babies. Women are tired of men who only want to give the bare minimum.

That's why they are staying single, and the birth rate is going to remain low until men start seeing women as more than just sex objects, surrogate mommies to wait on them, and incubators.

(Edited for typo)