Falling Birth Rates: Mixed Feelings about Parenthood among Millennials

We are witnessing the emergence of new cultural and social trends that are revolutionizing the way we think about dating, marriage, kids and family life. In their new book What are children for, Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman note that a growing sense of "parenthood ambivalence" is sweeping the planet. Today, the self-imposed standards for family readiness are so high that it's hardly surprising that people are reluctant to make up their minds. Parenthood, once seen as an expected outcome of adulthood, is increasingly becoming an afterthought.

For most of human history, the purpose of reproduction was obvious: to have help on the farm or in the shop, to pass on property or power or a name, to give life meaning, to be welcomed as an adult member of one's community, to be cared for in old age. The deepest thoughts and desires hardly mattered, especially for women.

Now, thanks to birth control and legal abortion, having children is more of a choice, at least for those fortunate enough not to live in one of the states where abortion is banned. That implies the need to make a decision. Yet, decisions are hard to make: we can spend decades trying to figure out who we are and what we really want. The question boils down to: “do I really want children?”

Shifting Attitudes and Growing Ambivalence towards Parenthood (Motherhood)

The reasons are largely cultural, according to Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman, who studied the ambivalence felt by many young women about having children through the lens of sociology, culture, literature and interviews.

Surprisingly, economics have little influence on people's decision to have children or not, nor on how many they want. I’ve known too many people who have gone to great lengths to have kids despite difficult circumstances (no partner, precarious jobs, no cushion of family money) simply because they longed for them. Also, we see that birth rates are just as low in countries where having children is easy, accessible, and even financially advantageous since they are subsidized.

Therefore, when mere material explanations fail to explain the changes we observe, we must look at what people think, what they experience, to understand what drives their decision-making.

In the past, having children was considered part of the very essence of human life. It was the kind of thing you did to ensure continuity, no matter the risks or costs. Today, however, as the level of women's education and their participation in the workforce have risen, so have the opportunity costs of motherhood. Every decision involves trade-offs, and for many women, sacrificing a successful career for motherhood can be a real struggle. In many cases, the choice of motherhood becomes the "icing on the cake" after the achievement of other goals, such as education, employment, personal fulfillment and, above all, a harmonious relationship with a soulmate.

Romantically, “Slow love” is the fashion now – spending however long it takes searching for a truly compatible partner, followed by years of getting to know each other and contemplating a life together. This involves endless vetting of the potential match through lengthy dating, followed by cohabitation, and finally an attempt to parent a pet before considering the possibility of having children. The inability to find a suitable, consenting partner is the most common reason given for not having children. This is true for men and women in almost identical proportions.

The ambivalence we may feel is a response to genuine conflicts: a growing awareness of just how hard it is to juggle a career and a family at the same time. The far-reaching changes that parenthood introduces into our lives can sometimes feel like a break in our identity, a kind of rupture. One reason for this is that we have children later in life, when our identity is much more established. This transformation often makes the decision to have children all the more anxiety-provoking.

Factors of gender inequality significantly accentuate women's fears that having children will prevent them from realizing their full potential. While women are keen to share family responsibilities equally, most men rarely see parenthood as a trade-off between career and private life, confident that women will generally take on the lion's share of domestic and educational tasks.

Another rising – and legitimate – concern among young people is bringing children into a violent world that is burning to a crisp. For Berg and Wiseman, climate change is rarely the sole reason a person decides to forgo having children, but if you’re already ambivalent, it’s something to add to the list of negatives.

Final thoughts

A closer look at the cultural shift behind declining birth rates in the U.S. and the rest of the world reveals that we view parenthood as a kind of "culmination" of an already well-traced journey that fulfills our self-defined expectations of success.

After all, the choice to have children deserves careful thought and preparation, especially as it involves a life-transforming experience. Birth control has revolutionized the way women and couples plan on becoming parents at a time of their choosing. Now all they have to do is make sure they don't miss the window of opportunity.

So, the question is: how do we want to organize our lives, and how do we want to contribute to the next generation? We might become parents – one of the greatest responsibilities one human being can assume for another. We could be aunts, uncles and godparents; teachers; artists; intellectuals…

These are all things to consider when we ask ourselves: should I or shouldn't I have children?