One of the biggest questions of recent years is why humanity’s fertility rate is falling so rapidly. But this is a trick, a trick question, a flirt. A way of avoiding the elephant in the room.

Beyond social trends and material foundations, we know very well why the fertility rate is falling: Because people do not want to have children, and they say this more and more clearly every time.

Don’t you want to have children? Let’s get to the data. Without going any further, in the U.S., the share of childless adults under 50 who say they are unlikely to have children increased by 10 percentage points between 2018 and 2023 (from 37% to 47%). More than half (57%) say they are unlikely to have them because they don’t want to.

This last data is actually very good because when we look at women alone, the rate of those who say they do not want to have children reaches 60%. This is a very deep change because only 32% of those over the age of 50 who do not have children say they do not want to have children.

So why don’t they want to have them? It’s hard to say, but data from the Pew Research Center gives us some clues — and not least because it allows us to see underlying responses, shifts in worldview among those under and over 50.

The top four reasons given were that they “want to focus on other things” (44% of children compared to 21% of adults), “are worried about the direction of the world (38% compared to 13%)”, “can’t afford to have children” (36% compared to 12%) and “don’t really like children” (20% compared to 8%).

Reasons, fears and justifications. The majority of both groups agreed that “not having children gives them the opportunity to buy the things they want, have time for hobbies and pastimes, and save for the future.” The latter is interesting because both groups indicated that “it is easier for parents to find someone to care for them as they get older,” and expressed some concern about this.

But even so, large percentages of people in both groups believe that “having a full life has little to do with whether or not you have children.”

A fundamental change? Few years ago, demographer Lyman Stone noted “The transition to low fertility rates may have occurred in 1500, 1300, 900 or 500 BCE; in fact it probably did in many places during those periods, but it did not occur at the same time as the massive economic growth of the 1900s. Improving living standards, improving child survival and replacing population losses due to falling fertility were never sustained.”

The characteristic of our time is that it is actually being continued and that it has much more important ethical, moral and legal consequences. These consequences will not only shape the society of the future, but will also change the social definition of what a full and meaningful life is. They have already changed it.

Image | Dragos Gontariu

In Xataka | Humanity breaks disturbing record in 2023: We failed to reach regeneration rate for the first time