But it should be noted, stated fertility preferences have not declined much. Whatever role economic and technological shocks may have had, they have not led people in most countries to report desiring fewer children. Actual fertility has fallen even as desired fertility has not in most of the high-income countries of the world. Thus, as with marriage, the likeliest story on falling fertility in the last two decades is not one of people simply freely choosing not to have so many children. Rather, fertility has most plausibly fallen because of economic “failure to launch” among young people, long delays in career stability, excessive housing costs, exploding childcare costs, rising student debts, and other adverse circumstances, not least the oppressive panopticon of social media which makes prisoners of us all.
This, though, I disagree with to a degree. As the Stoics would observe, we cannot control what happens to us but we can control how we respond. All the forces Stone mentions are real but I suspect that they are revealing the gap between stated and actual preferences. Or, as it is known to economists, Revealed Preference.
People everywhere and always are subject to cycles of prosperity and decline, to inflation and to real wage improvement, to debt and false expectations. That's life. None of these are new or different than patterns with which we are familiar.
Failure to launch, career development choices, education attainment, housing choices, familial choices (careers versus stay-at-home), etc. are all choices made in the face of economic cycles, housing cycles, etc. If people are not having children, contra Stone, I think it is because they are choosing not to have children. We are living in the most prosperous country in the most prosperous world under the most secure circumstances. Yes, there are always local and tactical issues. But nothing of the order lived even a single generation ago.
It is choice. All the rest is excuse or misunderstood preference.
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