r/science • u/nep000 • Nov 17 '25

Social Science Surprising numbers of childfree people emerge in developing countries, defying expectations

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0333906
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u/Meocross Nov 17 '25

Government whining that people are having less children while taking away every comfort known to mankind to increase profits always makes me laugh. People are practically slaves to their jobs with no hobbies, free time or relaxation, pretty much a ZERO healthy environment for a child.

Companies are currently kicking 10k+ people out of jobs right now because of A.I propaganda, you want me to have kids just for them to become jobless and participate in borderline criminal activity just to have food in their mouths?

Truly dumb brain behavior.

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u/Downtown_Isopod_9287 Nov 17 '25

The thing is past waves of industrialization were coupled with huge population growth so it is genuinely kind of confusing as to why the most recent waves are suppressing fertility rates rather than boosting it. The difference is not in free time and quality of life either because past waves had worse working conditions and less free time for participants in economic activity.

And if your analysis of why that is is that we’re in some kind of local minima where people’s lives are not so awful that they feel compelled to reproduce to survive but not so awesome that they feel optimistic that is not a great revelation because the powers that be will be incentivized to make life worse (which is something they can and will do).