Stephen Shaw, from the Birthgap movie observes in the statistics that most of the childless express a desire to have at least one child. People are not achieving the number of children that they desire.
Now he does argue that postponing marriage, and assuming that people can have children in their late 30s and beyond is one source of this. So people’s choices are certainly implicated! Shaw determines voluntariness on the basis of people’s ideal, desired number of children. (Someone who chose not to try to have kids until 40, but who had hoped to have one or two, may then be involuntarily childless.)
Hmm. In my view, only a relative few people are truly involuntarily childless. For most people, their own life choices played a huge role in not having kids, even if they say they want them. There are a lot of things I want but don't have, but that doesn't mean it's involuntary. Many of them I could have had, but simply chose other things I wanted more.
One the whole, I enjoyed this piece. That one juts caught my eye.
I mean, I don't get to the gym or do meal prep quinoa and roasted vegetable bowls because my extremely busy lifestyle makes it difficult. Many of the people around me don't do those things either and have social expectations on my time that preclude putting a lot of time into fitness goals I would otherwise pursue. Am I involuntarily overweight? If I truly wanted to be fit and athletic I would do so; maybe it would be easier if I didn't have kids and a job and volunteer activities and tons of potlucks to attend, but at the end of the day, we make the lifestyle choices that we make because we want to make them. Absent physical problems, people who don't have kids because X, Y, Z reasons have chosen not to have kids. Am I misunderstanding the claim - that people whose social context or ideas about money and living arrangements don't make it easy or straightforward to have kids could be considered involuntarily childless in the same way that the biologically sterile are?
Yes. "...but at the end of the day, we make the lifestyle choices that we make because we want to make them."
Every single choice is a tradeoff. Even people having lots of kids make hella tradeoffs (physically, professionally, financially, materially, etc.) See Pakaluk's recent book "Hannah's Children". People choose certain things over others, and if they want and value kids, they make the necessary tradeoffs even if they're costly or painful. That's part of the point of Pakaluk's book. To say a tradeoff is painful or costly—and therefore "involuntary— is not honest about how life works.
Thanks - I think Shaw's perspective is important because people don't choose to be subject to "the urban monoculture" with its ideas that you can focus on career and postpone having kids. As a result, many are victims of ignorance of biological limits and bad ideas. They'll end up childless, not apart from their choices, but in a way they never intended to sign up for. I see this as dovetailing with your own concerns about urban preaching on singleness!
This is, I think one of the most challenging things to articulate, let alone deal well with in modernity.
Namely, the balance between personal responsibility and societal influences. I completely understand considering people "involuntarily childless" if they never consciously chose to not have children. Especislly, for example a young woman who doesnt find a husband till 32, and then is unable to have children. On the other hand, as Aaron points out, anyone who prioritizes family and children can usually achieve it, so in a sense that young lady did choose against children, because she prioritized other things.
The same dynamic exists in health. Americans are fat and sick in large part because we have an "obeseginic environment". Yet, almost anyone willing to do whatever it takes, need not be obese. The key, to me, is that people's circumstances are different. Based on my genetics and how I was raised, being relatively fit and having several children both came fairly naturally to me. Many people are given far tougher rows to hoe in both regards. Balancing the knowledge that anyone *can* do differently, but that it's difficult and abnormal, and many won't because they don't know how/ aren't strong enough to overcome the mainstream flow is hard but necessary.
One point that I've rarely seen promoted is that, using a more utilitarian analysis, every new child has the opportunity for eternal joy. Since the saints enjoy eternal beatitude, this should cause Christians to seriously consider having more children who will then have the opportunity to know Christ and experience eternal life. Even if a new child may bring years of genuine suffering to a parent (e.g. a difficult pregnancy and postpartum period for a mother), what does that compare with another person experiencing joy for all eternity, and you sharing in their joy?
I would caution though that this is only up to the point until adding another child would be detrimental to their efforts to spiritually guide their existing children. It was good for you to emphasize the cursed nature of childbearing in our fallen world, and I believe Michael Foster has also warned about the dangers of emphasizing quantity to the point it endangers the quality of your parenting.
(I will also note that the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment would work against this analysis, but since the biblical witness is strong that the wicked will actually ultimately be destroyed, I think it's still a valid point.)
As King Laugh frequently tells me, then conceiving and aborting fetuses quickly might be the best method to multiply eternal happiness. ;) Not exactly, but that’s why I want to emphasize the *this-worldly value of having children, and of all our other actions
Obviously we don’t subscribe to some rank secular utilitarianism that omits any reference to divine law. But the entire thrust of revelation is that we ought to be far more focused on living with an eternal perspective, though that doesn’t at all preclude frequently reminding ourselves of the benefits that doing God’s will brings in this life.
Hey. Thanks for the article. I think that I am still confused by the way that pronatalists tend to frame their having children as being in some way "for the nation state." This seems to me as if it rests on assumptions about what a nation state is--a collection of people of all the same race, united in a common religion and a common cause or idea. Pronatalism seems to thrive among this ideology, which, of course, was very common among 19th and 20th c. theorists.
Does pronatalism necessarily have to be linked with anxieties about white replacement, and this philosophy concerning the ethnic nation state? Or is biblical pronatalism able to reconcile with a multicultural cosmopolitan society, which has its origin in waves of immigration?
Thanks for the comment and question! First of all, I want to make sure we’re talking about the same group of people. I would distinguish cultural/religious pronatalism from explicitly political pronatalism.
The first kind predominantly belong to a religious subculture, and they may have no knowledge of national birth rates or political concerns.
The second kind are predominantly online men, generally on the political right, some secular, some religious. They share a concern about declining birth rates, and believe that people should have more children on that account. Many advise policy solutions, the majority of which have failed to increase birth rates (I.e., Hungary).
Perhaps because I stay away from it, I have not encountered almost any people whose concern is racial (except maybe the odd Twitter commenter).
Check out my friend Chris James. He is not a believer, but expresses a kind of desire for what Christians and the Amish have culturally. While beginning from the kinds of political concerns expressed by Elon Musk, his interests have shifted toward an aspirational membership in the religious pronatal subculture. Louise Perry is like this as well, for a female example.
I don’t doubt that people who subscribe to an ethnic nationalist ideology would share pronatalist concerns, with an ethnic flare. But I have rarely ever encountered this among the two groups I described. Let me know how you receive this analysis, and where and who you have encountered that has a more 19th-century nationalist outlook. Thanks!
>>Our pronatalism must offer hope and encouragement to those who are childless whether voluntarily - for the sake of the kingdom of God - or involuntarily.
A case might be made for those who are unmarried for the kingdom of God. I think it is mostly a false case, but a case can be made.
But this quote seems to imply that a case can be made, indeed encouragement given to, married couples who are intentionally childless. Which Scripture utterly rejects.
You say that Luther is the spiritual father of the pro-natalist camp (and pretend that he ignored the fall, which does not represent his writings). But it seems to me that David is Luther's grandfather. It is from David, not Luther, that modern Christian pro-natalists take their name, after all:
Psa 127 A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.
Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
1) Mentioned nowhere here is the idea that there should be more support for families.
By definition if you give more to families, you have to take more from the childless.
No government has really tried to compensate families for the full cost of childbearing, so called pro natal policies always amount to 5-10% of total cost.
To really even things out, you would need to x10 the Child Tax Credit. I could maybe see x5 work if targeted well, but you get the picture.
This is doable. On average the childless would have to pay about $10k (x10 CTC) more in taxes a year and it would solve the problem.
Whether this new incentive structure caused more childless to have kids, or it caused current child bearers to have more kids, either way it works and is fair. For the most part "childlessness" amounts to free riding on other peoples kids to pay for your retirement benefits.
2) IVF is a fantastic technology and using it to make healthy strong children is possibly on of the greatest blessings I will see in my lifetime. Opposing this is a moral and political dead end.
In the case of my Catholic faith, a bunch of child molesting gay priests got together, had some spergy argument over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, and then told my best friend that he couldn’t have any children.
Because if there is one big cause to childlessness, it is affluence, so it isn’t going to be solved by giving people more money. If anything, giving money will help couples consume more product but will have a mostly negative impact on fertility. It’s also why income has a negative impact on fertility until you reach about 500k/yr, after which it starts to trend upwards again. When you can do so many amazing things with your money, the opportunity cost of rearranging priorities to have children is very high. You can afford to live in the city but might need to choose the suburbs for your kids. You can afford the last-minute trips to Europe, but it’s challenging to bring young children with you. Money isn’t one of the bigger things you sacrifice when you have a child, so having money isn’t going to make people have more children.
IVF is successful about 20% of the time. People need to be encouraged to have children younger and not encouraged to hold out for a technology that will probably fail them.
I think the reason that fertility is high both at the very low and very high ends of income is that the marginal cost of a child is essentially zero. On the low end because the government pays for everything when you have another kid. On the high end because the cost of a nanny and the rest is a small portion of income.
In between people are asking the question "will a marginal child set me back versus my peers." The answer is yes, it will set them back, often in competition of for the same resources (real estate, careers, education, etc common to their set).
This is why we see gradually lower fertility as income rises, the government support for a marginal child decreases all the way up through the middle class (and the kind of things parents demand for their children increases).
I think this situation is solvable. When an UMC family doesn't see itself "worse off" with four kids versus two kids versus their peers because they can afford nannies and private school and a big house close to work and what have you with their extra tax credits the situation will solve itself. That's what we see with the ultra rich.
I guess I don’t see why the couple earning 150k/yr or thereabouts would decide to have an additional child with the assistance, rather than simply focusing on climbing the social ladder. Maybe they could now afford the nicer SUV, the private school, the nice vacation. You can always improve the caliber of people that are considered your peers after all. I see it with people who think they will be content if only they could earn 500k/yr or whatever their goal is. Well, they achieve that, and the lifestyle increases accordingly, but they are still in the same rat race as they were before just with more expensive stuff. I think money simply changes the sort of things people give up having a child to buy, it becomes vacation homes and new cars instead of things like food and shelter.
I think that there is an income where people will stop worrying about expenses and consider having more children, but I just think that that income is probably closer to millions per year, not something that is realistically reachable with government benefits.
Let's propose a couple making $150k/year. They each contribute $10k to their 401k, which feels low but is at least the minimum to retire. I think we need to assume they are both working to earn that much so young in their lives.
They are going to have an after tax pay of around $100,000, or $8,300 a month.
I'm going to use the cost of living where I grew up in a suburb of NY, over an hour into the city during rush hour. It's a bit above the average COL for the country but so is these peoples earnings. My town would have been considered middle class growing up and my dad was a truck driver.
Let's say they want to have a bunch of kids. They are going to need a decently sized house for all this kids, zoned to the good schools I grew up in.
Here is one on Zillow for $750,000. 3258 SQFT, constructed long ago. Not a bad house but clearly needs some work and very out of date. If you happen to already have the $150,000 down payment (which you would have needed to save before you were even 30 if you are going to start having kids young enough to have several) it would still be $5,000 or so in mortgage, taxes, and insurance.
So we are down $8,300 - $5,000 = $3,300 but we have a roof over our heads.
Now we are having a bunch of kids so for the first half of our adult lives you can expect to have two full time daycare bills. One infant and one toddler. In our area the infant would cost $22k and the toddler would cost $18k. If you can snag one of the subsidized county daycare slots you can get the toddler down to $14k, but they are hard to get and they don't do infants. So let's just say $40k/12 = $3,300.
Oh, that was the rest of our take home pay. We still need to...
Feed the family, pay utilities, pay for and maintain two cars for us to go to work, all the expenses of life, provide childcare on the days the daycare is closed or the kids are sick, etc etc.
And of course we are sending out kids to public school in this scenario or else we would need to include private school tuition. Personally, I hate public school. Oh and they will need camps in the summer even if they go to free school.
Yeah, I totally see why someone would look at that and see how their quality of life could vastly improve with more money or less kids.
Look, we could afford to give parents enough to cover daycare and/or afford their other expenses on one income so they didn't need it. And we could have school vouchers without spending another dime. I think that would go a long way in changing the math people face. The USDA says a kid costs $330k to raise, that's a little over $18k a year. If we restricted that incentive to people who pay that much in taxes the whole thing could be funded by getting rid of a few rich people tax breaks.
It's money: no matter how much you have, you could always use more. There is no such thing as a salary that can't be spent.
I believe that people have a desired number of children that is set and not subject to change. Providing money can help families, and maybe we should do it, but I wouldn't expect it to change the number of children people want. I think what prevents women from achieving their desired number of children is the difficulty in finding a suitable partner. There are a few factors working against them, but I believe the biggest one is that men's fertility doesn't decline, so they don't have the same incentive to commit early. I think that understanding fertility window and a change in culture could help.
If the material conditions of getting married and having kids improved versus being single, I think women would all of a sudden find that lots of men were suitable.
While not denigrating cultural arguments, I think there is a class of people that want it to be culture because either:
1) The don't have kids and don't want to pay up (and admit they should already be paying up).
2) Take having kids as a special mark of honor that makes them a good person and don't want to turn it into something "crass".
I'm curious why you say most childlessness is involuntary.
Stephen Shaw, from the Birthgap movie observes in the statistics that most of the childless express a desire to have at least one child. People are not achieving the number of children that they desire.
Now he does argue that postponing marriage, and assuming that people can have children in their late 30s and beyond is one source of this. So people’s choices are certainly implicated! Shaw determines voluntariness on the basis of people’s ideal, desired number of children. (Someone who chose not to try to have kids until 40, but who had hoped to have one or two, may then be involuntarily childless.)
Hmm. In my view, only a relative few people are truly involuntarily childless. For most people, their own life choices played a huge role in not having kids, even if they say they want them. There are a lot of things I want but don't have, but that doesn't mean it's involuntary. Many of them I could have had, but simply chose other things I wanted more.
One the whole, I enjoyed this piece. That one juts caught my eye.
I mean, I don't get to the gym or do meal prep quinoa and roasted vegetable bowls because my extremely busy lifestyle makes it difficult. Many of the people around me don't do those things either and have social expectations on my time that preclude putting a lot of time into fitness goals I would otherwise pursue. Am I involuntarily overweight? If I truly wanted to be fit and athletic I would do so; maybe it would be easier if I didn't have kids and a job and volunteer activities and tons of potlucks to attend, but at the end of the day, we make the lifestyle choices that we make because we want to make them. Absent physical problems, people who don't have kids because X, Y, Z reasons have chosen not to have kids. Am I misunderstanding the claim - that people whose social context or ideas about money and living arrangements don't make it easy or straightforward to have kids could be considered involuntarily childless in the same way that the biologically sterile are?
Yes. "...but at the end of the day, we make the lifestyle choices that we make because we want to make them."
Every single choice is a tradeoff. Even people having lots of kids make hella tradeoffs (physically, professionally, financially, materially, etc.) See Pakaluk's recent book "Hannah's Children". People choose certain things over others, and if they want and value kids, they make the necessary tradeoffs even if they're costly or painful. That's part of the point of Pakaluk's book. To say a tradeoff is painful or costly—and therefore "involuntary— is not honest about how life works.
Thanks - I think Shaw's perspective is important because people don't choose to be subject to "the urban monoculture" with its ideas that you can focus on career and postpone having kids. As a result, many are victims of ignorance of biological limits and bad ideas. They'll end up childless, not apart from their choices, but in a way they never intended to sign up for. I see this as dovetailing with your own concerns about urban preaching on singleness!
This is, I think one of the most challenging things to articulate, let alone deal well with in modernity.
Namely, the balance between personal responsibility and societal influences. I completely understand considering people "involuntarily childless" if they never consciously chose to not have children. Especislly, for example a young woman who doesnt find a husband till 32, and then is unable to have children. On the other hand, as Aaron points out, anyone who prioritizes family and children can usually achieve it, so in a sense that young lady did choose against children, because she prioritized other things.
The same dynamic exists in health. Americans are fat and sick in large part because we have an "obeseginic environment". Yet, almost anyone willing to do whatever it takes, need not be obese. The key, to me, is that people's circumstances are different. Based on my genetics and how I was raised, being relatively fit and having several children both came fairly naturally to me. Many people are given far tougher rows to hoe in both regards. Balancing the knowledge that anyone *can* do differently, but that it's difficult and abnormal, and many won't because they don't know how/ aren't strong enough to overcome the mainstream flow is hard but necessary.
Yes. It is a category of childlessness (either singleness or bodies that do not work as they ought) but it's not the majority.
One point that I've rarely seen promoted is that, using a more utilitarian analysis, every new child has the opportunity for eternal joy. Since the saints enjoy eternal beatitude, this should cause Christians to seriously consider having more children who will then have the opportunity to know Christ and experience eternal life. Even if a new child may bring years of genuine suffering to a parent (e.g. a difficult pregnancy and postpartum period for a mother), what does that compare with another person experiencing joy for all eternity, and you sharing in their joy?
I would caution though that this is only up to the point until adding another child would be detrimental to their efforts to spiritually guide their existing children. It was good for you to emphasize the cursed nature of childbearing in our fallen world, and I believe Michael Foster has also warned about the dangers of emphasizing quantity to the point it endangers the quality of your parenting.
(I will also note that the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment would work against this analysis, but since the biblical witness is strong that the wicked will actually ultimately be destroyed, I think it's still a valid point.)
As King Laugh frequently tells me, then conceiving and aborting fetuses quickly might be the best method to multiply eternal happiness. ;) Not exactly, but that’s why I want to emphasize the *this-worldly value of having children, and of all our other actions
Obviously we don’t subscribe to some rank secular utilitarianism that omits any reference to divine law. But the entire thrust of revelation is that we ought to be far more focused on living with an eternal perspective, though that doesn’t at all preclude frequently reminding ourselves of the benefits that doing God’s will brings in this life.
Hey. Thanks for the article. I think that I am still confused by the way that pronatalists tend to frame their having children as being in some way "for the nation state." This seems to me as if it rests on assumptions about what a nation state is--a collection of people of all the same race, united in a common religion and a common cause or idea. Pronatalism seems to thrive among this ideology, which, of course, was very common among 19th and 20th c. theorists.
Does pronatalism necessarily have to be linked with anxieties about white replacement, and this philosophy concerning the ethnic nation state? Or is biblical pronatalism able to reconcile with a multicultural cosmopolitan society, which has its origin in waves of immigration?
Thanks for the comment and question! First of all, I want to make sure we’re talking about the same group of people. I would distinguish cultural/religious pronatalism from explicitly political pronatalism.
The first kind predominantly belong to a religious subculture, and they may have no knowledge of national birth rates or political concerns.
The second kind are predominantly online men, generally on the political right, some secular, some religious. They share a concern about declining birth rates, and believe that people should have more children on that account. Many advise policy solutions, the majority of which have failed to increase birth rates (I.e., Hungary).
Perhaps because I stay away from it, I have not encountered almost any people whose concern is racial (except maybe the odd Twitter commenter).
Check out my friend Chris James. He is not a believer, but expresses a kind of desire for what Christians and the Amish have culturally. While beginning from the kinds of political concerns expressed by Elon Musk, his interests have shifted toward an aspirational membership in the religious pronatal subculture. Louise Perry is like this as well, for a female example.
I don’t doubt that people who subscribe to an ethnic nationalist ideology would share pronatalist concerns, with an ethnic flare. But I have rarely ever encountered this among the two groups I described. Let me know how you receive this analysis, and where and who you have encountered that has a more 19th-century nationalist outlook. Thanks!
>>J.D. Vance’s comments on child-bearing find support among … .
Was this a typo? or is it a way of saying 'no one'??
typo! I was going to find a specific supporter... but that slipped through the editing cracks :)
Well, if you wished to put ‘the Quiverfull movement’ that might work.
>>Our pronatalism must offer hope and encouragement to those who are childless whether voluntarily - for the sake of the kingdom of God - or involuntarily.
A case might be made for those who are unmarried for the kingdom of God. I think it is mostly a false case, but a case can be made.
But this quote seems to imply that a case can be made, indeed encouragement given to, married couples who are intentionally childless. Which Scripture utterly rejects.
You say that Luther is the spiritual father of the pro-natalist camp (and pretend that he ignored the fall, which does not represent his writings). But it seems to me that David is Luther's grandfather. It is from David, not Luther, that modern Christian pro-natalists take their name, after all:
Psa 127 A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.
Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
New Polity has been saying this for a while. When Protestants removed celibacy they ruined the way we view the body
I appreciate this quite a bit Joel. A good analysis of pronatalism!
1) Mentioned nowhere here is the idea that there should be more support for families.
By definition if you give more to families, you have to take more from the childless.
No government has really tried to compensate families for the full cost of childbearing, so called pro natal policies always amount to 5-10% of total cost.
To really even things out, you would need to x10 the Child Tax Credit. I could maybe see x5 work if targeted well, but you get the picture.
This is doable. On average the childless would have to pay about $10k (x10 CTC) more in taxes a year and it would solve the problem.
Whether this new incentive structure caused more childless to have kids, or it caused current child bearers to have more kids, either way it works and is fair. For the most part "childlessness" amounts to free riding on other peoples kids to pay for your retirement benefits.
2) IVF is a fantastic technology and using it to make healthy strong children is possibly on of the greatest blessings I will see in my lifetime. Opposing this is a moral and political dead end.
Do you understand why people oppose IVF?
In the case of my Catholic faith, a bunch of child molesting gay priests got together, had some spergy argument over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, and then told my best friend that he couldn’t have any children.
Many of those who oppose IVF are not Catholic, nor priests, nor gay. They are protestant, and married with many children.
Do you know why they oppose it?
They believe an embryo is alive and its disposal is murder.
They believe this so much that they will oppose the creation of new life via IVF.
Its retarded. I'm pro-life, I don't endorse anti-life stances like opposition to IVF. Luckily a majority of pro-life people support IVF.
Because if there is one big cause to childlessness, it is affluence, so it isn’t going to be solved by giving people more money. If anything, giving money will help couples consume more product but will have a mostly negative impact on fertility. It’s also why income has a negative impact on fertility until you reach about 500k/yr, after which it starts to trend upwards again. When you can do so many amazing things with your money, the opportunity cost of rearranging priorities to have children is very high. You can afford to live in the city but might need to choose the suburbs for your kids. You can afford the last-minute trips to Europe, but it’s challenging to bring young children with you. Money isn’t one of the bigger things you sacrifice when you have a child, so having money isn’t going to make people have more children.
IVF is successful about 20% of the time. People need to be encouraged to have children younger and not encouraged to hold out for a technology that will probably fail them.
I think the reason that fertility is high both at the very low and very high ends of income is that the marginal cost of a child is essentially zero. On the low end because the government pays for everything when you have another kid. On the high end because the cost of a nanny and the rest is a small portion of income.
In between people are asking the question "will a marginal child set me back versus my peers." The answer is yes, it will set them back, often in competition of for the same resources (real estate, careers, education, etc common to their set).
This is why we see gradually lower fertility as income rises, the government support for a marginal child decreases all the way up through the middle class (and the kind of things parents demand for their children increases).
I think this situation is solvable. When an UMC family doesn't see itself "worse off" with four kids versus two kids versus their peers because they can afford nannies and private school and a big house close to work and what have you with their extra tax credits the situation will solve itself. That's what we see with the ultra rich.
I guess I don’t see why the couple earning 150k/yr or thereabouts would decide to have an additional child with the assistance, rather than simply focusing on climbing the social ladder. Maybe they could now afford the nicer SUV, the private school, the nice vacation. You can always improve the caliber of people that are considered your peers after all. I see it with people who think they will be content if only they could earn 500k/yr or whatever their goal is. Well, they achieve that, and the lifestyle increases accordingly, but they are still in the same rat race as they were before just with more expensive stuff. I think money simply changes the sort of things people give up having a child to buy, it becomes vacation homes and new cars instead of things like food and shelter.
I think that there is an income where people will stop worrying about expenses and consider having more children, but I just think that that income is probably closer to millions per year, not something that is realistically reachable with government benefits.
Let's propose a couple making $150k/year. They each contribute $10k to their 401k, which feels low but is at least the minimum to retire. I think we need to assume they are both working to earn that much so young in their lives.
They are going to have an after tax pay of around $100,000, or $8,300 a month.
I'm going to use the cost of living where I grew up in a suburb of NY, over an hour into the city during rush hour. It's a bit above the average COL for the country but so is these peoples earnings. My town would have been considered middle class growing up and my dad was a truck driver.
Let's say they want to have a bunch of kids. They are going to need a decently sized house for all this kids, zoned to the good schools I grew up in.
Here is one on Zillow for $750,000. 3258 SQFT, constructed long ago. Not a bad house but clearly needs some work and very out of date. If you happen to already have the $150,000 down payment (which you would have needed to save before you were even 30 if you are going to start having kids young enough to have several) it would still be $5,000 or so in mortgage, taxes, and insurance.
So we are down $8,300 - $5,000 = $3,300 but we have a roof over our heads.
Now we are having a bunch of kids so for the first half of our adult lives you can expect to have two full time daycare bills. One infant and one toddler. In our area the infant would cost $22k and the toddler would cost $18k. If you can snag one of the subsidized county daycare slots you can get the toddler down to $14k, but they are hard to get and they don't do infants. So let's just say $40k/12 = $3,300.
Oh, that was the rest of our take home pay. We still need to...
Feed the family, pay utilities, pay for and maintain two cars for us to go to work, all the expenses of life, provide childcare on the days the daycare is closed or the kids are sick, etc etc.
And of course we are sending out kids to public school in this scenario or else we would need to include private school tuition. Personally, I hate public school. Oh and they will need camps in the summer even if they go to free school.
Yeah, I totally see why someone would look at that and see how their quality of life could vastly improve with more money or less kids.
Look, we could afford to give parents enough to cover daycare and/or afford their other expenses on one income so they didn't need it. And we could have school vouchers without spending another dime. I think that would go a long way in changing the math people face. The USDA says a kid costs $330k to raise, that's a little over $18k a year. If we restricted that incentive to people who pay that much in taxes the whole thing could be funded by getting rid of a few rich people tax breaks.
It's money: no matter how much you have, you could always use more. There is no such thing as a salary that can't be spent.
I believe that people have a desired number of children that is set and not subject to change. Providing money can help families, and maybe we should do it, but I wouldn't expect it to change the number of children people want. I think what prevents women from achieving their desired number of children is the difficulty in finding a suitable partner. There are a few factors working against them, but I believe the biggest one is that men's fertility doesn't decline, so they don't have the same incentive to commit early. I think that understanding fertility window and a change in culture could help.
If the material conditions of getting married and having kids improved versus being single, I think women would all of a sudden find that lots of men were suitable.
While not denigrating cultural arguments, I think there is a class of people that want it to be culture because either:
1) The don't have kids and don't want to pay up (and admit they should already be paying up).
2) Take having kids as a special mark of honor that makes them a good person and don't want to turn it into something "crass".