Why Many Millennials Won’t Have Children
Jan 23, 2016
When I came back to Canada after years in a poor foreign country, I went back to University, when I graduated it was 2009, the economic recession was in full swing. After years of going back to school multiple times and working odd jobs, my life-plan was not going according to the traditional social clock. I was not alone.
#SkillsGap, describes how professionals are building their skills this year. And making choices with regards to work-life balance that are life-altering.
With serious student loans debt, no savings, near non-existent career or job stability, the following things previous generations and most people take for granted, these life events were becoming a dream for me: (simple “normal” things really)
- Being able to attract an ambitious, beautiful, talented and wonderful young partner.
- Living in more desirable parts of town, or even owning a vehicle.
- Owning property and a house.
- Having children, …. yes having children.
What people don’t understand about Millennials, it’s not that they don’t want to have children, it’s that many won’t have the necessary conditions ($, loving partner, time)
That being said, this article is going to explore this trend.
- The average age of women having their first child in the US, was a record high of 26 years old in 2013.
- That’s an increase of 3.3 years since 1980, when the average age was 22.7.
- In 1970, for example, the average was 21.4. As Millennials are increasingly an urban generation, we can expect these figures to rise a lot faster post 2015.
An increasing number of women are focusing on their careers first, and as a society where economic stability is more rare, it’s increasingly a luxury to have children in your 20s, or it means you belong to a social class that isn’t especially upwards mobile. There may be cultural reasons for this that are beyond the scope of this article.
In contemporary urban environments all over the world, increasingly, many women are having children at the end of their reproductive fertility, changing a cycle in nature that has been stable for millions of years. Turning the very nature of the nuclear family, on its head.
To Breed or Not to Breed
That is the real question of our lives
For many Millennials, having children has an impossible number of requirements, that in modern day work and relationships, it’s not always very tangible or simple to find. While for some cultures, having children is not a choice, it’s a cultural obligation where there is great shame in not being obedient, here in the West, we can choose to have children, or not.
I’m not the only person to notice this trend among my generation, Olga Khazan in The Atlantic wrote in “The Childless Millennial” about Urban Institute data showing a decline in fertility. Catherine Rampell in the Washington Postwrote “Bad News for Older Folks: Millennials are Having Fewer Babies, and I’m sure this topic is going to become very talked about.
The social and economic conditions of individualistic societies have never made having children more difficult as today in 2016.
I will not to pretend to understand how America ended up with the worst maternity leave policies in the world. Clearly this is not a culture that values women or babies, very much. Compared with some countries, the US feels quite demeaning for Millennials not just in terms of youth employment, but in the match of the cost of a college education and the actual quality of the jobs that are available. You may not have known, but here are 10 things you should know about maternity leave in the US.
- Paid maternity leave is not guaranteed (quite a barbaric patriarchal policy)
- Children and families are the ones who suffer (at what economic benefit and for whom?)
- Gender gap discrimination (equal pay) is institutionalized in ways like this, showing that America is not really interested in equality after all.
But this isn’t a post about the state of women in America, it’s about Millennials not having children. But I’d like you to realize the connections. Female infanticide in certain Asian countries means millions of millennial men won’t be able to have wives, families, status.
Where Do we Go From Here
Tough choices
Millennials will have to make tough choices in how they spend their time, money and motivation in today’s changing world. With divorce in America, it’s likely the true divorce rate is between 38% and 46%. This means many of us will experience a divorce and may not have had kids in our first try, this leaves us likely mid 30s, with a need to:
- Get a sperm donor and be Professional single Mom (a story I hear more and more often!). An increasing number of Millennials will freeze their eggs, in anticipation for the new reality.
- Race the clock, and try to find a partner and have a child in the span of a few years.
- Keep going and pretend as if my window of opportunity is not closing (also a surprisingly number of people are in this boat).
The Inflation of Capitalism
One this is a certainty in capitalism of this individualistic kind that we have chosen as our dominant paradigm. The rich will keep getting richer and the poor will keep getting richer. As the cost of living is rising faster than wages are, it’s inevitable the middle class will feel the pain more and more. This is all a given.
The rich will keep getting richer and the poor will keep getting richer.
For many Millennials who are now in or nearing breeding age, the dicohomty between economy and family aspirations, has never been greater! Are we willing to bring children into very imperfect environments? What kind of sacrifices are we willing to make just to be able to have children? Here are some variations of this theme:
- Many Millennials put off having children, due to going back to school. ~ Rise in mature students.
- Many young professional Millennials don’t find long-term partners, instead focusing on their careers. ~ Rise of people living alone.
- Many Millennials feel they cannot afford to have children due to a harsher economy, more competition and lower quality of employment.
- Many Millennials begin to realize they prefer to have free-time, travel, $ to do hobbies, flexibility to change jobs/cities/start their own business, rather than the responsibility of parenthood.
If you are a Millennial, do you see yourself in any of these following scenarios? Perhaps all of the, perhaps none, share your opinion in a comment.
There is this pop-culture impression that Millennial are spoiled with an attitude of entitlement. I’d argue rather, Millennial around the world are the fighters that have to adapt to new realities, which Baby boomers and X’ers never could never even dream of.
The chief reality of our personal lives, is not what occupational status or title we hold, not what we do, but the heart of the relationships we create over our lifetime. The sum total of our connections to other people is even what makes us healthy and live long fruitful lives.
Nothing could be further salient to our identity than family and offspring. When people are nearing death, universally, their chief regret is they neglected spending more time with their families and friends, while focusing too much on their work.
As Millennials, there’s no easy answer. But society is changing and let’s face it, having children has been disrupted.