One of the biggest reasons why no one wants to have kids these days is because our generation is much more stressed and anxious about the future compared to previous generations. The reason for that is because the amount of disposable income and savings (NOT in meaningless NOMINAL but in *REAL purchasing power* terms) that people in the bottom 97% have keeps dwindling every single year. The reason for that is because they are printing money, lending money, borrowing money, and expanding the money supply at a faster and faster rate each year. Even if you are making $300,000+ per year, you can still feel this ACUTELY; as in most cases prices are growing faster than the rate of your savings growth in real terms. Even if you ignore hoeflation, hypergamy, and the sinister effects of smartphones and social media, and focus on normal, reasonable, grounded people - people that don’t come from top 5% families (those that own lots of stocks and real estate which can keep up with money printing) feel psychologically “unworthy” and financially unprepared for parenthood as it is taking longer and longer to achieve basic milestones. Money does not define one’s worth, but food, rent, childcare, education, healthcare are real expenses that require money. The overly debt-ridden and inflationary Fiat Late Capitalist system is becoming so extreme that its major byproduct is sacrificing real human births and real human happiness for the sake of letting the system live another day and enriching the asset-owning class. All of the trends described above will intensify even more as both AI capabilities and money-printing speeds accelerate. This road only goes one way. As automation inevitably accelerates, we will witness a greater "Crisis of Worthlessness". Having children will go from being a standard human experience to being an ultra-luxury good. The trend will be towards only the ultra-wealthy in the 1st world and the ultra-poor in the 3rd world being able to have kids, with the upper-middle, middle and working classes of the "developed" world being disproportionately affected. Your life has been made harder for the sake of their profits and keeping the existing system afloat to live another day. We have been in a multi-decade Happiness Recession no matter what "GDP" numbers say, and that's what truly matters. An animal stops procreating when it feels it is in a prison. The System is Broken. Charts unrelated.