Are we in the opening scenes of a post-apocalyptic movie?

[The Brain]

What's wrong with apartments?

[Jacob]

The teeming tenements of the past suggest to me that apartment living is not the cause of declining birthrate.

[DGuller]

The teeming tenements of the past suggest to me that apartment living is not the cause of declining birthrate.

I would say that more generally, I find arguments of the form "people are too poor to have kids" unpersuasive.  If you look at countries sorted by natural growth rates, you have a whole bunch of countries in Africa, followed by Afghanistan, West Bank, and Gaza Strip.  None of those places are known for providing immense material wealth to potential parents on a mass scale.  If anything, it seems like being too well-off makes you so perfectionist when it comes to having kids that you wind up not having any.

[Valmy]

The teeming tenements of the past suggest to me that apartment living is not the cause of declining birthrate.

I would say that more generally, I find arguments of the form "people are too poor to have kids" unpersuasive.  If you look at countries sorted by natural growth rates, you have a whole bunch of countries in Africa, followed by Afghanistan, West Bank, and Gaza Strip.  None of those places are known for providing immense material wealth to potential parents on a mass scale.  If anything, it seems like being too well-off makes you so perfectionist when it comes to having kids that you wind up not having any.

Yeah well those countries are also having crashing birth rates. Everyone is. They are just starting later and from a higher starting point. Whatever is causing it seems to be impacting everyone, no matter the wealth level.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Might be correlated with urbanization and the decrease in people engaged in subsistence agriculture, or any agriculture. Children aren't the go-to hack to increase your production capacity.
Plus a lot of other parameters I guess.

[Josquius]

The teeming tenements of the past suggest to me that apartment living is not the cause of declining birthrate.

I would say that more generally, I find arguments of the form "people are too poor to have kids" unpersuasive.  If you look at countries sorted by natural growth rates, you have a whole bunch of countries in Africa, followed by Afghanistan, West Bank, and Gaza Strip.  None of those places are known for providing immense material wealth to potential parents on a mass scale.  If anything, it seems like being too well-off makes you so perfectionist when it comes to having kids that you wind up not having any.

Education is the key factor.
Education + poverty is a killer synergy.

Gaza strip is quite a unique case with its high birth rate. Such places that were formerly reasonably developed with good education levels but then hit hard times are usually bottom for birth rates. Lots at play there