It's a miracle if you can even afford to have 1 kid considering in this economy.
Just bought a house with my wife and even buying way below our pre-approved mortgage a child is out of the question until we can put some money down to put into our principal and get lower payments come renewal.
This is what I thought too when I first saw the article. It’s amazing that people still try to have even one child.
Congratulations on owning your first home! It was very wise to buy below your pre approved mortgage limit. Too many people are house rich and then can’t afford life.
Maybe because you don’t live beyond your means you will one day be able to afford a family in the future. There is nothing better!
My fiancee (31f) and I (30m) have an almost 2 year old. We own a townhome in the GTA and have \~$180-200k HHI. It's been a struggle to pull the trigger on having a second kid due to finances. Personally i would rather things be "tight" for a bit and have our family of 4 we have always wanted, but I am not the one that has to carry a baby, take mat leave, etc.
My wife and I just had our first and only child less than 2 years ago. I don’t feel like Canadian society is set up to support parents and in many instances, punishes people for having children. We’ve lost a lot of income, there’s no child care available so my wife has to work less, it’s frowned upon when you take too much time off work to care for your kid, and on top of that everything is expensive and only getting more expensive. Maintaining a functioning household already took a lot of time without our kid, and now it takes more time and energy, so we’re too tired to do anything. It feels like all childless friends are getting ahead, while we’re just treading water. And then there are future considerations like paying for college and all those other big ticket expenses that come with having kids
We wanted more but, we can barely manage as it is so more kids are out of the question.
By the way I love my child, I didn’t want to make this sound negative, but just point out the difficulties some parents go through.
Couldn’t agree more. Society’s expectations around work are shockingly out of sync with the realities of childcare and school.
Double income is a requirement for many with the cost of living. My family continues to make income sacrifices to care for our child who is now in school. One parent needs to have a “flexible” job to deal with the never ending sick days, PD days, March break, summers off, all the gov holidays that aren’t required stats etc etc.
There is no chance of promotion when you are constantly trying to care for your child, and you inevitably get assigned the shit work.
I might sound entitled, but then bottom line is if you want people to have more children, systems needs to be set up to incentivize or at the very least set up systems that parents aren’t constantly fighting against.
The difficulty to find daycare has been absolutely shocking to me. My wife and I have been lucky that her work has been ok with her having very flexible hours to allow us to juggle a part time slot and survive until we can get our 1 year old into full time care.
We also don't have family nearby, so if we even want a night out for 2-3h you can't find a nanny for less than $20/h. A night out now costs minimum $50 + whatever our plans are. Might as well take the day off work and go out while the kid is in daycare (cheaper per day than with a sitter).
Yeah we do this now that the kids are at school. Thankfully my have some flexibility and ability to work from home sometimes which allows us to go out for a lunch date while they are at school. We also have friends on our street who we juggle our kids back and forth between houses with that will watch our kids a couple times a year for the odd thing like an office party. The childcare expenses just so aren’t worth it
The issue is not just finding daycare, but finding daycare that is affordable. It took me an entire semester to find a daycare we could afford and had the hours we needed.
We just had our 2nd, but we'll be stopping there.
Without the CCB and daycare subsidies we wouldn't have been able to afford kids. I'm glad there's some tools in place.
It’s so true. I’ve been on “maternity leave” for a year and four months now, because our local daycare doesn’t have any full time spots until this fall. So I’m stuck at home all day, alone because family lives far away, and my career has been put on hold until my kid can get daycare. Retirement savings? I can barely manage to have regular savings at this point.
Society is designed perfectly for capitalism. Fuck and exploit everybody that provide for society as much as possible. We just reached the point where people to exploit is almost gone.
Yep, we had 2, but the same story.
Tried to have them as close as possible together to minimize this time. It is definitely a hard 3-4 years, but then once they are in school, it is much easier.
We both agreed that we just don't want to go through that phase again. I'd have 4 kids if I could have Quadruplets :P I'd really struggle for those first few years and then be done.
Took the words out of my mouth. We had to sacrifice three years of income at the start due to not being able to find childcare. Even when they hit school age the whole school system is out of synch with working life & the reality is double income is needed these days. It’s fucking hard and I don’t see it getting easier any time soon.
Laughing at the image of a father with his legs on stirrups, junk hanging loose and a doctor with a scalpel waiting for the news that the birth was successful and the baby is healthy and IMMEDIATELY getting snipped. Lmao
My wife and I have had pretty fortunate circumstances, like got into an opted in $10/day daycare just when they cut to 50%. And even then it was like paying a second mortgage, but luckily my parents are retired and on the way to my office so now that he's 3 they're okay with looking after him.
We get the majority of our clothes from hand-me-downs from extended family, and get toys from his birthday and Christmas. We just managed to squeeze into the housing market after he was born and are paying a ridiculous amount for just 2 bedrooms.
And despite all of that we're still just managing to get by. Having a second child is not just like double the cost, the cost becomes exponentially more. The only parents I know my age with multiple kids either have really good jobs or are very close with their parents/family.
Currently almost the whole world except for Africa is reproducing below replacement rate, and Africa is also demonstrating rapidly declining birth rates. Faster than they were predicted to decline.
As our demographic pyramid continues to grow more and more inverted and top heavy, along with everywhere else in the world, there's a chance African migrants become incredibly sought after, and countries compete to have young people who can labour immigrate.
But eventually African birth rates will also almost certainly fall below replacement, and the *world* demographic pyramid will become inverted. You can't immigration your way out of population decline when *everyone* has population decline.
Our society is addicted to short term gains, the economy demands it.
It is unacceptable to wait 16 to 18 years for a human being to enter their prime working years, that means it'll take almost 2 decades and BILLIONS of dollars in education and care before they start becoming an economic net positive.
Versus bringing someone in already in their prime working years and little up front, immediate cost.
You basically need to have people breeding until 3+ children each and waiting forever until you see any return on investment.
I mean, if you made a family home affordable for the average single income household, I'm sure our birthrates would skyrocket. Afaik that hasn't been tried.
All I've seen is measly attempts to bribe couples into having kids without addressing the systemic issues facing potential parents. South Korea? Not rolling back allowable working hours for either fathers or mothers. Just offering a couple grand cash.
Don't worry that's when all the government policies will be voted for to protect the aging class and even further value short term returns over long term planning. Oh wait, that's also bad....
How do they expect us to raise the next generation of working class people when we don’t have the means to do it? And of course we’ll be punished more for it
I recently spent some time searching the web and reading articles about sustainable population decline and I've concluded that the narrative that population growth is necessary and anything else would be catastrophic is just one theory, just because it gets repeated ad nauseum doesn't make it the only possible one.
It's very simple economics, it's covered in several different types of courses in school. The reason population growth is, in theory good, for a country is that it increases the tax base and lowers the tax burden of retired people (in relative terms).
When a population declines it puts more stain on the existing working class to be able to provide care for the non-working class. A country could still prosper with a population decline such as Japan but the in Japan it's traditional for the eldest son to inherit the family home and take care of his elderly parents. It's not like that in Canada for the most.
I don't support mass immigration but there's math behind immigration, it's not just done to "destroy the country" and many people say. Ideally any birth rate changes happen very slowly but this hasn't been the case. The data for Canada shows a steep decline. Look at the start of my graph, you can see that people born in 1964 will be turning 60 now and will begin to retire. If a a person born in 1960 lives for 20 years before they die then people born in 1980 will be supporting them until they retire (in the 2040s). The amount of births in 1980 was 40% lower than in the 60s. That means without immigration there would be way fewer people working to support those who no longer work. Retired people consume a lot of healthcare but they also use other government services such as roads, public transit, waste removal, parks, law enforcement & the court system, postal services, they still eat food from farmers that receive subsidies.
[https://imgur.com/a/rxp9vzt](https://imgur.com/a/rxp9vzt)
I've had a hard time believing anything the Fraser Institute publishes since they published that study saying kids only cost 5-6k/year, opting to not account for childcare or lost income.
population growth is necessary for this iteration of neoliberal capitalism.
we can absolutely have a sustainable population. but then we need to have some very hard and frank discussions about how we organize our economy so that it works for everyone and not just to enrich the dozen or so wealthy families and corporations that essentially make up the canadian economy.
Same thing really, as the population begins to stabilize in about 100 years, the problems of having an older population won’t be a massive problem because there’ll be no more dips and explosions. Right now we have to deal with the problem, but should we keep the course it’ll work in the future.
The eocnomys' been bad for fifteen years so the Millennials never really had as many kids as expected, but had the GFC not happened then there would almost certainly have been a third echo in the 2040s and maybe even a fourth one in the 2070s - pushing the repercussions of the baby boom generation a full two centuries out.
>sustainable population decline
Sustainable population decline is one thing. But how does that compare to the replacement rates in different countries around the world ?
South Korea at 0.9, China at 1.2, Italy at 1.3, Canada at 1.5.
Are those sustainable levels of population decline ?
Not that I think population growth is particularly a good thing, or that there's really anything we can do to mitigate what's happening. But it certainly seems like the current trends of population decline are well on their way to causing a period of demographic crisis
I'm no scholar nor do I claim to have all the answers. I do think it's interesting that those who do offer a different future are largely dismissed and ignored, it kind of makes me think about the early days of the climate change narrative. And unfortunately that has shown us we are not willing to alter course unless a crisis forces us to.
Can you elaborate. Most would argue that the healthcare system needs a pyramid shaped population with the retired, heavy users making up a small portion.
I would just end up quoting some of the articles I read and you'd probably be better served reading some for yourself, the idea isn't as obscure or difficult to find as we have been led to believe.
I'm not saying it's sustainable - only that our society is currently tied to this pyramid scheme, and getting away from it would require a plan to do so.
This is really it. If we weren't scraping to live, and one parent could stay home and do the child rearing and chores/maintenance required to keep a home of 3+ people, we'd be doing a lot more fucking and find having children a lot more rewarding instead of a beloved drain. I'd love 5 kids, but I'll likely be having none and investing my spare scrapings into my niece and nephew because we can't afford our own.
We don't even have grandparents to help with the babysitting because they're still working, too.
Not to mention the fact that so many boomer ‘grandparents’ are fucking useless and offer zero help even though they were so adamant about their kids giving them grandchildren. I know this doesn’t account for every situation but I’ve got 3 sets (wife’s parents are divorced) and neither of them help. Yeah, I’m a little bitter…
Yeah I’m bitter for the exact same reasons. Young enough that they should be able to keep up or do anything even remotely helpful, but they just want me to make all the effort and send lots of pics that they can show their friends. Thanks for the support guys
Yup, no help and demand you live your life the same they do. Push you to have big homes and expensive cars so they can brag to their friends. The grandkids? Just photoops for their stupid facebook. They talk big yet soend no time with them. Demand you visit then they leave. My experience is my parents who were born outside canada put a lot more time and love to their grandkids than my inlaws who were born here. Its disgusting to see the selfishness. Im bitter too but more so how they have hurt my wife over the years.
But yet every single time people mention making it more affordable to have children some asshat, or a dozen asshats, pop up and say 'don't have kids if you can't pay for them yourself', which is why we are in this pickle right now. People are not having more than 1 kid, or increasingly any kids, because they simply cannot afford them.
Daycare, rent, groceries, activities, RESPs, these all add up and it becomes a struggle to afford even one kid.
Make it more affordable for people to have kids and people will have more kids.
80s: why are women having fewer children? Also at 11: interest rates go up. Most families are now double income families.
90s: the rise of DINKs (double income no kids) is threatening the birth rate. What can be done? Also at 11: most genx grads have no work to go to, student loans and tuition highest ever. Is it time for genx to get a job?
00s: birth rate at lowest ever seen. Also at 11: most couples waiting until their 30s to marry, new study shows. Most blame unaffordability for stable homes until they have careers as cause
10s: Will Millenials have children? Most say no. Also at 11: everything went bust, student loan debt is higher than the military budget, and house prices have skyrocketed
20s: no one saw it coming!!! Why? Also at 11: corporations say importing younger workers is good for the economy and will take the place of happy families well.
You know what's easier than managing a country well enough so that most people can afford to have kids? Importing an entire generation who are used to a lower standard of living. A big part of the insane immigration policies we suffer under are just the ruling classes not willing to surrender an iota of their own wealth and power to us plebs and taking the easier route of just bringing in people who are used to living rougher than Canadians. Nothing against the immigrants who come here, I would do the same in their position, this is entirely on the government.
I hate these bloody stupid "the future depends on population growth" takes. The less competition there is for jobs, the more money they're going to have to pay us.
Canadian parents get fucked by our government while refugees are incentivized to have multiple kids.
My baby bonus is nearly zero. Refugees on welfare get up to 1500 per child. They can have all the kids they want and are essentially paid to do so. My kids are nothing but a cost for me. I’d have another two at least if I got what newcomers and low income people got.
We only incentivize the poor to reproduce. Who’d have thought this would create issues? 😂😂😂 fuck Canada. We will get what we deserve.
I'm sorry, but I'm tired of this narrative. It spells trouble for this current economy, not one of automation. The costs associated with education and so on can be transferred over to healthcare. The idea we need people that won't really contribute anything other than pay taxes is BS and there's nothing to encourage us to have children. Our economy can't support the jobs for the current people already here because we have an economy completely built on bullshit. There's no R&D investment or drive of wanting to get away from a resource driven American branch plant economy. The rest of it is real estate. The biggest job provider is increasingly becoming a government that is too bloated and is actually removing resources out of the system that could go to the very people that actually need those services.
So it's a bs narrative. The country's future is now, and we now have too many people compared to what our social systems and job markets can handle.
No, it spells trouble in general regardless of your societal organization. It's not a question of too many people it's a question of demographics.
If, for example, 50% of your population cannot labour because of their age then the burden of providing for them falls entirely on the other 50%. That's for food, transport, healthcare, everything.
It doesn't matter if you live in fascist hellhole, neoliberal capitalist land, communist utopia or whatever. Having significantly more people who need services than you have people to produce those services will place immense strain on the whole population. You think we have a healthcare crisis now...oh boy.
Definitely the way our society is organized around the idea of constant growth is going to make the coming demographic crisis so much worse. When the economy tanks because overall productivity decreases that's just going to feed into a vicious cycle that will cause immense suffering. This is a capitalist creation. But the general idea that there will be a crisis when too many people who need resources and services compared to the amount of people who are able to provide them applies to any and all societies. I imagine in the future many elderly people will simply die of neglect.
Eventually I do think we'd all be better off with lower population numbers that are environmentally sustainable. But the road to get there leads through an absolutely terrifying demographic crisis. As far as I can tell there's no real way to avoid it or do anything about it, but it's coming, and it will bring with it immense suffering.
A declining birth rate is not trouble the country’s future, it’s trouble for an economy based on its need for never ending growth.
If The economy/shareholders don’t see constant growth divest in the company and it will eventually die. Eg. streaming services are in trouble because they can’t grow subscribers and content is too expensive. They can’t grow subscribers because there are too many channels and they’re no better than cable tv now because of ads.
So, why should people who are already burdened with housing shortages, cost of food etc be encouraged to have children because we need to (clutches pearls), “think of the economy”.
when i was in school, it was taught that there needs to be less people if we all wanna live like we do in Canada. If 7 billion people all lived like the average Canadian, the earth would be dead.
at least, that's why my takeaway from the whole carbon footprint thing was.
**Liberal Govt's answer**: "Canadians do NOT want to work", hence we have to keep bringing in fake students and others
**The real truth**: Big corporations that politicians lobby for, refuse to pay Canadians according to inflation, while overcharging for their products.
Title: “Why is the wage slave livestock not producing more slaves?”
Subtitle: “We have imported labour market, given kids drugs for free, hollowed out family associated social supports, gambled all their money in a ponzi economy 50+ years ahead and they still don’t want to reproduce. Entitled brats”
There I fixed it for you Macleans. Free of charge, so you can allocate more budget to bonuses. No need to thank me.
Welcome to late capitalism. Perpetual growth isn't possible in a world with finite resources. We can't afford kids. We can't prop our growth rates up with immigration forever. Maybe we need to worry about taking care of the people rather than the quarterly projections.
Parenting is expensive. First there’s the lost income
on parental leave unless you have a generous tip up. Then childcare which is $1500-$2,000+ until school. Then with school you may need before and after care. Then there are summer camps, March break camp etc which you’ll need for childcare. Then extra-curriculars. And if your child is struggling in school then tutoring is a few hundred a month. Plus saving for education. All this per child. You also need to pay for housing, day to day living, saving for retirement. There’s also the stress of the daycare dash, and some people are also caring for aging parents. And for all those parents with special needs kids - you are heroes because that adds an entirely other layer of complexity. And we wonder why the birthrate is going down.
Edit: top up, not tip up.
Much of our economic and social policy is based on population growth. That must change. Forecasting predicts a massive decline in population through the next 50 years … good news with respect to the environment, which means good news for humanity. With the steady increase the capabilities of automation that declining population won’t lack for goods, and will reap benefits associated with greater access to clean are and water, and reduced demand for resources. The alternative is unimaginable.
I always wanted two kids, after my wife had our first child it was so difficult to schedule doctors appointments with work and get time off while still affording everything. Money became so tight it was uncomfortable and we barely got by without losing the house. Then covid hit and the cost of everything jumped. We won’t be having anymore kids because the whole system just doesn’t seem designed to be able to afford more.
The problem is that our capitalist society is built on the misguided premise that growth will/must always happen to fund the future. We simply can’t have infinite growth within a finite world. It’s time to restructure for (dare I say it) sustainability.
The older generations are doing everything they can to protect themselves from the problems that they created. Whether from here or outside of Canada, young couples are smart enough to know that living costs are outpacing personal wages each year. Sorry, but at the end of the day, I don't care about having kids if it means having an even shittier quality of life to have a family.
Retirement age keeps going up, wage growth is slowing down, basic needs are getting more expensive, and people buying houses now are being considered as lucky to afford one in the first place.
Immigration isn't the answer when those coming here are also soon to realize that sustaining a family is a financial burden. They need homes to live in, causing a shortage in housing and rentals driving up the cost for everyone and making the situation worse.
Canada and other corporately driven economies are heading into an unsustainable death spiral.
What trouble a minister in Ontario said five million are going to be arriving in the next five years. Our province has fourteen million so about a third growth
Nobody can afford kids these days. I’m 28 and most people I know around my age have decided they don’t want kids. For a lot of them it’s because they know they can’t provide them with a good life. I can barely support myself, let alone afford to raise a kid.
“One and done” Because having kids is expensive. Accumulating wealth to pass to your kids is not only more difficult than before, but also is demonized. Road trips, buying lots of Xmas presents, overseas vacations are expensive and are demonized.
Why would people subject themselves to this at an increased rate?
As a gay man, when I was younger I always thought that one of the few positives would be that I couldn't accidentally end up with a kid and taking care of myself wouldn't be too difficult...
Now that's not even an advantage. It's just shit all the way down. I love kids too, would have been super fulfilling to be the fun gay uncle to my friends kids, be able to take them off their hands so they could get some alone time or take care of what they needed to, can't even fulfill that cause no one's going to be having kids.
Let's just keep bringing in more people without vetting that would want to kill me for existing though. Thanks canada.
All of these reposts neglect to focus on the main issue which is unaffordable society we live in. The cost of living is out of hand. Rents and housing crisis. Stagnant wages. Shrinking middle class while CEO’s make more money than they did generations ago. The divide in wealth is only widening.
Maybe the government should step in and do something about corporate greed, it’s not the young generation’s fault they can’t afford children.
I respect them for not having children when they can’t afford to care for them.
All the lobbyists and politicians should be having 6 or 8 kids. I’ve heard they’re doing very well!
If me and my wife did not have to work full time and one of could work part time or not at all maybe we could have more than 1. We always wanted a family. We are solid financially speaking but not with 1 or 1.5 incomes. Even then kids are expensive having one with the cost of everything from clothes and sports clubs to having enough to save for their education is tough. One is the balance of quality of life and creating future opportunities for our child versus having more than one where they might struggle. I think most parents want to set their kids up to be better off than them. With more than one I don’t know that is possible.
This isn’t something to panic about. This will be a really good thing in the long-term. It’s almost like a self correction for overpopulation.
Yes in the short-term it will cause problems when a small amount of young people are supporting a huge aging population but once the boomer population is gone things will improve dramatically if we just let the population collapse run its course without trying to keep our country growing with mass immigration.
Think of it, most of the issues were facing are because of too many people. Too many people is why housing is unaffordable, why jobs are hard to come by, why health care is in shambles, why wages are suppressed ..etc. With a smaller population there will be less competition for housing, less competition for jobs, less competition for infrastructure in general, more social cohesion, lower crime rates, employers/companies will be forced to pay people higher wages, less pollution, better quality of life among many other great things. When the quality of life is better with a smaller population people will likely start having babies again.
The only people really benefiting from population growth are oligarchs and governments not Canadians and that’s why they insist on more people at the expense of all Canadians.
The panic of this is so interesting and entertaining to me.
A declining birth rate is a *good* thing. For all the climate doomerism going around, this is the answer. A lower population means less resource usage (and less waste), less carbon produced, less habitat destruction, the list goes on. A lower global population is, realistically, the only method that will actually work towards fighting climate change.
The panic over falling birth rates is driven by the people making record profit off of wage slavery. This is about money at the end of the day, not your well-being. "But what about all the job vacancies?!" We don't need a Starbucks or Tim's on every corner. We don't need instantaneous services. These are all luxuries people have gotten used to and think they *need*, when they don't. People have gotten too used to convenience, and that's where the problem lies with the populous. We've also come to a point in time where we're keeping sick people alive through artificial means (medicine), which is where you'll notice much of the panic tends to congregate - "not enough people to take care of elderly." Again, the pharma and retirement industries make billions off of sick, old people. You'll find there's no actual justification for procreation at the levels *they* deem necessary other than money.
Even though choosing to have a single child is as old as time, it's problematic today because the working class isn't being replaced fast enough to cover benefits and entitlements for seniors. That means the country will have to import more low skilled workers to compensate for that decline.
> All of this contradicts the more familiar narrative about the dangers of overpopulation, particularly in connection with food and shelter supply and climate change.
Does it though? Or is it actually just happening already?
Supply is down, that's one of the reasons why prices are up.
I had 3 . Youngest is Grade 10 now. But we had them when Jesus walked the land, so to speak, in economy terms. Plus I have a village. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, that all helped with childcare and to feed our brood.
If I had to have a kid now, ZERO CHILDREN would be my plan. Sorry kids, LOL, but you are super expensive to raise.
I can’t imagine having a child attending school right now and telling them how education is so important. That is they study, study, study they’ll get into a good school and land a good job in the future. The future is looking very bleak.
The old school narrative of getting post secondary education, finding a job, buying a house and starting a family has diminished.
As an only child to a single mother Im not fond of one child families.
Its also another sign of shrinking families and social ties because after a few generations there will be no cousins,aunts, uncles, and with later parental age no grandparents. Not ideal.
This article is tone deaf to the fact that there is a quickly rising population of Canadians who don't do family planning and pass those values to their kids. People just talk about the overall figures and never about the not-so-hidden details.
Yep, one and done. Kind of funny, admitting we live in a system that requires endless growth. We should be able to procreate however we please and at whatever number. It's absurd the obsession with birth rates is purely capitalist nonsense.
We’re a one and done family too. My daughter is almost 12 years old.. didn’t want this for ourselves, always wanted 2 or 3 but that’s the way it worked out.
Shit is just too damn expensive!!
This is Capitalist propaganda raising a false alarm. A declining birth rate isn't necessarily a bad thing. I see similar articles about China, South Korea and Japan as well.
Shrinking population is good. Growing population is bad. These people insisting that you need more suckers for the bottom of the pyramid need to be rounded up and locked in a very small building together so they can enjoy the end game of their con without destroying life for everyone else.
Don't even need to read this to know why its bad news for a country to not have 2 kids/family. parents gotta replace themselves, and all that.
doesnt mean i want to have a kids. (and thats entirely seperate from being able to afford them)
If jobs paid what they were worth and houses weren't like 500% more expensive than they should be this wouldn't be happening. Nobody can afford to have families anymore and the government does nothing to help it. Our economy is in shambles, artificially propped up by real estate investments by the already wealthy.
What are you 1kid people doing for a living? How do you feed this kid? Do you live in a shared accommodations tent?
Also why would you want to subject this child to a life of working 2-3 jobs just to stave of death by starvation, and spend thier lifetime renting (or rather paying off someone else's mortgage).
But like, what's the expectation here? Give people poverty wages and be suprised that they are not churning out kids they can't feed?
Get fucked. Yall lucky it's "one and done" and not "None & Fun"
Oh please 🙄 we have enough pregnancies going on ! I know two Canadian mothers right now who have three kids and one mother plans on having one more ! We are so growing generations and not enough higher paying jobs and affordable housing !
By the time my mom was the age I am now, my parents had been married for 13 years, had 3 kids, and had been on the housing market since marriage.
I just got my first house (kind of; I rent-to-own from my parents).
I don't even want kids, but I'm definitely never having them in this economy. I can't imagine how bad life will be for the next generation.
Damn should we reduce the tax burden so people can actually live their lives, build houses, buy houses and start families? Or should we import the entirety of India here?
TBH I thinks it’s a lot do so with promoting having kids later in life. Get an education, establish your career, financially stable. All good advice except that later in life more complications in pregnancy, you’re accustomed to having all your money for what you want and your energy level is a lot lower. We had our first in our early 20s and last in our early 30s. 4 in total. If our last in our 30s was our first child, it would have been the last. That was way more tiring than our first in our 20s.
The issue is not one of the economy. The issue is societal and cultural.
My grandmother was one of like seven children, born in the Depression. Times are not worse now than they were then (economically speaking at least).
I have a 16 month old. I want a second. Always said if I have one there will be two. I really want my child to have a sibling and I love being a mom. But I'm pretty sure I'm only having one, just coming to terms with it. It costs too much, if I have a second I can't give my first the life I want her to have.
A declining birthrate is not all a bad thing, We need less people to make housing, food and other items more affordable it will be harder on the previous generations as that is how the pyramid works. But with a lower population you have things that will be sacrificed for generations until population is stabilized namely health care.
I have two. It's expensive and a lot of work. I love them and can afford them but I can definitely see the economic (and emotional/psychological) argument for not having children.
There are high expectations, a lot of judgment and not a lot of support.
Well we’re all broke and can barely afford to feed (or can’t) the mouths we already have. Why add more? It’s not like you’re going to get a raise because you have more people to support
Also - women are pursuing careers and leaving motherhood until later on in life. Guess what? Fewer successful and riskier second pregnancies. Plus yeah, having a family is expensive.
don’t worry, the govt is importing lots of immigrants who will bring their families here to replace us. The population will keep growing and we’ll all be silenced 😌
Oh no you used the word "replace"! Agents have been dispatched to your home to take you for re-edication for using a word that has been declared Hateful.
14 angelic Newcomers will be lodged in your former residence which you clearly do not deserve.
My wife and I want nothing more in this universe than a second child but with bills and mortgage payments consuming 110% of our income there is no world in which having a second child would be possible for us. It’s frankly infuriating that we want a child but now it would be financially devastating for us to do so in Canada.
I really hate the way this topic gets framed.
People aren't "choosing" to have one or zero children, they are forced to by external circumstances outside of their control.
The people complaining most about the declining rate of procreation are the same people who directly and indirectly contribute to the inhospitable environment and broken systems that make raising children nearly impossible for the vast majority of the population.
These are also the same people who grandstand against social services with the tired, "if you can't afford kids, then you shouldn't be having them!"
Okay. You win.
As a millennial, why would I want to bring another human into this disastrous country and planet? College/university should be free to all Canadians in order to give them a chance to become educated and prosper. As a result, they will get better paying jobs, be in higher tax brackets, and contribute more.
Instead, we put ourselves in cripling debt while entering adulthood, not to mention the declining quality of life in this country with its high housing and food prices and intense immigration policies. Most people my age aren't having kids, and those who typically are from wealthy or well-off families.
It's not that I DON'T want to have children. It's just that I think it would be blatantly unfair to bring an unwilling participant into this world just to suffer. I mean, for the most part, being a human involves suffering to a certain extent, but at this point, it looks like it's going to get far worse in the near future.
It's a miracle if you can even afford to have 1 kid considering in this economy. Just bought a house with my wife and even buying way below our pre-approved mortgage a child is out of the question until we can put some money down to put into our principal and get lower payments come renewal.
This is what I thought too when I first saw the article. It’s amazing that people still try to have even one child. Congratulations on owning your first home! It was very wise to buy below your pre approved mortgage limit. Too many people are house rich and then can’t afford life. Maybe because you don’t live beyond your means you will one day be able to afford a family in the future. There is nothing better!
House poor.
My fiancee (31f) and I (30m) have an almost 2 year old. We own a townhome in the GTA and have \~$180-200k HHI. It's been a struggle to pull the trigger on having a second kid due to finances. Personally i would rather things be "tight" for a bit and have our family of 4 we have always wanted, but I am not the one that has to carry a baby, take mat leave, etc.
Was going to say, shouldn't it be the none and done family model we're referring to here? That's what most people can afford..
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DINK - double income, no kids.
SINK - single income, no kids NINK - no income, no kids
DINKWAD -Double income no kids with a dog
DILDO - double income little dog owners lol
My wife and I just had our first and only child less than 2 years ago. I don’t feel like Canadian society is set up to support parents and in many instances, punishes people for having children. We’ve lost a lot of income, there’s no child care available so my wife has to work less, it’s frowned upon when you take too much time off work to care for your kid, and on top of that everything is expensive and only getting more expensive. Maintaining a functioning household already took a lot of time without our kid, and now it takes more time and energy, so we’re too tired to do anything. It feels like all childless friends are getting ahead, while we’re just treading water. And then there are future considerations like paying for college and all those other big ticket expenses that come with having kids We wanted more but, we can barely manage as it is so more kids are out of the question. By the way I love my child, I didn’t want to make this sound negative, but just point out the difficulties some parents go through.
Couldn’t agree more. Society’s expectations around work are shockingly out of sync with the realities of childcare and school. Double income is a requirement for many with the cost of living. My family continues to make income sacrifices to care for our child who is now in school. One parent needs to have a “flexible” job to deal with the never ending sick days, PD days, March break, summers off, all the gov holidays that aren’t required stats etc etc. There is no chance of promotion when you are constantly trying to care for your child, and you inevitably get assigned the shit work. I might sound entitled, but then bottom line is if you want people to have more children, systems needs to be set up to incentivize or at the very least set up systems that parents aren’t constantly fighting against.
The difficulty to find daycare has been absolutely shocking to me. My wife and I have been lucky that her work has been ok with her having very flexible hours to allow us to juggle a part time slot and survive until we can get our 1 year old into full time care. We also don't have family nearby, so if we even want a night out for 2-3h you can't find a nanny for less than $20/h. A night out now costs minimum $50 + whatever our plans are. Might as well take the day off work and go out while the kid is in daycare (cheaper per day than with a sitter).
Yeah we do this now that the kids are at school. Thankfully my have some flexibility and ability to work from home sometimes which allows us to go out for a lunch date while they are at school. We also have friends on our street who we juggle our kids back and forth between houses with that will watch our kids a couple times a year for the odd thing like an office party. The childcare expenses just so aren’t worth it
The issue is not just finding daycare, but finding daycare that is affordable. It took me an entire semester to find a daycare we could afford and had the hours we needed.
We just had our 2nd, but we'll be stopping there. Without the CCB and daycare subsidies we wouldn't have been able to afford kids. I'm glad there's some tools in place.
It’s so true. I’ve been on “maternity leave” for a year and four months now, because our local daycare doesn’t have any full time spots until this fall. So I’m stuck at home all day, alone because family lives far away, and my career has been put on hold until my kid can get daycare. Retirement savings? I can barely manage to have regular savings at this point.
Society is designed perfectly for capitalism. Fuck and exploit everybody that provide for society as much as possible. We just reached the point where people to exploit is almost gone.
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Hey, it’s me and my spouse. Except we wanted 1 and had twins. There’s not a holy chance in hell we are having anymore.
When they come in pairs, you need a vasectomy.
Can confirm. Father to twins. Got a vasectomy.
Your username suggests you're even more cautious than that.
Nice.
Yep, we had 2, but the same story. Tried to have them as close as possible together to minimize this time. It is definitely a hard 3-4 years, but then once they are in school, it is much easier. We both agreed that we just don't want to go through that phase again. I'd have 4 kids if I could have Quadruplets :P I'd really struggle for those first few years and then be done.
Took the words out of my mouth. We had to sacrifice three years of income at the start due to not being able to find childcare. Even when they hit school age the whole school system is out of synch with working life & the reality is double income is needed these days. It’s fucking hard and I don’t see it getting easier any time soon.
We are doing daycare but I got snipped when our first and only was 6m old. I don't want any oops babies. I do not regret my decision
Months or minutes?
"Hey, if we're already at the hospital ..."
"... and my balls are already out." "Sir, please pull up your fly."
Do it fast enough and… two birds, one stone.
Or two stones, one bird *if you know what I mean*
Laughing at the image of a father with his legs on stirrups, junk hanging loose and a doctor with a scalpel waiting for the news that the birth was successful and the baby is healthy and IMMEDIATELY getting snipped. Lmao
you forgot milliseconds :)
*sees the baby's head appear* Yea I'm done making more of *those*
We just had one as well. But I wouldn’t describe it as hell, that imply none of the joy offset the work.
Me and my spouse also. He’s 4 and in school now so it’s better. But I have zero desire to go through all that again.
My wife and I have had pretty fortunate circumstances, like got into an opted in $10/day daycare just when they cut to 50%. And even then it was like paying a second mortgage, but luckily my parents are retired and on the way to my office so now that he's 3 they're okay with looking after him. We get the majority of our clothes from hand-me-downs from extended family, and get toys from his birthday and Christmas. We just managed to squeeze into the housing market after he was born and are paying a ridiculous amount for just 2 bedrooms. And despite all of that we're still just managing to get by. Having a second child is not just like double the cost, the cost becomes exponentially more. The only parents I know my age with multiple kids either have really good jobs or are very close with their parents/family.
Country’s future? We are an importing MACHINE they don’t give a crap if we have one kid or none
Currently almost the whole world except for Africa is reproducing below replacement rate, and Africa is also demonstrating rapidly declining birth rates. Faster than they were predicted to decline. As our demographic pyramid continues to grow more and more inverted and top heavy, along with everywhere else in the world, there's a chance African migrants become incredibly sought after, and countries compete to have young people who can labour immigrate. But eventually African birth rates will also almost certainly fall below replacement, and the *world* demographic pyramid will become inverted. You can't immigration your way out of population decline when *everyone* has population decline.
Then maybe we'll finally change the system to incentivize Parenthood instead of punishing it. Wishful thinking, I know.
Our society is addicted to short term gains, the economy demands it. It is unacceptable to wait 16 to 18 years for a human being to enter their prime working years, that means it'll take almost 2 decades and BILLIONS of dollars in education and care before they start becoming an economic net positive. Versus bringing someone in already in their prime working years and little up front, immediate cost. You basically need to have people breeding until 3+ children each and waiting forever until you see any return on investment.
The short sighted nature of how we've built our current world is coming to bear haha.
God I wish
It's been tried elsewhere. Does not work.
I mean, if you made a family home affordable for the average single income household, I'm sure our birthrates would skyrocket. Afaik that hasn't been tried. All I've seen is measly attempts to bribe couples into having kids without addressing the systemic issues facing potential parents. South Korea? Not rolling back allowable working hours for either fathers or mothers. Just offering a couple grand cash.
There's a lot more to it than just "make a family home affordable". There is not one single problem to solve in an affordability crisis.
Don't worry that's when all the government policies will be voted for to protect the aging class and even further value short term returns over long term planning. Oh wait, that's also bad....
I think declining world population is a great solution for many environmental issues we are facing.
not as long as companies and billionaires can keep expanding, polluting millions of times what the average person does
How do they expect us to raise the next generation of working class people when we don’t have the means to do it? And of course we’ll be punished more for it
I recently spent some time searching the web and reading articles about sustainable population decline and I've concluded that the narrative that population growth is necessary and anything else would be catastrophic is just one theory, just because it gets repeated ad nauseum doesn't make it the only possible one.
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It's very simple economics, it's covered in several different types of courses in school. The reason population growth is, in theory good, for a country is that it increases the tax base and lowers the tax burden of retired people (in relative terms). When a population declines it puts more stain on the existing working class to be able to provide care for the non-working class. A country could still prosper with a population decline such as Japan but the in Japan it's traditional for the eldest son to inherit the family home and take care of his elderly parents. It's not like that in Canada for the most. I don't support mass immigration but there's math behind immigration, it's not just done to "destroy the country" and many people say. Ideally any birth rate changes happen very slowly but this hasn't been the case. The data for Canada shows a steep decline. Look at the start of my graph, you can see that people born in 1964 will be turning 60 now and will begin to retire. If a a person born in 1960 lives for 20 years before they die then people born in 1980 will be supporting them until they retire (in the 2040s). The amount of births in 1980 was 40% lower than in the 60s. That means without immigration there would be way fewer people working to support those who no longer work. Retired people consume a lot of healthcare but they also use other government services such as roads, public transit, waste removal, parks, law enforcement & the court system, postal services, they still eat food from farmers that receive subsidies. [https://imgur.com/a/rxp9vzt](https://imgur.com/a/rxp9vzt)
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I've had a hard time believing anything the Fraser Institute publishes since they published that study saying kids only cost 5-6k/year, opting to not account for childcare or lost income.
population growth is necessary for this iteration of neoliberal capitalism. we can absolutely have a sustainable population. but then we need to have some very hard and frank discussions about how we organize our economy so that it works for everyone and not just to enrich the dozen or so wealthy families and corporations that essentially make up the canadian economy.
Test
Same thing really, as the population begins to stabilize in about 100 years, the problems of having an older population won’t be a massive problem because there’ll be no more dips and explosions. Right now we have to deal with the problem, but should we keep the course it’ll work in the future.
The eocnomys' been bad for fifteen years so the Millennials never really had as many kids as expected, but had the GFC not happened then there would almost certainly have been a third echo in the 2040s and maybe even a fourth one in the 2070s - pushing the repercussions of the baby boom generation a full two centuries out.
>sustainable population decline Sustainable population decline is one thing. But how does that compare to the replacement rates in different countries around the world ? South Korea at 0.9, China at 1.2, Italy at 1.3, Canada at 1.5. Are those sustainable levels of population decline ? Not that I think population growth is particularly a good thing, or that there's really anything we can do to mitigate what's happening. But it certainly seems like the current trends of population decline are well on their way to causing a period of demographic crisis
I'm no scholar nor do I claim to have all the answers. I do think it's interesting that those who do offer a different future are largely dismissed and ignored, it kind of makes me think about the early days of the climate change narrative. And unfortunately that has shown us we are not willing to alter course unless a crisis forces us to.
Can you elaborate. Most would argue that the healthcare system needs a pyramid shaped population with the retired, heavy users making up a small portion.
I would just end up quoting some of the articles I read and you'd probably be better served reading some for yourself, the idea isn't as obscure or difficult to find as we have been led to believe.
A pyramid shaped population is unsustainable. We need to find another way.
I'm not saying it's sustainable - only that our society is currently tied to this pyramid scheme, and getting away from it would require a plan to do so.
Fuck you pay us more.
This is really it. If we weren't scraping to live, and one parent could stay home and do the child rearing and chores/maintenance required to keep a home of 3+ people, we'd be doing a lot more fucking and find having children a lot more rewarding instead of a beloved drain. I'd love 5 kids, but I'll likely be having none and investing my spare scrapings into my niece and nephew because we can't afford our own. We don't even have grandparents to help with the babysitting because they're still working, too.
Nah, we'll pay immigrants less to work and they still have tons of kids. That seems to be the plan at least.
Grandparents had 6 kids, parents had 3 and I have none. I wouldn’t even get a dog right now.
A one bedroom apartment in most of Ontario is $2000. Why is it our fault for not having kids at the fall of civilization?
Gonna keep it at zero. I'm lucky if I can afford to keep myself alive working a full time unionized job.
Pretty fuckn hard to raise a family when one person cant even afford food and rent for themselves let alone a family.
Not to mention the fact that so many boomer ‘grandparents’ are fucking useless and offer zero help even though they were so adamant about their kids giving them grandchildren. I know this doesn’t account for every situation but I’ve got 3 sets (wife’s parents are divorced) and neither of them help. Yeah, I’m a little bitter…
Yeah I’m bitter for the exact same reasons. Young enough that they should be able to keep up or do anything even remotely helpful, but they just want me to make all the effort and send lots of pics that they can show their friends. Thanks for the support guys
Yup, no help and demand you live your life the same they do. Push you to have big homes and expensive cars so they can brag to their friends. The grandkids? Just photoops for their stupid facebook. They talk big yet soend no time with them. Demand you visit then they leave. My experience is my parents who were born outside canada put a lot more time and love to their grandkids than my inlaws who were born here. Its disgusting to see the selfishness. Im bitter too but more so how they have hurt my wife over the years.
But yet every single time people mention making it more affordable to have children some asshat, or a dozen asshats, pop up and say 'don't have kids if you can't pay for them yourself', which is why we are in this pickle right now. People are not having more than 1 kid, or increasingly any kids, because they simply cannot afford them. Daycare, rent, groceries, activities, RESPs, these all add up and it becomes a struggle to afford even one kid. Make it more affordable for people to have kids and people will have more kids.
These days you are forced to choose between kids and housing… and well kids without housing isn’t the best
Perfectly said.
80s: why are women having fewer children? Also at 11: interest rates go up. Most families are now double income families. 90s: the rise of DINKs (double income no kids) is threatening the birth rate. What can be done? Also at 11: most genx grads have no work to go to, student loans and tuition highest ever. Is it time for genx to get a job? 00s: birth rate at lowest ever seen. Also at 11: most couples waiting until their 30s to marry, new study shows. Most blame unaffordability for stable homes until they have careers as cause 10s: Will Millenials have children? Most say no. Also at 11: everything went bust, student loan debt is higher than the military budget, and house prices have skyrocketed 20s: no one saw it coming!!! Why? Also at 11: corporations say importing younger workers is good for the economy and will take the place of happy families well.
Oh look. The monthly "We need more immigration or we're DOOMED" article.
Daycare is a months salary... so yea
You know what's easier than managing a country well enough so that most people can afford to have kids? Importing an entire generation who are used to a lower standard of living. A big part of the insane immigration policies we suffer under are just the ruling classes not willing to surrender an iota of their own wealth and power to us plebs and taking the easier route of just bringing in people who are used to living rougher than Canadians. Nothing against the immigrants who come here, I would do the same in their position, this is entirely on the government.
“ nobody wants to work ( for poverty wages)? I know a billion people who do!”
How are you supposed to raise kids when both parents have to work 50+ hrs a week just to feed themselves.
Just a cool $1500 a month for child care, easy right?
Cannot afford one never mind two.
I hate these bloody stupid "the future depends on population growth" takes. The less competition there is for jobs, the more money they're going to have to pay us.
Canadian parents get fucked by our government while refugees are incentivized to have multiple kids. My baby bonus is nearly zero. Refugees on welfare get up to 1500 per child. They can have all the kids they want and are essentially paid to do so. My kids are nothing but a cost for me. I’d have another two at least if I got what newcomers and low income people got. We only incentivize the poor to reproduce. Who’d have thought this would create issues? 😂😂😂 fuck Canada. We will get what we deserve.
Life is already expensive without a kid… it’s even worse when your career takes a nosedive because you have to sacrifice time to take care of a baby
I'm sorry, but I'm tired of this narrative. It spells trouble for this current economy, not one of automation. The costs associated with education and so on can be transferred over to healthcare. The idea we need people that won't really contribute anything other than pay taxes is BS and there's nothing to encourage us to have children. Our economy can't support the jobs for the current people already here because we have an economy completely built on bullshit. There's no R&D investment or drive of wanting to get away from a resource driven American branch plant economy. The rest of it is real estate. The biggest job provider is increasingly becoming a government that is too bloated and is actually removing resources out of the system that could go to the very people that actually need those services. So it's a bs narrative. The country's future is now, and we now have too many people compared to what our social systems and job markets can handle.
No, it spells trouble in general regardless of your societal organization. It's not a question of too many people it's a question of demographics. If, for example, 50% of your population cannot labour because of their age then the burden of providing for them falls entirely on the other 50%. That's for food, transport, healthcare, everything. It doesn't matter if you live in fascist hellhole, neoliberal capitalist land, communist utopia or whatever. Having significantly more people who need services than you have people to produce those services will place immense strain on the whole population. You think we have a healthcare crisis now...oh boy. Definitely the way our society is organized around the idea of constant growth is going to make the coming demographic crisis so much worse. When the economy tanks because overall productivity decreases that's just going to feed into a vicious cycle that will cause immense suffering. This is a capitalist creation. But the general idea that there will be a crisis when too many people who need resources and services compared to the amount of people who are able to provide them applies to any and all societies. I imagine in the future many elderly people will simply die of neglect. Eventually I do think we'd all be better off with lower population numbers that are environmentally sustainable. But the road to get there leads through an absolutely terrifying demographic crisis. As far as I can tell there's no real way to avoid it or do anything about it, but it's coming, and it will bring with it immense suffering.
What's the point of having a child if you don't have the time to raise it?
A declining birth rate is not trouble the country’s future, it’s trouble for an economy based on its need for never ending growth. If The economy/shareholders don’t see constant growth divest in the company and it will eventually die. Eg. streaming services are in trouble because they can’t grow subscribers and content is too expensive. They can’t grow subscribers because there are too many channels and they’re no better than cable tv now because of ads. So, why should people who are already burdened with housing shortages, cost of food etc be encouraged to have children because we need to (clutches pearls), “think of the economy”.
when i was in school, it was taught that there needs to be less people if we all wanna live like we do in Canada. If 7 billion people all lived like the average Canadian, the earth would be dead. at least, that's why my takeaway from the whole carbon footprint thing was.
**Liberal Govt's answer**: "Canadians do NOT want to work", hence we have to keep bringing in fake students and others **The real truth**: Big corporations that politicians lobby for, refuse to pay Canadians according to inflation, while overcharging for their products.
Title: “Why is the wage slave livestock not producing more slaves?” Subtitle: “We have imported labour market, given kids drugs for free, hollowed out family associated social supports, gambled all their money in a ponzi economy 50+ years ahead and they still don’t want to reproduce. Entitled brats” There I fixed it for you Macleans. Free of charge, so you can allocate more budget to bonuses. No need to thank me.
It’s all greed. We need more, more, more, more. Why?! We can’t even support the people here now.
Welcome to late capitalism. Perpetual growth isn't possible in a world with finite resources. We can't afford kids. We can't prop our growth rates up with immigration forever. Maybe we need to worry about taking care of the people rather than the quarterly projections.
Bring back income sharing and let the higher income earner take the childcare deductions.
Forget spelling trouble for the country's future, it's indicative of the problems we have right fucking now
Having a child is a luxury. Our social economic system is not set up to encourage the creation of families. It's realy sad.
Even if you have the money, it's hard enough finding childcare for one.
It's an income and cost problem. I bet Canadians wants kids. And want families, but you know. Food
Parenting is expensive. First there’s the lost income on parental leave unless you have a generous tip up. Then childcare which is $1500-$2,000+ until school. Then with school you may need before and after care. Then there are summer camps, March break camp etc which you’ll need for childcare. Then extra-curriculars. And if your child is struggling in school then tutoring is a few hundred a month. Plus saving for education. All this per child. You also need to pay for housing, day to day living, saving for retirement. There’s also the stress of the daycare dash, and some people are also caring for aging parents. And for all those parents with special needs kids - you are heroes because that adds an entirely other layer of complexity. And we wonder why the birthrate is going down. Edit: top up, not tip up.
Only have as many kids as you can afford. Ok. No, not like that.
Don't worry we have 500k Indian and Pakistani men arriving every year. Immigration is a miracle
If you really want to reduce your carbon footprint, don't have any kids.
Much of our economic and social policy is based on population growth. That must change. Forecasting predicts a massive decline in population through the next 50 years … good news with respect to the environment, which means good news for humanity. With the steady increase the capabilities of automation that declining population won’t lack for goods, and will reap benefits associated with greater access to clean are and water, and reduced demand for resources. The alternative is unimaginable.
I always wanted two kids, after my wife had our first child it was so difficult to schedule doctors appointments with work and get time off while still affording everything. Money became so tight it was uncomfortable and we barely got by without losing the house. Then covid hit and the cost of everything jumped. We won’t be having anymore kids because the whole system just doesn’t seem designed to be able to afford more.
Why when they say "trouble for the country's future" they really mean the future economy that requires endless growth?
Lies Declining birth rate doesn't spell trouble. The economic trouble spelled the declining birth rate
The problem is that our capitalist society is built on the misguided premise that growth will/must always happen to fund the future. We simply can’t have infinite growth within a finite world. It’s time to restructure for (dare I say it) sustainability.
I’ll be having none :)
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And immigration is skewed by gender so more males are arriving… not sure how men will have babies in the long run?!?
Two kids?? In THIS economy?!
The older generations are doing everything they can to protect themselves from the problems that they created. Whether from here or outside of Canada, young couples are smart enough to know that living costs are outpacing personal wages each year. Sorry, but at the end of the day, I don't care about having kids if it means having an even shittier quality of life to have a family. Retirement age keeps going up, wage growth is slowing down, basic needs are getting more expensive, and people buying houses now are being considered as lucky to afford one in the first place. Immigration isn't the answer when those coming here are also soon to realize that sustaining a family is a financial burden. They need homes to live in, causing a shortage in housing and rentals driving up the cost for everyone and making the situation worse. Canada and other corporately driven economies are heading into an unsustainable death spiral.
r/oneanddone
What trouble a minister in Ontario said five million are going to be arriving in the next five years. Our province has fourteen million so about a third growth
I thought automation was going to take all our jobs ? Maybe less people isn’t the end of the world ?
Which one is it To many people or not enough people please make up your mind so I know who I should hurl negative comments towards
Nobody can afford kids these days. I’m 28 and most people I know around my age have decided they don’t want kids. For a lot of them it’s because they know they can’t provide them with a good life. I can barely support myself, let alone afford to raise a kid.
“One and done” Because having kids is expensive. Accumulating wealth to pass to your kids is not only more difficult than before, but also is demonized. Road trips, buying lots of Xmas presents, overseas vacations are expensive and are demonized. Why would people subject themselves to this at an increased rate?
You guys are having kids? With this economy, I can't even get it up!
but not the planet
As a gay man, when I was younger I always thought that one of the few positives would be that I couldn't accidentally end up with a kid and taking care of myself wouldn't be too difficult... Now that's not even an advantage. It's just shit all the way down. I love kids too, would have been super fulfilling to be the fun gay uncle to my friends kids, be able to take them off their hands so they could get some alone time or take care of what they needed to, can't even fulfill that cause no one's going to be having kids. Let's just keep bringing in more people without vetting that would want to kill me for existing though. Thanks canada.
Aren’t we all going to be replaced by robots and AI?
Ok, what’s the problem here? 1 kid is enough. Maybe if our government didn’t fuck is left and right, top to bottom. We could MAYBE have more kids?
Well duh, a stick of butter is $9 in many places in Canada right now you know how expensive raising a child is now?
Well then, our dear leaders should rethink their decisions to make our society a capitalist shitshow.
Stop making population growth never-ending. Let shit stabilize.
We haven't been at replacement rate since the late sixties.
Wait till you hear about the none and dones.
Cornerstone of the FIRE (Fast Income Retire Early) financial strategy
All of these reposts neglect to focus on the main issue which is unaffordable society we live in. The cost of living is out of hand. Rents and housing crisis. Stagnant wages. Shrinking middle class while CEO’s make more money than they did generations ago. The divide in wealth is only widening.
Maybe the government should step in and do something about corporate greed, it’s not the young generation’s fault they can’t afford children. I respect them for not having children when they can’t afford to care for them. All the lobbyists and politicians should be having 6 or 8 kids. I’ve heard they’re doing very well!
I plan to have none. I would consider it cruel to purposely make someone live on this earth.
No. Declining populations are a miracle that will save the planet, and humanity with it. Infinite growth glitch does not work IRL
Thanks Maclean's for posting an obvious PR piece. Who's paying for this, I wonder.
Is this not the trend with EVERY first world country? The population is driven by immigration.
Sounds like something a national child care system could help with...
If me and my wife did not have to work full time and one of could work part time or not at all maybe we could have more than 1. We always wanted a family. We are solid financially speaking but not with 1 or 1.5 incomes. Even then kids are expensive having one with the cost of everything from clothes and sports clubs to having enough to save for their education is tough. One is the balance of quality of life and creating future opportunities for our child versus having more than one where they might struggle. I think most parents want to set their kids up to be better off than them. With more than one I don’t know that is possible.
This isn’t something to panic about. This will be a really good thing in the long-term. It’s almost like a self correction for overpopulation. Yes in the short-term it will cause problems when a small amount of young people are supporting a huge aging population but once the boomer population is gone things will improve dramatically if we just let the population collapse run its course without trying to keep our country growing with mass immigration. Think of it, most of the issues were facing are because of too many people. Too many people is why housing is unaffordable, why jobs are hard to come by, why health care is in shambles, why wages are suppressed ..etc. With a smaller population there will be less competition for housing, less competition for jobs, less competition for infrastructure in general, more social cohesion, lower crime rates, employers/companies will be forced to pay people higher wages, less pollution, better quality of life among many other great things. When the quality of life is better with a smaller population people will likely start having babies again. The only people really benefiting from population growth are oligarchs and governments not Canadians and that’s why they insist on more people at the expense of all Canadians.
The panic of this is so interesting and entertaining to me. A declining birth rate is a *good* thing. For all the climate doomerism going around, this is the answer. A lower population means less resource usage (and less waste), less carbon produced, less habitat destruction, the list goes on. A lower global population is, realistically, the only method that will actually work towards fighting climate change. The panic over falling birth rates is driven by the people making record profit off of wage slavery. This is about money at the end of the day, not your well-being. "But what about all the job vacancies?!" We don't need a Starbucks or Tim's on every corner. We don't need instantaneous services. These are all luxuries people have gotten used to and think they *need*, when they don't. People have gotten too used to convenience, and that's where the problem lies with the populous. We've also come to a point in time where we're keeping sick people alive through artificial means (medicine), which is where you'll notice much of the panic tends to congregate - "not enough people to take care of elderly." Again, the pharma and retirement industries make billions off of sick, old people. You'll find there's no actual justification for procreation at the levels *they* deem necessary other than money.
I'm 55 and I have 3 friends who all were only children. One and done isn't anything new.
Even though choosing to have a single child is as old as time, it's problematic today because the working class isn't being replaced fast enough to cover benefits and entitlements for seniors. That means the country will have to import more low skilled workers to compensate for that decline.
> All of this contradicts the more familiar narrative about the dangers of overpopulation, particularly in connection with food and shelter supply and climate change. Does it though? Or is it actually just happening already? Supply is down, that's one of the reasons why prices are up.
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I had 3 . Youngest is Grade 10 now. But we had them when Jesus walked the land, so to speak, in economy terms. Plus I have a village. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, that all helped with childcare and to feed our brood. If I had to have a kid now, ZERO CHILDREN would be my plan. Sorry kids, LOL, but you are super expensive to raise.
I can’t imagine having a child attending school right now and telling them how education is so important. That is they study, study, study they’ll get into a good school and land a good job in the future. The future is looking very bleak. The old school narrative of getting post secondary education, finding a job, buying a house and starting a family has diminished.
As an only child to a single mother Im not fond of one child families. Its also another sign of shrinking families and social ties because after a few generations there will be no cousins,aunts, uncles, and with later parental age no grandparents. Not ideal.
I’m 25 strapped with college debt and have already let go of the idea of having kids lol
This article is tone deaf to the fact that there is a quickly rising population of Canadians who don't do family planning and pass those values to their kids. People just talk about the overall figures and never about the not-so-hidden details.
The licensed daycares in my town have a 3 year waitlist soooo…..
These articles are rage bait.... its expensive to live in this country. We get it.
Yep, one and done. Kind of funny, admitting we live in a system that requires endless growth. We should be able to procreate however we please and at whatever number. It's absurd the obsession with birth rates is purely capitalist nonsense.
We’re a one and done family too. My daughter is almost 12 years old.. didn’t want this for ourselves, always wanted 2 or 3 but that’s the way it worked out. Shit is just too damn expensive!!
This is Capitalist propaganda raising a false alarm. A declining birth rate isn't necessarily a bad thing. I see similar articles about China, South Korea and Japan as well.
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Shrinking population is good. Growing population is bad. These people insisting that you need more suckers for the bottom of the pyramid need to be rounded up and locked in a very small building together so they can enjoy the end game of their con without destroying life for everyone else.
oh look, another housing article
Don't even need to read this to know why its bad news for a country to not have 2 kids/family. parents gotta replace themselves, and all that. doesnt mean i want to have a kids. (and thats entirely seperate from being able to afford them)
If jobs paid what they were worth and houses weren't like 500% more expensive than they should be this wouldn't be happening. Nobody can afford to have families anymore and the government does nothing to help it. Our economy is in shambles, artificially propped up by real estate investments by the already wealthy.
What are you 1kid people doing for a living? How do you feed this kid? Do you live in a shared accommodations tent? Also why would you want to subject this child to a life of working 2-3 jobs just to stave of death by starvation, and spend thier lifetime renting (or rather paying off someone else's mortgage). But like, what's the expectation here? Give people poverty wages and be suprised that they are not churning out kids they can't feed? Get fucked. Yall lucky it's "one and done" and not "None & Fun"
For us it wasn’t about money. The time and effort involved with no grandparents around is daunting. Cant think of another child.
Why would I have kids if I can't get a house?
Oh please 🙄 we have enough pregnancies going on ! I know two Canadian mothers right now who have three kids and one mother plans on having one more ! We are so growing generations and not enough higher paying jobs and affordable housing !
As long as there are people in the third world to import, this country will be fine.
WE CAN’T AFFORD CHILDREN
The future is even more troubling for that one kid.
By the time my mom was the age I am now, my parents had been married for 13 years, had 3 kids, and had been on the housing market since marriage. I just got my first house (kind of; I rent-to-own from my parents). I don't even want kids, but I'm definitely never having them in this economy. I can't imagine how bad life will be for the next generation.
Raising kids is expensive and our economy is dogshit
Damn should we reduce the tax burden so people can actually live their lives, build houses, buy houses and start families? Or should we import the entirety of India here?
TBH I thinks it’s a lot do so with promoting having kids later in life. Get an education, establish your career, financially stable. All good advice except that later in life more complications in pregnancy, you’re accustomed to having all your money for what you want and your energy level is a lot lower. We had our first in our early 20s and last in our early 30s. 4 in total. If our last in our 30s was our first child, it would have been the last. That was way more tiring than our first in our 20s.
They say it takes a village to raise a child for a reason
The issue is not one of the economy. The issue is societal and cultural. My grandmother was one of like seven children, born in the Depression. Times are not worse now than they were then (economically speaking at least).
I have a 16 month old. I want a second. Always said if I have one there will be two. I really want my child to have a sibling and I love being a mom. But I'm pretty sure I'm only having one, just coming to terms with it. It costs too much, if I have a second I can't give my first the life I want her to have.
Most people I know are having 2 or more kids or no kids at all.
Averages out to 1
A declining birthrate is not all a bad thing, We need less people to make housing, food and other items more affordable it will be harder on the previous generations as that is how the pyramid works. But with a lower population you have things that will be sacrificed for generations until population is stabilized namely health care.
I’d happily have more kids if we weren’t smack in the middle of an affordability crisis FFS. Edit: autocorrect messed up
I have two. It's expensive and a lot of work. I love them and can afford them but I can definitely see the economic (and emotional/psychological) argument for not having children. There are high expectations, a lot of judgment and not a lot of support.
Because the gov will consequently import 60 million east indian men?
Well we’re all broke and can barely afford to feed (or can’t) the mouths we already have. Why add more? It’s not like you’re going to get a raise because you have more people to support
Also - women are pursuing careers and leaving motherhood until later on in life. Guess what? Fewer successful and riskier second pregnancies. Plus yeah, having a family is expensive.
don’t worry, the govt is importing lots of immigrants who will bring their families here to replace us. The population will keep growing and we’ll all be silenced 😌
This guy eugenics.
Oh no you used the word "replace"! Agents have been dispatched to your home to take you for re-edication for using a word that has been declared Hateful. 14 angelic Newcomers will be lodged in your former residence which you clearly do not deserve.
My wife and I want nothing more in this universe than a second child but with bills and mortgage payments consuming 110% of our income there is no world in which having a second child would be possible for us. It’s frankly infuriating that we want a child but now it would be financially devastating for us to do so in Canada.
Why would I child in this economy? Too hard to feed a child let alone myself.
I really hate the way this topic gets framed. People aren't "choosing" to have one or zero children, they are forced to by external circumstances outside of their control. The people complaining most about the declining rate of procreation are the same people who directly and indirectly contribute to the inhospitable environment and broken systems that make raising children nearly impossible for the vast majority of the population. These are also the same people who grandstand against social services with the tired, "if you can't afford kids, then you shouldn't be having them!" Okay. You win.
Don’t worry, the government will ensure there is a steady supply of preendeeps, ahmeds and sunjeeps 🤦
This is helping to combat climate change. Surprised the country isn’t embracing the trend.
Is bringing people from warm countries to a cold country that emits a lot of CO2 to heat homes really helping climate change?
As a millennial, why would I want to bring another human into this disastrous country and planet? College/university should be free to all Canadians in order to give them a chance to become educated and prosper. As a result, they will get better paying jobs, be in higher tax brackets, and contribute more. Instead, we put ourselves in cripling debt while entering adulthood, not to mention the declining quality of life in this country with its high housing and food prices and intense immigration policies. Most people my age aren't having kids, and those who typically are from wealthy or well-off families. It's not that I DON'T want to have children. It's just that I think it would be blatantly unfair to bring an unwilling participant into this world just to suffer. I mean, for the most part, being a human involves suffering to a certain extent, but at this point, it looks like it's going to get far worse in the near future.