Why America Needs Another Baby Boom

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Are student loans the most effective contraceptive device ever invented?

nypost.com

Why America desperately needs another baby boom

Although the great engine of American capitalism is now humming on all cylinders, Americans remain strangely reluctant to have children. That birthrates plummeted during the Great Recession, which …
nypost.com nypost.com
 
Student loans?? I don’t think so. But nice try. It doesn’t cost much at all to raise children. If millennials wanted to have children they would have them. There isn’t anything or anyone stopping them.
 
There are more than enough people coming into the U.S. to offset some people not having a bunch of kids.
 
From the article:

“Right now, because of huge levels of student debt, a preference for cohabitation over marriage and a general unwillingness on the part of young men to take on the responsibilities of marriage and family, they are proving to be a largely barren lot.”

The author suggests forgiving student loan debt for those willing to marry and have children.
 
I do believe student loans are a big concern, but not the entire problem. I’m fortunate that my husband married me with my significant student loan debt, and we both worked hard to pay it off. It’s nearly gone now, after seven years, but we did have to start having kids later than I wanted. But not everyone wants that burden, and it is a burden.

Wages haven’t kept up with inflation. Daycare is as expensive as in-state college tuition, yet couples often need both spouses working in some capacity. Health care costs are outrageous. The job market is much better now, but just a few years ago layoffs were common and it was difficult to find a job. I can’t understand when people say kids aren’t expensive- we’ve found it to be the exact opposite, and we don’t even own a home yet because of it, in our mid thirties.

I don’t think that encouraging people to have children in order that their loans are forgiven is a good solution though.
 
A lot of people aren’t in relationships stable enough to become marriage. Anecdotally it seems to be a huge challenge just establishing a long term relationship in the first place
 
To what do you attribute this trend of people not having stable long term relationships?
 
There is less of a need to pair up anymore. There are numerous pursuits out there aside from romantic pursuits. Plus there seems to be a certain level of distrust amoung 20-somethings of the opposite sex.
 
Maybe video games have replaced marriage, sex, and family. And a few other things as well.
 
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