Comment on Fertility rate falls to lowest globally
djmikeale@feddit.dk 1 day agogovernments around the world suck, but that doesn’t fully capture why people don’t have kids:
we’re well off and heavily helped with kids-related stuff here in Denmark where we also don’t get many children. I read somewhere else a lot of the explanation is instead that people just don’t value having kids add much as they did generations ago.
atro_city@fedia.io 1 day ago
What is Denmark doing for people that want kids? Is it possible to raise a child on the income of a single person? Is child-care and education free? Is transport free for children until they leave school? Do families get a priority for social housing? Are there third places for children? Is it possible to have a career with a child (work from home, 4 day work week or reduced hours at equal pay, etc.)?
I know somebody in Copenhagen who just got a kid and haven't had the time to talk more in depth with them about this stuff, but they are having an incredibly tough time finding affordable housing with space for children anywhere close to where they work. Most houses on market are expensive for what they are and still need significant investment to get them in a state that doesn't mean paying heating bills out of your ass (their words). They have been looking for a few years now and got a kid first instead of waiting for a house but now things are getting more urgent.
djmikeale@feddit.dk 1 day ago
I think the answer to a lot of this is nuanced, e.g. education including uni is free, except kindergarten and daycare for some weird reason. But the price of those two depends on your income, so if you’re a single parent you get more help. As far as I can remember, daycare was equivalent to 800 USD/month.
I imagine there’s a lot of help to get if you need it, but I don’t know tbh.
There’s free health checks during and after pregnancy, and free help (to some extent) if you want to but can’t get pregnant.
You get money from the state until your kid turns 18, and if they move out when they go to high school/uni the kid also get around 1000 USD/month in subsidies, that don’t have to be paid back after.
Depending on your career, there’s a lot of understanding for wfh, more time off, you have days off if kid is sick, etc. My employers we’re very understanding.
Then there’s around 1 year of parental leave - most allocated for the mom ofc. I think now the rules are 14 weeks for the father.
And yes, Copenhagen is expensive af. I was lucky to get andelsbolig, but otherwise I think it’s common to pay 50% of your salary for an apartment.
atro_city@fedia.io 1 day ago
That sounds better than Japan and South Korea, but 680€/month for daycare is nuts! Wtf? That's a very important thing to subsidise. The rest sounds very similar to Germany (again, friends there too), which doesn't have a high birth rate either, so IMO it's obviously not enough.
I'm not going to have children for, among others, monetary reasons as well. There's no way I would work 8 hours, travel 2 hours a day just to work and how much more for the child as it grows, also try to find time for my hobbies, and additionally worry about keeping my head above water in an apartment I don't own and right now 40-50% of my income goes to. If I had a partner, they'd have to get a job too to cover the bills.
We'd both just be surviving and the question is how would we even provide a good environment for the child to thrive if we're struggling.
It wouldn't surprise me if more childless people had similar thoughts on the matter. The government would have to make the experience of having children much more carefree so that parents can spend time with their children without worrying about money.