Young people have an undermining attitude towards having children. On one hand, they place a greater emphasis than their parents' generation on personal freedom, rational choice, and hedonistic values. On the other hand, the costs, financial and opportunity cost, of raising a child increase in many societies.
Asking people at their 20s or 30s whether they want to have children, they often give answers based on whether they like children, with a differentiation between liking playing with others’ children and taking care of their own children. The value of children to their life and happiness is barely taken into their consideration, not to mention motivations such as the responsibility of continuing their bloodline for the family or contributing to sustaining the development of the society. The decision of having children is more of a thing about personal feeling of dealing with children.
Young people who decide to have children attach more importance to the quality than their parents’ generation. They thus spend more money and time on their children’s daily lives, education, interests, etc. As such spendings are a long term “investment” that the outcomes are not seen immediately, parents often decide what and how much to invest by comparing with others, which is likely to lead all parents to spend more. This is for sure the case in societies like China, and probably also in more developed societies. Many developed countries heavily subsidise childcare. This could reduce the financial costs of having and raising children. A study shows finances is still the main reason for not having children in the USA (see http://www.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.aspx). In these countries, however, the opportunity cost for young people to have children is also high, because they have better opportunities to live a happy life without having a child.
