There is some correlation between having less children and wealth, but for the 20th century Western World it was because of socialism and the empowerment of women.
Socialism made children too expensive to have.
The empowerment of women supersized their desire for hypergamy, because women still wanted men to be the greater partner but they have less men available to them that are still greater than they are.
The article supports your statement:
The percentage is even higher for men, who are more likely to be unmarried than women. As many as half of male 18-year-olds will never have children, the report estimates.
Instead of "pairing up" in an equitable fashion (a female "10" on the 1-10 scale of Sexual Market Value bonds with a male "10;" a female "5" marries a male "5;" and so on), 80% of the women are happy to share the top 10% of the men.
Hypergamy on full display!
Regards,
Yup.
AND CHILDREN ARE WORTHLESS!!!
Think about it. If I’m a homo and shack up with another dude, both of us making a lot of money and living a great life, whose kids will support me when we’re old?
Is that wheelchair going to push itself down an assited living facility? Is that food going to cook itself when we’re old? Is that electricity, water, trash, uber driver just a figment of my imagination, or are these “people” that are making these things happen?
Better yet, if you’re the one with childen, who is paying for thier school, health care, cloths, food, transportation... What pefrcent of the true costs of children is covered by a $500 tax credit? Who has to deal with the inevitable conflicts, the hard choices of career vs. family, the hours and hours that need invested in that family and children?
And then who ends up benefitting from these children?
Here’s a visual explanation: If you’re the last human alive, and you had all the money in the world, a mountain of 60 trillion dollars, what would it do for you other than maybe keep you warm as you burn it?
Here’s the economic expanation: Money is an abstract concept representing human time. Anything with a price, is really just the aggregation of all the human time at various stages.
Here’s the problem with socialism. It deincentivizes having children because in a socialist communal system all the benefits of having these children are shared (example: social security, medicare) but the costs are borne mostly by the parents.
That is a big issue in the US too.
The hypergamy instinct has women demanding men who make significantly more money than them, but with affirmative action such men are hard to find.
Fewer people—fewer soldiers—easy victory for China. Maybe Japan has had her day? Maybe they need to import people from other lands and become like other lands. Lots of folks in Africa and Asia would like to live in Japan.