A warming climate is not the only reason for—or even the most pressing cause of—depressed birth rates. Generally, millennials face a future of greater economic insecurity, poorer living conditions, and fewer opportunities than the baby boomers experienced. In virtually every high-income country, surveys show that the vast majority of parents—80 percent in Japan and over 70 percent in the US—are pessimistic about the financial future of their offspring, notes Pew. Young people have similar sentiments, including in the United States, Britain, Japan, and Korea.
Compared with their parents, young people today are more likely to have a future with no substantial assets or property. A Deloitte study projects that millennials (born 1981–1996) in the United States will hold barely 16 percent of the nation’s wealth in 2030, when they will be by far the largest adult generation. By then, the preceding generation (Gen X) born between 1965 and 1980 will hold 31 percent, while boomers, entering their 80s and 90s, will still control 45 percent.
No surprise then that people bereft of hope avoid marriage and particularly procreation, even among those with somewhat better economic conditions. Most people in the UK, for example, who don’t have children once wanted them. Jody Day, the founder of Gateway Women, a support network for involuntarily childless women, told the Guardian that the primary reasons were not choice or infertility but “a tapestry of systemic issues, like student debts and career focus, meaning that family planning is left too late.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member