Again, money is an issue, but it's not THE driving force you would assume it is

For example, lifestyle plays a big part. People want to be younger longer. They want to graduate high school, go to college, party, drink, sleep around, go to concerts, etc... once they're a little older they want to get jobs, focus on their careers, spend their days at breweries, traveling, etc...

The dream of getting married within a year of graduating high school and having your first child by the time you are 20 is long gone

This means that roughly the same amount of people are still having children, they're just having less children because they start having children later in life. The average family size use to be 3.5 kids, now it's 1.5 or 2.5, I can't remember

You can see this if you go watch shows from the 50s and 60s. Shows like My Three Sons or The Brady Bunch. It was totally normal to have 3 kids; hence "middle child syndrome"

There are also less accidental pregnancies thanks to better sex education and easier access to contraceptives.

And when it comes to internet doomerism, people are claiming they're not having kids because they're concerned about climate change and over-population

And yes, money is also part of this list but it's not as simple as, "can't afford it"

Which isn't surprising. At 22, even if you made $300k a year, you probably still wouldn't want to stop living your life to have a kid, especially if you are a woman. At 35 or 40, sure, that money would definitely help you make the choice to have a child, or more children, but also, by 35 or 40 lots of people can already afford it

And lets be real, it's not like poor people almost never have kids because they make great life choices... I just keep thinking about the beginning of Idiocracy. The middle class family waits until they can afford it, the trashy family in the trailer park had like 6 kids. It's a movie, sure, but the idea is kind of the same. Money, to you, might be an issue, but it's not to everybody.