“With the rising cost of living, I don’t think people feel they can afford to, or comfortably say they want to, have children,” said 23-year-old Anna Tanaka.
In 2020, women got married for the first time at an average age of 29.4, or 3.9 years later than in 1985, government data shows.
As people have fewer children, they are able to spend more on each child than families have in the past. That drives up the average cost of raising a child for the broader population
Tuition at private universities jumped fivefold between 1975 and 2021, and by 19 times at public universities, data shows.
These are all symptoms of capitalism. Alienation and seeking “class mobility” leads to people getting married later. The cost of living is a capitalist construct, and it rises primarily due to seeking profit. Colleges are also seeking to profit, and have successfully convinced people that taking debt early in life is good for individuals going into the labor pool. The debt also increases alienation and people who would have children are suddenly priced out of it due to education debt.