Is it worth having kids?

You want to have children? If so, when and how many. It is an important decision. There may be little bundles of joy, but they can cost a fortune as people weigh the pros and cons of procreating. Fewer children are being born, especially in the rich world. In the long term, this may mean fewer young workers to support older people, so is

having

children

worth

it? I was back and forth a lot at first, yeah, good job buddy, I thought a lot about weighing the options of

having

kids

and not having

kids

Jessica and her husband Andre live in Houston, Texas, with their two-year-old son, Michael, on the day born.

I was overcome with a lot of emotion, happiness, just joy, it's crazy everywhere, so having children makes people happy in the short term. Yes, but in the long term not necessarily according to academics, it is likely that Jessica was experiencing what is known as a month of happiness. Mother's happiness levels increase in the years before childbirth, but that is where they peak and within a few years they return to the level they were at. were before the child was born, we have been studying men and women in couples with and without children and we see that their levels of happiness and satisfaction with life, mental health, Wilderness are quite similar, that is quite consistent in many different countries , some factors do.

They affect people's happiness, such as their income and whether they are single parents. Parents in countries with stronger welfare systems also report higher levels of happiness, but overall there is not much difference between the life satisfaction of parents and people without children, although there may be times during the day that are full of happiness the most typical experience is that being with your children can be quite distressing it also consumes a lot of your time and energy brings with it a lot of worries a downward dog together ready I thought motherhood would be, you know, you see all the things in the movies .

I really thought it would be this beautiful moment where you would have a great relationship with your kids, but you also know some hard work that I don't. I think I understood before we decided to have Michael. About 80 percent of parents in the United States say parenting is fun, but nearly 30 percent get it, too. It is stressful all or most of the time. It won't make you happy. Why have them for most people in history? I had many children, which made financial sense because children could work in the fields and care for their parents in old age, but as societies became richer, there was a reduction in procreation, we have seen a change in why people have children and the economy. incentives to have children, so as we have more countries offering pensions, older adults depend on their adult children to support them in their old age and at the same time we see more women obtaining higher levels of education and are employed, we also see a change. in attitudes a movement towards secularization so less importance of religion an increase in feminism an increase in women's and children's rights spreads because we need to educate our children for longer then the costs of raising children children increase ah and children can be expensive costs start even earlier Fertility treatment for those who need it is expensive and in some countries giving birth in a hospital can cost thousands of dollars.

Then there is food, clothing, diapers, toys, baby carriers and strollers. The Economist has estimated that a typical American family can expect to spend almost three hundred thousand dollars to raise a child to age 17. factor in college tuition and it increases to over four hundred thousand dollars for Jessica and Andre in Houston those costs are about to go up even more they are expecting their second child oh no let's not do it touch that the financial implications are that big kids are expensive, I mean, there's less stuff to buy, you know, just because we already have a car seat and all that Michael stuff that we're saving for education and all that stuff for our two kids.

The pressure on Jessica and Andre's budget is not helped by the fact that the United States is the only wealthy country without statutory paid parental leave at the national level; Instead, the federal policy is only 12 weeks of unpaid leave, but there are so many restrictions that only 56 workers are eligible and many feel they can't afford to sacrifice their pay for that long at the time they were born. Michael. I was the main breadwinner for our family. I didn't receive paid maternity leave, which definitely played a role in terms of the decision. how much maternity leave to take and after two months I went back to work full time, it was definitely hard leaving Michael after two months alone because that's the time when kids start to be a little more interactive, babies start to smile, so I almost felt like I was missing something by going back to work so soon.

Legal parental leave in rich countries varies greatly in Japan, with parents receiving about a year of paid parental leave, each paid at about two-thirds of their normal salary. salary in Finland parents receive around 14 months of paid leave to share, they are also entitled to take more leave to care for their children until their child turns three years old. In Britain a mother's job is guaranteed for a year, but only six weeks are almost fully paid. A further 33 weeks of pay is paid, but at a much lower level it means Britain has one of the least generous leave policies in Europe, which may make it harder for some Britons to balance their budgets.

What do you like to mix with pancakes? Faye lives in the south. from England with her husband Matt and three year old daughter Eloise, where the last one who tried to do it with me yes, I took 12 months of maternity leave, so the last three months of maternity leave were unpaid unfortunately, but it was something We sat down and resolved what we could achieve financially if my husband worked additional overtime even before those last three months. There is not a large amount of payment for maternity leave. We just had to be financially very aware of what we were spending.

Yes you can. Still, you find out all the details first, right? And those challenges don't end when the father goes back to work. When we were looking at our finances, we didn't really take daycare costs into account when we then looked at childcare costs. It was huge and some months I went two days a week and some months it was more than our mortgage The costs are sometimes overwhelming in six OECD countries couples earning the average wage spend more than 20 percent of their salaries on care of children is that honey that Britain has the second most expensive childcare in the world we have thought about having another child unfortunately the cost side has a big impact I could leave work but I don't want to depend on benefits or child support Income we want to be self-sufficient if it means not having another child because of the financial implications.

It's worrying because we would love to have another one. It's not just in Britain. A survey of American young adults found that among those who said they had or expected to have fewer children. than they would like 64 cited child care costs as a reason Hi, I'm Anna and I directed this movie. If you enjoy watching it, you might be interested to know that The Economist subscribers have access to a wealth of global analysis on every topic imaginable. topic, you can read it, you can listen to it, you can even be a part of it in live webinars to get the best deal with a subscription, click on the link and now with the movie, it is not just the direct course, having children too can affect how much mothers earn most fathers experience a loss in take-home pay when they take parental leave men in heterosexual relationships experience a very small drop in the short term, but for women the drop is much larger and their earnings rarely Once they recover, this is known as the motherhood penalty Jolie Brilli is the founder of a British charity pregnant and then screwed the motherhood penalty is the pay gap between mothers and other types of employees it is essentially a procreation pay gap when having a baby the way a parental leave system works encourages women to take more time during periods of time out of the workforce, it does not encourage men to do the same in most sexual partnerships, the father makes the most money so when women look to return to work they look at the cost of childcare and compare it to their own salary and in most cases it doesn't add up, then they start making career sacrifices, look to return part-time, if at all, or change jobs to something that is more suitable so they can continue doing the bulk of the work.

Caregiving and unpaid work, so all of this starts to affect your income and career progression. In Britain, mothers are three times more likely to work part-time than fathers. After the pandemic, the shift to remote work has made things easier for some. my parents need to work more flexibly, but not all jobs allow this. My job is very flexible but it's a juggle and sometimes I'm just trying to figure out my work pattern so I can make it

worth

working and contribute financially to the house I work in. hours my husband works shifts, I only have three hours off full time, so legally and technically I'm a part time worker, it's the most I can work and then I don't have to spend it all on childcare and maternity .

Sanctions vary around the world. Study looks at motherhood penalties in six rich countries and finds that Germany, a country where many women work part-time, had the worst penalty with a 61 percent drop in long-term earnings, while Denmark and Sweden had the lowest. . But the penalties are still considerable, that is partly because Scandinavian countries have longer and better paid paternity leaves. We have seen as a result of that in Sweden that many more parents take time away from the workplace to care for their children and as a result of that, we have seen that the gender pay gap is much smaller, the proportion of unpaid work is much more egalitarian in the last 50 or 60 years, we have seen big changes in gender dynamics and in countries where we have seen that men have become more On an equal footing with women in raising children, we see that women Fertility rates are actually higher than in similar countries where men do not contribute as much to child-rearing and housework.

Take Japan, for example, where women spend much more time on housework and childcare than they do on Monday. It is much harder for women to have a career and raise children despite having some of the most generous maternity and paternity leave on the planet, which could explain why Japan has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. In almost all rich industrialized countries, fertility rates have fallen. Below 2.1 children per woman, the rate needed to maintain a stable population and at a macroeconomic level can cause problems, so if fertility falls low enough, then potentially there will not be enough workers in the next generation, In the long term it means a change in the workforce. force how many workers are available how much money those workers are paying into pension programs in taxes most industrialized countries are pretty far from that level, although there are some that have seen really dramatic reductions in fertility.

More open immigration policies could help, but few countries seem willing to consider falling birth rates could cause economic disruption if governments intervene. We want to be careful that governments do not do things that are coercive or that unduly restrict people's freedom to have the types of families and the number of children they want. but the government has a role in supporting families with children and in many countries there is certainly much more room for public sector investment, but it is not just about the economy, although that is part of it, but also about the ideals cultural, it is about the The influence of religion has to do with the compatibility of motherhood and careers and has to do with gender.

The dynamic of choosing to have children is a big decision governed by deep emotions as well as practicalities. but despite the challenges of parenthood, those who choose to have babies rarely regret that being a mother has had its own struggles and redefining their self-image, but yes, atEnd of the day, life is more complete with a new person. in your family is the hardest thing you have ever done, but it is the most rewarding. I have never experienced such extreme levels of joy, happiness, elation and pride as I have experienced since having children for more than our economic life and social analysis click the link thank you very much for watching and don't forget to subscribe foreign