The Opportunity Costs of Having Children

Or 9 Things I No Longer Have Time for

One straightforward explanation for why people have fewer kids these days is opportunity costs. Life used to be pretty boring. You lived in a small village and didn’t travel all that much, so creating life might be one of the only ways to even meet new people. Today, we have many more chances for fun, recreation, and adventure. This theory explains not only the decline in fertility over the decades, but especially why things have gotten so bad in the last 10-15 years with the rise of the internet and nonstop cheap entertainment options constantly at our fingertips.