No need to contemplate anything if your run-of-the-mill average job lets you support your entire family and purchase a house.

They also didn't contemplates it as something ubearable if they had to live many persons or even extended family in the same small house, including rentals, and if two persons had to work hard. Manual laborers, factory workers, etc, farmers where both father and mother worked, still had many children.

It's not like this only happened in the window between 1940s-1980s where the run-of-the-mill average job let you support your entire family and purchase a big enough house.

People are acting confounded that the birthrate is goong down.

But if people cant afford kids they wont have them.

Its like super simple.

I don't agree with the premise (data point: I grew up poor, with siblings), but certainly the inverse isn't true.

Singular data point. Were talking macro level.

Talking about the educated West where people have the information and tools to make the decision.

Context inference is important

Macro level poorer people have more children than middle class and up people. In the "educated west" (and elsewhere in the world as well I think).

extremely strong inverse co-orelation with education even in poor countries.

Exactly. I suspect the lack of understanding or overcomplicating the reason the birthrate is declining may have something to do with the much higher than average salary of the average HN commenter relative to the average worker's salary in the US. It's common for people who need to go to the doctor to avoid going to the doctor because they can't afford it. A baby is an order of magnitude more expensive than that and an ongoing expense of doctor visits and potential ER visits among other costs and logistical issues.

> Maybe it has something to do with the “you are not good enough” treadmill the modern world has everyone on.

I don't think so. I think it's because

    A new couple can't support themselves when
    rent=1mo typical wages. It is impossible to pair off.    

    Parenting time is up 20-fold from the 1950s.
    Was a few hours wk. Now it's ceaseless, 24/7 adulting.

    Childhood is effectively ruined due to 
    - eradication of free ranging area thanks to automobile
    and trespassing culture. 
    - eradication of regular hours of adult-free peer time
    where critical social and growth skills are learned.
    Modern childhoods are spent in boxes w/ adults.

    Poor mental health follows and kids cope using devices.
    So adults predictably want to take that away as well.

What is the perfect amount of money and time for you? I suspect many things are not good enough for you and others.

That’s what it is for me but also because family life was super scary and uncool. Not a high virtue for the youth.