A lot of discussions about birth rates very intentionally leave out the elephant in the room: women's rights and place in a society. When people talk about countries with very low birth rates, they always bring up economic issues, like inflation or a lack of work-life balance. These are all important, but I think using these factors alone to account for why people aren't having as many kids as they used to completely discounts the autonomy of the women that would be hypothetically birthing these children. You see this when people talk about East Asian countries and you see it when people talk about the USA. In a lot of countries around the world, women have made great strides over the past century in improving their rights and legal status, but this improvement is not absolute, and it is often mothers who have the worst outcomes. Not only do they continue to face discrimination for being women, but they are also often burdened with a disproportionate amount of childcare and housework, and face even higher levels of public scrutiny than other women. So, why would a childfree woman ever want to opt into this lifestyle?
However, this line of thinking often turns into people deciding that if we give mothers more support, this will fix the birth rate! And I do not believe this is true. In some of the countries closest to reaching gender equality the birth rate is still low. Motherhood is inherently undesirable to many people. Obviously not everyone, there are plenty of women who want to have kids and that's perfectly valid if it is a true internal desire. However, the process of pregnancy and childbirth is inherently a stressful and dangerous process that many people would rather avoid. Taking care of an infant requires sacrifices and time off of a career, even if your husband is taking an equal role. And many women still do not want to do it. And the important thing is, this should be respected. This is valid.
Personally, I think a high birth rate is a tragedy. It means that women are being forced to push their bodies to the limits to give birth to many, many children, and forced to give up their own goals and dreams to care for them. Usually, it means continual rape of a woman to produce these children, as in a highly patriarchal culture, a woman's pleasure is usually not prioritized. I'm being intentionally vague here because these patterns can appear around the world, in highly patriarchal countries in the Middle East as well as extremely Christian subcultures in the US. It isn't a coincidence that patriarchal religious communities have high birthrates.
Once women win some fundamental rights, they gain some control over their own fertility. A lot of times, this looks like abstaining from having children altogether and straight women abstaining from men altogether (whether they are officially 4B or just can't find a man that meets reasonable standards).
An increase in support for parents may increase the birth rate a bit, as women who want children but don't want to give their lives up for them can now choose to do so more safely. However, women who do not want children at all will still not have children. And this is a good thing. This is a win for bodily autonomy.
Under true liberation, the birth rate will likely be quite low, but this is a good thing. Only women who truly desire it should have kids, and even if this makes it harder for business, the benefits of bodily autonomy outweigh any possible drawbacks forever.
So basically whenever I hear men talking about the birthrate I assume they have never considered the issue seriously from the perspective of someone who actually would be having these hypothetical children.
