Fewer people are pairing off as couples, too. Nobody has time for a social life when they're juggling multiple jobs, there's no Third Places, all the social media and dating apps suck, people are more alienated from one another than ever, and to top it off absolutely everything is getting ridiculously expensive. If people don't have a person to fuck and a place to fuck and the energy to fuck they're not gonna fuck, and that's step one of having kids.

[–] LordBullingdon@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago

We are still kind of living in a middle class culture when most young people nowdays are struggling to survive. New forms of connecting haven’t really emerged. You want to go on a date, you need money for your dating app subscription, money for decent clothes, to pay for the date itself, the time to do it in, etc. Might’ve been fine in the 90s but for many people now that’s quite an effort just to get that together.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago

The other factor here is that the main popular entertainment within the imperial core countries is television and videogames which are distinctly antisocial entertainment forms that do not offer opportunities for bonding. These aren't non-existent elsewhere but they're less dominant.