Jonathan Brun

FOMO and the Lack of Children

The declining birth rates around the world have received growing media attention, though likely not as much attention as the topic deserves. Everywhere in the world, without exception, birth rates are declining or already at rock bottom levels. Unofficial rates in China, Korea and Japan peg the numbers at 0.7 – 0.9 children per woman, meaning the population will shrink by 60% in a generation or two. Countries like Canada are at 1.2-1.3 – hardly better. Even most African countries are well below 3 and declining. In short, everywhere, regardless of culture, history or type of government, we are seeing radical decreases in births. This will undoubtedly completely change human society as we have to deal with an oversized elderly population who will be reliant on the tiny workforce to support it. It will get ugly on many fronts – economic, political and social.

I have tried to read what I can on the topic, such as the book Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline by by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson, the excellent New Yorker Article The End of Children by Gideon Lewis-Kraus, and many other analyses. In the New York article, they clearly state “Anyone who offers a confident explanation of the situation is probably wrong.” This is true. No one seems to have a compelling answer to what is going on and no one seems able to reverse the trend. So, let me try!

Globally, the only developed country that remains an exception to declining birth rates seems to be Israel, where the dense concentration of religious people amped up with nationalistic fervor has led to high birth rates. Specific devout people in certain developed countries do tend to have more children and there are pro-natalist movements popping up around the world, often backed with some sort of religious belief. Religious people, for better or worse, do have something that drives them to procreate: faith. Faith that humans have a higher purpose and that we have a duty to reproduce and fill the world with faithful followers is seemingly the only thing that works at scale. My Hassidic Jewish neighbours with their 7 or 8 children (tough to count when they all dress the same) are certainly living proof of this faithful devotion to reproduction.

Religion aside, the more interesting question is why so few people are having children, waiting much longer to have children and when they do, they only have one or two children (often constrained by the late age at which they had them). There are many reasons for declining birth rates, likely all of which contribute to this global effect: cost of living, online phonography, addition to social media and video games, lack of social skills necessary to find a mate, or a fear of the future. While each of these items are contributors, the only overarching thread I can see is a general and broad shift in global culture.

Our culture has dramatically changed in the past 50 years and and one notable common belief that most people share is that we only live once and we should try and take advantage of our single lifespan. A related concept that is a popular social media hashtag is FOMO – or Fear Of Missing Out. This fear of missing out on an interesting experience or an opportunity leads to always be looking for something bigger, better, faster and shinier. This is true in the online dating world where a person always has many options and if you are good looking woman, you have near infinite options – each one potentially more appealing than the person sitting in front of you at the bar. Long story short about kids: the truth is that to have kids, you have to be willing to settle.

Contrary to our FOMO culture, settling is not a bad thing. Studies have shown arranged marriages outlast love induced marriages and frankly, making compromise is easier when your alternatives are blocked off. The more options you have, the less likely you are to compromise on your choice. In the past, we simply had less options and knew of less alternatives and by consequence, we were willing or obliged to settle for someone who is not perfect (no one is), but who understood that you were not perfect either and that was acceptable. Because most people settled, settling was the acceptable social norm. Today, the acceptable social norm seems to have shifted to a constant dissatisfaction with our life in relation to those around us. Social media certainly does not help. Today, my feeling is that our expectations are sometimes too high – leading to this perennial search for something better. Some people search for this through dating, others through a gym membership, intoxicants, triathlons, marathons, excessive travelling, spas, all inclusive resorts, hip new restaurants, retreats, or some other act that makes them “feel alive and special”.

Our current culture of self-actualization has been built on the back of a hundred years of unbridled marketing and promotion of a consumption driven life. This has been thoroughly document and well explained by Adam Curtis and his numerous documentaries. I suggest The Century of Self to get started. Our main purpose has shifted from being a father or mother to being a consumer and accumulator of things. One factor that may be exasperating this is the fact that “time” costs more and the economic marketplace is more competitive than ever. To just stay afloat and similar to your peer group, you cannot afford to lose too much time or earnings to rearing children. For example, to afford a home, two incomes are needed and if two incomes are needed then it is much harder to justify children. This may be why the group in the United States with the lowest labour participation rate is white women. This NYTimes article gives a good explanation of this issue.

Because birth rates are down across nearly every country, it is hard to attribute it to anything that is specific to a country. Birth rates are down in socialist countries, capitalist countries, individualist nations, and communitarian countries. The only common thread I can see is a decline in birth rates linked to a rise in consumption of material goods and self actualization. I certainly am not advocating we reduce development to help the birthrate, but we should question where are we headed and why.

Even amongst those who have children, there seems to be a rise in whining about having children – which hardly encourages others. Comedians, sitcoms and various TikTok videos seem to focus on the challenging moments when your kids will not go to sleep, will not cooperate, or when they have done something that is simply frustrating. These moments can be funny and sharing them may be cathartic, but promoting only the hard parts is a highly incomplete portrait of reality. Even highly educated and astute people like Paul Graham of YCombinator fame admitted that he was against having children because his impression of children was negative. He would often only see children at a restaurant and only notice them when they were making a fuss. Like a software bug, you only notice the issue or pay particularly attention to the software when it has a problem. The 99.99% of the time when the service works well you do not take notice. By the time Paul Graham realized he should have kids, he only had time to have two. Kids are amazing the vast majority of the time. This fact is not highlighted enough and our cultural focus on the negative parts of child rearing almost certainly dissuades others from embarking on the journey.

As Paul Graham eloquently explained in 2019,

Before I had kids, I was afraid of having kids. Up to that point I felt about kids the way the young Augustine felt about living virtuously. I’d have been sad to think I’d never have children. But did I want them now? No.

If I had kids, I’d become a parent, and parents, as I’d known since I was a kid, were uncool. They were dull and responsible and had no fun. And while it’s not surprising that kids would believe that, to be honest I hadn’t seen much as an adult to change my mind. Whenever I’d noticed parents with kids, the kids seemed to be terrors, and the parents pathetic harried creatures, even when they prevailed.

When people had babies, I congratulated them enthusiastically, because that seemed to be what one did. But I didn’t feel it at all. “Better you than me,” I was thinking.

Now when people have babies I congratulate them enthusiastically and I mean it. Especially the first one. I feel like they just got the best gift in the world.

What changed, of course, is that I had kids. Something I dreaded turned out to be wonderful.

I have little hope that this global trend can be reversed. Perhaps, under some bizarre logic, this reduction in birth rates is a way for humanity to collectively say, “We must change!”. Maybe our choice to have no kids or less kids is a self-levelling feature of society where we are indirectly saying that we do not want to continue the direction we are headed. Who knows? I certainly do not claim to have a definitive anwser. All I can confidently say is that children can be the greatest thing in the world if you are setup to have them, have a great partner, and are willing to invest in them an in your relationship with them. In college, my friend told me that you “get out what you put in.” This certainly applies to children. If you want to have FOMO, there is no greater experience your can miss out on than helping and watching a baby turn into a person.

Partial Bibliography

Liberal Societies Have Dangerously Low Birth Rates The Atlantic 

The great global baby bust is under way The Economist · by Jun 14th 2023

The Pandemic Caused a Baby Bust, Not a Boom – Scientific American Scientific American · by Tanya Lewis

The West, not China, needs to worry about birth rates The Telegraph · by Ross Clark

A Surprising Reason to Worry About Low Birth Rates The Atlantic · by Olga Khazan · May 26, 2018

How Women Can Save the Planet: Scientific American Scientific American · by Lawrence M. Krauss

Fertility Collapse Demands New Cultures palladiummag.com · by Malcolm and Simone Collins · April 6, 2023

Can America Cope with Demographic Decline?aei.org

Opinion: Italians seem to be going extinct – the economic and political consequences of relentless population declines The Globe and Mail · by Eric Reguly · April 6, 2024

Chinese women look to South Korean ‘K-girls’ for inspiration as declining birth rates spark backlash The Globe and Mail · by James Griffiths · October 18, 2024

How A Dead Millionaire Convinced Dozens Of Women To Have As Many Babies As Possible FiveThirtyEight · by David Goldenberg · December 11, 2015

The Population Implosion Foreign Policy · by Nicholas Eberstadt

India defuses its population bomb: Fertility falls to two children per woman science.org · by Share on X

Feminist justification for child subsidies Nytimes

Published on June 20, 2025