Is it worth having kids?

[Music] do you want to have kids if so when and how many it's a big decision they may be small bundles of Joy but they can cost a fortune as people weigh up the pros and cons of procreating fewer children are being born especially in the rich world and in the long term this could mean fewer young workers to support the elderly so is it worth having [Music] kids yeah monster truck good job I went back and forth a lot in the beginning good job buddy a lot of thought that went into weighing the options

of both having kids and not having kids Jessica and her husband Andre live in Houston Texas with their 2-year-old son Michael the day he was born um I was overcome with a lot of emotion happiness just Joy it's crazy do it again so having children makes people happy right in the short term yes but in the long term not necessarily according to academics it's likely Jessica was experiencing what's known as a Happ happiness bump mothers happiness levels rise in the Years leading up to giving birth but that's where they Peak and within a few years

have returned to the level they were before the kid was born we've been studying men and women in couples within without our children and we see that uh their levels of happiness and life satisfaction mental health and liness are quite similar that's quite consistent across a lot of different countries some factors do affect people's happiness such as their income and whether they are single parents parents in countries with stronger welfare systems also report higher levels of happiness but all in all there isn't much difference between the life satisfaction of parents and people without kids while

there might be moments during the day that are filled with happiness the more typical experience is that being together with each children can be quite distressful it also takes up much of your time and energy it brings with it a lot of worries let's do down facing dog together ready I thought motherhood would be you know you see all the stuff in the movies I really thought that it would be this beautiful time where you'd have a great relationship with your kids bud but also you know a little bit of hard work too that I

don't think I understood before we decided to have Michael about 80 % of parents in America say parenting is enjoyable but almost 30% also admit it's stressful or or most of the time if children won't make you happy why have them for most of history people had lots of children which made Financial sense because kids could work in the fields and look after their parents in old age but as societies have grown rich there has been a reduction in procreation we've seen a change in why people have children and the economic incentives to having children

so as we have more countries offering pensions older adults are less reliant on their adult children to provide for them in their older years and at the same time we see more women getting higher levels of Education being employed we also see a change in attitudes a move towards secularization so less importance of religion a rise in feminism a rise in women's rights and childhood extends because we need to educate our children longer so the cost of raising children go up and kids can be costly the costs start even before birth fertility treatment for those

who need it is expensive and in some countries giving birth in a hospital can cost thousands of dollars then there's food clothes nappies toys baby carriers and prams The Economist has calculated that a typical American family can expect to spend almost $300,000 raising a child to the age of 17 factor in college tuition and it rises to over $400,000 for Jessica and Andre in Houston those costs are about to go up even more they're expecting their second child hi that's scheding for next week H oh no let's not touch that the financial implications are big

children are expensive you're full of words what are you saying I mean there's less stuff to buy you know just because we already have um you know a car seat and all that stuff um from Michael we are saving for education and all that stuff for two kids instead of one The Strain on Jessica's and Andre's budget is not helped by the fact that America Amica is the only rich country that doesn't have nationwide statutory paid parental leave instead federal policy is just 12 weeks of unpaid leave but there are so many restrictions only 56%

of workers are eligible and many feel they can't afford to sacrifice their salary for this long at the time when Michael was born um I was the primary bread winner for our family I did not get paid maternity leave that definitely played a role in terms of deciding how long of a maternity leave to take and after 2 months um I went back to work full-time it was definitely hard leaving Michael after 2 months just because that's around the time when kids start to become a little bit more interactive babies start to smile so I

almost felt like I was missing out on something by going back to work so soon statutary parental leave in rich countries varies greatly in Japan parents are given about a year of paid parental leave Each of which half is paid at about 2/3 of their normal salary in Finland parents are given about 14 months of paid leave to share they're also entitled to take further Child Care leave up until their child is three in Britain a mother's job is guaranteed for a year but only 6 weeks are paid at almost full salary a further 33

weeks are paid but at a much lower level it means Britain has one of the least generous leave policies in Europe which can make it harder for some Brits to balance their budgets what do you like mixing into pancakes chocolate eggs chocolate eggs F lives in the south of England with her husband Matt and their 3-year-old daughter Eloise really last one do you want to do it with me yeah it's gone the wrong way I made money I took 12 months maternity leave so the last 3 months of maternity leave were unpaid unfortunately um but

it was something that we sat down and worked out that we could achieve financially with my husband doing extra overtime even before those final 3 months there isn't a huge amount of pay for maternity leave we just had to be financially very conscious of what we were spending so we can't yeah you can still find all the edge bits first can't you and those challenges don't end when the parent goes back to work when we were looking at our finances we didn't really factor in Nursery cost when we then looked at child care costs it

was huge um some months she was going two days a week and some months it was more than our mortgage the costs are sometimes crippling in six oecd countries couples earning the average wage spend over 20% of their salaries on Child Care get nury out honey Britain has the joint's second most expensive child care in the world we have thought about having another child unfortunately the cost side of things does have a big impact I could give up work but I don't want to rely on benefits or income support we want to be self-sufficient if

that means not having another child because of the the financial implications It's upsetting because we would love to have another one okay it's not just in Britain a survey of young American adults found that of those who said they have or expect to have fewer children than they'd like 64% cited child care costs as a reason hi I'm Anna and I directed this film if you're enjoying watching it you might be interested to know that Economist subscribers get access to a wealth of global analysis on every conceivable topic you can read it you can listen

to it you can even be part of it at live webinars for the best deal on a subscription click on the link and now on with the film it's not just the direct course having kids can also affect how much mothers earn oh sorry most parents experience a loss in take-home pay when they take parental leave men in heterosexual relationships experience a very small short-term dip but for women the dip is much bigger and their earnings rarely recover this is known as the motherhood [Music] penalty Jolie Bry is the founder of the British charity pregnant

then screwed the motherhood penalty is the pay differential between mothers and other types of employees it's essentially a procreation pay Gap when you have a baby be the way that our parental leave system functions it encourages women to take long periods of time out of the workforce it doesn't encourage men to do the same in most heterosexual couples the father will earn the most money so when women look to return to work they look at the cost of child care and they compare it to their own salary and in most cases it doesn't add up

they then start to make career sacrifices they look to return part-time if at all or they change jobs to something that's more suitable so that they can continue to do the Lion Share of the caring and the unpaid labor and so all of this starts to hack away at their income and their career progression in Britain mothers are three times more likely to work part-time than fathers following the pandemic the shift to remote working has made it easier for some parents to work more flexibly but not all jobs allow this my work are very flexible

but it's a Juggle and at times just trying to work out my working pattern to be able to make it worthwhile me actually working and financially contributing to the house I work office hours and my husband does shift work I'm only 3 hours off full-time so legally and technically I am a part-time worker it's the most amount that I can work that I then don't have to spend all of it on child care [Music] [Laughter] motherhood penalties vary across the world one study looks at motherhood penalties in six rich countries it finds that Germany a

country where a lot of women work part-time had the worst penalty with a 61% drop in Long Run earnings while Denmark and Sweden had the smallest but still sizable penalties that's partly because Scandinavian countries have longer and better paid paternity leave we've seen as a result of that in Sweden that many more dads are taking time out of the workplace to care for their children and as a result of that we've seen that the gender pay Gap is much smaller the share of the unpaid labor is far more equal over the last 50 or 60

years we've seen big changes in gender Dynamics and in countries where we've seen that men have become more equal partners with women in raising kids we see that fertility rates are actually higher than in similar countries where men aren't contributing as much to child rearing and housework take Japan where women spend far more time on household chores and child care than men do making it much harder for women to have a career and raise children despite having some of the most generous maternity and paternity leave on the planet which might explain why Japan has one

of the lowest fertility rates in the world in nearly all rich industrialized countries fertility rates have fallen below 2.1 children per woman the rate needed to maintain a stable population and on a macroeconomic level that can cause problems so if fertility Falls low enough then there are potentially not enough workers in the Next Generation in the long term it means a change in the labor force how many workers are available how much money those workers are paying into pension programs into taxes most industrialized countries are pretty far from that level although there are a few

that have seen really dramatic reductions in fertility more open immigration policies could help but few countries seem willing to consider them so falling birth rates can cause economic disruption should governments intervene we want to be careful that govern governments aren't doing things that are coercive or that unduly restrict people's freedom to have the kind of families and the number of children that they want but there is a role for government for supporting families with children and in many countries there is certainly a lot more room for investment from the public sector but it's not just

about the economics although that's part of it but it's also about cultural ideals it's about the influence of religion it's about the compatibility of motherhood and careers and it's about gender Dynamics choosing to have children is a big decision governed by Deep Emotions as well as practicalities more generous parental leave cheaper child care and flexibility at work might make the decision a bit easier but despite the challenges of Parenthood those who do choose to have babies rarely regret it being a mom has come with its own struggles and um redefining your own image to yourself

but uh yeah at the end of the day um life is just Fuller with with a new person in your family it's the hardest thing that you ever do becoming a parent but it's the most rewarding I've never experienced such extreme levels of joy and happiness and Elation and pride as I have since I've had children [Music] for more of our economic and social analysis click on the link thanks so much for watching and don't forget to subscribe