I think that’s a jealous rationalization. In my diaspora community, women are educated and work, but also everyone has kids because the culture emphasizes family over self.
I’m sure that will die out over time. But it won’t be the education and affluence that does it—they have that already. It’ll be the gradual assimilation into self-centered American culture.
Not having kids and having less kids is a universal trend that is not unique to America. It's affecting every country in the world, and the US is actually doing better than most at the same level of development.
Bangladesh’s decline in fertility rate is due to deliberate population control efforts over the last 70 years. (That was my dad’s career. We came to the US because he was working on a USAID population control program in Bangladesh.)
You can see this clearly by looking over at Pakistan, which has almost double the fertility rate despite being at a similar level of economic development. If it was dictated by economics rather than culture and policy, you wouldn’t see that.
It has nothing to do with American, hence the effect being almost universal around the world.
Evolution resulted in a shit mechanism for procreation and child rearing is costly, and requires a lot of short term pain. While there obviously are long term benefits, we see the same problem here of humanity needing to bridge short term pain with long term benefits and individual sacrifices for collectivist goals.
Pendulums swing both ways, and the past was not pretty for women, and it seems like it will require over correcting before it swings back.
I’m sure that will die out over time. But it won’t be the education and affluence that does it—they have that already. It’ll be the gradual assimilation into self-centered American culture.