Female Education is Collapsing Birth Rates?!

[00:00:00]Here's a sentence that's going to make you deeply uncomfortable. One of the most statistically effective ways of raising birth rates is reducing how educated women are. Female education is basically the most accurate predictor of women's fertility following around the globe in every income bracket and in every culture consistently. So today we sit with why that's true, how some governments have acted about it, and why it's probably the wrong level to pull anyway. Let's start with the numbers. A late 2025 national survey of 3,000 people concluded 71% of people say that raising kids is unaffordable, and 42% give lack of money as the reason why they have less kids that they actually wanted. So it's not just the relationship problem or phones or social media. It's literally just economics.

[00:00:46]Adjusted for inflation, now raising a kid in the US, excluding [music] college expenses, now runs about $224,665.

[00:00:57]More than a quarter of a million dollars. This is a structural problem at this point. In 2025, care year including child care costs is the most prominent reason why women left the workforce.

[00:01:08]It's not that women are trying to stay home because it's nice, it's because they simply can't afford going to work at this point. Globally, the fertility rate sits at around 2.2 to 2.4, which is even higher than the minimum 2.1 that is needed to keep the population stable.

[00:01:24]However, the US just hit a historic low of 1.53, and South Korea, yeah, you guessed it, the lowest ever recorded anywhere in peacetime ever at 0.72. For context, that means that for every 100 South Korean women, the next generation has about 36 women. That's a cliff. But notice how South Korea's education system is like crazy and women are incredibly educated because they see the things that nobody else does. Because they see how it's expensive and how they can't afford that, and how they have to keep themselves stable first, which is almost impossible in today's economy. 90 countries now offer paid paternity leaves. However, in Japan, for example, where there are 12 months of paid paternity leave, [music] that's a record that doesn't exist anywhere else, only about 14% of men use. However, in the UK it's 30% and in Sweden it's around 80.

[00:02:16]So, it's all about the culture.

[00:02:18]Globally, women spend around 4.2 hours of unpaid care work every single day, domestic labor, etc. While for men it's 1.7. This is a huge gap. This is not the big problem though. It's that women that do this also very often work their 9-5s as well, because we're in an equal society where everybody has to contribute, but at the same time when you come home, you're not equal anymore because the woman has to do pretty much everything because it's how you're biologically designed to exist. Modern equality is worse than patriarchy. Old school patriarchy had a deal. Of course, it wasn't a good deal, but it was a deal, okay? Women did all the unpaid work more than anything else, but at least they didn't have to work 9-5.

[00:02:56]Right now they have to do both. Modern patriarchy did not remove a plate, they just added a second one. Then there's a flip side of coin in not so westernized societies where 45% of women globally that could be working there out of the workforce, while it's only 5% for men.

[00:03:13]And it's not because men care that much, it's because women are just not allowed independence.

[00:03:18]It's not just there. Let's go back to South Korea. You think everything is so equal, women don't have kids, women just do whatever they want, they want they work, but still they have 54 minutes of unpaid work every single day, while for men it's just 17. And you may not understand my point. You may think that I'm just going between two opinions, but I'm not saying that women should not work that or that women should work. I'm saying that this is not equality. I'm saying that working paid and unpaid at the same time is having two jobs. I'm saying that a woman has to be able to choose if she wants this or that and how much of that she wants it like men can do every single day. She chose to have kids though. Having kids is literally the most natural thing that a person can do. You can't expect every single woman on earth to plan every single one of her expenses in an Excel sheet before deciding she wants to have kids because this is something that people are generally wired to do. And now, again, let's move on to my opinion. Do I think women should want kids? Quick disclaimer, it's my opinion, okay? You don't have to agree with it, you don't have to disagree with it. If you want to start drama, I'm more than open for debate. The comment section is all yours. My honest take, yes, I think most women are better off having kids. Most of them. It's something that comes very close to purpose. It's something that makes you feel less alone, which is very important, and also it gives you something to care about. However, that's subjective and there are people that live perfectly without it. I'm not the one to judge. But generally, it's about as close to guaranteed legacy as it gets. In 2025, there was even a study across 30 countries in Europe and what they concluded was that people that are parents are not necessarily happier than people that are not parents, but they do record more meaning in life, which is, in my opinion, one of the most important things. And even the happiness level depend on the culture. While in the US, non-parents are usually happier than parents, when Norway, for example, Norway, for example, parents are happier than non-parents, which is very much connected to government policies, to pay policies, and to how the society works.

[00:05:13]Now, let's move on some case studies of how governments actually wanted to fix that. Disclaimer, unsuccessfully.

[00:05:18]Because banning abortions doesn't really work when it comes to fixing birth rates. It's 1966, Romania. Abortion and contraception was banned overnight to fix a falling birth rate. And within a year, the fertility rate almost doubled.

[00:05:32]But here is the cost. Women that couldn't get safe abortions got unsafe ones. Maternal mortality tripled.

[00:05:39]Orphanages overflowed with children that the government wanted but didn't want it to care for. And by the 1980s, the birth rates, even though the law stood unchanged, birth rates fell to almost the beginning level. Desperate people always find a workaround. Another version that sounds more humanistic, better, and also like just a good choice, right? Money incentives, financial incentives, giving money to have kids. Right? Korea does it since 2001. And again, 0.72. This is the lowest ever recorded. People just don't have kids there. You can't bribe your way out of the birth rate problem.

[00:06:16]Hungary, Poland, the UK, everybody does that. Russia does that. It doesn't work.

[00:06:20]Everything comes down to one conclusion.

[00:06:23]You can only make the economic state of state of the country better. You can only make the living conditions better.

[00:06:28]You can only make paid leaves longer.

[00:06:31]You can only give people a sense of purpose. Last question, does educating women permanently kill the desire to have kids? The data says not really. A 2024 national survey said that more than half of of women that don't have children, they want children at one point. About a third that they probably don't. Among the ones that want children, they want around two. So, the population doesn't hate kids. And educated women don't hate kids, too.

[00:06:56]It's like they know that they can't afford it. They understand that that it's going to be hard. They understand that education is expensive. They understand how truly costly it is to raise a child in this economy. And women with university degrees and full-time jobs are more likely to be childless in their late 30s. And obviously there is a child-free by choice group, totally valid. Most of them just don't want kids. So, going back to my opening line, yes, female education is usually pretty much proportional to birth rates.

[00:07:27]However, reducing female education is not the way out. It can lead to other things like premature deaths, unhappy people, no educated families, and everything going absolutely terribly. I don't care about women wanting or not wanting kids. I do think that's one of the best ways to give your life purpose and have something to live well for.

[00:07:45]However, I do care about solutions and financial incentives don't work.

[00:07:49]Restricting abortions doesn't work.

[00:07:51]Economy, living conditions, work conditions, leave conditions, men, these influence birth rates. Nothing else. On the long term, nothing else does. By the way, my name is Meher. And this channel is all about law of finance and how it influences our everyday lives. So, if you want to view this video in my road to 2,000 subscribers, be more than glad to have you. This channel is all about discussing things like this. So, if you want to see more of that, subscribe.