Why are less women having children?

Question

please help me understand how a functionalist would explain this and how a conflict theorist would explain this. thank youuu

Answer 1

I am afraid to have children. I don't want to be to them like my step dad was to me. But hopefully I will one day have some.

EDIT: Functionalist theory, there is no instruction package to having kids for me, there for I am afraid.

Conflict theorist: I have been emotionally and physically abused by my father and this would challenge the control of me being a good parent.

Answer 2

where do you live.where i live girls are born pregnant

Answer 3

Functionalist- Females are focused more on the economic (careers and making money) sector of society than a family.

Conflict- There is social change. It is normal for society to change.

Answer 4

Unfortunately, in some Western countries, responsible, educated women and men are having fewer children because they understand how much it costs to raise them. Irresponsible people who think it's the taxpayers' job to give them money to crank out more spawn will always have children.

In a few generations, most Western nations will be oligarchies with a few educated people at the top of the pyramid and billions of feral, ill-educated masses below.

Answer 5

I agree with the majority of people above, but one thing they have failed to mention is the lack of support. A lot of women may fall pregnant , then the father skips town or doesn't support them. There is no obligation on the half of the father to take care of his kids, so then the woman has sole responsibility on top of a career.

I think that education and choice also plays a big part, because I know that I have been pregnant, and am so so glad I had the choice to abort it, which I did, because if I didn't, I would be on welfare, the child would not have a father because he was a drop kick, and life would be much harder than it should be.

I personally agree on the whole, adopt other children Idea, i do think its selfish that people want kids, but only their own. So they can look in the mirror portrayed by their child?? Its silly when there is so many children in need, why not help them instead of being consumed with needing to see a mini me running around town.

Answer 6

Not all women want to have children.

Answer 7

I presume it's probably because of a global, fledgling economy. That & the cost of living is higher, more women have a self-serving attitude which they deem gives them the right not to have children.

Answer 8

A functionalist might say it was a result of the breakdown of the family unit, divorce etc.

A feminist would say it was women taking control of their reproductive system by using BC.

A Marxist might say the working classes had access to BC and therefore were able to control their reproduction so as not to supply the workforce with new meat.

Answer 9

Some dont have the money.

Some cant accept the responsibility.

And others just dont want to bear the pain of giving birth.

Answer 10

Because they can, and do, choose.

Up until about 75 years ago, a woman who did not want to have children would have to remain celibate or would require the co-operation of a spouse or partner in regulating fertility.

Today, within certain margins for error, women can decide whether or not to become pregnant, and they exercise that ability.

Cheers :-)

Answer 11

"This is Very True Question"  Very Good Question. Oil prices on the Rise, Food is going up in price. And there people having kids. Living on paychecks to paychecks. They are the selfish people in this World. Some of them are on Welfare.

Answer 12

I'm a functionilst in that I believe that everyone in society has an improtant role to play regardless of their social stature etc.

Women and couples are having less children because these days we have so many more things availabe to us. In the old days, you'd get married, get a job or have kids and not much else to do. Now with the media we have a bounty of things to try: careers, cheap holidays, easy access to learning new courses etc so most people are discovering that there are more things to life than just settling down and having kids.

Also, in the old days you did get people that didn't want kids but these women were thought of as strange spinsters, abnormal. Now women are more happy to stand up and say 'No, I'm not a wierdo just because I don't want kids'.

Answer 13

Because they have listened to the feminist nonsense that having a career in the corporate world will somehow bring them happiness.

The feminists of the 70s-80s are soon retiring. They will have small pensions and no children or grandchildren. They will spend the last 20 yrs of their miserable lives in nursing homes - alone, broke, sickly, and angry.

ha hahah haaha    There *is* a god.

Answer 14

As silly as this sounds to someone else, I'm afraid of getting out of shape (although I know it's possible to have 5 kids and still be trim..it's just not too common).....AND, I'm afraid of not being able to handle so many kids.....I'm seriously doubting my parenting skills right now, since I didn't grow up with the wisest parents.

I hear women complain about worrying about a getting flabby belly after having kids or not wanting to put their kids what they went through.

I want to have kids, but ONLY 1-2.

Answer 15

its kind of sad that most people born will be born to a poor mother. women are having less children in america except mexican immigrants  because of urbanization, abortions and society being broken due to religion not being important. every country where religion slips so does the fertility rate. it also has to do with the society is where women doesnt want to have kids nobody judges her. look at mormon women who are very religious and have many kids not look at a women that work for a cooperation and hardly goes to church looking for mr. right forever may have one child at 40.  it seems a women education and religion plays a part in having babies or not.  i think more women should have babies in america because we are getting outbred in america by non-americans in our country.

Answer 16

"When you believe in the future, you get married and have children." And all this time I was believing in a future without either one. Silly me.

Women are having less children because they can. Motherhood is no longer essential for their happiness.

Answer 17

heres how i explain it, theyre getting smarter

Answer 18

coz the world is already overcrowded and they are doing the whole human race a big favor.

Edit: To molly. You asked what will the world do if 100 yrs frm now, if only 5 percent of women are having kids. Well society has always had a way of counteracting to its negative effects. So when such a thing happens, obviously the world's population will shrink, recourses will become cheaper due to abundance. Life will become easier, competition will subside. People will have more time to focus on their personal lives. Then again, women will snap back to their primordial instincts of baring a baby. Everything...every single thing in this universe follows a cycle. It has to come back to where it all started and then begin again. That's the order of the universe.

Answer 19

Women are getting more involved with their careers and putting off having children till later.  Finances is another reason.

Answer 20

Because we're not slaves anymore like back in the 50's...remember the days when your whole day consisted of cleaning the house and changing the diapers?

I guess what I'm trying to say is...they simply don't want to, and they have the freedom to do that nowadays.

Answer 21

I think a lot of women nowadays are more interested in having careers than raising children.  And I think it is quite sensible if you want to concentrate on a career to not have children, because on the whole they slow you down and distract you.

"He travels fastest who travels alone, and that goes double for women" as Florence King put it.

Also a lot of people lack faith in the future, which is usually a cause of falling birth rates.  When you believe in the future, you get married and have children.

Answer 22

We don't have to.  The teenagers are having them for us.

P.S.- Do your own homework next time.  It's easier and takes less time.

Answer 23

I'm just going to give my personal opinion:

1) People have better access to (and more effective) birth-control

2) People are more educated about the fertility cycle

3) Many women today want to pursue a career

EDIT: Also, it wouldn't be such a terrible world if women didn't have as many biological children and, instead, adopted children who are already without homes.

Answer 24

the world and how it is today is trash...

everyone being killed going missing... i just rather not bring a child into THIS world and its only going to get worse....if we dont make a change

Answer 25

Because people are living for the NOW. They aren't seeing themselves at the end of their lives lonely in a nursing home.

Joan Rivers said on The View that her greatest regret is that she didn't have more children.

Being from a family of 10 kids, I don't know why people look down on big families. We are very close, well behaved, very talented, very smart people! We also always have someone to fall back on if something tragic happens.

Answer 26

Misinterpretation of what entails having equal rights and opportunities.

There is pressure to use the opportunity to pursue a career for example as opposed to staying at home. This leads onto more focus around having a successful working life which means denying yourself aspects of a personal life like having kids.

Answer 27

It's now an option. Before recently it was very difficult to obtain effective birth control, let alone be educated in how to use it properly. Also, many women are now more educated than they were in the past, and they are choosing to follow the path of a career, and having financial independence for themselves. Many women find this desire for career and having children to be incompatible. And for many women, having children is no longer a necessity, such as more help to run the family farm, as it has been in the past, and still is in some cultures.

To those of you bashing childless women:

I'll tell you what is selfish. Bringing a child into the world that you are unable to support is selfish. And why don't you examine your own reasons you had/want children. One thing I frequently hear is "who is going to take care of you when you're older?" So you had your children as a retirement plan, huh? Who's selfish now? And in Western cultures, most adult children do not take care of their elderly parents, so your "retirement plan" is not likely to be there for your decrepit bones.

Answer 28

Because of feminism which is pressuring women into careers and taking away the pride of being a woman. It's a taboo today to have children. Women who want to have children are viewed as dumb or useless. What will the world look like in 100 years if only 5% of women are having children?