Irish birthrate slumps 22% in a decade

Once contraception became widely available, that was bound to happen, add that to the main reason of the huge expense involved, and there you have it. Same in Europe Even the Chinese are getting worried, to the extent that they have relaxed the one couple, one child law, but the uptake has not been what they expected and for the same reasons as we have here.

While they are certainly factors there's also the human element to it too.

Pregnancy takes a massive toll on your body both emotionally and physically.

Many women just don't want to put themselves through multiple pregnancies. Nearly every mum in my circle has had some lasting repercussions of pregnancy, it's not openly discussed as that's not the done thing.

They love their kids but 2 is enough.

Also when you go 3+ kids (especially close in age) , you might need to replace the car to fit in car seats, holidays especially abroad are a little trickier etc.

If contraception was available in our grandparents time I very much doubt they'd have had the usual catholic family of 7+ kids.

Nice that the take away point for you was the car.

Not the emotional and physical health of the mother/female population.

We were in that situation years ago and childcare was a lot cheaper then. It's a huge deterrent, tbh i don't know how people manage now, its like a second mortgage.

Why would you want to have someone else minding them, not to mention someone on minimum wage doing it

You're nearly down to one income anyway. The only thing is if both still working you have potential pay rises etc .

However if one stays at home the pace of living slows down there's no rushing to creche in morning or evening. The working parent can then give more focus to their career.

Giving up a career to stay at home is a massive adjustment not to be taken lightly. You're handing over alot of "power" to your OH, if they decide to work late/pints etc there's not much you can do and if you've been stuck with a cranky baby all day you can become very resentful.

Lots of pros and cons to both options.

That's the spirit

Cause like was all tikety boo for the rest of mankind's existence and it's so much worse now

It's a real crisis for a country like Ireland which is under populated as it is.