So we're doing this argument again.

It's a case of "you're both right" imo.

On the one hand, if people don't want kids, more money won't make them want kids, and yes, if you're willing to be poorer, you can have more kids.

On the other hand, it is obtuse to pretend that people don't self-regulate their reproduction on an economic basis. That isn't a new thing. Even in the middle ages people who didn't have a house and a means of support generally didn't marry.

There's an extreme of "I don't want kids no matter what", and an extreme of "I will have kids no matter what". Twitter discourse always polarizes around these extremes. But most people are not on these extreme ends of the reproductive motivation spectrum. They probably want kids, but only if they can afford to provide those kids with a decent standard of living. If they can't, they won't have them.

Right now most people feel like it is absurdly impossible to provide even one child with the standard of living they had growing up. So they don't have kids.

Now you can say "well just accept a lower standard of living", and, sure. But most people won't do this.

If you want more kids, fix the economy. Sure, encourage them to make babies, that will help ... but only if they can afford a house. If they can't you can propagandize them about natalism until you're blue in the face, it won't do anything.

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Note that this is as much about perception, about expectation, as it is about actual wealth.

Obviously, young people are the ones who make babies, and young people never have as much money as old people.

It isn't necessary that they be rich. But they need to see a realistic pathway to an income sufficient to support a comfortable household.

Right now, everywhere in the Western world, things have only gotten worse, for decades now. The general perception is that things are crap, and the expectation is that they will only deteriorate, because decay is all we've ever known.

That means that even if you've got an okay job now, you have absolutely no faith that you will still have an okay job - let alone a better job - when your babies are teenagers or college students. That (justified) lack of faith then feeds into a general reluctance to have babies.

Reversing this and making a baby boom will probably require years of sustained economic improvements, such that young people start to believe that they actually have a shot. The dead hand of the gerontocracy vampirizing the real economy with asset price appreciation needs to be lifted. Regulation needs to be massively cut back. Taxes need to be massively reduced. The economic model of financial parasitism as a substitute for growing the real economy needs to be abandoned. Corporations that offshore production or import foreign scabs need to be nuked from orbit.

People saying "no it's culture my grandparents had 10 kids and lived in a shack!"

Okay, so, why did they stop at 10? Why not 20?

Sure, culture plays a role, but so does economics. That's my only point here.