As countries have developed there has been a trend towards smaller family sizes. Why does this happen? How does this affect society?

Over the past few years, family sizes have become much smaller in developed countries especially. There are several reasons for the trend and it undoubtedly affects the community to a certain degree. I will discuss both causes and effects in the following paragraphs. In the

first

place, the main reason is the decreasing birth rate. Due to the inflation rate in developed countries, the cost of raising children is getting more expensive,

therefore

, the majority don't want to have many kids, which leads to many small-size families. Both the cost of education and the expenses of basic daily essentials are way higher than it was in the past.

For example

, social research has discovered that the expenses of bringing up one child are ten times higher compare to ten years ago.

Secondly

, the lifestyle and mindset of people have changed a lot in today's modern era. Young couples prefer to live without their parents and

also

tend to have kids very late or even plan not to have one. To illustrate, according to a recent report, youngsters who got married already claimed that they would like to have more personal and two-person time rather than being bothered by elder people and kids. The trend can definitely impact our society in various ways.

To begin

with, in a nuclear family, the parents can focus on a specific child, take extremely good care of him and educate him properly, which will reduce the proportion of bad teenagers in society.

However

, smaller family sizes result in a decrease in population in the long term and it might have a negative impact on society. Since the young workforce would become fewer, the productivity of the countries may get lower

accordingly

.

As a result

, economic growth will be uncertain and concerning.

Furthermore

, as the family sizes are not big as they used to be, there are fewer family members who can take care of each other, which can cause a burden on our communities as well.

For instance

, if an elderly falls sick and has no one to rely on, the government has to use social resources to look after him. To sum up, it is inevitable that in the near future, the small-size families will spread more widely and exert both positive and negative impacts all over the world.