I've been saying this for years but nobody listens. I mean, you have kids because you feel lonely and take a lover. From an evolutionary psychology viewpoint people should be less interested in having children if they feel crowded. The literature is ambivalent on the topic though:
Good, we don’t need any more people. There’s over 8 billion already, and that’s enough. I’m always surprised when I hear the too common refrain that birth rates are too low.
Genuine question - what is your retirement plan? I have seriously looked and didn't find one yet which doesn't need population growth and/or productivity growth.
and it affects all the ways you might retire, no matter if it is "my children will take care of me", "my government will take care of me", "my mutual funds will take care of me".
The situation gets more favorable with more population/economic growth, is difficult in the steady state, and is atrocious in a state of decline. See
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/225997
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1340041/
https://www.milbank.org/wp-content/uploads/mq/volume-54/issu...