In the past, children were your labor force, health care and pension plan. People had many children so at least some survived into adulthood. There wasn’t much alternative back in the day.

Now children are a net cost. They can’t even take care of you in old age if government pensions or retirement plans don’t pan out because many can barely feed themselves.

So, the best time to have children was roughly before 1900. That’s when things started to change.