During the early eighties, young people who were economically struggling were putting off marriages, children and buying homes. They represented what became known as the DINC generation, that is to say “dual income no children”. More recently, the acronym was expanded to DINCWAG, or “dual income no children with a dog”. The acronym has again surfaced today.
Today’s younger generation, be they millennials or Generation Z, are facing tough economic times as a result of COVID and the current inflationary situation, where high interest rates and soaring housing prices have excluded many from the market. In addition, rents in major urban centers are at an all time high and new residential construction was greatly impacted by COVID and problems with supply management. Even in the high-tech industries, more and more layoffs are occurring.
Since the boomer period following the Second World War, birth rates in North American have been slowly declining. Few people are having three or more children anymore and, with more women participating in the labour market and having professional careers, women are delaying having children into their thirties and even forties. However, despite new fertility techniques, women are often restricted to having only one child as they become biologically older. As well, a growing number of people are deciding not to have children, citing concerns such as climate change and inequality. One suspects from recent studies that this situation will most likely become the norm in our society.
Even Elon Musk has entered into the debate by proclaiming that ‘civilization is going to crumble’ if people don’t have more children. Musk further added that too many “good, smart people” think there are too many people in the world and that the population is growing out of control. What does Musk mean by ‘civilization’? Within his assertions lies an underlying perspective that what the industrialized countries need are more people born to so-called “smart people”. This gets a little to too close to Adolf Hitler’s obsession with ‘racial purity’ and use of the word ‘Aryan’ to describe his idea of a ‘pure German race’ whereby the ‘Aryan race’ had a duty to control the world. There are far right extremist white groups in North America who believe that current immigration levels from so-called ‘third world’ countries are diluting the population. They are thereby loosing their traditional white privilege status, and feel threatened. Such groups push for white women to have more children, thereby maintaining political and economic control within the society. Don’t even talk about interracial marriage with these folks!
Let’s get real! The so-called DINC phenomenon has more to do with the economic realities of our times. It’s tough to have children in an age when the costs associated with raising children in our society are much greater than in the past. Child care is not cheap and often women or men do not have access to adequate and affordable parental leave after the birth of a child. The higher costs of higher education alone can be a major consideration, given that most parents want their children to graduate with a degree and go on to more lucrative employment.
With the current labour shortages in several sectors, the U.S. and Canada cannot afford to not use immigration as the primary means to fill jobs with skilled labour. These jobs include everything from agricultural workers, construction workers, truckers to workers in the services sector. Let’s face it, the DINC phenomenon is real and one sees it in communities on a daily basis. The phenomenon has been gradually growing and was expedited by the COVID pandemic, which in itself has had an enormous impact on the world of work in North America. New technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), are having a major impact and are creating a good degree of uncertainty among the younger generation. Uncertainty is the key word. Dealing with it will continue to be a difficult challenge for young couples today and into the near future. Perhaps Elon Musk might want to come down from his pedestal and recognize the realities of the age in which we live.
FROLITICKS 
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