> It seems like all my single friends around 30 talk about how the dating pool is terrible
Let's call it out specifically - few women want to have kids. I'm using an app right now and for every 1 woman who has "wants kids" in their profile, there's probably 2-3 women who say they don't want kids or "aren't sure".
And these aren't young women either, the age range is roughly 29-35, so even on the older side of optimal age for having kids.
Regardless of what men want, if so few women want to have kids - fertility will drop like a rock.
I am on the apps too and have my range set to 29-38. About 80% of the women I'm seeing have selected as "wants kids". I don't want kids and I can barely find any women to match with who also don't want kids...
I think we both have anecdotes though and unless we have data from the entire company, we can't make any real accurate claim here.
At 29-35, aren't >70% of women already in relationships?
Presumably, the majority of ones that want kids, already have them or are in the process.
Additionally, the apps tend to attract more people in hookup culture. So even from the remaining pool, 33% could be misleading.
Also, whether or not you're in a city / high-cost-of-living area makes a difference. That's less than 50% of the total population (in the US at least).
33% for that age group honestly seems high to me. I'd assume it would be lower.
> If you say the culprit is hookup culture, then most people are into that culture and don't want kids.
No, what I'm saying is that an app to hook up isn't representative.
Neither me nor the women I've dated have ever been on dating apps, yet we're together and want kids. We're not in your sample of potential app users. Neither are my parents who had kids. Or virtually every parent who is in a relationship with kids. None of them are in your sample of potential app users.
Yet everyone who doesn't want kids and wants to date, is possibly in your sample of potential app users.
It should be obvious what type of user is likely to join this app, and what type of user isn't. Far more people join for a hookup than for a relationship.
Even if 50% of members join to find a partner on the app to have kids, and 50% just want a hook-up, the former leave as soon as they're successful, leaving the latter group. By definition you're not expected to find a large pool of people on there who want a partner and kids, compared to the number of people who just want short-term hookups.
So are the people you see on this app representative of society? No.
Let's call it out specifically - few women want to have kids. I'm using an app right now and for every 1 woman who has "wants kids" in their profile, there's probably 2-3 women who say they don't want kids or "aren't sure".
And these aren't young women either, the age range is roughly 29-35, so even on the older side of optimal age for having kids.
Regardless of what men want, if so few women want to have kids - fertility will drop like a rock.