L’Europa invecchia con l’età media che raggiunge i 45 anni; un pensionato ogni tre lavoratori

Because a huge chunk of old people are selfish af. Vote the politicians that serve their interests (pension increases, more money from insurances for geriatric ambulances in hospitals but at the same time not touching their money to finance all that shit) that are financed by the younger generations. That much cheap money that is now available for low interest levels was not available during their youth time. But with declining birth rates and increasing gini coefficient shit will hit the fan until there is 1retiree to 2 worker

I never wanted children for me it’s an easy fit.

But I know plenty who wanted to have a big family and ended up not doing it or settled for 1 child (when the average should be around 2.1 children per family).

The reason is very simple: Housing.

EU has reasonable income relative to survival needs but if you need to buy a place to raise a family in your late 20′ , early 30′ (when most people would consider starting a family), you either have your parents buy the house for you or you simply give up the idea. Not many people like living like nomads jumping from one rent to another with children in care. So most go with “f’ck it, I’ll just find a love and we travel instead of children”. And that’s not a bad life.

Demographics will bury the gov but it’s a self inflicting problem. As long as you don’t have a structure that will support families, it is not going to happen. But everyone who ends up leading a country is there because of powerfull lobbyism – which couldn’t care less about family structure. So the focus of every administration goes until fullfilling the lobbyism obligations rather then the future of the country.