One of the interesting stats I learned recently is that if you are not a parent by the age of 30, there is a 50% chance that you will never be a parent.
There isn't enough data to conclude one way or another. We need to know how many of those people over 30 still desire children but tried and failed, and then tried IVF and failed (or couldn't afford it), and/or tried adoption but couldn't afford it or failed.
You need a lot more data to come to the conclusion you did.
You're also missing some big ones:
- people over 30 who have overly busy work schedules that prevent them from dating even though they want a partner and possibly kids
- people over 30 who really want a romantic partner but can't find anyone who likes them, or lack the skills to engage in a healthy romantic relationship
- people over 30 who for career reasons are stuck in a place that likely does not have any compatible partners within reasonable distance
- people over 30 who want kids but aren't financially ready and voluntarily not having kids until/unless ready (but would if they suddenly make bank at 35).
I don't really know what I'm talking about here, but why would adoption cost that much more than having a biological child? Just reducing it to numbers you already skipped thousands of pregnancy, delivery, early infancy doctor costs. On the other hand, adopted children may be more likely to need therapy or other care later in life.
Besides, isn't the government desperate for children to be adopted? The state has to pay all their expenses until then, and obviously it's in the best interest of the community for them to be adopted. I don't see why they would have any incentive to charge a lot of fees.
Most unwanted kids are aborted, so there are fewer left to adopt compared to a century ago when orphanages were a major part of the community.
The issue is in the interpretation. Your sampling is biased so the immediate conclusion is false. If you want kids and are over 30, your chances are better than 50%.
The society that figures out how to properly overlap child rearing in an educational environment will survive. I’m fascinated with how much the world is going to change in the next century with most of the world set to shrink and be dominated by the elderly.
I see more of the population in the US going the way of Asian cultures (I am first generation Indian) where you have multi generational house holds being more common. It is going to be a painful cultural shift, especially for the highly individualistic American culture - but that is the only way I see future generations surviving.
A bachelor at 30 in the 60s or 70s was likely to stay a bachelor their entire life. Today the average age of marriage for men has risen beyond that.
There are a number of other ways to synthesize "Average" people from summary statistics, but none of this is worth being pedantic about.
Cue the quote: there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statics