This is a curious observation which spawns so many new questions in my mind.
What is the cost of living in the places of the world where $900 USD is average income of its populace.
From which I would ask: in those parts of the world, where does and income of $900 USD put someone in terms of poverty or prosperity. What is their social mobility?
Then I would ask: do the people living in these parts of the world feel the same urge to be parents as people living in rich countries like the US? Are the more social pressures in rich countries that make parenthood a desirable goal?
Is there a correlation between a country's wealth and conception rate ?
People in countries with very low incomes tend to have more children. One reason is that children can start helping out the family very young and be working to contribute by their teenage years. Another goal is to gain retirement security. If you have 8 children you’ll have someone to take care of you in old age.
It was data from Switzerland though. But still 1 million USD in Switzerland is still a large amount and much 50 to 100 times higher than IVF and the same ratio would probably applies in many countries.
Bottom line is if you can't swallow the IVF price, you'd better not have kids in the first place because your kid will cost you much more than that every single year.
Regular people in Switzerland don’t spend as much either. Regular people in Switzerland will maybe barely make $1M over 20 years, so to suggest that this is how much it costs to raise a single child, even in such a wealthy and developed county as Switzerland, is absurd.
OK I stand corrected I found the study. Half a million for 2 kids, the first one representing the most of it (380k).
Calculation involves direct costs (upwards of 200k per kid) + indirect costs (bigger housing, owning bigger cars, more items, moving closer to good schools or quiet/safer places, etc).
Still I stand by the idea that if you can't swallow the IVF price you will be in a bad situation in the long term.
