“Marry so that I can be proud (of your numbers) on the day of judgement over the other nations.” as narrated by Ibn Uthaymeen (islam-qa)
The world is in a state that populations are dwindling. People in the “1st world” are refusing to have children. Women want to work more and more. And this is harming the societies.
China, which has a 1 baby limit, is now beginning to see the consequences for such policies.
Most of the richer countries in the world today pay you to have babies. Canada gives a very generous “Child Care Bonus” or “family tax benefit” (get exact name). It is about $200 per month per child as well as money for child care (babysitting) expenses, as well as a new universal child benefit of $100 a month. For a couple earning less income, there is also more money for them.
Denmark and other countries as well pay you to have children, there are tax benefits plus cash benefits.
Why would these countries pay money for us to have kids? Because a country needs population in order to keep the society running smoothly. It especially needs young hard workers.
But are we overpopulated in the world and starving? Someone called Malthus made a theory that since food supply grows more slowly than population growth, we will starve ourselves if we keep having children. Unfortunately his theory is very flawed. Even with the current state of the world, there is more than enough wealth and food to go around, if it wasn’t for the massive injustice we have in the world.
This means we can easily feed most of the world if we weren’t blowing money like this.
The reality is, that children are becoming more and more rare. For a society to keep its population constant, each family needs to have on average 2.1 children (the .1 extra is for boys who die faster than girls on average). You will learn this in economics. If the number of children per family drops below this number, then immigration is required. As well, it is important for a country to have a larger base of younger (working) people and a smaller number of older dependent people. This is called a population pyramid
And an an aside, personally, my parents are happy that I have children. All my aunties and uncles love their new nephews. My parents love their new grandsons and spoil them silly (not necessarily a good thing). Also my grandfather (nanabapa) did not get to meet them, but alhamdullilah my grandmother (nanima) is now a great grandmother and she is also very happy for the blessing. And it is all because of Islam that I am now married with kids. Unlikely in my other life had I not accepted the deen would ever have kids at this time or be married at this age (24) if I was not following Allah’s commands to protect my chastity by being in this relationship. God knows best. But it takes strength to be different from the run of the mill.
In the end.. in conclusion
Want to save the world from going extinct? Become Muslim.